I was just about to wrap my fingers around the vial when I heard a knock on the front door and yanked my hand back, horrified by my own behavior. Tristen was here. He would be sickened if he knew I’d stolen—tasted—the formula.
Slamming the drawer shut, I raced down the stairs and threw open the door. “Tristen . . .”
But it wasn’t Tristen who stood on the other side.
Chapter 74
Jill
“BECCA, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” I asked as she stepped into the foyer, uninvited.
“I have to talk to you,” she said. “Now.”
“This isn’t a good time.”
But Becca barged past me into the living room. “It won’t take long. I just need to tell you something. About Tristen.”
I knew, before she went any further, what she wanted to talk about. I knew that I was about to learn the truth about what had happened between my friend and the guy I loved over the course of the previous summer. And from the look on Becca’s face, that was a truth I didn’t want to know.
“Not now, Becca,” I said. “Please. Not now.”
Not right before Tristen was about to walk into the house, go with me up to my room . . .
“I know you guys are together,” she said. “But I also know a secret about him, Jill.”
I shook my head. “Becca . . . you don’t have to tell me—”
“I was with Tristen this summer,” she blurted. “We had sex. By the river. And he changed, Jill. Tristen changed, and it was scary. It was like he got . . . rough.”
Becca probably thought all the blood rushed from my cheeks because she’d just told me that Tristen had a violent side. But I’d lived through that. It was the admission that they’d had sex, that’s what sort of killed me. I’d suspected that they’d hung out. Kissed, maybe. But sex? “That’s enough,” I said. “You don’t need to tell me more. Please.”
“Jill.” She rested her hand on my shoulder. “You need to know this.”
“I don’t . . .”
“We were on the riverbank,” Becca continued, ignoring my protests, “and Tristen was kissing me, whispering this amazing stuff in my ear.” Although she was telling a story that was supposedly terrible, a smile started to play on her lips. “I swear, I was thinking that Tristen Hyde was, like, the best guy I’d ever been with.”
“Please, stop touching me,” I begged, pushing her hand away. Her hand that had touched Tristen. “Stop telling me this!”
But she was lost in memory and still had that small smile on her red lips. “I mean, we couldn’t tear each other’s clothes off fast enough!”
“Becca.” I couldn’t bear picturing Tristen undoing buttons on Becca’s shirt, her hands moving to his jeans . . . “Please!”
“Calm down, Jill.” She interrupted her story, jerking back to reality and shooting me a look of frustration. “It didn’t mean anything! We were just at a party and got carried away! You don’t have to get all jealous!”
I stared at her, speechless. How could I not be jealous? Becca had Tristen first and it hadn’t even really mattered to her. I knew that I was being irrational. They had been together before Tristen had even noticed me. And yet I couldn’t think logically. I just kept picturing them down by the river, Tristen whispering in Becca’s ear, removing her clothes . . .
“But suddenly,” she continued, “and I mean, right at the big moment, Tristen got different, and I was scared of him.” She paused, then added, like she was doing me a great favor, “I don’t want that to happen to you, Jilly.”
I glared at my “friend” through tears. “That” already had happened. I’d lived through the bad with Tristen. But Becca . . . she’d beaten me to the good part. Stolen it from me on a whim, without a second thought. And by doing so, and telling me too much, she’d stolen Tristen from me.
Of course, he was guilty, too. The searing, rending pain in my chest, the actual breaking of my heart . . . those were Tristen’s fault, too. This time he couldn’t blame his actions on an alter ego or a formula that my family had poisoned him with generations ago. Tristen had chosen, of his own free will, to have sex just for the hell of it, with my friend.
And me . . . I’d been so stupid to think that he considered what we were about to do special.
What had Tristen whispered to Becca before he’d changed? Had he looked into her eyes the same way he looked into mine? I clenched my fists, struck by a terrible thought. If things hadn’t gone wrong that night, would Tristen still be with beautiful Becca? Was Jill Jekel just a last resort yet again?
