Chapter Three

Edward Cullen wasn't in school the rest of the week.

If I cared about the situation more than I wanted nor needed to, I would have been feeling self doubt and self conscious. I just imagined he had to get his act together before he would come back to school next week. He didn't need to be around me for a while, and it just showed how he didn't have that much of a determination to remain stoic. He had lost the battle of us having facades before it could actually start. Which was a shame, really, I would have loved to have seen us have a true battle of facades.

It was late afternoon on Friday, and I had to go to the local Thriftway to get us some groceries. Charlie was kind of forgetful when it came to matters such as cooking. He often ate whatever fast food he could find, along with eating at The Lodge. So, it would make sense he would have me go to the grocery store without him even needing to ask.

There was a consistent downpour of rain when I drove to the grocery store, as my mind kept going towards Lauren Mallory. I had come to the conclusion I would have to kill her. I also knew I wouldn't get caught; I had watched enough crime documentaries to know I needed to keep my DNA away from the crime scene. So, I would have to get some gloves, some plastic bags to cover my feet, a shower cap to put over the locks of my hair, along with paint coveralls.

Of course I didn't know how I would end up killing her, nor when I would kill her, but I had decided to kill her anyway. Not only was she a sour and bitchy person, but she also looked too much like Beatrice Taylor for comfort. I wanted to see the back of her skull split open with brain matter spilling out along with the blood. I wanted to have my hands covered with said brain matter so I could press and squeeze and feel its texture. The red of the blood would be so pretty on my pale skin. I wanted to taste blood, oh yes, I wanted to taste what traveled through her veins.

Arriving at Thriftway, I parked in one of the spots that were further away from the front entrance of the store. I made sure to pull the hood of my raincoat over my head to keep my hair from getting wet. I was dressed in a random long sleeve shirt I had found in the back of my closet, some of my jeans that didn't have stains on them yet, and another one of my trusty tennis shoes. My hair was plain and brushed out, there was no need for me to decorate it or make it look stylish. There was no point in doing it either, to be honest.

I played with my car keys as I went up the parking lot to the front automatic sliding doors, my purse slung around my shoulder–which held my cell phone along with a can of pepper spray, and a knife I had grabbed from the knife block this morning before I would head here. Charlie wouldn't notice the knife was missing, if anything he'd think that I had put it in the dishwasher so that I could clean it with the rest of the load of dirty dishes and utensils.

There was a family or two that were walking towards the automatic sliding doors too, one of them had a few of the teenagers that were a grade or two below me while the other had children that had to have still been in elementary school. I gave them warm, but not too large smiles to let them know that I was friendly and approachable. While I was approachable at least, I couldn't say anything about the friendliness. I didn't like being too friendly with people.

The air conditioner was blasted high as I entered the grocery store. I was accustomed to the air conditioner while down in Phoenix, but it was another kind of cold when it came to the fact that this wasn't Phoenix. This was the Olympic Peninsula, the only heat that would come would be from wildfires. Not the sun beating heavily down as I would have to sit in the backyard under the umbrella.

My eyes automatically landed on Lauren behind the checkout counter, leaning against the counter while looking through her phone. She was blowing gum and texting to whoever she seemed to feel should be blessed with her attention. Her hair was pulled back in a braided ponytail, some of the pieces had to be clipped backwards with bobby pins. They were all different colors, pinks and blues and yellows. Her fingernails were freshly manicured and a sparkly light green. It clashed with her orange work apron that she had to wear in front of her work uniform.

By the time she turned her head in my direction I had gotten a grocery cart and moved towards the aisles that held the ingredients that we needed. I kept fiddling with my car keys, moving them so that if someone tried to touch me, I could strike out and let the ends of the keys slash into their skin. I was always prepared to have to use self-defense if needed. I wasn't going to ever be a victim. I would have victims, but never would I end up being a person's victim.

Reaching one of the aisles where I needed to get some bags of chips and some French onion dip for the chips, I picked up a couple bags. I made sure to grab Jacob Black's favorite chips that I faintly remember him eating when we were little. I of course grabbed two of Charlie's favorites. I went to grab the French onion dip only to hear the sound of someone coming in my direction.

I turned around, my eyes landing on Lauren Mallory making her way to me. She had her arms folded against her chest and she was still chewing on her bubblegum. There was an unimpressed expression upon her makeup covered features. I arched one of my eyebrows up at her, waiting to see if she would say something, before I turned my attention back to my shopping cart.

