Title: Cannibal Glow
Author: Aaydona
Rating: T (to be on the safe side for future chapters.)
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. Please don't sue. I'm just a lowly writer scribbling into a blue notebook.

Chapter Two
Ice Around My Heart

The clock struck midnight then went on us before, its ticks haunting and perpetual as a heartbeat, though I had one not. I should be hunting within a maze of lush leaves and crackling branches right now. Instead, I was staring absently at walls as dead as blank expressions. Excruciating hunger surged through my veins again, first in cautious pinpricks, then one massive ache bound my entire inhuman body. It felt like yearning, like total desolation, like heartbreak, and the monster within me could not be reined in.

Eventually, Carlisle took pity on me and walked into the room. He was ageless, of course, though just a sliver of accumulated wisdom brushed at his white features always, the way the luminance of a silver moon breaks through the window. Wise eyes dulled when they reached my hungry ones, as if hiding behind a gaze in retreat. I nearly smiled as he sighed, obviously recognizing my being chained to a TV as Emmett's handiwork. His fingers worked quickly and deftly to unlock and unwrap the hoary chains from my body and the TV, patience exuding from his calm, even breathing.

Carlisle was a father figure to Emmett, Edward, Alice, and perhaps even Rosalie, and I would do well to submit, too, for my father had died long ago. "It's not your fault, Jasper," said Carlisle, with too much gentle kindness in his voice for me to bear. Then whose fault is it that I nearly took a bite out of Bella?

Shadows were pouring into the dim room from nighttime outside, a reminiscence of a pair of dark, empty eyes I once knew. Why am I remembering this now? I thought, wanting to tear myself from this room, this room with imagery that stirred nightmares I tried to forget. I could almost see a face before my dry eyes and I forced them shut to hide from my own memories.

It was my father. I remembered my father, with his sneering, accusing lips, eyes that sliced through mortal souls—a warped reflection of myself. I scrambled back in fear, smelling the thick alcohol mingling with his scent. I was a small child again, with thin limbs that were too fragile and a desperate fear of his father. A stream of tears made their way into my cracked, bitten lips. A bitter metallic taste was on my tongue, like blood, like death only without the sweet release of dying. Out of the corner of the eye I saw my mother, broken on the ground. Her golden hair, once so vibrant, its beauty did not stand the years of torment and abuse and fell in a pool around her.

My mother was a corpse dead and buried before she ran out of breath. My father held a whip in his hand. My father was laughing, the wild gleam of alcohol filling up his gaze. My father shouted my name in a demonic roar. "Jasper, Jasper, Jasper!" He was beckoning me to fight. Get off the ground, boy! I want to see how many girly tears you can cry when I beat you to hell, boy!

My response was more sobbing, self-hatred because I could not stand up for myself in even the slightest way in front of this monster. Mother, I wanted to cry, to that golden-haired corpse, that ruined doll that was my father's. Help me! I wanted to plead, but she was still and helpless, staring at us through glassy eyes. I thought I saw a faint movement in her fingers, as she clutched her heart in pain. "I-I-I-I'm sorry," I sobbed. Sorry for what? Sorry that I have a heartless bastard for a father and a mother good as dead? I did not say anything else, watching in horror as the red-hot pain of the whip crashed into my back. Oh God. I tried to scramble back, run away from the man, though a man he was not, and felt fingers clutch at my collar. He pulled me back into the ground. And the whip came to my back again and again in hard, painful kisses. "Y-you bastard," I rasped, weak fingers digging into the gritty earth.

That served to fuel the fire that caused the lashings and they grew more vicious against my wounded back. In my feverish state, I knew I needed only to use my powers of persuasion to plea, so that perhaps he would stop, but I would never beg to my demon father. Just an evil, insignificant human, he is, I told myself.

My fath—the man eventually ran out of alcohol in his bottle to keep his fury aflame and left me on the ground to buy some more. The rain poured hard that night, like more lashings when the raindrops struck my wounds, and the water was so cold it froze into ice around my heart.

And it felt like it would never melt.

"Jasper?" Carlisle said with concern, shaking me out of my prison of memories.

I shrank back, free from binding chains but trapped nonetheless. Why now? I asked silently. But whom was I pleading to? I had never believed in a singular God. I still do not believe that a powerful being would try and save me, a damned creature. There was no one to help me, to heal me—I dared not taint anyone with my doom.

Before my eyes I saw all self-control, all hope slipping through my outstretched fingers. "I—I need to—" I stammered, voice disobedient.

Carlisle scrutinized, acknowledging the violent quavering shooting through my body in silence. Suddenly, I was overtaken by a cold anger at him. I wanted to rip him and everyone else in this damned apart until he could look at me no more.

I managed to rasp, "Must—feed", before running out of the room.

Author's Note: In case anyone is interested in knowing, I listened to "Animal I have Become" and "Pain" by Three Days Grace on repeat while writing this chapter. I love both songs to death and highly recommend them. Many apologies for taking so long with this chapter, but I hope this lives up to expectations.

Haha, that was kind of a short, dark one, wasn't it? Reviews, feedback, just thoughts or comments in general Love.