"You, Jill," he said. "I--he--murdered
you."
Not Becca, but me ...
We stood together in the lonely classroom: me and a guy I loved who swore that something inside of him wanted to kill me. Yet I wasn't afraid of him.
Trust me,
Tristen had said.
And somehow I did.
I
was
scared, but not for me. Just for him--even when Tristen, pinning my arms, revealed very matter-of-factly, "He wants to kill you right now, Jill. And not just in fantasy."
And how could I describe the way it felt when Tristen pulled me closer--voice throaty with what I thought were sadness and need--how could I ever capture how it felt when he said, "It's been you all along, Jill. He wants you as much as I do. But I'll be damned, genuinely
damned,
before I let him have you." It was maybe the world's sickest declaration of affection, complete with a touch of black humor, but it rang as perfect to my ears. Tristen cupped my chin in one hand then and bent over me, wrapping his other arm around my waist, and I had my first real kiss with a boy--a
man
... a monster and a martyr, who might very well be dead in the next few minutes.
Of course Jill Jekel wouldn't have a normal kiss good night at the front door after a movie or a school dance.
Of course a relationship that started at the edge of one grave would culminate on the brink of another.
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Of course that first kiss would not just be to say good night but probably goodbye.
Chapter 43 Tristen
OH, HOW THE BEAST INSIDE
of me roared and snapped and snarled when I finally kissed
Jill Jekel the way I'd wanted to for--how long?
Could I trace my attraction to that night in the diner when she'd walked by the window, her demure lace blouse somehow more intriguing than Becca Wright's skintight T-shirt? Or had it started in chemistry class, where I watched that glossy ponytail swinging in hypnotic rhythm? Was that when she'd first mesmerized me?
Or had it been the day I'd held her at her father's funeral, felt her cling to me, so in need of strength, protection?
How ironic that as those soft, pink lips finally pressed against mine, uncertainly, and as Jill's hands fluttered to find their proper place--my shoulders? hips? chest?--and as her mouth yielded to my gentle pressure, opening so I could feel her timid tongue against mine one time before my own mouth was seared and wrecked forever ... How ironic that a kiss born of a desire to protect was all but overwhelmed by my struggle to control a force within me that wanted nothing less than to destroy Jill herself. As she hesitantly drew closer into my embrace, resting against me, the beast wriggled in my soul, trying to break free, to take control.
Stop now, Tristen,
I told myself.
Stop before you black out.
Tristen
152
Stop before you do something that can never be undone.
Yet the feel of Jill in my arms, the exhilarating, intoxicating mix of passion and tenderness that she elicited in me--it was like nothing I'd ever felt with any other girl, and I couldn't quite bring myself to make the feeling end. I wanted the kiss to go on and on, fairly certain that it was my last, completely certain that it was the best, and I drew Jill even closer to me, hungry for her, a condemned man trying to savor his last meal even as he hears the
construction of the scaffold just outside the cell.
"Oh, Jill," I murmured, wanting to tell her that I loved her. Wanting to say so much but not wanting to pull away long enough to say it.
"Jill," I whispered, nuzzling against her soft, soft cheek, hoping she heard everything I wanted to express just in the way I spoke her name.
"Tristen ..." I heard my emotions echoed in Jill's voice, too. Sad, desperate bliss like my own. Her heart raced against my chest. And I heard something else, too, intruding upon my thoughts.
"Yes, Tristen..."
Its voice.
As I folded Jill to me, caressing her back, stroking her throat with my thumb, the words echoed softly but clearly from somewhere deep inside of me. A place that I was only beginning to recognize. I'd felt the beast twisting within. But this was the first time I heard it
speak.
Stop, Tristen,
I told myself--even as I continued kissing Jill. The attraction, the passion, escalating as she ventured to slip her hands around my neck.
Just one more minute, Tristen, and then
never touch her again ...
I thrust my hand into Jill's hair, nearly dislodging her ponytail, 153
hurrying the kiss, knowing that I couldn't continue much longer.
"Jill, Jill," I groaned when we both wasted a precious moment separating, needing oxygen to fuel an escalating intensity. I wanted her so badly. Wanted more than this before I died. "Oh, Jill..."
