Breaking Dawn - Stephenie Meyer [47]
I wondered-would a bullet through my temple actually kill me or just leave a really big mess for me to clean up?
I threw myself down on the bed. I was tired- hadnt slept since my last patrol-but I knew I wasnt going to sleep. My head was too crazy. The thoughts bounced around inside my skull like a disoriented swarm of bees. Noisy. Now and then they stung. Must be hornets, not bees. Bees died after one sting. And the same thoughts were stinging me again and again.
This waiting was driving me insane. It had been almost four weeks. Id expected, one way or another, the news would have come by now. Id sat up nights imagining what form it would take.
Charlie sobbing on the phone-Bella and her husband lost in an accident. A plane crash? That would be hard to fake. Unless the leeches didnt mind killing a bunch of bystanders to authenticate it, and why would they? Maybe a small plane instead. They probably had one of those to spare.
Or would the murderer come home alone, unsuccessful in his attempt to make her one of them? Or not even getting that far. Maybe hed smashed her like a bag of chips in his drive to get some? Because her life was less important to him than his own pleasure
The story would be so tragic-Bella lost in a horrible accident. Victim of a mugging gone wrong. Choking to death at dinner. A car accident, like my mom. So common. Happened all the time.
Would he bring her home? Bury her here for Charlie? Closed-casket ceremony, of course. My moms coffin had been nailed shut
I could only hope that hed come back here, within my reach.
Maybe there would be no story at all. Maybe Charlie would call to ask my dad if hed heard anything from Dr. Cullen, who just didnt show up to work one day. The house abandoned. No answer on any of the Cullens phones. The mystery picked up by some second-rate news program, foul play suspected
Maybe the big white house would burn to the ground, everyone trapped inside. Of course, theyd need bodies for that one. Eight humans of roughly the right size. Burned beyond recognition-beyond the help of dental records.
Either of those would be tricky-for me, that is. It would be hard to find them if they didnt want to be found. Of course, I had forever to look. If you had forever, you could check out every single piece of straw in the haystack, one by one, to see if it was the needle.
Right now, I wouldnt mind dismantling a haystack. At least that would be something to do. I hated knowing that I could be losing my chance. Giving the bloodsuckers the time to escape, if that was their plan.
We could go tonight. We could kill every one of them that we could find.
I liked that plan because I knew Edward well enough to know that, if I killed any one of his coven, I would get my chance at him, too. Hed come for revenge. And Id give it to him-I wouldnt let my brothers take him down as a pack. It would be just him and me. May the better man win.
But Sam wouldnt hear of it. Were not going to break the treaty. Let them make the breach. Just because we had no proof that the Cullens had done anything wrong. Yet. You had to add the yet, because we all knew it was inevitable. Bella was either coming back one of them, or not coming back. Either way, a human life had been lost. And that meant game on.
In the other room, Paul brayed like a mule. Maybe hed switched to a comedy. Maybe the commercial was funny. Whatever. It grated on my nerves.
I thought about breaking his nose again. But it wasnt Paul I wanted to fight with. Not really.
I tried to listen to other sounds, the wind in the trees. It wasnt the same, not through human ears. There were a million voices in the wind that I couldnt hear in this body.
But these ears were sensitive enough. I could hear past the trees, to the road, the sounds of the cars coming around that last bend where you could finally see the beach-the vista of the islands and the rocks and the big blue ocean stretching to the horizon. The La Push cops liked to hang out right around there. Tourists never noticed the reduced speed limit sign