“Get out!” I cried, pointing to the door. “Just go!”
“Don’t be mad at me!” Becca was clearly surprised by my reaction. “I’m doing you a favor. And I didn’t think you would ever get together with him when we did it!”
“No?” I snapped. “Why not? Because Jill Jekel could never get a hot guy?”
“Jill . . .” she stammered. “I didn’t mean that . . .”
“Yes, you did!”
“Look. You’re way overreacting.” She jammed her hands into her pockets. “Christy Hitchcock’s parents are out of town. There’s a big party at her house tonight. Why don’t you come? It might help to be around people. Put things in perspective.”
“A party?” I was incredulous. “You think a party will fix what you just did?”
“You’re making a big deal out of nothing.” Becca sighed. “I mean, everybody has sex! You didn’t think Tristen Hyde was a virgin, did you?”
No, I hadn’t thought that, and yet . . . “Get out,” I ordered her again. “Just leave me alone!”
“Whatever.” She headed for the door. I got the sense that she felt like she’d met her obligation to me and was wiping her hands clean of the whole mess. “I still think the party would do you good. You spend too much time in this gloomy old house.”
The door slammed behind her, and I trudged upstairs and stood, once more, before my mirror.
Talk about a monster. The girl reflected there didn’t just disappoint me. She sickened me. She was so stupid, and naive, and grotesquely innocent. She’d been pointlessly waiting, dreaming of romance, of love, when everybody else was busy screwing, randomly and meaninglessly, taking whatever satisfaction they wanted with no regard for emotions.
What a fool she was. What a pathetic sucker.
I wanted to tear off her carefully ironed blouse with the same violence that the beast had started to use back in the lab. I wanted to yank off her plastic eyeglasses and grind them under my feet. I wanted to rip out her childish ponytail and chop off her mousy brown hair, hacking at it painfully with the dull blade of a knife.
Turning my back on Jill Jekel, I went to my dresser and hauled open the top drawer, digging until my fingers touched smooth glass. Grabbing the vial, I yanked out the stopper and raised the beaker to my lips.
As the formula trickled down my throat, the pain seized me, and within seconds I was on the floor, and I did yank out my ponytail and tear at my blouse as I writhed against the hardwood in agony, my stomach seeming to dissolve inside me.
But not once did I regret what I’d done. And when I managed to rise to my knees, shaking, shirt torn from throat to navel, hair wild, I crawled back to the mirror and looked at my face, a smile—a sneer—creeping across my lips and a gleam forming in my eyes.
Jill Jekel as I knew her was vanishing.
Chapter 75
Jill
WHAT A NICE BIG NEEDLE. How it gleams on the dresser. How sharp it will feel inside of me.
Slowly, slowly, I press the point against the flesh of my earlobe. The metal pierces deep, penetrating virgin skin, a bead of blood oozing out and trickling down the instrument to dribble across my fingers, making them sticky and warm.
Yes, yes . . .
The point erupts through the other side with an audible pop, and the deed is done. I withdraw the slick instrument, twisting it in the hole, savoring the sting, and the blood, dripping on my shoulder, stains ivory fabric.
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I raise the needle again, the process is repeated, and—both ears ravished—I go to Mrs. Jekel’s jewelry box, digging until I find two big gold hoops.
Absolutely perfect for a party.
Chapter 76
Tristen
“JILL?” I OPENED the back door a crack. “Are you here?”
When she didn’t answer, I entered the dark kitchen. “Jill? Sorry I’m late.”
But I was speaking to no one. The house was obviously empty.
Assuming that she had run out for a moment, I paced around, waiting for her—purposely avoiding the very thing that drew me.
That old Steinway in the corner.
Did I dare? My stomach twisted just to think about it, yet I did risk a glance.
Find out, Tristen. Have the guts to play. You’re alone, with no one to hear if you fail.
