Dead | Jasper Hale | Book 2

3. Funeral

Days passed.

Now that the initial threat of the stinky ass werewolves were gone, the next focus was faking my death. Everyone insisted that it was the best way to let Grace and my friends go in a way that wouldn't hurt them in the long run. And I had to agree with them. What other way could I disappear and not have them worry? Witness protection program? Maybe - but they would still worry and hope that I was alive and well the entire time. Eventually they'd get wind I would have died. Hope in this life was cruel. It was better to tell them now that I had died, so they could grieve and mourn, then get on with their lives.

Eventually we decided the story would be me running away, getting into a car-crash and dying. It was pretty easy to stage, too. All we had to do was gather a few of my belongings, a car I 'borrowed' from the Cullens and a body with a similar height and weight. The fire would be so strong that it burned my body beyond dental recognition. The object that would be the identifier? A silver necklace given to me by my parents. Grace would spot it and recognize it in a heartbeat, that much I knew.

So the accident was staged two days after the werewolf meeting. I watched in the forest as the car was set ablaze, with Jasper and Edward at my side. Two vampires who would hold me back when the proper authorities arrived. And they did - firefighters and cops arrived to the scene just as we expected.

I watched with Edward and Jasper as they took out the fire. Their worried shouts when the finally died out were loud, even with my enhanced hearing. "Check for a body!" they yelled. Everyone was frantic, hoping that maybe a body wasn't inside. But there was a body and it was me – well, supposedly me. But the Cullens were so good with the details that no one would know besides us. The authorities would not detect a single thing that it was fake. The body would be passed off as mine and people would grieve, as expected.

Their faces were grim when they discovered the body and the necklace on the body. Charlie, the chief of police, spoke into his walkie-talkie and reported back to the station on the status of the accident. There had been one deceased person who needed identifying.

A few days later, after the Cullens were interviewed and spoken to, it was revealed that I had ran away without so much as a note or explanation. Grace was then called in to identify the body – aka the necklace that was found with it – and it was announced just a day later of my death. Freak car accident. Fire. Inevitable.

While everything was going on, there were humans going in and out of the Cullen's house so I had to disappear while that was going on. Alice said to leave for at least a couple days just in case, then she would call when it was safe to come back. With a couple changes of clothes and a bit of extra money just in case, I climbed on an expensive-looking motorcycle sitting in the garage and took off.

Most of the first day, I drove around the back roads of Washington, not really aware of where I was heading. When the sun finally disappeared, I ended up parking the bike on the side of the road and planting my butt down, leaning against the trunk of the tree. And surprisingly, the night was clear of clouds.

For the first time since I lived in Forks, I was seeing the stars. Through human memories, I remembered seeing them, small twinkles of light shining against a dark sky. Now they looked much the same. My vampire eyes weren't that advanced to see the smaller details in the stars light years away.

It was one thing that actually relieved me. Sure, it was kind of a perk seeing all these new details. A bit overwhelming, maybe, but nice nonetheless. And yet, when I looked up at the sky I saw the same things as I did when I was human. It made me feel less of a vampire. Strange... with everything this new body came with, there was hardly anything that made me feel human.

So I never looked away. Time passed and it was easy to see when it was midnight and when it was four in the morning. Light invaded the skies and the stars disappeared eventually. The sun was due to appear - something Alice told me would happen when I was on my 'trip'. So before the sun rose overhead, I put on the motorcycle helmet (even though it was highly unnecessary, it still hid my face well enough from the sun) and a pair of riding gloves. I'd been dressed in the same clothes as I wore yesterday - a pair of tight-fitting jeans, a jacket, a scarf that covered the skin on my neck and a pair of knee-high boots.

Just like the day before, I rode through the roads of Washington, at one point heading into Idaho and then Montana before driving back to Washington. It was mostly mindless driving, something that didn't matter to me. It felt nice to have the wind on my neck, on the skin of the wrists that peeked out of the glove. And the heat of the sun felt strange - it was warm but it wouldn't have warmed me the way the sun would have in my human life. It felt like a flicker of heat too far away to do anything real to me. But I did notice how my skin sparkled like a million microscopic diamonds embedded into my skin. How strange...

It was around eight that evening when the phone in my back pocket began to ring. Pulling to the shoulder, I cut off the engine before standing to my feet and answering.

"Hello?" I answered without glancing at the caller I.D.

Alice's chipper voice answered. "Hi, Hollie. It's finally safe and sound to come back. We were interviewed yesterday but we finally got word that we're off the hook. They don't suspect us one bit. Completely innocent. Esme's trying to get the smell of humans out of the house right now but by the time you arrive, it'll be gone.

My lips curled up into a smile. "Thanks, Alice. You're the best."

"I know," she said. I could hear her grinning through the phone. Rolling my eyes, I smiled as I pulled the phone away and hung up, shoving the phone back into my pocket.

You couldn't help but love Alice. She was just a lovable person.

With a twist of my wrists, the motorcycle roared to life and I took off down the road back towards home.

The funeral was something I shouldn't have gone to. Mostly because of the amount of humans that would be there but I needed to go and I voiced this to everyone multiple times. Like before, when I watched my accident with Edward and Jasper, I was completely fine. They would have both been able to hold me back if needed be.

"She'll be fine, you know," Alice sighed. Our heads turned towards her. "I see her at the funeral with Edward and Jasper. Guys, she will be fine. I don't know how many times I have to tell you this - or Hollie, for that matter. She says she won't hurt anyone and she won't. It's not in her future."

My shoulders sagged in relief. I knew Alice could convince them if I couldn't. The woman could see the future for Christ's sake.

After that discussion it was pretty much settled. I was going to the funeral.

Edward, Jasper and I hid in the nearby trees in the cemetery, watching as the ceremony continued. There was a lot of people - a good portion of the town, it seemed - dressed in black and standing around my headstone. Grace's frizzy red hair was easy to spot. She had her arms clutched around her torso, her eyes red and puffy with tear stains across her cheeks. There was a few people from school, Cole and Grayson were there with their families. A few women beside Grace, consoling her. Even the rest of the Cullens were there.

It was strange watching as the coffin that held my 'body' was getting ready to be put into the ground. It felt like saying goodbye to a previous life. A farewell, almost, to my human life. And it might as well be. There was no way I was looking back into my human life. It didn't even exist anymore because I was not human. I was a vampire.

But they lowered my body and it wasn't long before the funeral ended. A few words were shared between the people, a lot of them coming by Grace to offer their condolences. Carlisle shook her hand and turned to leave. Esme, Rosalie, Emmett and Alice all gave Grace their condolences before they left altogether.

Jasper, Edward and I were just getting ready to leave when something on Grace's face caught my attention. Her eyebrows were pulled down in confusion and the expression on her face reminded me a face I would make whenever I studied too hard on school. Like she was thinking really hard.

Before I could even turn and leave with Jasper and Edward, Grace's head swiveled towards our direction and her eyes landed right on me. She glared, not at Jasper or Edward, but me.

Bit shorter than I expected but here's the next chapter - devoue x