The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide (76 page)

Chapter 15
“It feels… complete when you’re here, Jacob. Like all my family is together. I mean, I guess that’s what it’s like—I’ve never had a big family before now. It’s nice.” She smiled for half a second. “But it’s just not whole unless you’re here.”

“I’ll never be part of your family, Bella.”

I could have been. I would have been good there. But that was just a distant future that died long before it had a chance to live.

“You’ve always been a part of my family,” she disagreed.

My teeth made a grinding sound. “That’s a crap answer.”

“What’s a good one?”

“How about, ‘Jacob, I get a kick out of your pain.’ ”

I felt her flinch.

“You’d like that better?” she whispered.

“It’s easier, at least. I could wrap my head around it. I could deal with it.”

Our minds were more closely linked than they had ever been before, because we both were trying to think together.

Chapter 16
She hesitated for a second, but then, tentatively, she seemed to reach out with her mind and try to see my way. It felt very strange—our minds were more closely linked than they had ever been before, because we both were trying to think together.

Strange, but it helped her. Her teeth cut through the fur and skin of her kill’s shoulder, tearing away a thick slab of streaming flesh. Rather than wince away as her human
thoughts wanted to, she let her wolf-self react instinctively. It was kind of a numbing thing, a thoughtless thing. It let her eat in peace.

It was easy for me to do the same. And I was glad I hadn’t forgotten this. This would be my life again soon.

Was Leah going to be a part of that life? A week ago, I would’ve found that idea beyond horrifying. I wouldn’t’ve been able to stand it. But I knew her better now. And, relieved from the constant pain, she wasn’t the same wolf. Not the same girl.

Chapter 16
And I was all alone with my hatred and the pain that was so bad it was like being tortured. Like being dragged slowly across a bed of razor blades. Pain so bad you’d take death with a smile just to get away from it.

The heat unlocked my frozen muscles, and I was on my feet.

All three of their heads snapped up, and I watched my pain ripple across Edward’s face as he trespassed in my head again.

“Ahh,” he choked.

I didn’t know what I was doing; I stood there, trembling, ready to bolt for the very first escape that I could think of.

Moving like the strike of a snake, Edward darted to a small end table and ripped something from the drawer there. He tossed it at me, and I caught the object reflexively.

“Go, Jacob. Get away from here.” He didn’t say it harshly—he threw the words at me like they were a life preserver. He was helping me find the escape I was dying for.

The object in my hand was a set of car keys.

Chapter 18
Everything inside me came undone as I stared at the tiny porcelain face of the half-vampire, half-human baby. All the lines that held me to my life were sliced apart in swift cuts, like clipping the strings to a bunch of balloons. Everything that made me who I was—my love for the dead girl upstairs, my love for my father, my loyalty to my new pack, the love for my other brothers, my hatred for my enemies, my home, my name, my
self
—disconnected from me in that second—
snip, snip, snip
—and floated up into space.

I was not left drifting. A new string held me where I was.

Not one string, but a million. Not strings, but steel cables. A million steel cables all tying me to one thing—to the very center of the universe.

I could see that now—how the universe swirled around this one point. I’d never seen the symmetry of the universe before, but now it was plain.

The gravity of the earth no longer tied me to the place where I stood.

It was the baby girl in the blond vampire’s arms that held me here now.

Renesmee.

Chapter 20
Everything was so clear.

Sharp. Defined.

The brilliant light overhead was still blinding-bright, and yet I could plainly see the glowing strands of the filaments inside the bulb. I could see each color of the rainbow in the white light, and, at the very edge of the spectrum, an eighth color I had no name for.

Chapter 20
My first reaction was an unthinking pleasure. The alien creature in the glass was indisputably beautiful, every bit as beautiful as Alice or Esme. She was fluid even in stillness, and her flawless face was pale as the moon against the frame of her dark, heavy hair. Her limbs were smooth and strong, skin glistening subtly, luminous as a pearl.

Chapter 27
And I was euphoric the vast majority of the time. The days were not long enough for me to get my fill of adoring my daughter; the nights did not have enough hours to satisfy my need for Edward.

Chapter 28
“The Volturi,” Alice moaned.

“All of them,” Edward groaned at the same time.

“Why?” Alice whispered to herself. “How?”

“When?” Edward whispered.

“Why?” Esme echoed.

“When?” Jasper repeated in a voice like splintering ice.