Taking a deep breath, I sat down, poised my fingers, and closing my eyes, I touched the keys, wincing as my broken wrist suffered the impact. But it wasn’t just the physical pain that struck me as I struggled to bring forth something, anything, worth hearing.
Yes, I could still play. I had technical skills and could create a melody.
But the inspiration, the darkness that had driven my best work—it was gone.
Pounding the keyboard, but impotently, I gave up and buried my face in my hands, mourning not just the loss of my talent but finally the thing that I’d killed, too.
The beast. We had been bitter enemies—and yet collaborators, too. I’d suspected so, for longer than I cared to admit. And when I’d drunk the formula, slaying the monster within, I really had murdered my talent, too.
Pressing my palms against my eyes, refusing to give in to weakness and break down, I couldn’t help but wonder. What would Grandfather have thought to see me stripped of my gift? Would he have said the bargain was a good one? Or that the price I’d paid for drinking the formula had been too high? Would Grandfather have perhaps ventured that the terrible beauty we’d both known I’d been destined to create might have been worth the price of even human life?
Long after the last notes died away, I sat in the silence, the absence of sound that would henceforth define my life, thinking that liberation from my demon wasn’t as sweet as I’d anticipated.
“You will drink again, Tristen, of your own free will . . .”
Those words echoed again in my mind, and I forced myself to think not of music but of the way the beast had pressed Jill against the lab table, wanting to violate her, kill her.
I finally rose, aware that I would probably never sit at a piano again, but grateful that at least I had Jill. Her life, her happiness, were worth any sacrifice.
But where in the world was she on such an important night?
Impatient, needing her, I went up the staircase, headed for her room, looking for some clue as to where she might have gone. And when I opened the door and switched on a light . . .
Oh, hell.
Chapter 77
Tristen
THE PARTY at Christy Hitchcock’s house was well underway when I arrived, pushing through the crowd of drunken Supplee Mill students, looking for Jill.
She had to be there somewhere. The party’s existence was common knowledge, and the phone book on Jill’s desk had been open to the correct page, as if she’d checked the address. Whoever “she” was . . .
“Jill’s not here, Tris.”
I felt the tap on my shoulder and spun around to find Becca Wright smiling. “Becca—what happened? Where is she?”
“Your girlfriend is totally out of control.” Becca laughed. “Totally!”
I knew that. The first thing I’d noticed when I’d entered Jill’s room was the distinctive smell of toxic chemicals. And the mess. Clothes were strewn everywhere. And then I’d seen the self-portrait on the easel. The wicked, wicked eyes that Jill had bestowed on herself.
Why had she drunk the formula?
“Is Jill here?” I repeated. “Is she all right?”
Becca rolled her eyes. “Oh, she’ll be fine. Your precious girlfriend just went off the deep end because I told her we slept together last summer.”
“You did what?” I demanded, fighting an almost overpowering urge to shake her violently. “But that’s a lie!”
“Whatever, Tris.” She sighed. “We practically did—before you freaked out. It’s splitting hairs.”
“We did not even come close, Becca!”
“We had our shirts off—”
“And our pants on.”
“Jill needed to know about you, Tristen,” Becca said, trying to sound grimly serious. But she couldn’t quite keep a smile from slipping across her lips. “I did her a favor.”
I glared down at the perky, malicious little cheerleader, seething with anger. I could tell, just from the smug look on her face, that Becca had told Jill we’d had sex to hurt her. Or maybe to break Jill and me apart. Because Jill would split hairs. For me—not some uncontrollable beast but me—to have slept with one of her few friends, that, of all the heinous things I’d done, might hurt her the most deeply. Might very well cause Jill to do something reckless and drastic.
I grabbed Becca’s arm. “Where is she?”
Becca laughed, knowing that she was about to wound me, too. “She just left—with Todd. They said something about going back to her house.”
God, no. Not Flick . . .
I released Becca and began to shove through the crowd. But she caught my wrist. “What?” I snapped, whirling on her. “What now?”
