Chapter Text
The sunlight poured through Jasper’s window like something sacred—golden and rare. I stretched out across the plush rug beneath the window, my head tilted toward the sky as if I could catch the warmth with my face alone. Forks didn’t get days like this often. It felt like some kind of cosmic gift, and I was determined to soak up every second of it.
Jasper sat in the corner of the room, his legs crossed with casual elegance, a book propped in one hand. His voice filled the room, slow and low, thick with that drawl he no longer tried to hide around me. I could feel it down to my bones—his voice, the way the words curled into the air like smoke.
He didn’t read fast. He took his time with the words, like he wanted to feel them before he gave them away. It was the rhythm of it, the cadence of his voice, that held me still. The way the sunlight kissed my skin and the way he occasionally glanced up between sentences to make sure I was still with him.
I was. God, I was.
I didn’t even care what the book was. It could’ve been the dictionary and I would’ve melted into the moment of it all the same.
“—All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly re-spawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal.” Jasper read, his tone as soft as the breeze rustling the curtains, “Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.”
He paused, closed the book gently, and looked up at me. The room was quiet enough that I could hear the creak of the leather binding as it shut.
“I’m gonna be gone for a bit,” he said simply, setting the book on the small table beside him.
I blinked at him, pulled out of my sun-soaked haze. “Gone?” I echoed. “But you just went hunting a few days ago.”
He nodded once, his jaw working like he was turning the words over before he spoke. “Ain’t for hunting.”
I sat up a little straighter, turning to face him fully now. “Then where?”
He hesitated—not like he was unsure of the answer, but like he wasn’t sure he wanted to give it voice. Then his eyes met mine, and I felt the weight behind them.
“I’m visiting a grave,” he said quietly.
I swallowed. My voice dropped to match his. “Was it someone you knew? From before?”
Jasper’s gaze didn’t waver. “No. It was… the man I killed while I was tracking James.”
The sunlight didn’t feel quite as warm after that. I shifted on the rug, my arms wrapping around my legs again. I hadn’t asked questions when Jasper came back that night—just been so relieved he was whole, that James was gone. I knew what he had done, the crimson of his eyes an undeniable brand, but I hadn’t truly thought about the cost.
Now, I did.
My chest tightened, guilt curling in the space beneath my ribs. I looked down at my hands. “I didn’t think… I mean, I knew you killed someone, but…”
I didn’t finish the sentence. Jasper didn’t need me to.
He didn’t offer excuses. He didn’t soften the truth. He just watched me, steady and still, waiting.
I looked down at my hands. “What’s his name?” I asked softly. My voice didn’t sound like mine—it was quieter, steadier, but smaller somehow.
Jasper’s eyes flickered, and he gave a slow nod. “Robert Holloway,” he said, the syllables rolling off his tongue with care. “He was an older gentleman. Lived just outside of West Linn. Didn’t have much family, far as I could tell.”
He leaned back slightly, elbows resting on his knees, palms together. “He was buried a little over a month ago. I found the obituary. Figured it was only right.”
I nodded slowly, the name echoing in my head. Robert Holloway. A stranger to me, and yet, somehow not. He had existed. Had a life. A quiet one, maybe, but still a whole universe I’d never know. And he had died for me. He hadn’t chosen to, but he had.
“Can I come with you?” I asked.
Jasper looked up, startled. “You don’t have to do that,” he said gently, voice low. “It’s my burden. Mine to carry.”
I shifted on the rug, pressing my hand against the floor like I needed something solid beneath me. “But it wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for me,” I said, the words coming out firmer than I expected. “You wouldn’t have gone after James if he hadn’t hurt me. And that man… he wouldn’t have died.”
Jasper shook his head slightly, as if trying to protest, but I kept going.
“I know you made that choice. And I know I didn’t ask you to. But that doesn’t change the truth of it. He’s gone. And you’re not the only one who has to live with that.”
I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t have to. The quiet carried enough weight on its own.
