CHAPTER SEVEN:

"Dad!" I greeted Charlie happily when he opened the door. He laughed at my tired enthusiasm, pulling me into a quick hug.

"How are you, kiddo?" he asked. I pull a face.

"I think Alice spent more money then most households earn in a year." I inform him, and he shakes his head, chuckling.

"I missed you, Bella. The food really sucks around here when you're gone."

"I'll get on it," I promise, with a grin.

"Would you call Jake first? He's been bugging me every five minutes since six o'clock this morning. I promised I'd have you call him before you even unpacked."

I didn't have to look at Edward to feel that he was too still, too cold beside me.

"Jacob wants to talk to me?"

"Pretty bad, I'd say. He wouldn't tell me what it was about- just said it was important."

The phone rang then, shrill and demanding.

"That's him again, I'd bet my next paycheck," Charlie muttered.

"I got it." I hurried to the kitchen.

Edward followed after me while Charlie disappeared into the living room.

I grabbed the phone mid-ring, and twisted around so that I was facing the wall. "Hello?"

"You're back," Jacob said, and his familiar husky voice made me grin.

"And in one piece too," I told him, cheerfully. He, however, was apparently not sharing my good mood.

"Why didn't you call me?" He demanded.

His angry tone instantly got my back up. "Because I've been in the house for exactly four seconds and your call interrupted Charlie telling me that you'd called, you jerk."

"Oh. Sorry."

"You better be. Now why are you harassing my dad?"

"I need to talk to you."

"Somehow," I said, dryly, "I managed to figured out that part all by myself. Feel free to start talking any time now." There was a short pause.

"Can you pass along a message to your leech?"

I frowned, confused and slightly unsettled, my good mood now really down the drain. "Yes, of course I can. But why?"

"Because Sam wants to pass on a warning, but none of us want to go near them." Jacob offered.

"Warning?" I repeated, feeling nerves prickle along my spine. Edward plucked the phone from my suddenly boneless fingers, pressing it against his ear.

"Message delivered. Consider us warned." He said, shortly. I snatched the phone back off him, glaring fiercely when he resisted until he reluctantly released the phone. I hit the speaker button.

"Warned? What the hell are you guys talking about?"

"You didn't tell her?" Jacob asked, and I could hear the disbelief over the phone line. "What, were you afraid she'd take our side?"

"Please drop it, Jacob," Edward said in an even voice.

"Why?" Jacob challenged.

I frowned in confusion. "What don't I know? Edward?" Edward just glared at the phone as if he hadn't heard me. "Jake?"

"He didn't tell you that his big... brother crossed the line Saturday night?" Jacob asked, his tone thickly layered with sarcasm. "Paul was totally justified in-"

"It was no-man's land!" Edward hissed.

"Was not!" I could almost picture Jacob right now, hands trembling, visibly fuming, but that wasn't what I was focused on.

"Emmett and Paul?" I repeated. Paul was Jacob's most volatile pack brother. "What happened? Were they fighting?" My voice strained higher in panic. "Why? Did Paul get hurt?"

"No one fought," Edward said quietly, only to me. "No one got hurt. Don't be anxious."

"You didn't tell her anything at all, did you? Is that why your sisters took her away? So she wouldn't know that-?"

"Be quiet." Edward cut him off mid-sentence, and his face was abruptly frightening - truly frightening. For a second, he looked like... like a vampire. He pulled the phone out of my hands, faster then I could process, hitting the red button. I gaped at him.

In the dead silence, all the details suddenly fell into place for me with a burst of intuition.

Something Edward didn't want me to know.

Something that Jacob wouldn't have kept from me.

Something that had the Cullens and the wolves both in the woods, moving in hazardous proximity to each other.

Something that would cause Alice to practically insist that I fly out of the country.

Something that she had seen in a vision last week- a vision Edward had never actually told me about.

Something I'd been waiting for anyway. Something I knew would happen again, as much as I might wish it never would.

"Shit. She's back, isn't she?" I ask, suddenly drained. I sit down at the table, heavily, and rest my head in my hands.

Victoria. The vampire who's mate I killed. The vampire who thought that Edward had killed her mate, and decided to punish him by killing me- a mate for a mate. Victoria was never going to give up till I was dead. She would keep repeating the same pattern- feint and run, feint and run- until she found a hole through my defenders.

I wasn't worried about myself. I could handle one vampire. But Victoria could easily take a page out of James's book and use my loved ones against me. Charlie had no defense against her, nor Angela. And as strong and fast as the wolves were, they were still teenagers, or just a year or two past their teens. Victoria had been a vampire for at least three centuries more then the oldest of them, Sam, had been alive. She was a better fighter, and all she'd need to do was catch one wolf on their own...

"Edward, give me the phone."

He doesn't even try to say no, to refuse, just hands me the device. I hit redial and Jacob picks up on the first dial. I hit the speaker, then put the phone on the table in front of me.

"Victoria's back. Speak." I order.

"He didn't tell you?" Jacob sounded genuinely incredulous over the phone. I ground my teeth together.

"We're going to have a discussion about that, but first tell me what happened this weekend."

"The fucking leech danced along the damn treaty line like she was reading it on a freakin' map," Jacob growled, "we would have had her if the Cullens hadn't gotten in the way."

"To be fair, we might have gotten her too if the pack wasn't in the way." Edward stated. "Emmett and Jasper very nearly had her. Then the grey wolf, Paul, thought Emmett was over the line and he got defensive, and everyone left the chase to protect their companions. Carlisle and Jasper got things calmed down before it got out of hand. But by then, Victoria had slipped away."

"So you're saying," I said, slowly, "that instead of prioritising the vampire who kills humans, Paul decided to attack the animal drinking vampire who you have a treaty with, all because of a piece of land that wasn't even anywhere near any of the humans on the reservation anyway?"

