“Yeah, but do you remember the guy who attacked you?” The question was coming from a sophomore boy that Thomas recognized as one of the writers for the school paper. He was carrying a notebook and scribbling things while sizing Roger up.
Roger looked flushed. He mumbled something, then said, a little quicker than normal, “They arrested the guy. He was big . . . that’s all I remember.”
The newspaper boy piped up again. “But you heard that he got away, right? Escaped right out of the back of the police van, so now he’s out there, loose, probably dismembering or scalping something. . . . How does that make you feel?” He looked at Roger with big innocent eyes, as if he were asking about the weather.
A disapproving hum swept through the crowd. Connor Wirth, who was standing beside the newspaper kid, gave him a hard shove. “He just got back from the hospital. Give him a break, will you?”
“Sorry,” said the young reporter. “Just curious.”
Thomas studied Roger’s face. He was wearing too much clothing, two sweaters stacked one over the other, as if he were cold all the time, even inside the school. He looked thinner, and there were still some bruises on his cheek. His right eye looked different, as if it had swollen and shrunk again and didn’t quite match the rest of his face anymore. But more than anything else, the biggest change in Roger was the look of fear that colored his face as he looked cautiously from one classmate to the next. A surge of guilt swept over Thomas as he remembered that he had caused this. That it was his recklessness that had opened the door to Edward Hyde and to the permanent changes that had happened to Roger.
And what about Marla? The police still hadn’t found her. Thomas had to do something.
He fought his way to the front of the crowd, trying to reach Annie. The teachers were starting to herd everyone away from the lockers and back to their classrooms, so it wasn’t hard to meander through to where Annie was still clutching her best friend.
“Hey, Roger,” Thomas said, a little awkwardly. He tried to tap him on the shoulder, but Roger moved away, probably from some newfound instinct.
“Sorry,” said Thomas. He felt himself turning red, and he couldn’t find anything appropriate to say.
“Nah,” said Roger, “I’m just jumpy these days. What’s up with you?”
“I’m glad you’re back!” said Thomas, trying hard to sound cheerful. He turned to Annie. “Hey, let’s take Roger out for a Frapp. First period’s easy to skip anyway.”
As he was waiting for her to answer, Thomas noticed for the first time that she wasn’t so much looking at him as glaring. It was like she was trying to bore two eye-shaped holes into his forehead with the force of her death stare. When he smiled, she gazed angrily over his shoulder and played with a pencil in her hair.
“I’m going to world lit,” she said, nervously crossing her arms. She took Roger’s elbow and started to pull him in the direction of her English class.
“Hey,” said Thomas. He moved along the row of lockers next to Annie and Roger. “What’s going on? We’re cool, right?”
“Cool? Are we cool? Hah!” She held more tightly to Roger’s arm and looked at Thomas as if he were scum. “Come on, Roger.”
Roger just followed along, even though it was obvious he wasn’t exactly comfortable being dragged around like some kind of sick little brother. By the time Thomas could process what had just happened, Annie and Roger were halfway down the hall. Thomas slung his backpack over his shoulder and ran after them.
“Look, if you have something to say, say it.” Out of habit, he found himself waiting for Edward to say something, to make a comment about how uptight she was, or how he would kill her. When the bad thoughts didn’t come, Thomas smiled triumphantly, proud of having conquered the biggest demon he’d ever faced.
Unfortunately, the smile was just about the worst move he could have made in front of Annie.
“What’s so funny?” said Annie. “Are you thinking about how much fun it was to beat up some poor kid just to get some cheap preppy-boy thrill? Do you find it funny? Well, I think you’re disgusting.”
Something caught in Thomas’s chest — a tight feeling like each time he changed into Edward, like trying to swallow the whole bottle of pills and having them lodge just below his throat. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
He looked around. There were a few students and some teachers left lingering in the hall. No one had heard.
“I didn’t . . .” he began, but he didn’t know how to finish. Did Annie think that he had attacked Roger? Did she know about Hyde?
“What are you talking about, Annie?” said Roger. “They arrested that other kid, remember? He’s probably halfway to Montana by now.”