Jasper’s expression shifted—something raw, something tired. But he didn’t argue again.
We just sat there, sunlight fading inch by inch across the floor, the golden warmth slowly surrendering to the shadows stretching in from the trees outside.
Then, after what felt like the longest silence of my life, Jasper gave a single, solemn nod.
“Alright,” he said. “You can come.”
It wasn’t enthusiastic, but it wasn’t reluctant either. It was something else. Maybe resignation. Maybe understanding. Maybe he’d known I’d come all along.
We flew out two days later.
The small airport in Port Angeles was so quiet it felt like we were sneaking out of town. The air still held the bite of leftover winter, and I clutched the sleeves of my coat as we walked across the tarmac, the sky stretching pale and open overhead. Forks had been gray that morning. Here, everything was just… still.
Jasper kept close but didn’t hover. We didn’t speak much during the first leg of the flight—just exchanged quiet looks, nods, the occasional comment about the weather. It wasn’t uncomfortable. Just… still settling.
It wasn’t until we boarded the small connecting flight out of Seattle, that the question started pressing on me again. The one I hadn’t let myself say out loud. Not when we were at the ranch. Not at Charlie’s. Not even on the quiet drive to the airport this morning. But here, in the close cabin with the hum of the engine dulling the silence, I couldn’t keep it in anymore.
I turned to Jasper, my voice low, almost swallowed by the drone of the plane.
“Can I ask you something?”
He looked over, his expression open. “Of course.”
I took a breath. “Why did you have to drink human blood? Back when you were tracking James.”
His posture stilled. Not tense exactly—but there was a shift, subtle and instinctive. His eyes dropped to his hands, which were resting on his knee, fingers clasped loosely like he was already bracing himself.
“I figured you’d ask eventually,” he said, voice soft but not surprised.
“I wasn’t sure if I should.”
“You can always ask me anything, darlin’.”
Something about the way he said it made my chest pull tight.
He leaned back against the headrest, eyes focused on the small window beside us. “Animal blood… it’s what makes us safe. What keeps us from having to give up our humanity, but it comes at a cost.”
I stayed quiet, letting him speak.
“It dulls us. Weakens us. You feed on animals long enough, you lose your edge. Your strength, your speed… even your senses. They dim. Doesn’t happen all at once, but it creeps up on you.” He glanced at me then, eyes searching mine for understanding. “James didn’t have that problem. He fed like most of our kind do. It made him faster. Stronger. Sharper.”
I nodded slowly, trying to piece it all together. “So, you had to be like him.”
“I had to be more than like him,” Jasper said quietly. “I had to be better. I’d underestimated him once, and I wasn’t gonna make that mistake again.”
The weight of those words settled heavy in the air between us. He said it like a soldier who’d seen the battlefield too many times, like a man who knew what it meant to lose.
“I didn’t do it lightly,” he added after a moment. “But I couldn’t go after him dulled down, not when he’d already proven how dangerous he was. He had lost his leverage, and if I’d gone in weak, and failed again…” His voice trailed off, but I understood the rest.
He meant me.
If he’d failed again, I might not be here.
I looked at him, this man who always carried himself like a ghost in a borrowed body. Who moved so carefully, who spoke so softly, as if he was afraid the world might shatter if he didn’t treat it gently.
I reached across the narrow space between us and laced my fingers through his. His hand was cool—always was—but there was warmth in the way he let me hold it, didn’t pull away.
I rested my head lightly against his shoulder, tentative at first. He went still beneath me, not rigid but cautious, like I was made of something breakable. For a moment, I thought maybe I’d crossed some line. But then his thumb brushed softly against the back of my hand. Not absentminded. Deliberate. Reassuring.
We sat like that, suspended in the hum of the plane and the hush of everything we weren’t saying.
After a while, he spoke again—quieter this time, like the words were being drawn from a well that had sat undisturbed for years.
“The thing about taking a life…” he said, pausing, “is that it doesn’t ever really leave you. Not when you can feel what they feel.”