There was a short pause from Jacob's end of the line. "Well when you say it like that..." My friend eventually muttered.

"I think this means she takes our side." Edward sounded smug and I turned my glare on him.

"Don't." I say, shortly, before turning my attention back to the phone. "You pass on to Paul from me that he is a fucking idiot!" I practically growl to Jacob, my voice actually trembling in my rage- they had the opportunity to catch Victoria, to end this before more people got hurt, got killed, and instead managed to screw it all up spectacularly because they were all incapable of thinking like rational adults. "And tell him that he needs to get his fucking head screwed on straight, that stupid son of a bitch," I continue ranting to the phone, "and to stop carrying on like a goddamn three year old about some shitty treaty line when you're all on the same side and trying to catch a bloody murderer! Who you all let escape to go kill more innocent people, all because you're all bloody acting like bloody kindergarteners! Your issues with each other have progressed to the point where they're literally letting innocent people die- and now a part of the responsibility for those deaths is on you, you goddamn bunch of fucking idiots!"

"Language, Bells!" I hear Charlie holler out from the other room.

"Trust me, dad, it's warranted!" I shout back, glaring furiously at the phone. My magic is churning inside me, and I can hear the plates in the cupboard rattling.

Nearly all of my family had been involved in this giant clusterfuck- Emmett, Jasper, Edward, and Carlisle. Maybe even Esme, though neither of them had mentioned her. And then Paul and the rest of the Quileute pack. It might so easily have turned into a fight, with any one of them getting hurt. The wolves would have been in the most danger, but picturing sweet Esme next to one of the huge shape-shifters, fighting...

"What about Charlie? Milan was a bad idea." I tell Edward, shortly. Edward shook his head.

"Charlie was never in any danger."

"As much as I hate to say it, the bloodsucker's right." Jacob grumbled over the line, and I could practically see the grimace that must be on his face right now.

"You will tell me next time." Because there would be a next time. And a time after that and a time after that, until someone slipped up, and this cat and mouse chase would be over.

My statement, my order, wasn't directed at either of them, but Jacob readily agreed.

"Of course."

Edward sighed, looking resigned. "Yes."

"So why did you actually call in the first place?" I ask Jacob, "just to pass on the warning?"

"Just wanted to hear your voice," Jake said, somewhat evasively, voice suddenly stiffer. "Got to go, Bells. See ya." A beep informed me that he'd hung up.

I frowned at the phone. "What was that about?"

It didn't really make sense that Jacob had been hounding Charlie all day just to ask me if I could pass on a warning. And if he'd wanted to hear my voice, then why did he hang up so quickly?

"Your guess is probably better than mine," Edward said, the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"Mmm," I murmured. That was true.

Thinking about what on earth Jacob could have meant, I started combing through the fridge, assembling ingredients for Charlie's dinner while Edward leaned against the counter.

My brain refused to come up with any brilliant insights and I wondered if I was missing some vital piece of information.

What could have changed in the past three days that was so important that Jacob would bug Charlie incessantly? What difference could three days make?

I froze in the middle of the kitchen. The package of icy hamburger in my hands slipped through my numb fingers. It took me a slow second to miss the thud it should have made against the floor.

Edward had caught it and thrown it onto the counter. His arms were already around me, his lips at my ear.

"What's wrong?" he asked anxiously.

Three days could change everything.

It was the conversation Edward and I had never had. One I was happy to keep putting off, because I honestly didn't have an answer for him. One that he was happy to keep putting off, because he didn't want it for me.

Had Charlie told Billy that I'd vanished for three days? Had Billy jumped to conclusions? Had Jacob really been asking me if I was... still human?

Edward shook me. "Bella?" he asked, truly anxious now.

"I think... I think he was checking," I said, in a bland voice, carefully clear of any emotion. "Checking to make sure. That I'm human, I mean."

Edward stiffened, and a low hiss sounded in my ear. I didn't look at him as I moved from his hold, picking up the phone and placing it back on the wall. It let out a low beep as it clicked in place, and I just sort of stood there, staring at it.

"Bella?" Edward's voice was as carefully free from any sort of emotion as mine had been.

Someone cleared their throat from the doorway, and I turned to Charlie.

"If you don't want to make dinner, I can call for a pizza," Charlie hinted.

"No, that's okay, I'm already started." I tell him, voice a bit stiff. He raised an eyebrow, eyes sweeping over the counter where ingredients were sitting, none actually in any way prepared. "Yeah, pizza would be good right now." I sigh, pulling my wand out of my pocket. A swish and a muttered phrase in Latin has the ingredients floating back to their places in the pantry and fridge.

Edward follows me up to my room, where Luna is sitting cross-legged on the bed, a book propped open on her lap. Her cheeks are a little more flushed then usual and I tilt my head to read the cover then choke slightly- 'Bared To You'. Luna looks up at the sound I make, her cheeks going a little darker pink, though she smiles just as dreamily as usual, like she isn't reading erotica on my bed.

"Alice leant me the entire series. It's very interesting. I didn't know it was anatomically possible for a male to insert his penis into a woman's vagina while in the position the author is describing." She says, conversationally. I choke on my own saliva, fairly certain my face has turned bright red.

"I- teeth. My teeth. I need to brush them." I manage to get out, before hastily backing out of the doorway.

"Really? You're going to brush your teeth before dinner?" Edward teases over my shoulder, and I shudder.

"I couldn't exactly come up with a good excuse when my best friend starts talking to me about inserting p- bloody hell, I can't even say the word!" I wail, cheeks still a flaming red.

Edward's chuckling doesn't stop, and I groan, a touch annoyed at the fun been made at me, but the stiff atmosphere from before has gone, so I'm thankful, even if it is at my expense.