I lick my lips and clasp the knife more tightly. My palm is wet against the hilt, as if her blood is already spilling across my fists.
“Tristen, “she whispers again. “Where are you?”
Her voice is musical, a siren song to my ears. But I won’t be the one to crash upon the river rocks at our feet.
I step up behind her, unable to wait a moment longer for the satisfaction that I seek. “Hello, love,” I whisper directly into her ear. “Boo!”
She starts, nearly screaming, but I stifle her cry, not with my hand across her mouth, but with a firm, reassuring palm upon her trembling stomach, and a soft, nuzzling kiss to her throat: a kiss that makes her groan in dismay and laughter and relief—and desire. “Oh, Tristen . . .”
She relaxes back against my chest, and I can feel her smile as I run my lips up to her ear, teasing her. “Did you wait long? Did you start to wonder if I would arrive?”
“No, Tristen,” she says, those angel wings pressing against my chest. “No, I trusted you. I trust you.”
“As you should, love,” I tell her, withdrawing my other hand from behind my back and swinging the blade slowly around until it presses against her throat. Another surprise! “As you should.”
“Tristen?” She is confused at first. She does not understand. “What . . . ?”
“Trust me,” I whisper to her, lips twitching with mirth, like the jerking legs of a hanged man in his last moments. “This . . . this will be beautiful. Beautiful like you.”
“Tristen!” she wails, realizing my betrayal, fighting in my arms. “Tristen? This isn’t funny. Tristen!”
Tristen, Tristen, twisting against Tristen. The harmonious words play in my mind, pleasing me further. Making a wonderful moment even more delicious.
She continues her pointless struggle, writhing against me, fighting to spin, and I yield slightly, wanting the pleasure of seeing her face as she dies.
“Tristen!” she screams, turning to confront me, accuse me, implore me—and her eyes, her unusual hazel eyes, are so wide, so round as I plunge the knife deep, deep inside of her, loving her for her sacrifice, for sharing the blood that flows across my hand dripping down my wrist.
“Tristen!” she cries, using her last few breaths to call my name, collapsing into my embrace. I hold her body, which is growing limp, and watch the life drain from her chest and her eyes. Still, on the brink of oblivion, she needs to know.
“Why, Tristen? Why?”
I awoke at dawn exhausted, spent, and shoved my hands deep under my pillow, too terrified to look at them, because I wasn’t really sure, not until I’d finally summoned the courage to withdraw them, shaking, my whole body wracked with tremors . . .
Until I saw that my palms were wet with sweat and not blood . . .
Until that moment I wasn’t really sure if I’d murdered Jill Jekel. I’d been at her house. Drugged her mother to save myself. Yelled at Jill, unfairly. Destroyed that kiss I’d wanted so badly.
I rolled onto my side, unable to look away from my clean hands, the only proof of what little innocence I had left.
Jill.
It had never been Becca Wright, as I’d believed. Of course it hadn’t been. All along the beast inside me had wanted Jill. Just as I did.
I swung my feet to the floor and pulled on my clothes, not bothering to shower.
If I didn’t cure myself that night—if the experiment didn’t work—well, I didn’t think anyone would give a damn about how my lifeless body smelled when it was discovered on the floor of Mr. Messerschmidt’s chemistry lab.
After a moment’s consideration, I assembled my textbooks, deciding to attend classes. School would provide a diversion—a sense of normalcy—while I waited for the day to pass so I could enter the empty building again, alone, at night.
Still, as I shoved the books into my bag, I thought that I was curiously calm for a man who was probably destined to die that day.
Perhaps I was composed because, as I’d awakened from the dream of Jill Jekel’s murder, I’d realized, with dead certainty, that I loved her. Maybe we loved her, I and the beast that I harbored. We were both drawn to Jill’s innocence, her wide-eyed trust, the fragile way she yielded to us—and the subtle strength that held us both accountable for our varying degrees of sin.
The difference was the beast wanted to shed Jill’s blood: consummation by destruction. But I—I had awakened more than willing to shed my own blood on her behalf.