"I know why you came here."

I began to push my cart out of the aisle only for the blonde to move quickly so she would be in front of the cart to stop it. I was tempted to run over her foot but knew I had to keep up this nice facade. After all, once I disposed of Lauren, I didn't need people to point their fingers at me and claim that I had been the one to have killed the Thriftway employee. I needed people to be on my side, and with this I couldn't run over her feet with the wheels of the grocery cart.

"You're obsessed with me."

Yes. That was true.

"Lauren, I'm just here to get some groceries because some family friends are supposed to come over this weekend. It's the only grocery store in Forks. I'd rather not have to drive an hour up to Port Angeles to get groceries. I'm sure you would agree."

Lauren narrowed her eyes at me, dark enough and intense enough I was certain others would shuffle backwards awkwardly but that wasn't me. Instead, I reached into my purse and pulled out the grocery list of all the things I needed to get here. A subtle motion for her to know that I was done talking to her and she should go back to working at the checkout she had been assigned.

"That is true. Well, just know, I'm watching out."

I merely crossed out the parts of the grocery list that I didn't need anymore, as a silent remark to her I was fine with what she had said. I wouldn't be intimidated by her. There was no reason why I should feel intimidated by her. It was hard to intimidate me, very hard. No one at school had the ability to make me intimidated by them.

Not even the Cullens or the Hales.

They fueled my curiosity. I was prepared to jot down some more little details I would see during the rest of the time I would be here in Forks with them. I knew they were different; they were one of a kind. There was something animalistic about them, as though there was a predator that was lying deep within them and before long that predator would strike out. I wanted the carnage in front of me, I wanted to watch them consume whoever was in their path.

I found no reason to linger at Thriftway any longer, since I had already gotten the attention of Lauren. She would make sure to be studying me the whole time I would be here whenever she was able to have an angle for her to see me. She knew there was something off about me and I had to keep this bland expression upon my features so she couldn't just point at me and claim my odd behavior. I didn't need to just make it easy for her to try and proclaim there being something dangerous about me, especially because of the fact that she would say how I didn't try too hard to defend myself.

I didn't tell Charlie about the incident at Thriftway when I arrived back at his house, pulling the grocery bags out of the passenger seat and floorboard of the truck. He was pulling into the driveway as I got the last batch of groceries we would need for Sunday, when the Blacks would come and see how everything was for me back in Phoenix and now here in Forks.

I did my homework that needed to be done that night. I wasn't someone who likes to procrastinate on their homework, waiting until the last minute to get said homework done. I liked to get it done pretty quickly, otherwise I would have irritation flood me even more than usual. I would have a biting attitude towards anyone who I thought was giving me an attitude. It would make people wonder what was wrong with me and having people's attention wasn't something that was what I liked having, it only made me sourer.

The day that the Blacks were coming over I made sure that everything looked nice. Charlie was moving around excitedly around the house as though he had learnt that his best friend was coming over to tell him that his family was letting him take Charlie to Disneyland with them. I rolled my eyes when he was looking, not finding why someone should be so excited like Charlie was. I found it quite irritating, people in general were irritating, even the Blacks were annoying.

I had put the frozen hot wings into the oven to bake when conversations started floating from the living room. I didn't poke my head out from the open doorway to see Charlie pushing Billy into the house. Nor did I look to see Jacob awkwardly walking behind his dad with his hands stuffed into his pockets and his long obsidian hair falling in front of his face before he would push the pieces of long hair behind his ears once more.

I went back to focusing on the food, to make the sides so that they would be ready when the hot wings would be finished. I hummed some as I cooked, almost jolting out of my skin when I saw someone moving in the corner of my eye. My plastic spoon I was using to make sure the macaroni and cheese wouldn't stick to the bottom of the pan almost fell out of my hand.

"Hi, Bella."

I turned my whole attention towards Jacob.

When we were children, he was my first kiss, but I never held any fond feelings towards Jacob. In fact, when I was a little girl, I had been sent to the hospital and diagnosed with paranoid personality disorder. I had come home from this, and Jacob thought that he would cheer me up and show me that I could form a relationship/friendship that was actually meaningful. He thought he could be my first true friend, my first real boyfriend.

"Hey, Jacob," I greeted him in return before I turned my attention back towards the pan where the macaroni and cheese was boiling.

"I'm glad that you're back. That you've decided to stay," Jacob awkwardly said, earning an awkward nod from me to let him know I had heard him.

