Breaking Dawn - Stephenie Meyer [57]
So why hasnt Carlisle done anything? I growled. Hes a doctor, right? Get it out of her.
He looked up then and answered me in a tired voice. Like he was explaining this to a kindergartener for the tenth time. She wont let us.
It took a minute for the words to sink in. Jeez, she was running true to form. Of course, die for the monster spawn. It was so Bella.
You know her well, he whispered. How quickly you see I didnt see. Not in time. She wouldnt talk to me on the way home, not really. I thought she was frightened-that would be natural. I thought she was angry with me for putting her through this, for endangering her life. Again. I never imagined what she was really thinking, what she was resolving. Not until my family met us at the airport and she ran right into Rosalies arms. Rosalies! And then I heard what Rosalie was thinking. I didnt understand until I heard that. Yet you understand after one second He half-sighed, half-groaned.
Just back up a second. She wont let you. The sarcasm was acid on my tongue. Did you ever notice that shes exactly as strong as a normal hundred-and-ten-pound human girl? How stupid are you vamps? Hold her down and knock her out with drugs.
I wanted to, he whispered. Carlisle would have
What, too noble were they?
No. Not noble. Her bodyguard complicated things.
Oh. His story hadnt made much sense before, but it fit together now. So thats what Blondie was up to. What was in it for her, though? Did the beauty queen want Bella to die so bad?
Maybe, he said. Rosalie doesnt look at it quite that way.
So take the blonde out first. Your kind can be put back together, right? Turn her into a jigsaw and take care of Bella.
Emmett and Esme are backing her up. Emmett would never let us and Carlisle wont help me with Esme against it He trailed off, his voice disappearing.
You should have left Bella with me.
Yes.
It was a bit late for that, though. Maybe he should have thought about all this before he knocked her up with the life-sucking monster.
He stared up at me from inside his own personal hell, and I could see that he agreed with me.
We didnt know, he said, the words as quiet as a breath. I never dreamed. Theres never been anything like Bella and I before. How could we know that a human was able conceive a child with one of us-
When the human should get ripped to shreds in the process?
Yes, he agreed in a tense whisper. Theyre out there, the sadistic ones, the incubus, the succubus. They exist. But the seduction is merely a prelude to the feast. No one survives. He shook his head like the idea revolted him. Like he was any different.
I didnt realize they had a special name for what you are, I spit.
He stared up at me with a face that looked a thousand years old.
Even you, Jacob Black, cannot hate me as much as I hate myself.
Wrong, I thought, too enraged to speak.
Killing me now doesnt save her, he said quietly.
So what does?
Jacob, you have to do something for me.
The hell I do, parasite!
He kept staring at me with those half-tired, half-crazy eyes. For her?
I clenched my teeth together hard. I did everything I could to keep her away from you. Every single thing. Its too late.
You know her, Jacob. You connect to her on a level that I dont even understand. You are part of her, and she is part of you. She wont listen to me, because she thinks Im underestimating her. She thinks shes strong enough for this He choked and then swallowed. She might listen to you.
Why would she?
He lurched to his feet, his eyes burning brighter than before, wilder. I wondered if he was really going crazy. Could vampires lose their minds?
Maybe, he answered my thought. I dont know. It feels like it. He shook his head. I have to try to hide this in front of her, because stress makes her more ill. She cant keep anything down as it is. I have to be composed; I cant make it harder. But that doesnt matter now. She has to listen to you!
I cant tell her anything you havent. What do you want me to do? Tell her shes stupid? She probably already knows that. Tell her shes going