The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

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The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer

Baby Vampire Bree is with some slightly older, and really stupid, vampires, Kevin and Nameless Blond Kid, hunting in Seattle. Bree reads a newspaper headline about the bodies piling up in Seattle and knows that Riley, their leader, is going to be upset by it. They are supposed to keep a low profile and Kevin and Nameless Blond Kid are doing anything but. Currently they are pretending to be superheroes, Spider-Man and Hulk, and are smashing up cars and eating the passengers. Bree heaves an exasperated sigh and another vampire, Diego, who is older and more mature than the

idiots, notices. Diego is said to be Riley's

right-hand man. He leaves the grisly scene and Bree follows. 

Following Diego was the right thing to do and the two soon become friends. Diego is much more controlled and composed than the rest of the idiots Riley has acquired, and in chatting with him, Bree feels more in control of herself too. They take a break from running away to eat some prostitutes and then go for a swim in the sound to hide the corpses and then they eat some homeless and also hide those bodies. On their way back to Riley's current hideout, they come across the destruction left by Kevin and Nameless Blond Kid and sort it out to make it look slightly less like a vampire attack. Riley should be pleased. They decide to stop for some books and CDs and head back to the hideout before the sun rises and they burn up.

Unfortunately, when they arrive at the hideout, they find that it has been destroyed, which is not unusual when shoving 20+ idiot baby vampires into one small space for any length of time. Since the sun is almost up, Diego takes Bree to one of his secret places, an underwater cave, where they chat the day away and become instant BFFs and create a super-secret-ninja-club. They learn about each other's origin stories. Bree was a runaway hungry for a hamburger and Diego killed a guy who killed his little brother in some sort of gang altercation. They chat about Riley and some of the other vampires he's collected, Raoul, who is kind of a leader, but of a bunch of jerks, and Freaky Fred who is physically repulsive, but Bree uses him to shield herself. 

During this friendship montage, which ends with them kissing, so… not BFFs?, Diego shows Bree that they will not actually burn up in the sun like Riley has told them and instead they just become glittery disco balls. They decide that maybe Riley doesn't know that and that they should tell him, but they will do it close to dawn. Or, Diego will tell him while Bree hangs back in case something bad happens. When the sun goes down, they track the idiot baby vampire coven to their new location, which is at least 60 miles outside of Seattle, quite farther away than their normal hideout spots, but like, if you keep throwing people through walls and burning corpses inside, someone is bound to notice sooner or later, right? (Smokin’ Hot Billy Burke/Charlie knows bad things are happening in Seattle but none of the idiot baby vampires know this.)

Diego and Bree pretend to not be super-secret-kissing-ninja-BFFs and go inside the new house like Bree just pathetically followed Diego around. Raoul is not excited to see that Diego is back because Raoul is a jerk and then everyone starts fighting and suddenly everyone is disgusted or repulsed by Freaky Fred who is keeping Bree safe from all the fighting. He's actually a really great guy and Bree finally realizes even though she's still kind of repulsed by him.

Later, closer to dawn and glittery disco ball reveal time, Diego and Bree track Riley to a little gingerbread-looking house and hear what sounds like rocks clacking together but what is actually two vampires kissing. It's Riley and Victoria, though no one other than Riley knows that's her name or what she looks like or that she has a really bad wig. They overhear Victoria’s annoyance but also pleasure at the fact that Riley has amassed an army of 22 idiot baby vampires. There's a conversation about nearly losing two to the sun, definitely referring to Diego and Bree, and Victoria questions if that's really true and Riley swears that it is. Does that mean that Riley really doesn't know about the glittery disco ball sun or maybe does that mean that maybe they might have realized that they cannot be harmed by the sun and thus ran away?

Whatever it is that that means, Bree and Diego know that Victoria is not good and is planning something but don't know what, but they know it's going to be bad. Then four super goth vampires show up, and we know that it's the Volturi but Bree doesn't. They chat with Victoria about her plans and give her five more days to complete her task before they destroy them all since creating idiot baby vampires and not teaching them how to behave is illegal. When the Volturi leave, Diego sends Bree back and plans to chat with Riley alone about being glittery disco balls.

Bree hangs out with Freaky Fred when she gets back and it seems like he can turn off and on his repulsion and use it on whomever he wants to, and he doesn't want to use it on Bree. Not long later, Riley returns, but Diego does not and Bree is very worried. Riley pulls her aside and tells her that he needs her help with Fred and that Diego is on a secret mission with her and he wanted Riley to pass along the message that he's got the handshake figured out. It's very weird and Riley is acting suspiciously nice. Then he tells everyone about the seven Yellow-Eyed vampires.

Here Riley describes the Cullens, obviously, and says they are old and jealous of their newborn army, but says that they have powers and a pet human. He says they are not the only vampires, which duh, but most of the idiot baby vampires seem shocked. Then he drops an even bigger bombshell. They can go into the sun! Riley forces them to try it and it takes an inordinately long time, but they eventually see that the sun makes them glittery disco balls. HOWEVER! Riley tells them that they are only able to go into the sun on four specific days of the year and that this is one of them. And now for why he is telling them all this.

Riley wants his army to kill the Yellow-Eyes and says that whoever does gets to claim their pet human for dessert. He passes around her scent and they all find her mouthwatering. Next they have a training montage and then they all go to a ferry and eat all the passengers to prepare, which is not keeping a low profile. The super goth Volturi only gave Victoria five days to get everything settled and now, just four days later, the idiot baby vampires are ready to go fight.

Fred tells Bree that he doesn't intend on going with Riley and will use his powers of revulsion to make Riley forget about him and can do the same for her if she wants to join him. She does, but she's also worried about Diego. Fred will wait one day for Bree in a place called Riley Park, which he finds funny, but then he's going to disappear. 

All the idiot baby vampires rush to fight and, while they are running, Riley tells Bree that she just missed Diego’s scent and that he, Riley, is going to leave to find her because she said she was going to meet him somewhere and did not. Bree realizes that Riley is actually running away and that Diego is definitely already dead and probably has been since they split up the day that they super goth Volturi visited. 

All the idiot baby vampires die pretty much immediately and when Bree arrives, she is attacked by Carlisle who throws her into a tree, but then she says she doesn't want to fight and he says he doesn't either and so they don't. Esme approaches them then and then Jasper. Jasper doesn't agree with letting Bree live and knows that the Volturi won't either, but Carlisle and Esme insist that they try. 

Jasper makes Bree shut her eyes and then he covers her ears for the next several minutes while all the werewolves clear out and Jacob gets hurt which we know from Eclipse. Bree just thinks that Riley was lying to them all the entire time and that not only are there these strong vampires with yellow eyes, there are also howling vampires that exist. When Bree is allowed to open her eyes again, she sees and smells human Bella next to a vampire with red hair, who is presumably Edward even though he is not ginger. Bree is able to control herself enough not to attack and Bella wants to move away to help her, but then the Volturi come. 

Jane uses her power of pain to convince Bree to tell her what happened and she tries but doesn't really know anything because Riley lied to them all the time. Bree knows that one of the Yellow-Eyed vampires is a mind reader and suspects the redhead and mentally tells him everything she knows, which includes that the super goth Volturi knew what was going on the whole time. As we all know, the super goth Volturi don't offer second chances and kill Bree, but she knew it was going to happen anyway and is happy to be dead with Diego.