My own voice sounded strange in my ears. Yet somehow familiar. A voice I'd just heard.
Hurry,
I told myself.
Hurry or stop ...
"Don't stop ... Don't stop ..."
Shutting out the command, silencing my now vocal foe, I tried to focus on Jill, tightening my arm around her waist, my lips grazing her throat.
"Her soft, soft throat..."
"Tristen," Jill murmured, sounding breathy but a little nervous as I nipped at her neck, hearing myself make a low growl of need.
"Tristen?"
"Yes, love," I murmured against her ear. "Yes ..."
"Yes, yes..."
Yes...
Just another moment, and I would release her forever.
"Oh, Jill..."
I didn't mean to be rough or desperate, but time was running out, and I clamped hard upon her mouth, our lips grinding together, my hand digging into her hair.
"Take her, Tristen ... And what you start I will finish ..."
No... No...
My head began to ache from the struggle, a crushing pain, and I sensed that I was losing. Yet I couldn't stop kissing her. This was my last chance ... I clasped her more firmly, moving her back against the desk, trapping her, pressing our bodies together. Her hips wriggled against mine.
"That's right. She wants this, too. Don't listen, if she protests. She
wants this..."
154
"Tristen," Jill cried out softly, her hands no longer uncertain as I crushed her against the table. No, her palms were pressing against my chest, pushing back against me. Against
us.
"Ignore her. Trap her there. Bend her backwards..."
"No, Tristen!" Jill called more loudly. More insistently, as if she knew that I was far away and she was desperate to reach me.
"STOP! PLEASE!"
I was so far gone, losing to the beast, that I scarcely heard her. But her plea, the sound of her voice--the voice that I loved--it was enough to reach me even as everything began to grow black.
"Stop, Tristen," Jill whimpered, on the verge of tears. "Please ... stop ..."
Like the dream. It was just how she sounded in the dream. Without a word I snatched my hands away, released her
squirming body, and stepped back, dragging the back of my hand across my mouth, which was wet with my saliva, Jill's saliva. We were both breathing hard, almost panting. Her slender shoulders heaved. And her beautiful hazel eyes were wide with fear. My stomach clenched to see the terror there.
No. I hadn't wanted that. Never. Never to scare her. Or
hurt her.
"I'm sorry, Jill," I whispered. "So sorry." I'd almost failed to protect her. I'd wanted to be with her so badly that I'd almost been complicit...
Jill stared at me, face pale, hands raised slightly as if to ward me off should I step toward her.
"Oh, god." I buried my face in my hands, afraid that I might break down. Too sickened to face that look in her eyes. "Oh, god, no." We stood apart in silence--as distant as we'd just been close. Jill 155
didn't try to touch me, and I didn't try to excuse or explain myself, although I longed to tell her that I wasn't like that. I wasn't a guy who would ... Especially not with her ... And yet--I almost had ...
"Tristen?" Jill finally prompted, voice quiet. I heard the faint sound of the slipperlike shoes that she always wore tapping against the linoleum and then felt a tentative hand on my shoulder, and I nearly did break down.
She was better than me. Braver than me. She should have run screaming for help. Yet she
touched
me.
Dragging my shaking fingers through my hair, I stepped out of her reach and turned my back on her, unworthy of her concern and unable to show my face. "Leave, Jill. Please. Leave." She didn't listen to me. Instead she stepped closer and stroked my shoulder. "Tristen ... was that... ?" She seemed unable to finish the question. But I understood.
Was that the beast? Or you?
"It doesn't matter," I said. "It doesn't matter now, Jill." Straightening my shoulders, I went to the lab table, not giving her a moment to protest--if indeed she even thought of protesting. I raised the foul-smelling flask to my lips and without hesitation drank as much as I could, downing the disgusting brew in huge thirsty gulps, heedless of dosage, heedless of the havoc the strychnine would wreak on my body, because at that point I didn't give a damn about a cure, and I wanted the agony. I'd seen the look in Jill's eyes--the betrayal, the terror--and I wanted nothing less than to kill both the beast and
myself.
Nothing less would do to punish what I'd nearly done.
