Chapter-by-Chapter: New Moon, Chapter 13

We're now roughly halfway through New Moon and I guess things are getting interesting. Bella has discovered that Jacob is a werewolf and that her father (plus a large number of their neighbours) are off to kill off the wolves that have been terrorising visitors to the woods.

And there's still no sign of Edward.

This week it's Chapter 13: Killer.

What Happens?

Bella meets with Jacob and learns that it's not actually his pack that has been killing the tourists. She also learns that Laurent is no longer a cause for concern but that Victoria is. Jacob's happy though because Bella has plenty of insider knowledge about vampires which is going to help the pack, so he arranges a meeting with them and takes her along.

Thoughts as I read:

Bella's on her way to La Push to try and save Jacob. She's feeling conflicted:

I couldn't condone what Jacob and his friends, his pack, were doing. I understood now what he'd said last night – that I might not want to see him again – and I could have called him as he'd suggested, but that felt cowardly. I owed him a face-to-face conversation, at least. I would tell him to his face that I just couldn't overlook what was going on. I couldn't be friends with a killer and say nothing, let the killing continue… That would make me a monster too.

There's a comment I could make here about her going out with a vampire, one who occasionally struggled to control himself around her.

When Bella arrives at Jacob's house, Billy calls her into the house but claims that he has no idea where his son it. Bella's not got time to mess around so she tells him straight out that Charlie's out hunting wolves with half the town. This seems to shake Billy a little, though he hides it well, before admitting that Jacob's not up yet; he's been out late.

Jacob's still fast asleep (and his room is tiny, so I don't understand why he has a double bed in it rather than a single, so he'd have room for some actual furniture). Bella decides against waking him up and instead heads to the beach, planning to catch him later.

So that's where she goes. And we have about a page of Bella sitting at the beach where she first met Jacob and they chatted about how some people in his community are apparently descended from wolves. Then Jacob shows up. He seems to have had a bit of a personality transplant since he started turning into a wolf because he's annoyed that Bella didn't just phone instead of coming round like this.

Seriously, a few hours ago the guy was trying to be secret friends with her, now they're out in public and he's back to being a jerk. Personally I think I'd just leave him right now and let him deal with all the heavily armed townspeople by himself. Jacob claims that he already knew about it anyway, and they're confident that they'll be able to deal with it.

Bella's still begging for Jacob to talk to her and goes to that classic question:

"Could you… well, try to not be a… werewolf?" I suggested in a whisper.
He threw his hands up in the air. "Like I have a choice about it!" he shouted.

Jacob reveals that he's kind of pissed because Bella is clearly frightened of him. He's annoyed because she wasn't particularly scared of Edward. Bella isn't getting this until Jacob pretty much spells it out for her. So Bella finally reveals what bothers her so much about his werewolf status; it's the fact that he's been out murdering people with his pack.

In her head, Bella's hearing Edward's voice telling her to tread carefully. For once Bella listens and the next thing she knows Jacob is laughing his head off. I think it's safe to assume that Jacob and his gang are not in fact the ones out killing tourists. My money's still on it being Laurent or Victoria.

Suddenly the whole thing seems very funny to the pair of them, after all the guys call themselves 'Protectors'. They're not out there killing the tourists; they're out in the forest trying to stop whatever it is that's killing the tourists. And then Bella figures out that it's Laurent.

But it's okay, they got rid of him. Jacob quite enjoyed killing him as well. Bella doesn't seem too bothered about her friend killing someone quite calmly, instead she's really relieved that he's dead and she can stop worry about she and her dad being eaten. Apparently there's been a bit of miscommunication. When Jacob was warning Bella she thought he was warning her about Laurent but instead Jacob was warning Bella that if he gets angry he can lose control. And turn into a wolf.

"You don't need a full moon?"
He rolled his eyes. "Hollywood's version doesn't get much right."

Just like the whole sparkly vampire thing, it would seem.

But then it's revealed that despite getting rid of Laurent, the killings have continued. Looks like Victoria's still hanging around then. Bella doesn't take this news well, so she faints.

When she's feeling slightly more composed, she explains the whole James-wanted-to-eat-me,-Edward-killed-James,-Victoria-wants-revenge thing. So Jacob has to call a meeting and tell them all what's going on. And he's off, just leaving Bella behind, alone, on the beach, when there's a vampire on the loose wanting to kill her. Nice one, mate.

Bella immediately begins to panic. But it's not long before Jacob gets back and Bella tells him that she's now more worried about the wolves attacking the vampire and losing. Jacob now reveals that when he's in his wolf form he can communicate telepathically with the other wolves. He admits that it's kind of embarrassing when that happens, presumably they know everything about one another. It's a little like the way that Edward is able to read other people's thoughts too.

It's also revealed that as Sam is the pack's Alpha, if he tells one of the guys that they can't do something, they can't do it; no matter how much they want to. That's the real reason why Jacob couldn't tell Bella just what he was the night before. This leads to this brilliant exchange:

"Weird," I muttered.
"Very," he agreed. "It's kind of a wolf thing."
"Huh" was the best response I could think of.

We get a little bit of information about the way wolf things work, which I'm glad of because it took ages to get to this sort of information in the last book. When Jacob transformed for the first time it was awful for him but he help in the form of voices in his head which told him what was going on; Sam on the other hand just had it happen all by himself with no help.

Now Jacob seems to be planning to use Bella as a bit of a spy, considering she has all this insider knowledge of what vampires are like and the way they work. Bella's not sure she wants this, especially as that means that Jacob might be the one to kill Victoria and that's a fight which could go both ways.

But right now, Bella doesn't want to talk about any of this. And it's fine because the guys have shown up and it's time to get this show on the road.

But that's for the next chapter.