I tilted my head, just enough to glance up at him, but he was still staring out the window, his profile etched in thought.
“I don’t just see it when it happens. I feel it. The panic. The pain. The... loss. It floods through them like fire in the veins. And when their heart stops…” He drew in a shallow breath he didn’t need. “That silence—it echoes.”
My fingers tightened around his, instinctively.
“That’s why I couldn’t live the way Peter and Charlotte do,” he continued. “Even when they went after people who’d done awful things. Killers. Traffickers. Molesters.” His voice was steady, but I could hear the way it hollowed out near the end. “It still felt the same to me. The fear in their bodies... the will to survive doesn’t care what kind of person you were. It just fights. It always fights.”
A knot formed in my throat, tight and aching. I didn’t speak—I couldn’t. Because I could feel the guilt rising up in me. And even though I hadn’t taken that man’s life myself, I knew why Jasper had done it. For me. Because of me.
Jasper turned then, just slightly, and his eyes found mine. I tried to keep my expression steady, but I couldn’t hide it from him—how awful I felt, how much it hurt to know that he had been forced to carry something so cruel just to keep me safe.
“You’re doing it again,” he said softly.
“Doing what?”
“That thing where you take on the weight like it was yours to begin with.”
I looked down, unable to hold his gaze. “How can I not?” I whispered. “You had to become someone you hate, even for just a moment, because of me.”
“No,” he said, his voice firm in a way that made me look up. “I became someone I needed to be. To protect someone I care about. That’s not the same as becoming someone I hate.”
My heart twisted at the quiet strength in his voice.
“I’d make the same choice again, Liz,” he added. “Every time.”
The cemetery was small—quiet in the way that pressed into your skin. There were no gates, no towering statues, just gently sloping grass, a few uneven stones, and the wind, moving slow through the evergreens like it had nowhere else to be.
We walked in silence, Jasper just a step behind me. He hadn’t said anything since we got out of the car, and I hadn’t needed him to. The weight of where we were going said enough.
Robert Holloway’s grave was tucked beneath an old cedar, half-shaded, the lettering on the stone still sharp, still new. There was a small tin cross staked next to the headstone, simple and rusted, with a hand-painted "Rest Easy" across the middle. My stomach twisted.
The flowers in my hands felt wrong somehow—too alive, too vibrant against all this stillness. I had chosen them back in town without really knowing why. Goldenrod and bluebells. Wild, soft things that reminded me of somewhere between spring and sorrow. I didn’t know if they were the right choice. I didn’t even know if there was a right choice.
I hoped—selfishly, maybe—that somehow, in some small way, Robert Holloway might’ve liked them. Even if they could never be enough. Even if nothing could be.
I lowered myself to my knees, the grass cool beneath my jeans, and placed the flowers gently at the base of the stone. My hand lingered there, fingers brushing the carved name like it could somehow carry something more than touch.
I’m sorry.
The words rose in my chest, thick and quiet.
I’m sorry this is how your life ended. I’m sorry you didn’t get a choice. I’m sorry that the cost of saving mine… was yours.
I bowed my head, my eyes closing, sending the words out into whatever space was left between the living and the gone.
I hope wherever you are, you are at peace. And I hope somehow, you know how grateful I am. For your life. For what you gave up, even without knowing me. Even without wanting to.
I didn’t cry. I thought maybe I would, but there was something too still in me for that.
Jasper stood just behind me, silent and unmoving, a shadow at my back. He didn’t speak. Didn’t interrupt. But I could feel the way his presence anchored me, the way he stood like a sentry—not guarding me from something, but bearing witness. Not letting me be alone in this.
We stayed there for a long time.
Long enough for the wind to pick up again. Long enough that the rest of the world felt like it had faded into soft focus.
When I finally rose to my feet, knees stiff, I brushed my hands against my jeans and turned toward him. He didn’t ask if I was okay. He didn’t need to.
Instead, Jasper offered his hand.
And without hesitation, I took it.