“You know what?” said Annie. “I’m glad that kid got away from the cops. He was just a poor scapegoat anyway. Just some stooge you and your dad could buy off to take the blame for you. Real classy, Thomas.” With that, she flung her books to the ground and stomped off, leaving Thomas and Roger staring dumbly at each other and at the pile of discarded homework scattering out from inside Annie’s textbooks.
Thomas ran after her.
I can’t believe this is happening.
He almost wished for a few of Edward’s choice words right now, but once again felt a deep relief that no one else was commenting inside his head. It was just Thomas in there — alone, undisturbed. It was nice to have some privacy — some freedom — again.
“Annie, I don’t know what you think you know, but I didn’t do anything.”
She stopped and turned, her ponytail flipping across her face. “I read the journal, Thomas. I read every word. You attacked my friend. You hurt him and now he’s . . . he’s a different person.”
Her eyes were filling with tears as she eyed Roger, who was lagging behind. Thomas wanted to try to hold her, make her feel better, but didn’t dare get any closer. They both glanced back at Roger, lingering somewhere near his locker, unsure whether he should approach or let them talk alone.
Thomas whispered, “The guy they arrested . . . He’s some juvie named Edward. I swear he’s not a scapegoat. He’s the one that did it, and now he’s gotten away. We should focus on finding him, not on making random accusations.” The words were coming out so fast that Thomas didn’t stop to feel guilty for the awful lies spewing from his lips. Only when he paused to take a breath did the terrible feeling begin to overtake him. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said, but she put up a hand.
“I know you did it,” she said. “I can’t believe how much crap people from this school get away with. I’m embarrassed to be a part of it.” There was so much venom in her tone that Thomas didn’t dare speak. He just turned over her words in his head and tried not to see the truth in them. She continued on, ignoring any sign of remorse or sadness that might have shown on his face. “Your dad either paid off the police and framed that poor kid or he paid the guy himself to take the fall. Either way, we both know you attacked Roger, don’t we?”
Thomas began to answer, but before he could think of a good response, he realized something. Annie was right. He had always been saved by his father’s name and fortune.
“How can I convince you?” he asked.
“Are you kidding me?” she shot back. “Why would I listen to anything you say? You’re just lucky that I don’t have the hard evidence or enough money to stand up to your dad. I tried telling that officer, but he said I was being paranoid, that this Edward kid did everything. But I swear, if I could prove it . . .”
For a second, Thomas wondered if he should tell her the truth. But he immediately dismissed the idea. The only way to prove to her that he was innocent would be to tell her about everything — the W, his stepmother’s secrets, the supernatural things that had happened to him over the past few months. He couldn’t do it. He realized now that Roger wasn’t the only one who had changed. Thomas was different, too. From now on, and for the rest of his life, he would be more guarded, careful of everything he did and said, even afraid of the
content of his thoughts. He would always be waiting for Edward to come back, or for his own strength of will to fail him. He didn’t trust Annie enough to confess to her his most damning secrets.
Yes, Thomas Goodman-Brown was free now, to continue on with his life as Marlowe’s resident golden boy. But Annie would never believe a word he said. And she would never forgive him. This would have to be the price of letting Hyde into his soul.
“Proof or no proof,” said Annie, “I’m writing about this in the school paper. I’m telling everyone who will listen what I think really happened.”
Thomas stared at his shoes. “I don’t know what to say. . . . Stupid me. . . . For a minute, I thought we might still be friends.”
Annie stared back at him, dumbfounded. “I never want to see you again.”
“Edward? Edward, can you hear me out there?”
[Silence.]
“Edward? If you can hear, blow out this candle.”
[Murmured incantations, a hiss, crackling flames, then silence.]
“Nicola? What are you doing in here? Are you . . . crying? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cry before.”
“Oh, Charles. Sorry. I was just . . .”
“Muttering to yourself? Look, we need to talk. You saw the police sketch. I’ve met your son only once, but I have eyes, and we both know it was Edward who attacked those kids. You have to tell the police where he is.”
“Please, dear, just leave me for now. . . .”
“What are you doing in here, anyway? Are those candles? And what is that awful smell? Are you burning something? Geez, Nic, you’re creeping me out.”
“Leave me alone, Charles!”
“You have to tell them where Edward went!”
“Edward is dead. He’s dead.”
