She’d fallen off completely.
Chapter 23
Tristen
I SAT ALONE in the living room of the rented house I shared with my father—on the rare occasions that he was home—eating cold pizza and listening to the rain on the roof, wondering if Jill had gotten caught in the storm as she’d run home.
I knew that I should have chased after her and insisted on giving her a ride, but I’d been frustrated as she’d darted away. Angered at her fear of breaking a small rule. Angered at her fear of me.
I’d tried to reassure her that I meant her no harm. Even a monster couldn’t hurt someone as gentle, as timid, as Jill Jekel. On the contrary, she sparked in even me a profound desire to protect. At times I found it almost impossible not to reach out and steady her, help her.
Tossing the tasteless pizza back into the box, I looked to the end table, where a red light glowed at the base of the cordless telephone.
I should call her. Convince her at least to loan me the documents . . .
I started to reach for the phone—only to jump as it seemed to anticipate me, ringing shrilly in the silence. “Hello?” I grumbled, assuming that Dad was calling, as usual, to advise me not to wait up. However, it wasn’t my father’s baritone on the other end of the line. It was a soft, scared, but determined soprano asking, “Can you come over, please, Tristen? I need your help. Now.”
Although Jill had abandoned me earlier that night, I found myself hanging up and getting into my car without even questioning what was wrong.
My primary motive was to get that box while I was inside her house. That, I told myself, was the main reason I jumped so quickly at her summons. However, if I had been honest with myself as I drove through the rainy night, I would have admitted that there was something—someone—else in that house that I was starting to want, too.
Chapter 24
Tristen
“THANK YOU for coming, Tristen.” Jill swung open the door almost simultaneously with my knock, as though she’d been watching at the window for me. I saw raw anxiety in her eyes and in the way she licked her nearly white lips. “I know you probably don’t feel like you owe me anything after the way I left you,” she added. “But I just didn’t know who else to call.”
I stepped into the foyer, following Jill, who was already moving toward the living room. “It’s okay,” I said, overcoming my last lingering trace of irritation. She was scared, and she did sound sorry for leaving me, and the more I thought about it, the less I could blame her. I was a strong, six-foot guy who’d admitted to being half monster, trying to lure a defenseless, tiny girl into a dark, empty school. A girl who’d lost her father to violence. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
I didn’t need to get an answer. As I entered the room, I saw Jill’s mother crouched on the floor, her arms wrapped around herself like a self-imposed straitjacket, rocking slightly.
“Oh, hell,” I muttered, stopping short. “How long has she been like that?”
“About an hour,” Jill whispered, moving to her mom’s side, kneeling and stroking her hair. “I can’t even get her to talk.”
“Jill,” I demurred, “I know I told you that my father is a psychiatrist, but that doesn’t make me an expert in a situation like this.”
“I know, Tristen.” Jill continued to caress her mother’s unkempt hair. “But I’m sure you know something from being around your dad. Enough not to be scared or freaked out, at least. And what I mainly need is your muscle, anyway.”
“My muscle?” I stepped closer and knelt, too, studying Mrs. Jekel’s eyes. Her empty, empty eyes. Then I shifted my gaze, wanting to look anywhere but into that void.
Jill was right—and wrong. I did know a bit about psychiatry, as she’d guessed. But her mother frightened me. Was that my destiny that I saw in the abyss of Mrs. Jekel’s eyes? The madness to come?
“What do you need my muscle for?” I asked, grateful to look into Jill’s very sane, surprisingly steady gaze. She had to be panicking, to see her mother in such a state, but she was mastering it, rising to the occasion.
“I need to get her to bed,” Jill explained. “Could you help, please?”
Jill was talking about me lifting—touching—her mother. “Perhaps an ambulance would be better,” I suggested.
“No,” Jill said firmly. “Mom broke down before, right after my dad died, and I called an ambulance. Our insurance hardly covered anything, and I had to draw from our savings to pay the bills, for nothing. Two nights in a hospital and all Mom did was sleep. She can do that here, under my care.”