I slung my messenger bag over my shoulder and left the house, striding into the morning sunlight. It was really just a matter of who would act first.
Chapter 38
Jill
I FOUND TRISTEN AT LUNCH sitting on the bleachers, just far enough from the usual crowd of stoners and hard cases to define himself as the loneliest of the loners. Or more accurately, the king of the loners. A monarch too proud to sit with commoners. As I picked my way across the seats, he watched me, and raised his hand. I thought he was about to wave, then realized he was putting a cigarette to his mouth.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” I said when we were close enough to speak.
“Every prep school kid in England smokes now and then,” he said, taking a deep drag then exhaling into the brisk, chilly air. “Are you going to lecture me? Is this worse than swearing?”
“It doesn’t seem good for a runner,” I said, thinking Tristen seemed in a strange mood, even given the terrible events of the night before. Or maybe it was his sunglasses, which obscured his eyes, that made him seem remote. I shaded my own eyes, trying to see him better. “You’ll let your team down, won’t you? You’re their leader—”
“I might not be running much longer,” he interrupted with a shrug.
“Not running?” Although I was done with Tristen and had sought him out only to get back the Jekels’ documents, I felt uneasy on his behalf. I sat down, the metal chilly against my legs. “Why not?”
He didn’t answer me. Instead he held out the cigarette. “Drag?”
I recoiled, holding up a hand. “No, thanks.”
“Good girl,” he said with a small smile. “Don’t succumb to vice.”
I studied his face, wishing he’d take off the sunglasses. “Tristen . . .” Where should we start?
“How’s your mother?” he asked, stubbing out the cigarette.
“She was groggy, but okay when I left.”
“Did she mention—?”
“No,” I said. “It was like you predicted. She doesn’t seem to remember anything.”
“Good.”
We gazed out over the empty football field, where Todd Flick would have played his final glorious games if Tristen hadn’t ended Todd’s season before it had hardly started. “Tristen,” I said, “I need the box back. And the list.”
“Sure, Jill.” He surprised me by agreeing. Of course, there was a caveat. “Tomorrow.”
“I—I’d like them today. Please.”
“Everything will be yours tomorrow,” Tristen said. “Just be patient for one more day.”
Tomorrow? “Tristen, what are you doing tonight?” I asked.
“You’re a smart girl, Jill,” he said. “One of the smartest people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. Surely you can guess.”
“You’re going to start drinking the solutions.”
“The last solution,” he clarified, still staring out across the field. Then he turned to me and smiled, and I saw a hint of his usual wry humor. “Solution. I never thought how appropriate the word is, did you? Might it really be the solution for me?”
“Tristen,” I said, growing alarmed—even though I never wanted to see or talk to him again after I got the box and list back. “If nothing happens, if you don’t feel anything, how will you even know . . . ?”
I couldn’t seem to express all the thoughts that were whirling through my head. If he drank a solution and survived, how would he know if he was cured? And if he didn’t feel cured, what would that mean? What would he do?
“Don’t worry,”
he said. “I’ve got a plan of action. And I promise you, as of tomorrow, all of the things that do rightly belong to the Jekels will be back in your possession.”
He stood up, brushing the cold cigarette to the ground under the bleachers, where it joined about a thousand dead comrades. “Now I’ve really got to go.”
“Where?”
Tristen didn’t answer. He took wide steps down across the bleacher seats, and when he reached the bottom, I couldn’t help but call after him, even though I didn’t care what happened to him. “Tristen?”
He turned. “Yes, Jill?”
“The last formula . . . what is the salt tainted with?”
Tristen smiled, white teeth flashing in the bright sunlight. “Don’t worry. It’s nothing too deadly.”
He was making a joke. But I’d come to know the mysterious Tristen Hyde just well enough to know that he wasn’t really joking.
I watched as he walked, seeming completely relaxed, across the football field, headed away from school and toward who knew where.
