I spent the next few days between working and baking, cleaning the house spotless. The pine boards shined and the cabinets gleamed. I made countless casseroles, stocking them in the chest freezer down in the creepy basement of Sam's house and had two cookie jars full of snickerdoodles as well. It wouldn't last long with a pack of ravaging wolves around but it helped me to keep my mind off of Victoria while they were all running themselves ragged trying to figure out a way to keep me safe.
To rid the world of Victoria, herself.
On the third day of the pack being on constant patrols and I'd exhausted all of my efforts to keep busy, I called and left a voicemail for Charlie, wishing him well and asking him to call me just so I know he's safe. It worried me that I haven't heard from him for a couple of days. There wasn't any more news in Seattle that was any different then the last report. It gave me hope that the vengeful vampire was done her dealings. Once Sam told me that she was around, it didn't take long for me to deduce that she was behind the 'serial murders'. What I couldn't figure out, though, was why she wasn't being discreet about her feedings. Why would she kill so indiscriminately? A flash of a painting I saw in Carlisle's study once ran through my mind, making me pause on the way down the hallway. Edward had said that Carlisle stood with the Italian coven, a group of vampire rulers who only had a few strict laws they expected to be followed. The punishment for breaking those few laws were given only one option. Death. I do recall being told that one of the rules was to hunt inconspicuously, with victims who are unlikely to be missed. If Victoria was behind the killings as I suspected, wouldn't that alert the Volturi? Pretty sure leaving bodies all over a large city doesn't mean she's being conspicuous.
I sat heavily on the couch and cradled my head in my hands, tendrils of my hair falling around me after pulling from the messy bun piled at the top of my head. I thought of what that would mean for the wolves and, indirectly, me. So far, the rulers didn't know that I knew about the existence of vampires, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't make a trip down to Forks to pay a visit to their friends, the Cullens. Sure, they would see that the clan had moved on from the area but Paul had told me that the stench of vampires irritated the wolves almost as much as the stench of the wolves irritated the vampires. Would the Volturi scent the wolves out if they came close to La Push? What would that mean for us?
A war?