I regarded Jill with surprise. She was prepared to take charge of her mother’s care? And perhaps even more impressively, she paid bills? I was fairly independent, but my father still controlled the purse strings. But of course Jill would have had to take control, with her father gone and her mother incapacitated. It wasn’t difficult, really, to picture her sitting at a desk, competently writing checks and mailing them in according to schedule.
“Please, Tristen,” she asked. “Help me get her upstairs.”
“Okay,” I agreed, but reluctantly. Who is the coward now, Tristen? Who wants to run into the night?
“Thanks.” Jill stood and stepped back from her mother, who didn’t seem to notice that her daughter no longer comforted her. Mrs. Jekel just kept rocking and staring.
Rising, too, I bent over Jill’s mother and slipped one arm around her back, wriggling the other beneath her bent knees. She smelled of stale sweat and I again turned my face away, not wanting to breathe her in.
“Let’s go, Mrs. Jekel,” I muttered, straightening and stumbling backwards, she was so unexpectedly light in my arms. Shockingly frail. As I settled her body against mine, her sharp hipbone stabbed at my stomach, and I caught a whiff of her hot breath, which was sour, like the smell of her skin. I exhaled sharply. “Show me her room,” I said over my shoulder, heading toward the stairs.
Jill darted ahead, leading the way upstairs and down the hallway. “Here.” She opened a door near the end of the corridor. “This is Mom’s room.”
I carried Mrs. Jekel across the threshold—a gagging groom with his catatonic bride—and placed her on the bed, which also smelled of sweat. Sweat and . . . insanity, it seemed to me. Would I reek of madness someday, too? Someday soon?
Stepping away, I coughed into the crook of my arm.
“Could you lift her again?” Jill asked. “So I could pull back the covers?”
No. Yet of course I agreed, saying, “Sure, sure,” as I again slipped my arms around Mrs. Jekel’s bony frame. When I did so, Jill’s mother began to mumble, startling me. Her head rolled back and forth, and she muttered softly, “The list . . . bloody . . . in the compartment . . . his last list . . .”
I stiffened, not sure if I should put her down again. “Jill?”
“It’s nothing,” she reassured me. “She did that about a half hour ago. Just lift her, okay?”
“Okay.” I raised Mrs. Jekel enough for Jill to pull back the sheets, averting my face again and holding my breath.
“You can put her down now,” Jill directed.
I rested Mrs. Jekel’s head on her pillow this time, and Jill arranged the covers over her mother’s skeletal body. Mrs. Jekel continued speaking, more quietly, so I couldn’t make out the words, and Jill crawled onto the bed and lay next to her mother, stroking her hair again. “What, Mom?” she whispered. “What are you trying to say?”
In that moment I thought Jill Jekel one of the bravest people I’d ever known. All I could think about was getting the hell away from Mrs. Jekel—and Jill had found it in herself to draw even closer to those empty eyes.
I waited at the foot of the bed, not sure if I should stay, and soon Mrs. Jekel fell silent again. As silent as a corpse. Or a corpse to be, for surely Jill’s mother was close to oblivion. My father had described patients like Mrs. Jekel. Too often they met their ends in institutions—or early graves if they found the strength, the means, to end their own misery.
Sitting upright, Jill readjusted the covers around her mother’s shoulders and crawled off the bed, joining me at the foot.
“Jill,” I ventured quietly as we both watched Mrs. Jekel’s inert form. “I’ve provided the muscle; now you need to avail yourself of a professionally trained brain.”
“I know, Tristen,” Jill agreed, touching my sleeve, indicating that I should follow her out of the room. We moved into the hallway—where I immediately breathed easier—and she pulled the door shut. “You said your father is the best, right?”
I shook my head, thinking Jill had lost her mind, too. “You’re not saying you want my father to treat your mother?”
“Yes,” she said, again with surprising firmness. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
I rested my hand on her shoulder, prepared to shake some sense into her. “I’ve told you what I believe about myself. And if it’s true, my father almost certainly shares the legacy.”