When he was about fifty yards away, I noticed that Tristen had left a nearly full pack of cigarettes on the bleachers where he’d been sitting.
One last cigarette . . . Through with running . . . I’d get the box back tomorrow . . .
I realized, then, that I was watching a guy who was pretty sure he was doomed. A person who was prepared to do desperate things. I clambered down the bleachers, thinking I should chase after him and beg him to be reasonable.
When my feet hit the ground, though, I thought about my mom lying drugged on the couch, her heart just barely beating, and I stopped following him.
Turning back toward school, I told myself that I wasn’t responsible for anything Tristen Hyde might do. My family and I, none of us Jekels could be blamed for the history or the fate of the Hydes.
Chapter 39
Tristen
AS THE SUN SET, I emptied my school books from my bag and replaced them with the box and my notes—and one last item I’d purchased at a hardware store on the way home from school. Inside myself, deep within my brain—my soul—the beast wriggled, clearly understanding that something was happening to both of us. It was the first time I’d consciously ever felt us coexist, and the sensation was at once alarming and reassuring.
The thing inside of me was growing stronger, asserting itself—which meant that I was right to stop it, even if that meant ending my life.
I’d never thought much about heaven and hell, but as I closed my bag with the vial of rat poison—deadly strychnine—inside, I wondered, briefly, what the verdict would be if I stood in judgment that night. Some people believed suicide doomed a soul to hell. But Christ himself had been born to sacrifice his life.
I hoisted my bag, thinking the point was moot, anyway. I would do what I needed to do.
Walking down the hallway, I passed my father’s office. The door was open, and the room dark. Dad was at the university as usual. His home computer, at which he used to work so often, sat abandoned on his desk.
I hesitated, thinking that I would probably die without ever knowing just who he was, how much of Dad was left—and how much the beast controlled.
On a whim I set down everything that I carried and went to his computer, thinking that perhaps I’d drop him a line. A farewell note explaining what I’d done and what I knew for certain about both of us. Logging onto his machine, which clicked and whirred in the dark room, I called up the word processing program and actually started to smile, mentally composing my message.
Dear Dad . . . Guess what your insubordinate son’s done now!
I actually typed that line and hit “save,” not wanting my work to disappear inadvertently like its author. The prompt popped up asking me what I wanted to call the letter. I smiled more broadly, nearly laughing at the absurdity. What else but “suicide note”?
I typed “su,” and the computer automatically began to file alphabetically. And what should I notice but a document in my father’s personal files entitled “SubjugateHydeJrnl1.doc.”
Curiosity piqued by the strange title, so relevant to my own plans for the evening, I saved and temporarily abandoned my note, then opened my father’s work.
Scrolling and skimming, with increasing speed and heightening amazement, I leaned toward the screen, unable to believe my eyes.
Chapter 40
Jill
“HOW’S THE SOUP, MOM?” I asked, sitting down on the edge of her bed.
She rested against a nest of pillows, spooning broth into her mouth in a steady rhythm. “It tastes good. Thank you, Jill.”
I smiled, thinking that even that simple comment was another breakthrough. Mom wasn’t starving herself anymore, and some food even tasted good. “You look better tonight,” I said. “You have more color.”
“I feel better.” Mom set the empty bowl on her nightstand and closed her eyes. “Tired from a full day at the hospital, but stronger overall.”
“Good.” I reached for the sedatives she still took at night. As I uncapped the bottle, I looked closely at her face.
My mother was still pale and slept a lot. But whatever Dr. Hyde was doing, it really was working. Not only was Mom lucid all day, but she even smiled now and then. Not the forced, pained grimace I’d gotten used to but a real, if tentative, smile.
I handed her the pills, and as I reached for her water glass, I noticed the clock on her nightstand.
It was just after ten o’clock. Would Tristen be at the school yet? Would he be getting ready . . . ?
It didn’t matter, I reminded myself, offering Mom the water. It was his life and his problem. There was nothing I could or should do.
“Jill.” Mom interrupted my thoughts.
