The Long Road Home: The Journey of Alice & Jasper

Chapter 18: Road Work

It was perfect.

I could already see it on her finger, resting comfortably against her wedding band, which although plain, wouldn’t be overshadowed by this elegant engagement ring. It looked fragile, but platinum is an extraordinarily strong metal, and diamonds are…well, diamonds. Beautiful but unbelievably durable and useful.

Diamonds could adorn the most costly jewelry…or be used to drill into the most unyielding rock. I liked the symbolism of it: it was like Alice herself. Glittering, lovely, fragile-seeming…but eternal, unbreakable, and amazingly versatile.

“Sir? Would you like to see it up close?”

The jewelry store clerk’s voice interrupted my reverie; I looked up into her face, round and soft and eagerly helpful. She caught my good mood, her smile widening, her heart skipping a beat at the sight of my face, the sound both sweet and awful to my ears. She felt how happy I was, to be standing there in that store and looking at the perfect ring for my perfect wife, and she was happy for me, obliviously so.

Lucky girl. The circumstances barely protected her from being objectified as a potential meal, something I was fighting fiercely to stop doing.

“Yes. Please.” My response was short, clipped, heavy with my ironclad resolve. I’d take it in my hand and see it closer. But it didn’t matter: I knew, even without touching the ring, that it was the right one. Fate or something had guided me to that store, the first one I saw, directing me to that particular display case.

The girl grinned happily and unlocked the case, reaching inside to take the ring out carefully. She held it with something akin to reverence, the way one properly handles something rare and special. Not covetous, but appreciative.

“Here you are, sir. Three carats total. It’s practically an antique, too. Provenance has it being crafted in 1920. You can never go wrong with Tiffany.”

I reached out to take it from her, and, careless in my distraction, my fingertips brushed the salesgirl’s hand; she started, her eyes widening at the coldness of my skin, and I felt her sudden thrill of nervousness. She looked at me more closely, and something inside her, her innate sense of self-preservation, must have recognized my otherness, told her to beware.

She took a step back, almost to the wall, eyes widening.

Poor thing. As if a glass display case and a few feet of space between us would keep her safe, if I was thirsty and out of control.

She did smell lovely, though. Delectable.

 I felt the venom well up in my mouth, an automatic response, my body asserting its wishes fiercely, lusting after the hot, salty-sweet blood pulsing through her veins. For a split-second I froze, caught up in the fantasy of taking her down, every muscle and tendon ready to strike, imagining slaking the thirst that never truly went away on this diet of animal blood with her life.

No.

I thought of Alice, how sad and disappointed she’d be, if I gave in to that primal urge. I thought of how hard it would be to get back on track afterward, how my body and mind would try to reject the animal blood after tasting human again, my flesh greedy and selfish, my brain rebelling against such self-denial. I’d been through it before. It was a living hell.

But more than anything, I thought of the agony of my own guilt. How I’d have to wallow in the memory of this human girl’s pain and fear and bewilderment as I killed her, her emotions felt as keenly as if they were my own, replayed again and again by my guilty conscience… And how I’d hate myself anew, all the barely-healed wounds in my soul breaking open again by the acid of my self-loathing at my own weakness.