“We don’t know if you or your father are corrupted,” Jill countered. “But we do know that my mom is suffering from mental illness. You just saw her. Heard her.”
Saw, heard, and smelled her. That smell of insanity. Death coming soon.
Still, adding potential madness to madness didn’t seem like a good idea to me. “You could get someone else to treat her,” I suggested. “There are plenty of therapists around.”
“But your dad is the best. You said so, Tristen.”
I sighed, regretting my words. “That might be so,” I agreed. “But I honestly believe that one Jekel-Hyde pairing is enough for such a small town. And you yourself seemed to feel tonight that I present a risk,” I reminded her. “Enough of a threat that you wouldn’t go into the school with me.”
“I’ll do it,” Jill declared. “If you’ll get your father to help my mother, I promise I won’t run away again. I’ll even give you the box tonight. You can take it with you.”
I lowered my head, not wanting Jill to see the guilt in my eyes. I had come to the house with designs on getting the old papers. But I’d forgotten all about that as I’d tried to help Jill and her mother. And I certainly hadn’t intended to blackmail Jill into doing my bidding in a chemistry lab. “I wasn’t trying to strike another bargain,” I said. “I didn’t intend to use my father to pressure you.”
“It doesn’t matter, Tristen,” she said. “Just please . . . ask your dad to see my mom. For me.”
For me.
I’m pretty sure that’s what got me in the end. That desperate appeal and Jill’s eyes. Even in the gloomy corridor I could see those big hazel eyes watching me with hope. And, God help me—or forgive me—I found myself reluctantly agreeing. “All right, Jill. I’ll ask Dad. But I can’t promise that he’ll see her.”
Even that weak assurance was enough for her, though. She uttered a soft cry of relief and gratitude and to my complete surprise, hopped on her toes and flung her arms around my neck. “Thank you, Tristen,” she whispered. “I won’t forget this. I promise. I’ll repay the favor.”
I wrapped my arms around her tiny waist, almost as tentatively as I’d first touched her mother. But the sensation that coursed through me as Jill’s heart beat against my chest and her smooth hair grazed the bottom of my jaw and my hand stroked the small of her back—it was completely different from what I’d felt holding her mother. The polar opposite of revulsion—and somehow more than mere sexual attraction.
What I felt holding Jill was almost like surrender. The cutting away of a barrier that I’d put up years ago. A wall that I needed to maintain. A bit unsettled, I stepped back, releasing her and getting hold of myself. “I’ll ask Dad tomorrow,” I promised.
“Let me get the box for you,” she offered.
I snared her arm, stopping her. “No,” I said, wanting her to know that I really hadn’t intended to barter my father’s services in exchange for the documents. Wanting to convince myself, too, that the assistance I’d provided had been pure, without strings attached. “Just bring it to the school tomorrow night. If you can leave your mother, of course.”
“Okay,” she agreed, turning to lead us downstairs. “I’ll do my best to be there.”
Jill saw me out onto the porch, following me into the chilly night, shivering in a thin T-shirt. “Thank you, again, Tristen,” she said, rubbing her arms to stay warm.
“Don’t thank me yet,” I mumbled, taking all three steps at once and thudding to the sidewalk.
Hyde treating Jekel? It still sounded like a terrible idea to me. But the girl who stood on the porch hugging herself and venturing a small wave as I walked into the night—she was definitely getting to me. Jill looked so alone standing there, with so much to face inside that gloomy old house, that I nearly turned back and volunteered to sit with her all night, even though it would mean angering my father, who would not like arriving home to find me gone. Yet I kept thinking about Jill’s mother. What if Mrs. Jekel started babbling again or thrashing? Jill would need someone to help her. Perhaps to hold her again, reassuring her.
I hesitated on the sidewalk and actually turned around, having decided that I would go back. But Jill had gone inside and the porch was empty, so I got into my car to drive home.
Yes, Jill Jekel was getting to me.
Unfortunately, through me—just as I’d feared—worse things were destined to get to her.
