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.
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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?
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"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 promised, 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.
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***
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,
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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...
I made my way down the corridor where in just a few hours teachers and students would flood. If I did die, who would be the first to find me? That idiot Messerschmidt? Would he scream to see my body? Would there be blood, given what I was about to drink? Would it pour from my mouth, spilling from my corroded stomach?
I picked the lock on the classroom door, fingers more sure. My father had also chronicled his excitement upon finding and teaming with an unidentified American collaborator who was so clearly Dr. Jekel.
Have located and begun correspondence with
U.S. chemist who believes himself in possession of valuable
documentation and taken him into confidence... Begun efforts to
relocate temporarily in hopes of collaborating... If successful, the
potential to secure both our reputations is tremendous ...
Implications for treating personality disorders... criminal
rehabilitation ... social controls...
My father had written of finding Dr. Jekel through simple genealogical research. And reading between the lines, I could see that Dad had then used a potent combination of guilt and the promise of fame and fortune to convince Jill's father to help him find a cure for his looming madness. Judging from some of the passages, I found that my father had not only expected to save himself; he'd sold Dr. Jekel on grandiose dreams of potentially using their findings to revolutionize the treatment of
everyone
with criminal impulses.
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Jekel and Hyde's magic formula for a safer society! How ironic was
that
fantasy?
I locked myself inside the chemistry room and thumped my bag onto my lab table, not hesitating for fear that the slightest falter would cause me to rethink the whole doomed adventure. For I was all but certain that the formula would never work. The odds were too long--and the potion itself too toxic.
Dad, though, had believed that he and Dr. Jekel were drawing close to an answer.
My collaborator feels confident that a
breakthrough ... that SUCCESS... is imminent...
And then, abruptly, the proposed journal article had been abandoned. The last saved date was close to the previous Christmas. Not long before the murder of Dr. Jekel.
Glass clinking against glass, I assembled the implements and ingredients that I needed and moved quickly to mix the chemicals, unable to push away the question that gnawed at my mind: should I kill my father before I risked killing myself?
If I did so, I would almost certainly be avenging Jill's father's death and probably gain retribution for my own mother's murder, not to mention saving future victims. Because the beast that had overtaken Dad
would
kill again.
But, god forgive me, I kept working alone in the school. Perhaps a small part of me clung to the faint, faint hope that the formula which I hurriedly mixed, which bubbled and seethed in the Erhlenmeyer flask, might actually save me and enable me to bring my father back, too.
Or perhaps I was a coward, unable to murder, along with the beast, the man who had given me life. The stern, demanding, undemonstrative egomaniac who had nevertheless written, at the very
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start of his most important work, a draft dedication:
For my son,
Tristen--that I may save him, too.
I worked hurriedly but with precision, checking my notes and mixing the chemicals.
Addition half litre filtered water...
Messerschmidt would have been in awe had he witnessed my efforts.
And finally, as the modern Dr. Jekel's document indicated, I added the strychnine to the already dangerous potassium
dichromate and poured that lethal mix into the flask.
Strychnine. An alkaloid mistakenly believed medicinal back in the nineteenth century. A chemical that would have been commonly found in pharmacies, and which, in the amount that I held, would indeed shake the drinker to his very core.
Refusing to think further, to consider the future, the way the solution might feel as it seared my throat, paralyzed my lungs, I raised the flask before my eyes, toasting my own fate, and was actually about to say "cheers" when I heard my name screamed from the doorway.
"Tristen! Stop!"
Chapter 42
Jill
"TRISTEN, DON'T,"
I begged when I saw his hand hesitate. My backpack slid from my shoulder, thumping to the floor, and I stepped closer. "Please. Let's talk first."
"How did you even get in here?" he asked, confused, fingers wrapped around the throat of a flask that was filled to the brim. He looked to the door. "I locked that..."
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"I just picked it," I said, opening my hand to show him the paper clip. "Like you taught me."
"Oh, hell," Tristen groaned. "I should never have shown you--"
"What's in there, Tristen?" I edged even nearer, terrified that he would tilt the flask to his mouth and drain it dry before I could reach him. "What's in the formula? How is the salt altered?" He didn't answer the question. "I think you should go now, Jill." A cold knot formed in the pit of my stomach. "Tristen ... what is in there?"
He still didn't answer but set down the flask and came around the table, stopping me with two firm hands around my upper arms.
"Jill," he said, boring into my eyes, "you
really
need to go." I knew then that whatever Tristen Hyde was about to drink, it wasn't just dangerous; it was probably deadly. He didn't look scared. He looked resigned and determined, and that expression tipped me off more than raw terror would have. I'd seen that look on Tristen's face the day he'd first asked me to help him with the experiment. The day he'd promised to commit suicide if he couldn't cure himself.
"Tristen, you don't really believe this will help you, do you?" I asked, fighting back emotions that were about to overwhelm me and make me irrational. Fear at the prospect of seeing somebody actually die. And something more. Terror at the prospect of losing Tristen. Forever. I wouldn't be able to bear it. Because even if he didn't love me back, I loved him.
Loving him was stupid and pointless and maybe wrong. He was dangerous and arrogant, and he broke every rule that I followed, and lured me to break them, too. But I knew in that moment that it was true: I had somehow fallen in love with a guy who
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was about to take his own life. "You're killing yourself, aren't you?" I asked, hating that my voice broke.
"Perhaps," Tristen admitted. "Of course, I hope that the formula will save me. But there is a strong chance that I might not survive drinking it."
Although I'd suspected that, hearing him say it made my blood run cold.
"Why now?" I asked, trying to reason with him. "Why not wait, Tristen? You're not even
sure
the beast is real. Not one hundred percent!"
"I'm sure, Jill," he said evenly, still holding my arms. His fingers tightened slightly around me. "I am positive." I searched his face, almost like I was looking for some hint of the monster in his eyes. But all I saw was Tristen: complicated, sometimes frightening, occasionally violent, even. But also capable of great good, great warmth, a willingness to sacrifice his
life
for others. For Becca, in particular, if my suspicions were right.
"How do you know?"
"I dreamed last night," he said.
"You've dreamed before."
"This time I concluded the dream," Tristen confided. "I finally saw the outcome ... the actual
murder."
"That doesn't mean anything!"
"I saw her face, Jill," he continued, loosening his grip on my arms, not so much restraining me as just holding me. "I saw her face as she died. As the monster killed her."
"I don't understand ... You knew all along who it was." Becca. How in that awful moment could I be jealous again? But I was.
"No, Jill," Tristen said, brown eyes miserable, "I was wrong. He didn't kill a silly cheerleader."
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"No?" My voice sounded strangled in my throat, because somehow ... some clue in the way he was looking at me gave me the answer to the question I was about to ask before I could even voice it. "Who--who was it, Tristen?"