I expected her to deliver a cruel, final barb. However, she didn’t sound mean, only hurt, as she asked, “Tristen, why Jill? Why not me?”
“You told me to get away from you,” I said, confused.
“But you don’t even look,” she said, ego clearly bruised. “You only look at Jill.”
Becca was wrong to come between me and Jill simply because I’d hurt her pride, but I ended up saying, “I’m sorry.”
Then I plunged through the crowd and into the night, desperate to get to Jill before Todd got to her. Or vice versa. Honestly I didn’t know who was in greater danger.
Chapter 78
Jill
TODD FLICK THUDS DOWN on to the couch, foolishly believing he’s about to kick a field goal between my legs. I climb onto his lap, and he puts a clumsy hand on my waist. “I knew you wanted this,” he says. “You uptight girls always get crazy for sex sooner or later.”
“Oh, Todd,” I sigh. Such a pretty, pretty corpse he will be. And not much stupider in death than in life! I swing my legs around to straddle him. “Pretty, pretty Todd!”
“You’re weird, Jekel,” he says, eyes glazing over with the lust that will make him vulnerable. “But I kinda like it.”
“What about Darcy?” I pout. “Won’t she be mad?”
“I’m sick of that bitch,” Todd confides, clasping my hips with both hands and pressing me tighter against him. “She’s too bossy.”
“I won’t boss you, Toddy,” I promise. “You’ll be the man with me.” The dead man.
“No, you’ll do what I say, right?” Todd says, closing his eyes and licking his lips as I rub against him. “Whatever I say, right?”
“Oh, yes . . .”
Just as I lean forward prepared to kiss his disgusting lips and endure his fat tongue inside my mouth, the door erupts open and in bursts Tristen Hyde. The guy I really want.
Right on cue.
Chapter 79
Tristen
ALTHOUGH I KNEW that the girl writhing against Todd Flick wasn’t really Jill, the scene in the Jekel’s living room made me want to puke, or perhaps kill someone. And because I could never harm Jill—not any aspect of her—I chose Flick.
“Get the hell away from her,” I snarled, stalking toward them, tearing Jill off his lap and hauling Flick to his feet.
“Get off me, Hyde,” he snapped, pulling away. “This is none of your business.” He jabbed a thick finger at Jill. “She hit on me, dude!”
> I was all too conscious of the fact that I’d played a role in driving her to Flick, and I was fully aware that Jill was not really even in the room, yet his assertion nearly knocked the wind out of me. I’d never been jealous before, but this was Jill.
“I’m going to kill you,” I growled, advancing toward him, grabbing his shirt, and shaking him hard. “Did you kiss her? Did you touch her?”
Flick laughed. Actually laughed up into my face. “You ruined my season,” he spat. “And now I’m going to do your girlfriend. Tonight.” He pried at my fingers. “So let me go and get the hell out of here.”
I did let him go—just long enough to haul back my fist and smash it into the side of his jaw, sending him stumbling backwards. But he caught himself, regained his balance, and charged me, using his shorter stature to advantage by ramming me with his shoulder as if I were a tackling dummy on the practice field.
We both fell to the ground, Flick on top of me. I was so furious, though, that I easily rolled him off and pinned him to the floor. I was kneeling over his chest, not quite sure what I planned to do next—both of us regarding each other warily as we struggled for breath—when I felt a light tap on my shoulder.
“You dropped this,” a throaty, seductive, feminine voice said. “And I thought you might want it.”
I dared to look sideways and saw that my knife—blade open—was being offered to me by a delicate familiar hand.
And me . . . I accepted the weapon.
Chapter 80
Tristen
“DUDE!” FLICK’S EYES DARTED between the knife and my face. “What the . . . ?”
“The knife’s not for you,” I advised him, hurling the weapon across the floor so it spun under the couch. Then I rose off Flick, who scuttled backwards like a crab. “Get out of here,” I ordered him. “And never mention this—unless you want me to tell Darcy what you were doing. And trust me, she really would kill you.”