Beast or no beast--I'd been there, too.
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***
Chapter 44
Jill
HE HAD TO CURE HIMSELF.
I told myself that as I watched Tristen raise the dark concoction in the beaker to his mouth.
I'd felt and heard the beast start to overtake him when we'd kissed. Felt Tristen slipping away from me, becoming somebody, something, completely different. The boy who'd first touched his lips to mine and the
animal
that had tried to pin me against the desk: they were two different beings entirely. They felt, spoke, looked, even
smelled
different. Tristen's skin itself had roughened, and his beautiful, warm brown eyes had taken on a gray, metallic sheen.
The shift had been barely perceptible. If he hadn't been so close to me, pressing against me, breathing on me, I might not have been sure I'd seen it. But I had. The beast was real. And I'd met it. It was a monster, and it had to be stopped.
If it was killed, I could have Tristen ... the real Tristen. We could kiss again without being afraid.
Looking back, I think that's why I waited so long before begging him to stop drinking. It was selfish, really, what I did. I wanted Tristen so badly that I would risk even
Tristen
to have him.
Selfish, selfish, selfish Jill.
I was so caught up in the hope that Tristen would somehow be cured that at first I didn't even realize we'd never talked about dosage. It wasn't until he'd drunk almost half the contents of the flask--drinking so quickly that some liquid spilled over the lip of 157
the vessel, and over Tristen's lips, and poured down his throat, too--only then, when he doubled over clutching his stomach, did I realize that Tristen wasn't trying to cure himself. He was killing himself right before my eyes ... and I'd let him do it.
"No, Tristen!" I finally screamed, running to him. But I was too late.
Chapter 45
Jill
"TRISTEN, NO!"
I wailed, kneeling next to him, clutching his shuddering shoulder. "You drank too much!" I shook him. "What was it? What was in it?"
Tristen didn't answer. Maybe he couldn't answer. He writhed on the hard linoleum floor, arms wrapped around his stomach, groaning and sort of
growling
like he really struggled not only with the pain but with the monster, too.
"What was it, Tristen?" I begged, shaking him more gently.
"Please. Tell me. We could try to neutralize it!" Tristen only curled more tightly against himself, breathing hard and raggedly, and I jumped up, tearing through the notes, the packets and vials of chemicals--And then I saw it.
A small
half-empty
bottle of strychnine.
"No!" I cried, snatching up the vial. It was
poison.
His muscles would be seizing painfully, and soon his breathing would stop ... Tossing aside the bottle, I dropped next to him again, only to see that he'd gotten quiet. A stillness that was worse than his writhing agony. Was he past pain? Past help? "I'll get an ambulance," I 158
promised, choking back tears, feeling for the faint pulse that beat in his wrist. He was dying ... dying right before my eyes. I started to crawl away, scrambling for my backpack, where I kept my cell phone--only to be stopped by a firm hand snapping around my ankle with the force of a bear trap.
"Tristen, let go!" I begged, spinning back and tearing at his fingers. He was still curled in a ball, but his grip was remarkably strong, like he'd drawn power from the pain itself. "I have to get help!"
"No," he ordered, sucking ragged breaths. His grasp was strong, but his voice was weak, almost inaudible. "I don't want that... and I don't want you ... involved--"
"But you're ... you're ..." I couldn't bring myself to say "dying."
"I know," he said, fingers clutching even more tightly around my ankle as a wave of pain washed over him, causing him to grimace and shudder again more forcefully. "It's what... I want, Jill."
"Tristen." I was sobbing by then. "Please ..."
"Just... stay with me. Stay until... Then leave me here I hesitated, wanting to save him, longing to help him. He was getting weaker, fainter, falling away from me, and I probably could have unwrapped his fingers from around my leg. But Tristen didn't want to be saved. Probably
couldn't
be saved.
And in the end, whether it was right or wrong, I chose to honor his request. Because I loved him, I would let him die on his own terms.
He was still, so still, by the time I made my decision that I twisted easily out of his grasp, crawled back to his side, and cradled his head, trying to give him some small comfort. Not that he probably noticed. I thought Tristen was definitely past pain at that point. Maybe past life--he was so motionless and pale.