Love in Cold Blood

Chapter 26: Run

I lay silent on Jasper’s big, blue bed. I listened to his steady breathing. It had been five days since Peter and Charlotte left. I had been spending a lot of time with the Cullens, not that I minded. Alice had taken me on numerous shopping trips, Rosalie took me to her garage 9which was a trip in itself) and I even helped Esme with her cleaning. All of those trips, of course, were looked over by Jasper.
“Jasper?” I asked as I looked up to his silent face, his eyes closed. I knew he wasn’t sleeping.
“Yes?” he responded with a smile
“Do you feel like smiling?” I asked. He had constantly been smiling, even when I knew he didn’t want to.
His smile dropped “No.”
I rolled over so I was practically lying on his chest. “What do you want to do?”
“Run.” He answered simply
“Then lets run!” I said jumping up. “I’m sure Alice had a pair of shoes around here I can borrow.” Jasper caught the sleeve of my dark purple pull-over.
“Winifred.” He said his face bemused “I didn’t mean walk.”
“Yeah.” I said dumbfounded “Run.” I made running movements in place. He laughed.
“You can’t even run two miles in fifteen minutes.”
“You?” I asked my hands on my hips.
“In a matter of seconds.” I gave him a blank stare.
“You don’t want to run with me?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s that I can’t have you actually running.”
I was still confused. I gave me a wicked grin.
“You remember after graduation…?” he trailed off.
“The kiss?” I asked
“When I carried you!” He laughed
“Oh.” I paused “How fast do you want to go!?”
“Oh, for you maybe only 90.”
“You sound like a car.”
“We’re more alike than you think.”
I paused and thought it over. This would probably scare me to death but, The Great Bear at Hershey had scared me too, and this was now my favorite roller coaster! And he really did nothing he wanted to.
“Ok.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Did I really say ‘OK’?” I asked as I stared out at the field.
“Yes you did!” Jasper laughed shaking his blonde hair. We were standing outside of his house. He wore flat sneakers, a T-shirt and Jeans. I wore purple skinny jeans, ballet flats and a black sweat shirt. I was thinking over my pervious decision. When I had told Alice I was going running with Jasper she laughed. When I told Bella she gave me a scared stare. Had Edward somehow traumatized her?!
“Are you ready?” Jasper asked breaking me from my reverie
I sucked in a big breath. “Yes.”
He wore that wicked smile of before that made my heart beat even more wildly than usual as he lifted me on his back. I held on with a death grip.
“Remember to breath.” Was his only warning as he took off.

I whipped past trees and animals running. I felt so free. The wind blew in my face. I heard a giggle from behind me. Fred was enjoying herself. At first, she had been scared to death but, as I ran, she began to loosen her grip and she even began to laugh. At the stupidity of her fears, enjoyment or, hysteria. I hoped it was one of the first two.
Her warm breath wafted into my nose. She smelled so good, so edible, she burned my throat, but I knew I could never let her go. I wanted her, I had, her, I coveted her, and, even though I knew it was wrong and possibly deadly, I never wanted to ever let her go.
I ran through the familiar forest and tried to forget the last week. I didn’t want to hear what Peter had said. I didn’t want to hear Winifred’s worried face or hear her frightened voice. I don’t want this battle to come. I don’t want her to see a fight; I didn’t want to make her see violence…
I don’t want her to see me.
I almost stopped dead it my tracks, but I kept going. I knew it was true. I looked at the raised ridges of my flesh on my bare arms. I didn’t want to have her to see me while I fought, I didn’t want her to fear.
I heard her sweet voice in my ear.

“Jasper?” I asked and he slowed down to a jog then walk.
“Yes?” he responded
“I wonder.” I began as I looked up to the high trees surrounding us.
“Yes?” He asked again looking up with a confused expression.
“You can climb trees, right?”
He nodded.
“Can you sit me on a branch?”
He laughed as he set me down on my two feet.
“Hey!” I yelled at him “That’s not funny!” My shouting was marred by my lack of balance when he set me down, I almost fell.
“I know I know.” He said still laughing “I just wasn’t expecting that. A branch? Why do you want to sit in a tree?”
“Because they’re big and strong and they’ve been alive a long time…”
“So you want to sit on Emmett?” He lifted a single brow.
“No!” I laughed aloud “I want to sit on something beautiful.”
He laughed harder “Don’t let Emmett hear that! Or Rosalie.”
That sobered me up. “Do you think they heard?”
“I don’t think so, we are in Montana.”
“Montana!” I shouted
“Yeah, we’ve… I’ve been running for about two hours.”
“We were that fast?”
“You didn’t seem to mind it.”
I stood silent “So can I sit in a damn tree or not?”
“Of course.” He smiled as he lifted me back onto his back.
He climbed up the tree, just as you’d think a person would, just more efficient. Soon we were a good thirty feet up. He sat me on a thick, moss colored tree branch.
“Wow.” I said and smiled up at Jasper who was silently standing on the branch to my left. He wasn’t even holding the trunk that I clung to.
“You think it’s cool?”
“Very.”
The view took my breath away and the smell! The clear air smelled wonderful, a small sprits of rain fell and it smelled like leaves.
“I love it, being up so high, it’s like all other things just melt away.”
I wasn’t sure I heard it, it was so low, but I though I heard Jasper mumble in his low god voice “I wish it could.”