Twilight (Twilight, #1)

by Stephenie Meyer

“I love you,”

This time the bat somehow made it around in time to smash into the invisible ball. The crack of impact was shattering, thunderous; it echoed off the mountains—I immediately understood the necessity of the thunderstorm.

“I love you,”

“I will always love you, no matter what happens now.”

“I got a good look at his mind tonight,”

“I’m not sure if there’s anything I could have done to avoid this, once he saw you. It is partially your fault.”

“If you didn’t smell so appallingly luscious, he might not have bothered. But when I defended you… well, that made it a lot worse. He’s not used to being thwarted, no matter how insignificant the object. He thinks of himself as a hunter and nothing else. His existence is consumed with tracking, and a challenge is all he asks of life. Suddenly we’ve presented him with a beautiful challenge—a large clan of strong fighters all bent on protecting the one vulnerable element...

“I’ll tell you the mechanics of it,”

“but I don’t remember it myself, and I’ve never done it or seen it done, so keep in mind that I can only tell you the theory.”

“As predators, we have a glut of weapons in our physical arsenal—much, much more than really necessary. The strength, the speed, the acute senses, not to mention those of us like Edward, Jasper, and I, who have extra senses as well. And then, lik...

“We have another fairly superfluous weapon. We’re also venomous,”

“The venom doesn’t kill—it’s merely incapacitating. It works slowly, spreading through the bloodstream, so that, once bitten, our prey is in too much physical pain to escape us. Mostly superfluous, as I said. If we’re that close, the prey doesn’t escape. Of course, there are always exceptions. Carlisle, for example.”

“It takes a few days for the transformation to be complete, depending on how much venom is in the bloodstream, how close the venom enters to the heart. As long as the heart keeps beating, the poison spreads, healing, changing the body as it moves through it. Eventually the heart stops, and the conversion is fini...

“I love you,” I

“Could you believe that, despite everything I’ve put you through, I love you, too?”

“You see, the vampire who was so stupidly fond of this little victim made the choice that your Edward was too weak to make. When the old one knew I was after his little friend, he stole her from the asylum where he worked—I never will understand the obsession some vampires seem to form with you humans—and as soon as he freed her he made her safe. She didn’t even seem to notice the pain, poor little creature. She’d been stuck in that black hole of a cell for so long. A hundred years earlier and she would have been burned at the stake for her visions. In the nineteen-twenties it was the asylum and the shock treatments. When she opened her eyes, strong with her fresh youth, it was like she’d never seen the sun before. The old vampire made her a strong new vampire, and there was no reason for me to touch her then.”

“I destroyed the old one in vengeance.”

“Al...

“Yes, your little friend. I was surprised to see her in the clearing. So I guess her coven ought to be able to derive some comfort from this experience. I get you, but they get her. The one victim who escaped me, quite an honor, actually. “And she did smell so delicious. I still regret that I never got to taste… She smelled even better than...