I looked over to see that she was holding out the empty glass, which I accepted. “Yes?”
“Dr. Hyde . . .” She closed her eyes, preparing to drift off to sleep. “He’s really helping me. We’ve sorted so much out. And I realize now how much I’ve let you down since your father died.”
“No, Mom.” I set down the glass and took her hand. “You’ve been sick.”
“Yes, that’s what Frederick says,” Mom agreed. “But still, I feel awful to think how much you’ve had to handle.”
“It’s no big deal,” I reassured her. Yet a part of me was thinking, “Frederick”? Not “Dr. Hyde”? Was that weird or did most patients address their therapists so informally? “Just keep getting better, Mom,” I said. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”
“You’re a strong girl, Jill.” Mom squeezed my hand, starting to sound groggy. “Thank you for taking such good care of me. And please say thank you, too, to Frederick’s son . . .”
“Tristen,” I reminded her. Had Tristen drugged her so effectively that she’d forgotten his name, even?
“Yes, Tristen.” Mom choked a little, and I was surprised to see a tear run down her cheek. “If it wasn’t for you asking him and his intervention . . . I don’t know if I’d even be here today,” she said, voice thick with emotion. “You have no idea how close I was to giving up . . .”
“Don’t say that, Mom,” I cried. “You wouldn’t have—”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But you shouldn’t worry now. The last few months are starting to seem like a bad dream. I would never hurt myself, not now.”
All at once, I felt myself starting to choke, my throat tightening.
Mom wouldn’t do anything crazy. But Tristen might—that very night. At that very moment, he might be ingesting something dangerous . . .
My eyes darted to the clock again. Almost ten fifteen.
“Tell him when you see him, Jill,” Mom added, in the sleepy voice that always told me when the medicine was taking effect, “that I will never forget what he did for me. Frederick said that Tristen spoke so powerfully on our behalf that he felt compelled to take my case . . .” Her voice trailed off, the pills and warm soup and the effort of confiding so much taking their toll.
“I will, Mom,” I pro
mised, forgetting in that moment everything that Tristen had done to her. I stood up, feeling sick and filled with terror and remorse. If I didn’t try to stop him, his blood would be on my hands. “I have to go.”
“Where, Jill?” Mom murmured. But she sounded barely awake.
“Out,” I said. “I need to thank Tristen—right now!”
Mom was already dozing, though, and I didn’t think she knew that I’d left her. Closing her bedroom door behind me, I darted down the hallway, pausing only to grab my backpack and a paper clip from my desk, and praying that I wasn’t too late.
Chapter 41
Tristen
I HAD DIFFICULTY picking the lock at the school. My hands shook almost uncontrollably—not in anticipation of the fate that I probably faced, but due to what I’d just read on my father’s computer.
A draft of a journal article. A piece that he’d obviously planned as his magnum opus. An exploration into the troubled psyche of none other than Dr. Frederick Hyde. The doctor as patient—and savior, too. An article that convinced me that my father had been overwhelmed and defeated, months ago—that I lived with only the beast.
I jabbed the paper clip into the lock, mastering my fingers and gaining entry.
With typical hubris, my father had been confident that he could vanquish the monster, armed with nothing more than self-analysis and an arsenal of pharmaceuticals.
As I closed the door behind me and walked into the silent school, passages that were burned in my mind came back to me verbatim.
I have come to believe that the Hydes are, indeed, subject to a genetic anomaly . . . The dreams intensify . . . Regression therapy ineffective . . . Yet I remain confident of a solution . . .
The document chronicled months of self-examination and the methods my father had employed to gain control of the nasty soul that fought to emerge. These passages were interrupted by extensive notes on cases that Dad had deemed similar and the long-term, even trans-generational, effects of certain chemical compounds on the human body.
The article was raw, unedited, but in the powerful sweep of Dad’s self-assured prose, I could read his excitement, his desire to battle the beast and win. Dad had never once doubted that he would be the victor—even as I could clearly see him losing, in his own words. Last night—three hours lost—awoke frustrated . . .