"Yeah, it's nice to be here. I haven't been here in ages it feels like," I admitted, because it was the truth. It was kind of nice to be here. I finally had someone I could practice my torture on.

I didn't really pay attention to Jacob after that. I didn't pay attention to how he was kind of freaked out about this band of boys that lived on the reservation. I didn't care to hear about how he didn't know how to feel about the Cullens, despite the fact that the majority of the reservation wanted nothing more than to claim them as the monsters from the legends of the cold ones.

I paused what I was doing, finding that it was quite interesting to hear about the cold ones. I turned to look at Jacob–where he had one of his hands up so he could cover his mouth. He glanced nervously towards the front living room of the house, but when he didn't have his father appear in his wheelchair wanting to hit him with the walking stick, he sometimes carried he loosened up some of his muscles. He let his brown irises flicker towards my own brown ones.

"Cold ones, huh? I remember Sarah telling me about them when I was over one weekend," I added, making him have conflict apparent upon his rustic hued skin. I sighed and leant against the counter with my hip jutted out against it.

"I'm your god-sister. Sarah wanted to tell me the story when I was little in case the cold ones came. I only got the parts of the fact that you derive from wolves and that there are cold ones that made a treaty with your people. Other than that, your dad interrupted the story…and…yeah."

I didn't tell Jacob how I had snuck into the hallway and watched his parents argue with each other. How there was so much anger that came from Billy Black. He had slapped her across the face, hard enough that she stumbled back some. It was the only time I saw him do this to her.

Outsiders should not be permitted to know their sacred legends and beliefs.

The beeping of the oven going off, signaling that the hot wings were ready to be pulled out, made Jacob and I turn our attention away from the cold ones. There wasn't much there to say other than the fact that they believed the cold ones happened to be vampires and had created a treaty with the Quileute. I never found out the names of the vampires that had lived here, nor any of the detailing that would make someone know they were vampires.

Putting on some oven mitts, I pulled out the hot wings and sat them on the stove, where there was a cooling rack already there for me to sit the hot pan on. The hot wings were just plain Tyson Hot Wings, nothing special. The green beans I added on the stove for the last part of the cooking with the macaroni and cheese were just a generic brand vegetable can.

"Oh, it's good to see you, Bella! I thought you were upstairs, working on your homework or something. Didn't know you were cooking."

Turning towards the deep voice, my eyes landed on the older man sitting in the wheelchair. He had harsher features than his son, Jacob had gotten more of his mother's softness than his father's roughness. Billy Black had long obsidian hair that draped around his shoulders and had tinges of pure silver highlights that were in random layers of his hair. His eyebrows were thick and bushy, his jaw was strong, but his dark beady eyes were the most striking out of all of his features. They reminded me of someone who was looking straight into your soul.

"Nope, I've been here cooking. Sorry, I should have come out and greeted you earlier," I remarked, making him reach one of his hands up and wave it in a dismissive manner. I turned my attention away from him and pulled out some plates.

"Jake, get the forks and napkins. Help Bella out."

The gruffness from Billy spurred his son into action. Jacob was obviously intimidated by his dad. I wasn't intimidated by anyone. Jacob held respect towards his dad but how much of it was natural and would have been there if Sarah had still been alive today? How much of it was there because he felt as though he had to respect his dad or else, he would be a failure of his son? It was obvious that the love he had towards his parents always leaned towards Sarah Black instead of Billy.

Putting the plates down at the square shaped table while Jacob went and put the utensils and napkins down next to the plates, I swiftly went over to where the green beans and the macaroni and cheese were. I picked up the macaroni and cheese first before scooping some out when I got to the table and put a nice amount of the side onto the plates in front of me. I did the same thing with the green beans and sat them down on their spots on the stovetop. I grabbed the tray of hot wings and went over to where the two men and one teenager were sitting at the table.

Charlie was showing nothing more than pride upon his features, at how his daughter was nothing more than the proper hostess. Billy was the childhood/tweenhood best friend of Charlie, so he was sitting there as though it was a second home of his. Jacob didn't know how to feel about me putting the hot wings onto the plates for them to eat, before I went over to the cabinets and grabbed a large plate to put the rest of the hot wings on. I brought over the ranch bottles too and sat them down in the middle of the table, before I ended up sitting down at the table also.

