Chapter-by-Chapter: Twilight, Chapter 23

I've just got the one Chapter-by-Chapter post for today because I'm hoping that I'll be able to get the post for Chapter 24 up by itself next Friday. I make no guarantees. I may fail miserably, but I'm just telling you what the plan is, just in case.

The last chapter of Twilight saw Bella escaping from her vampire bodyguards and rushing to her mum's house. From there it was a short dash to the dance studio where she found that the tracker had been messing with her and didn't have her mum at all. Her joy at this was short lived though, because that was when he started attacking her.

On with Chapter 23: The Angel.

What Happens?

The Cullens find Bella and presumably see off the tracker. Bella is injured and has been bitten so, after a brief deliberation, Edward sucks out the poison to help make her better.

Thoughts as I read:

My money is on the angel being a vampire. It's got to be Edward, hasn't it?

As is traditional, Bella is unconscious at the start of the chapter:

As I drifted, I dreamed.

I think by this stage of the book we'd be surprised if Bella didn't begin a chapter waking up.

Bella's having some sort of strange dream, presumably the weird snarling noise she hears is either the tracker being attacked by the Cullens, or Edward getting annoyed at finding the tracker nomming on his girlfriend. I think it's Edward because a second later someone, who she believes is an angel, calls her name. This is quickly followed by some more nasty sounds:

A vicious bass growling, a shocking snapping sound, and a high keening, suddenly breaking off…

This puts me in mind of a couple of dogs fighting. Hopefully it means that the tracker and his friend have been dealt with.

I do kind of like this bit:

"Bella, please! Bella, listen to me, please, please, Bella, please!" he begged.
Yes, I wanted to say. Anything. But I couldn't find my lips.

We get a little more evidence that the angel is Edward as it calls out for Carlisle. The one thing that makes me wonder if perhaps it might be someone else is that the voice is crying. That seems like a very unEdwardly thing to do. Whoever they are, they've obviously disposed of the tracker.

I'm kind of disappointed that we missed the showdown, though there's another chapter after this one so perhaps they've just scared him off and that's where things get really dramatic. It is a much longer chapter.

Despite being in pain, Bella's not too badly injured aside from blood loss from a head wound and the broken leg. Oh and judging from the pain in her side, she's got some broken ribs as well. And then, rather randomly, her hand starts burning. By this point she's decided that the angel is definitely Edward (yay! I was right about something) so she tries to call his name. And she's right because he immediately tells her he loves her.

At this point I thought that perhaps the burning in Bella's hand was because Edward was holding it and he was burning with rage. You know, he's usually freezing cold but having a tracker try to chow down on his girlfriend actually manages to raise his temperature.

While I'm pondering this there's a rather confusing conversation going on between the Cullens. I guess that makes sense in the situation because Bella's just been attacked by a vampire and is feeling confused. Just why is Carlisle telling Alice to hold her breath though?

Then we establish that Bella's hand is burning because the tracker bit her. Everyone is horrified by this. Alice tells Edward that he has to 'do it'. She's not talking innuendo though, 'it' here means sucking the venom out. I guess vampires are immune to each other's venom, or they're not and this might end badly for our dear Edweird.

Of course, there's no knowing if this will work. And Edward really seems to be having doubts about it. He either thinks that having a vampire girlfriend will be cool, or he's realised that this might be a good way to get rid of Bella. She is proving to be more trouble than she's worth!

It takes about half a page for Edward to decide he have too much explaining to do if Bella die/turns into a vampire, so he starts sucking (well, he's been sucking for the past two hundred and something pages, but now he literally starts sucking). This makes the pain so much worse for Bella. As it gets better she starts to lose consciousness again.

"Is it all out?" Carlisle asked from somewhere far away.
"Her blood tastes clean," Edward said quietly. "I can taste the morphine."

Nice.

Bella's feeling much better now. Aside from feeling drained, and I'm not talking figuratively here. She tells Edward the tracker tricked her but then remembers something important that she needs to tell Alice. Unfortunately for Alice, she's distracted by the smell of gasoline and then falls asleep in Edward's arms.

I'm guessing that they're going to burn down the studio to hide all the evidence, and possibly the body of the tracker if they have in fact killed him.

I normally like the shorter chapters but I wish that this was longer (not least because the next chapter seems to just go on forever!) Right now we haven't got a clue what happened to the tracker and this chapter kind of just feels like filler. Somehow I don't think they've killed the tracker (because the next chapter is so long, there's obviously a lot in there to cover) plus hopefully we'll find out just how he links to Alice and whether being bitten will have any lasting effects on Bella.

For such a short chapter it's raising a lot of questions, and we're running out of time to get answers:

• Is the angel Edward? Looks like it.
• Who was snarling?
• Is the burning in Bella's hand because Edward is holding it and burning with rage? Naw.
• Why did Carlisle tell Alice to hold her breath?
• Are vampires immune to vampire venom?
• What has happened to the tracker?
• Will we find out what happened between Alice and the tracker?
• Will being bitten by the tracker have any lasting effects for Bella?

That's actually more questions than pages in this chapter!