Chapter 25
Jill
I MADE GOOD on my promise to meet Tristen the next night, even later than planned, because I had to make sure my mom was sound asleep for the night. Although Mom had slept most of the day, it was almost eleven o’clock before I was convinced that her breathing was deep and steady enough for me to leave her alone.
I got to the school first and tucked myself against the building in the shadows. The parking lot was still dark, and I was still scared—scared to be by myself and at the prospect of being alone with Tristen, too. But I was even more desperate than before. I’d called the nursing supervisor to say that Mom was sick, promising that she’d try to make it to work in a day or two, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t going to happen. And if Mom missed a bunch of work again . . . maybe even got fired . . . How would I pay the bills?
I clutched the box to my side, shivering, wishing that Tristen would hurry up. And then I saw him pass under a streetlight, coming toward me. He strode across the parking lot, purposeful, and I realized that I was at least less scared of Tristen than I was of empty parking lots. Maybe I was even a little eager to see him. Or maybe my heart just beat faster because we were about to trespass again.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said when I stepped out of the shadows. “I decided to hitchhike so my father wouldn’t find my car gone if he arrived home before me.”
“You shouldn’t hitchhike,” I told him as he bent to pick the lock. “It’s dangerous.”
“I won’t hurt a random stranger,” he said. “I told you. My dream is specific.”
I honestly wasn’t sure if Tristen was joking, so I didn’t say anything. When the lock gave, he stood back and opened the door, and once again the black hallway yawned ahead of me, and I hesitated.
“I spoke to my father, Jill,” Tristen said, voice soft in the still night. “He’ll meet with your mother if you can get her to his office at Severin tomorrow at five o’clock.”
“I’ll have her there,” I said, grateful, relieved . . . and completely aware of what Tristen meant when he said that. We had struck yet another bargain. “Thank you.”
I stepped past him then and trespassed into the school. As I walked by, he took the box from me, smoothly but decisively, and I knew the deal was really sealed, and there would be no turning back.
Chapter 26
Jill
“MAKE SURE YOU cap the ethyl alcohol before lighting the burner,” I reminded Becca, who was distracted by Seth Lanier’s stupid miming of drinking his share of alcohol at the station behind us. “It’s really flammable.”
“I told you that station is dangerous,
” Darcy Gray chimed in, turning to give us a pointed look.
“It’s not really the burner . . .” I started to object, but Darcy had already turned back around, ignoring me. Todd had caught the exchange, though, and he glanced back, smirking until Darcy flicked his arm.
“Todd, get the filtration flask.”
“Okay, Darce,” he grumbled. “You don’t have to boss me so much.” But I noticed that he did as he was told.
“Becca—the alcohol?” I reminded my own partner, tapping her shoulder.
“This is so boring,” Becca groaned, reluctantly rejoining our experiment. She capped the alcohol. “I don’t know how you stand this stuff.”
“It’s interesting to me,” I said with a shrug. “I like to think about how we can control the smallest things in the universe and get reactions or make new substances.”
“Yawn,” Becca said as I handed her the water I’d measured. She poured it into our flask, but her eyes shifted toward me. “You know, Jill, that test is coming up.”
I stiffened, bracing myself. I couldn’t cheat. It was bad enough that I was sneaking into the school every night with Tristen, dodging the custodial staff if they fell behind schedule and worked late. “Becca—”
I was spared answering when I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder. “Jill.”
I spun to face Tristen, blushing and nearly knocking over the whole apparatus of our experiment. How was it that, although we were partners, Tristen still flustered me? “What’s up?” I asked.
“Can you study this evening?”
“Yes, I guess so,” I agreed, understanding the veiled invitation.
“Good,” Tristen said with a glance at Becca.
“Hey, Tris.” She greeted him with a toss of her auburn hair. “How’s it going?”
Was there a slight flush on Becca’s cheeks, too? Or was that just my imagination?
I stood between them, feeling very plain again. And stupidly, pointlessly jealous. Had something really happened between them? Was Becca really the girl in Tristen’s nightmares? If so, she had no idea the lengths that he—that we—were going to, in order to supposedly protect her. And she wanted me to cheat for her on top of that.
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