Breaking Dawn Re-Read Along: The Summaries: Week 9

Well, ladies, this is it - it's been tons of fun debating, chatting, and imaging this part of the book with you.  The countdown continues...T-minus 4 days until we get to see this all on the BIG SCREEN in all it's glory.  The trailers and teasers will have nothing on the real deal, I'm sure.  At any rate - let's get on with the prep for the week (and thanks one last time to http://www.shmoop.com/breaking-dawn/summary.html for the summaries!!  They saved so much time!)

Chapter 17:

• In the Cullen garage, Jacob's surprised to find that the keys are for the fancy Aston Martin Vanquish. This changes his plans of utterly destroying the car in his rage. So, instead, he drives out and then catches a glimpse of Leah. As Jacob races along the highway, he believes he sees his friend Quil running parallel to the road and then disappear again.
• Jacob decides to follow Leah's advice and try to imprint to get away from Bella. He heads to Seattle in the faint hope of finding his soul mate there.
• In Seattle, Jacob meets a cute girl named Lizzie. She seems genuinely concerned about him but, in talking to her, Jacob realizes there's no magic solution. He accepts his painful situation with Bella. Nevertheless, he dreads returning to the Cullens' place, until he realizes that Leah and Seth are there waiting for him.
• Back at the house, Jacob learns that, after Leah saw him leave all upset, she gave Bella a piece of her mind about how badly Bella's been treating Jacob.
• Edward asks Jacob to control Leah. He won't allow anyone to cause Bella any more pain than she's in already. Jacob reassures him that Leah already got her feelings off her chest, but that he'll make sure that Bella knows he has no hard feelings towards her.
• Edward reveals to Jacob that he's been reading the child's thoughts and that it's not trying not to harm Bella. Due to the baby's accelerated growth, though, he wants to have it delivered as soon as Carlisle returns.
• Lastly, Edward asks Jacob, as the rightful heir of Ephraim Black (the last chief of the Quileute, who signed the treaty with the Cullens) to approve of Bella's emergency vampirization in case she won't be able to survive the birth of the child as a human. He also wants to be sure that it won't result in the breaking of the treaty. Edward explains to Jacob that the Cullens never intended to break the treaty – but that, to ensure Bella's survival, they would.
• Jacob visits Bella and she apologizes for hurting him. Looking at her, Jacob realizes that she's everything that he'd been looking for in his trip to Seattle.
• He struggles with Edward's request: "Tomorrow, she'd be my enemy or she'd be my ally. And, apparently, that distinction was up to me" (17.177). Jacob decides to give Bella's change his blessing.
• Bella gets on her feet and accidentally drops her cup of blood. She bends to catch it when a muffled rip is heard. She gasps, goes limp, and lets out a blood-curdling scream. Rosalie catches her.

Chapter 18:

• Rosalie carries Bella upstairs, her body violently twitching. Edward gives her some morphine while Alice calls Carlisle. Bella screams for them to get the baby out. It appears that her placenta has detached and that the baby's now suffocating.
• Before the morphine can spread, Rosalie cuts into Bella's skin. Transfixed by the blood, Rosalie's killer instincts take over. Jacob tackles her and Alice drags her outside.
• Jacob and Edward hear another loud crack coming from Bella's body. Her spine has broken, thereby paralyzing her legs. While Jacob performs CPR, he reminds Bella of her promise to stay alive.
• He watches Edward biting through the vampire skin that's surrounding the baby. He then hears Edward whisper "Renesmee." Bella holds the girl for a few seconds before she gasps in pain and Edward takes the child away – the baby bit its mother in her chest.
• Bella's heart stops. Jacob performs CPR – in vain. Jacob yells at Edward to change Bella into a vampire.
• Edward asks him to take the baby, but Jacob tells him to "throw it out the window." He doesn't want anything to do with it, much less see it. Rosalie returns and takes the baby instead. Jacob notices the baby's mysterious fluttering heart beat as Rosalie carries it away.
• Edward stabs Bella with a syringe full of his venom while Jacob keeps performing CPR. Edward covers Bella's body with bite marks, then licks them to seal her injuries with venom, which can then help them heal.
• When Bella's heart fails to start beating again, Jacob believes that she's dead: "…there was nothing there, just me, just him" (18.83). He no longer feels the pull to be near Bella, but instead feels a strange urge to get away from her.
• Edward maintains she's still alive and keeps pushing her heart faster than Jacob.
• On his way out, Jacob sees Rosalie feeding blood to the baby. Rage and hate fills him. "Sam had been right. The thing was an aberration… Something that had to be destroyed" (18.106).
• Jacob realizes that the pull brought him here to this creature. He believes that he needs to kill it to avenge Bella's death. Not only that, but he resolves to take down as many Cullen family members as he can along with it.
• Jacob is about to strike, when the baby turns to look at him. "Warm brown eyes, the color of milk chocolate – the exact shape that Bella's had been" (18.135). His shaking anger suddenly morphs into an internal glowing heat. As Jacob stares at the baby's face, all ties in his life come undone and wrap around one thing in his universe: Renesmee, the newborn baby.
• That instant, he hears the frantic pounding of Bella's "changing heart" upstairs.

What do you think?

No more chapters to post - just a movie to see Thursday night!!  We'll for sure have to put up some comments after seeing it!! Check back and thanks for this Read-Along ride!!