I soon focused my attention on eating the hot wings, not on how Charlie had wanted Billy to come over so I could try and bond with my godfather and my godbrother again. It had been years since I had seen them.

Billy looked the exact same as before, but he seemed as though his temper was harsher than it used to be. He had this kind of irritation that flooded from him so easily, as though he finally had a true reason as to why he should act the way he was. He should be allowed to tell me how I should stay away from the Cullens, that I should find others that I should be friends with.

Jacob on the other hand was just as secluded and nervous as before. He kept rubbing the leather bracelet around his wrist, and he would keep glancing over at Billy and then me when it came to the subject about the Cullens. He didn't know how I would feel about his dad trying to control who I would become friends with as though he had gained custody of me, and I had decided to make a plate of food so that Charlie's ghost could come and visit us in his own house.

While we ate the food I had bought at Thriftway, my mind flickered back towards Lauren Mallory. I had barely heard, "what are you thinking about, Bells?", before I responded, "Lauren Mallory," in a plain and simple way.

"Lauren Mallory?"

Shit.

I snapped my brown irises up from where I had been looking in the distance on the table before nodding my head, "yeah, Lauren Mallory."

"Is she your girlfriend?"

Jacob had been the one who had probed this, earning an eyeroll inwardly at how his automatic concern was about Lauren being my girlfriend. As I said before, I never had enough of an emotional attachment towards anyone even in a platonic sense, so the idea of me actually harboring romantic interest in Lauren Mallory was kind of humorous in my opinion.

"No, she's not my girlfriend, Jake. She's just this girl at school, she works at Thriftway, I got the groceries there the other day. I was just thinking about all the different kids that I've met so far. Jessica Stanley and Angela Weber seem really cool."

Charlie's winkles, which had become tighter and more prominent, loosened some when he realized I was just thinking about the kids I had met. I wasn't thinking about some secret rendezvous with Lauren Mallory. I'd rather literally have her beating heart in my hands, with a gaping hole in her chest from a knife. I'd not care about figuratively having her heart. That wasn't any fun, that wouldn't keep the monsters and demons silent.

"Are you sure you aren't dating anyone?"

I arched one of my eyebrows up at Charlie, letting him know that I wasn't that impressed in how he hadn't let it just go when I claimed I was only thinking of the teenagers at the high school in passing. I didn't want to date anyone, period, thank you. I wasn't someone who was all about emotions, emotions were messy.

"I'm sure, Dad. Don't worry, you don't have to move me to a convent. I'm not planning on dating anyone anytime soon. I just moved here. I'd like to get settled in," I couldn't help but remark, earning a soft chuckle of relief from Charlie though his eyes flickered towards Jacob for a moment as though he had hoped if I would date someone it would be Jacob.

I was thankfully done with eating not that long after and piled up all of the plates together before I went over to where the sink was. I scraped the leftovers down the disposal and put them into the dishwasher before grabbing the pans I used for the hot wings, the canned green beans, along with the macaroni and cheese. I filled the sink up with hot water and dish soap after I plugged it. I stuck the pans into the sink to let them soak for the night.

Billy and Jacob were saying goodbye to Charlie when I went back into the living room. I went over to them and allowed them to hug me goodbye before Charlie insisted on pushing Billy's wheelchair out of the house. I waved goodbye to them and went up the stairs so I could be in my own domain again, and where I didn't have to worry about sending smiles towards people.

Arriving in my bedroom, I went over to my bed and plopped down. I let my head rest against the pillows and closed my eyes before soaking in the scent of the freshly laundered bedspread. It was the light, faint scent of lavender but it was enough to relax me some. I could be away from everything and anything that reminded me I was different, reminded me I should act a certain way when I would be in the presence of normal people.

When I went to sleep, I dreamt of blood, bones, blood matter. All the works. Cutting Lauren's tongue in half so that I would watch her choke on her own blood. I was coated in blood, and I smiled warmly at the sight of her body hacked into pieces.

Time sped forward, and Edward ended up coming back to school today (Monday).

He tried to introduce himself properly to me, as though he expected me to be flattered about the fact, he decided to talk to me after all. I told him the generic excuse I had told everyone else, about how I was moving here because my mom had just gotten remarried to Phil and how I wanted them to spend time together.

Little did I know that tomorrow I would have something happen to me that I never imagined would happen between me and the Cullens, especially Edward Cullen.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: here's the latest chapter of 'Blood-Stained Girls'. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. -Emmy

as always: Twilight doesn't belong to me