Be Careful What You Wish For

Chapter Seven

1 It was getting dark earlier and earlier as autumn started turning into winter. The days got greyer and colder, too. Leah didn't mind. She'd never been one to complain about the weather, anyway, not even before it became meaningless. There was no cold in this part of the world that could hurt her. There was no scorching summer heat that could make her feel uncomfortable. Yes, she preferred the chill to the warmth, but neither bothered her – not really. The weather was the weather. Complaining never changed anything for the better, anyway.

That evening, after Bella met her precious daughter and ended up having a mild case of the vapours, the vampires went out hunting in small groups, whilst those who remained at the house, as well as the wolves, kept on their toes and just waited for the volatile new-born to lose it again. She didn't, though. Drinking the blood of four human adults apparently did the trick; it made a vampire able to coordinate itself, to keep itself in check, to think clearly. Yay for them.

Bella really hadn't thought this through when she'd decided to throw away her humanity, had she? Nope. That moron hadn't ever thought anything through in her entire goddamn life. Now, here they were, more worried about an undead, murderous thing's feelings than the fact that they were all doomed to die.

That night, once the vamps were all back from killing off the local fauna, they and the little pack convened in the living room. Everyone was there except for the death baby and Rosalie, who was no doubt wearing a creepy-ass smile on her face whilst watching the little freak sleep. Thank God for small favours, though; at least the demon-spawn had to sleep, and she slept for twelve hours straight each night.

Once the last pair of leeches – Carlisle and Esme – came back from refuelling, they all sort of found themselves standing around in that ugly, tacky, nouveau-riche living room, staring at each other in uncomfortable silence.

Leah, who just spent the entire day marvelling at how warped these people's priorities were, could hardly refrain from groaning in frustration, tapping her foot on the floor incessantly, and yelling at them to just get on with it. Hell, she could almost sympathise with Bella and her earlier exasperated confusion. For people who always advocated talking oneself out of every pickle, they were astonishingly bad at just calling a spade a frigging spade.

"We'll meet up with Sam tomorrow at dawn," Jacob finally broke the silence. He was standing close to the big staircase, as close to the demon-spawn as he could without dashing upstairs, Leah supposed. He looked tired and worn-out and haggard. Small wonder, too: between playing the fool for the demon-spawn and nursing Bella, he hadn't gotten around to sleeping or eating much. "Can't put it off longer than that. The risk of one of them finding out is too big."

"Well, no kidding," Leah said, scoffed, and irritably brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear. Yeah, she could do with some sleep, herself. "The whole thing wasn't exactly subtle, and even if you buried the remains well, and nobody notices that those people are missing, your...smell, vampires, is all over the place."

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." That was Bella, who was standing by the big couch, flanked by Alice and Jasper.

What was up with Jasper, anyway? Leah could understand that he'd be drugging Bella non-stop after this morning's snafu, but he was all but glued to Bella, now, much to Wardo's obvious annoyance. Was it because they bonded over being murderous, hungry psychos? No, Bella seemed genuinely regretful. Maybe he was just glad that she sucked as much as a new-born as he had, back in his day. Could be he was simply looking for an ally to join him, Obi-Wan. The Dark Side has fresh blood from the vein!

"It's okay, Bella," Esme said sweetly, screwing on what she obviously believed to be a motherly smile.

Leah, who was unfortunately standing right next to her, scowled at her. "It's okay? Are you serious, lady? I mean, what the hell? How is any of this okay? It freaking isn't, so stop making excuses for murder!"