In Which We Get 2 More Phone Calls
Bella wakes to Alice sketching a new vision and realizes it's Renee's house. They call Edward so he can fly down. The phone rings again and it's Renee (to get Bella on the phone), then James. Revealing her mom is a hostage, James orders Bella to come to Renee's house. She secretly writes a good-bye/suicide letter to Edward and asks Alice to deliver it.
That's it. Honestly, it's a 10 page (paperback book sized, at that) chapter and 6 pages of that boils down to James getting Bella to repeat after him so as not to arouse suspicion and to move away from where Alice is sitting. Why doesn't Bella try and work something else out? Why doesn't she talk to the future-looking vampire in the next room? Wave a hand at Alice to get her attention? The cynic in me says it's so we can move the plot toward the obvious conclusion, but I'm really not going to insist this is the way Bella should or would act without some kind of support.
And what's with the chapter break??
In Which Bella Attempts Suicide by Vampire
Since the size of the chapters seems to be related to proximity to the back cover, we get another short one.
Bella rides with Alice and Jasper to the airport, then ditches them and hitches a ride into town on an airport shuttle, then hops a cab to her mom's house. There, James calls and tells her to go to the ballet studio around the corner. Once there, it's revealed that James has tricked Bella with old recordings of Renee, which I admit is plausible enough and a revelation that he was using Alice's powers against them. Here, I'm just going to toss out a huge gold star for Meyer for twisting Alice's cheat-powers into something truly useful. I'd almost forgive the whole precognition nonsense if it weren't for the other times it was used to force the plot or create/deflate tension. Personally, I think Alice just having present time visions would have made this work without the cheats, but lets not look a horse in the mouth.
James monologues and revels, Bella is ... well, something like defeated, I guess. I don't know how else she should feel, what with limited characterization up to this point, but there's not really any terror or anger for a good long while, just defeat and some nausea when James starts up a video recorder.
Then James goes into unexpected exposition about a prior victim who turns out to be Alice. The point here is to establish how he knew Alice had future visions (based on her prior life). This whole background link is somewhat tacked on out of nowhere and we don't get nearly the story I'd have liked. He's already blabbing on about it, why not expand this into some characterization for both Alice and James and any number of other members of the Cullen clan? Instead we get a paragraph of background and a few mentions. Another missed opportunity.
James gets his vampire creep on, knocks Bella down and starts to beat her. First he breaks her leg, then its the face, then she's flying into mirrors. Once the blood starts flowing he prepares to feed, Bella passes out and the chapter ends.
SumUp: B-
It's a fair ruse, get her to come to him using a fake hostage and Alice's powers. I can live with that. Bella's reaction, however... not so much. Yeah, she loves her mother, but to toss out the option of rescue, especially with a literal house full of vampires at your disposal seems awfully rash. Still, I guess you don't know until it's your choice. I'm particularly happy to see and actual VAMPIRE in this book do something a Vampire would logically do. The gloating was good at first, but I sort of wanted James to be everything the rest of the vampires aren't and the long, comic book super-villain shtick annoyed me a bit. The connection to Alice seems wasted once the "fooled you" bit is done and I really wanted more fight out of Bella, even some sass or anger or something. Instead she's defeated, then flees about three inches before getting stomped. Maybe that's too much realism given the situation, I just see the end of this book coming with little chance for Bella to blossom.
Not to predict too much, but I'm guessing Alice & Jasper will show up to save her. I don't know how early for his plane they were or if they'd go searching or wait for Edward. I'm assuming they'd just leave the airport to track her down, but I don't know if the smell-tracking is as universal as the other powers. I won't be shocked if Edward shows up, though.
Of course, she's bleeding everywhere, so that gives us some actual danger in the sense that Bella's cavalry will be faced with that challenge. I'm actually looking forward to the next chapter for the first time in a long time. This would have been an A or A+ chapter if only it weren't so incredibly short!
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