Chapter Twelve: Werewolf Soap Opera Theatre

At the beginning of the chapter, Leah shows up. Jacob doesn't really want her around, but she sees it as a better alternative than staying in the other pack with the whole Leah-Sam-Emily drama. Jacob reluctantly lets her hang around with them.

There, I just summarized almost ten pages of damned werewolf drama. My god, that was a hell of a way to get back into reading this thing. Maybe the rest of the chapter will be better?

Jacob goes back to Cullen Manor to check on Bella. Carlisle says it's just more of the same -- she's preggers with a mutant baby, nothing new. He's also very grateful towards Jacob for not letting his whole family get killed, which is one of those things that has the tendency to slip under the cracks.

Jacob asks an obvious question: if Bella is like a daughter to Carlisle, why is he letting her die? Carlisle responds with a little spiel about free will, and how it would be wrong to force her to be sensible. In any case, Dr. Sparklepire gives her a 50/50 shot at surviving in sparkle-form at the end of all of this; vampire venom is basically magic, but how does magic stack up against half-vampire superbabies? Don't worry, we'll find out soon.

The biggest problem right now is that both Bella and the fetus are starving. Bella's body is rejecting everything they can give her, and Carlisle can't figure out what exactly it is that her pregnant body wants. Keep in mind that all of the following are facts (in terms of this series of trashy novels), and see if you can figure out what Bella's fetus wants, and if it's conceivable that Carlisle hasn't figured it out yet:

1. Bella's baby is a half-vampire.
2. Vampires want only one thing ever.
3. Carlisle and all the other Cullens are supposedly super-geniuses, with brains that move at incredible speed.

This does not compute at all, but hey, dramatic license and all that. We do get to learn that Carlisle enjoys doing genetic tests on basically everything. Humans, of course, have 23 chromosomal pairs that contain all of their genes. In contract, vampires get to have a whole 25! Shapeshifting werewolves apparently have 24. This is, of course, because MORE IS BETTER, which is why goldfish -- with their 100+ chromosomes -- are a dominant force in the universe.

Jacob thinks that he knows what the baby wants: blood. Well, duh. Edward overhears his thoughts, and finally connects the dots. Everyone agrees: it's time to get Bella to drink some human blood! Of course, Bella, who should probably be disgusted by this, pretty much shrugs. She's almost dead anyway, so why not do something that might make the baby happy? And it's Type O Negative, which everyone knows is the best gateway blood.

We don't actually get to see Bella try the blood in this chapter. I mean, reread this summary. Would you want to pack any more excitement into this chapter? We need some downtime first. Can't give it all away at once -- crafty, Meyer. Maybe something will happen in the next chapter, but I wouldn't hold my breath (though I would hold it while drinking blood, as a rule).