Baby Steps

11

The house was extremely quiet since the previous day. No one was in a mood to speak or to socialize from what happened in the forest.

Demetri's body was hardly recognizable when Jane finally stopped torturing him. His upper and lower body was barely attached, there wasn't much of his face left and Emmett had a hard time carrying him back while fearing that he might lose his limbs on the way. Demetri was currently lying on his bed, hardly alive.

Jane had just enough control to stop before he'd completely shattered. She was so furious that he survived the five minutes and that she had lost the bet, that she lost control over her anger. It was Jasper who finally calmed her down by using every ounce of power he had.

Caius was furious, more than usual. He hasn't stopped cursing and yelling at her for almost killing the Volturi's best tracker, and also swore to deal with Demetri personally after he healed. However, he was healing extremely slow since he was completely hollow inside. Jane's pain literally devoured him. The hard part was explaining to Grace why she couldn't see him.

"Demetri's sick, my love." Carlisle tried explaining, "He needs to sleep and rest to heal."

"But I want Demepitee," she said softly.

They couldn't ever say no to her.

So, Esme decided it could do both of them good if Grace went to see him. She slowly pushed open the door and walked Grace in. If he wasn't a vampire then anyone could've mistaken him for a person on his deathbed. Grace crawled over the bed and sat close to him. Her eyes were glued on the cracks on his face and neck, which were the only parts of him almost fully healed. Her tiny fingers traced the cracks down his temples to his chin and she noticed he seemed colder than usual. Luckily, she's too young to question why they're always cold.

"What happened, Mommy?" she whispered to Esme while thinking he was asleep.

"Demetri got hurt badly, sweetheart." she said, "He got in a fight with someone."

"Why?"

"Because that's what boys do when they're angry. Listen, love, Mommy's got to go make you some breakfast. You stay with Demetri a little longer and I'll come to get you when I'm finished. Okay?"

She left Grace with the tracker to start cooking. Grace stared at him for a long time, unable to decide what to do. She felt truly sorry for what happened to him, even when she was too young to understand. But she clearly noticed the cracks on his face and neck, as well as the fact that he was lying way too still to be just asleep. She didn't concentrate on that too long though - another thing about being so young was that she had a very short attention span. Grace crawled on top of him and traced his cracks with her small fingers. She grew tired of waiting for both breakfast and him to wake up, so she snuggled underneath his arms and stayed there for the rest of the morning.

After a while the door opened, revealing Jane. When she saw the child she thought about leaving again, but after giving it some thought she decided that she didn't have to leave, but the child sure has to.

"Time to go." she said flatly, "Come on. Demetri needs to rest."

"Mommy will call me." Was all she replied and held onto Demetri's hand with her small one.

"Well, she's looking for you. Go."

Grace's eyes filled with tears and her lip curled as she held back her cry. Jane immediately grew worried the Cullens might think that she tried hurting the child, and desperately tried thinking of ways to stop her sobs. The only thing that popped into mind was to pick her up and physically comfort her.

Jane scooped her up and rocked her back and forth. She had little experience with children, but still a lot more than her brother and the rest of the guard. In all those years of destroying immortal children, she learned how to properly hold them and how to get them to stop crying. It could also be the fact that it's a womanly instinct, although she'd never admitted that.