Alice’s eyes didn’t blink, but it was as if a veil covered them; they became perfectly blank. Only her mouth held on to her expression of horror.

“Not long,” she and Edward said together. Then she spoke alone. “There’s snow on the forest, snow on the town. Little more than a month.”

Chapter 29
“I’m not going down without a fight,” Emmett snarled low under his breath. “Alice told us what to do. Let’s get it done.”

The others nodded with determined expressions, and I realized that they were banking on whatever chance Alice had given us. That they were not going to give in to hopelessness and wait to die.

Yes, we all would fight. What else was there? And apparently we would involve others, because Alice had said so before she’d left us. How could we not follow Alice’s last warning? The wolves, too, would fight with us for Renesmee.

We would fight, they would fight, and we all would die.

We would fight, they would fight, and we all would die.

Chapter 33
And then my smile faded. Alice had sent me here for a reason, and I was sure it was to protect Renesmee. Her last gift to me. The one thing she would know I needed…

It was as I had suspected. We couldn’t win. But we must have a good shot at killing Demetri before we lost, giving Renesmee the chance to run.

My still heart felt like a boulder in my chest—a crushing weight. All my hope faded like fog in the sunshine. My eyes pricked.

Chapter 35
Edward cocked one eyebrow as I approached, but otherwise did not remark on my accessory or Renesmee’s. He just put his arms tight around us both for one long moment and then, with a deep sigh, let us go. I couldn’t see a goodbye anywhere in his eyes. Maybe he had more hope for something after this life than he’d let on.

Chapter 35
Another minute ticked by, and I found myself straining to hear some sound of approach.

And then Edward stiffened and hissed low between his clenched teeth. His eyes focused on the forest due north of where we stood.

We stared where he did, and waited as the last seconds passed.

Chapter 36
They came with pageantry, with a kind of beauty.

They came in a rigid, formal formation. They moved together, but it was not a march; they flowed in perfect synchronicity from the trees—a dark, unbroken shape that seemed to hover a few inches above the white snow, so smooth was the advance.

The outer perimeter was gray; the color darkened with each line of bodies until the heart of the formation was deepest black. Every face was cowled, shadowed. The faint brushing sound of their feet was so regular it was like music, a complicated beat that never faltered.

At some sign I did not see—or perhaps there was no sign, only millennia of practice—the configuration folded outward. The motion was too stiff, too square to resemble the opening of a flower, though the color suggested that; it was the opening of a fan, graceful but very angular. The gray-cloaked figures spread to the flanks while the darker forms surged precisely forward in the center, each movement closely controlled.

Their progress was slow but deliberate, with no hurry, no tension, no anxiety.

Their progress was slow but deliberate, with no hurry, no tension, no anxiety. It was the pace of the invincible.

Garrett’s perspective

Chapter 37
“We have the answer to all these questions. We heard it in Aro’s lying words—we have one with a gift of knowing such things for certain—and we see it now in Caius’s eager smile. Their guard is just a mindless weapon, a tool in their masters’ quest for domination.

“So now there are more questions, questions that you must answer. Who rules you, nomads? Do you answer to someone’s will besides your own? Are you free to choose your path, or will the Volturi decide how you will live?

“I came to witness. I stay to fight. The Volturi care nothing for the death of the child. They seek the death of our free will.”

He turned, then, to face the ancients. “So come, I say! Let’s hear no more lying rationalizations. Be honest in your intents as we will be honest in ours. We will defend our freedom. You will or will not attack it. Choose now, and let these witnesses see the true issue debated here.”

Chapter 38
I could taste it as soon as it touched my shield—it had a dense, sweet, cloying flavor. It made me remember dimly the numbness of Novocain on my tongue.

The mist curled upward, seeking a breach, a weakness. It found none. The fingers of searching haze twisted upward and around, trying to find a way in, and in the process illustrating the astonishing size of the protective screen.

There were gasps on both sides of Benjamin’s gorge.

“Well done, Bella!” Benjamin cheered in a low voice.

My smile returned.

I could see Alec’s narrowed eyes, doubt on his face for the first time as his mist swirled harmlessly around the edges of my shield.

And then I knew that I could do this. Obviously, I would be the number-one priority, the first one to die, but as long as I held, we were on more than equal footing with the Volturi. We still had Benjamin and Zafrina; they had no supernatural help at all. As long as I held.

Chapter 38
“Forever,” I promised her.