Eclipse Chapter Twelve

This chapter is called time. I think it’s supposed to be short for why waste your time reading this when there are unclean souls to cleanse from the earth with fire. Of course that was merely a suggestion by the editor and Stephy was all ‘I lik deh wrd time, it rhymes. Also, sparklies are hawt.’

Alice makes a lame joke and reveals that she’s going to setup a graduation party. Bella, being the used tissue that she is, goes ‘oh noes, I haz p4rty! Do not want!’ Alice, being the sweetheart she is, goes ahead and makes it happen anyway because Bella forgot she was about to graduate. Huh?

Wait a minute. Bella’s been counting the picoseconds until she could get Embraced, I mean bitten. At the end of the last book they settle on a date, roughly anyway. That’s been the whole reason for the supposed conflict between her and the wolfman and suddenly Bella’s forgotten about it? Oh gee, my bite date? Wow, where does the time go when you’re a vacuous husk?

Our Strong and Independent Protagonist makes worried faces and Edward wonders what’s wrong. He pulls her down on the couch(finally!) and asks her about it(damn!). Bella wants to do it now! While Edward wants to hold off because he’s waiting for marriage.

Wait, are they still talking about turning her into a vampire? Checking…yes, apparently they are. Edward feeds her the same tired line of BS about choice and how she shouldn’t be turned into a vampire while she feels threatened. Well dummy why didn’t you turn her into one last year at the vote? Then we wouldn’t have had to slog behind this squishy moron and things could pick up.

Of course Edward explains that he doesn’t want to turn her because he thinks it’s selfish. Aww, I think I just vomited a little. You know while I’m not willing to forget about his controlling nature do you think that, maybe, Edward is having second thoughts about this girl?

Here he is over a hundred years old and he’s started thinking about settling down and having an unholy union blessed in the name of Satan. Sure he finds Bella attractive as food but now he’s gotten inured to the scent and he’s starting to realize what a bad match she is. I mean, sure he’s probably in the closet deeper than Clay Aiken but at least the man has hobbies. He plays the piano, he drives fast, he stalks people, Bella doesn’t stalk anyone. He’s come to the conclusion that, however two dimensional he is, Bella is one plane shorter.

Edward reminds Bella about their engagement. Damn, and I’d just come up with a plausible explanation. Bella tells Edward that she isn’t that girl that gets married right out of highschool and gets knocked up. Ha! We know better and I’d wager so did Otis SpunkMeyer when she was banging her claws against her Airbook and squawking at a mirror.

Edward remarks that he was that guy that goes out and gets married right away after growing up. Bella starts thinking about some other story set in the Victorian era and we’re supposed to see how perfect they are for each other.

Now for my favorite part of this chapter. You know how sometimes an author will attempt to put us a little closer to the characters by having an event that happens in book get covered by a newspaper? Then we get treated to a long, page filling, indented imitation news article. Oh joy, I so wasn’t tired of that exposition device. What’s even better is that it’s written by Otis herself, someone queue up Mozart’s Ode to Joy. This will be a seminal piece of literature, I can feel it.

Instead of the dry, fact filled column we expect from a newspaper article we get something opposite. It’s filled with conjecture, useless words and finger pointing. I have never worked for a paper but I know that those things don’t go in an article, they go in editorials. That’s because newspapers have to walk a line between fact and opinion. Otis doesn’t seem to get that, probably because she’s never worked for a paper or even read one. While she could have passed it off as an editorial piece she had to make it a Headline item which is almost never an opinion piece.

Long story short, the police are blaming gangs and are baffled. Did you see that coming? I sure didn’t. Next we’ll find out that they don’t have any leads. Oh what will us puny mortals do in the face of the vampires? Let’s start with garlic powder and go from there.

Bella now gets to talk with Jasper because the killings are being done by fledglings, I mean newborns and he knows a thing or two about fledglings. They have a hard time keeping up the masquerade it seems. Time to call on the Camarilla!

Jasper asks her what she knows about him. ‘Um, u r a nise v4mpir lik Edward bc u don ate ppl?’ Jasper shows her his scar which looks like the one she has. Bella says this and Jasper rolls up his sleeve so he doesn’t get blood on his sweater as he tries to smack some sense into her and his brother. There are dozens of crescent bite scars all over his arm. But why? He’s about to tell us and I actually want to know.

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Chapter Thirteen>>