With Edward’s disappearance and the certainty that he was the criminal behind Roger’s and Marla’s cases, the police investigation was moved out of Marlowe. The commissioner put all his manpower on the task of finding the fugitive thug who had broken out of the police van and run off. The school was much quieter now, everyone having moved on to the next big Marlowe drama. Occasionally, Thomas overheard Principal Stevenson talking to the commissioner or one of the detectives about the status of the search, getting updates, probably passing them on to his assistant so that she could tailor soothing e-mails to the PTA. One morning Thomas was leaving his debate class when he saw Marla’s mother, wearing all black, eyes full of tears, running out of the administrative office followed by a demure young woman, who Thomas guessed was her personal assistant, and a morose-looking middle-aged man, who could only have been Marla’s father.
Everyone believed Marla was dead.
It made Thomas sick to his stomach. He couldn’t get rid of the bad dreams or the awful pictures that ran all day in his head.
He was losing weight now, and one day as he passed by Roger and Annie, Roger stopped and said, “Wow, you’re looking really off.” Thomas smiled and walked on, knowing that he was pale and gaunt. Annie just glared. Suddenly, Thomas had an idea.
The journal.
Annie had read pages written by Hyde. Normally Thomas did not reread stuff in his notebook, but Edward had definitely written a few entries. Maybe there was a clue about Marla in his entries. Maybe she wasn’t dead after all. Maybe she was still locked up somewhere, waiting to be rescued. Thomas was the only person who could save her, and maybe by doing so, he could save himself from a life of guilt and agony.
Sure, he would always have to look at Marla and Roger at school, or maybe later on in college or at parties. But at least he could live with what he had done if he knew he had tried to make it right. That he had saved Marla and that no one had died because of him.
Thomas grabbed on to the hope. Yes, maybe Marla was alive.
He brushed past Annie and Roger and ran toward the door, pulling out his cell to cancel all his activities for the day.
Thomas charged into his bedroom and grabbed his journal from his desk. It looked tattered, as if too many hands had touched it, too many fingers had flipped the pages. Some of the pages were torn out, and some were folded or cut in half. He wondered where the missing pages could be. The possibilities made him nervous, and he tried to calm down by remembering that he hadn’t put his name anywhere on this book.
He began searching for clues.
An entry from the day after Marla disappeared seemed to go back and forth between himself and Hyde:
John says Marla disappeared right from her room. But I just saw her. Plus her house has security and there’s a doorman. . . .
Maybe someone lured her out. . . .
Thomas stared at Hyde’s words and rushed for his phone. He scrolled through his call history from the day Marla disappeared. Sure enough, there it was. He had called her, probably during one of his long blackouts. They hadn’t been on the phone long, less than a minute. He checked his text messages. Nothing. Probably Hyde had deleted anything incriminating. But there was an outgoing message right after his call with Marla, to a number he didn’t have in his contacts.
It said, Same place as usual?
Thomas sat down on his bed and took two deep breaths, thinking he would be sick right there on the floor. He clutched his phone tighter, considered calling the number again. He didn’t. Instead, he went to his computer and entered the phone number in a few search engines. Probably nothing would come up. What criminal henchman would be dumb enough to have a listed number?
He was just about to give up when a single word in the Google results caught his eye. The number was next to a name: Nikki. Was this Nikki’s number? The same Nikki who had given him the W in the first place? Could she be the one that Edward texted? He wished he had gotten Nikki’s number at Elixir so he could compare it with this one. But then again, what was the point? Nikki had delivered the pills that turned him into Edward. She obviously worked for Nicola, just like Dr. Alma did. So it shouldn’t be surprising that when Edward needed help kidnapping someone who knew a little too much, he would recruit Nikki to help him. Once again, the similarity in the two names struck him. What if Nicola was Nikki, the same way that Thomas was Edward? He pushed the thought out of his head.
Then another disturbing thought worked its way into his mind. The reason Marla had been kidnapped in the first place was that she knew about Roger. If he were to rescue her now, would she tell the cops? Had she seen Thomas in Edward’s twisted face as he dragged her away to whatever psychotic torture room he had prepared? Edward had certainly used Thomas’s phone, so Marla must have thought she was meeting Thomas that night.
Yes, Marla would know.
Yes, she would tell.
Still, Thomas knew he had to do this. He had to rescue Marla for the sake of his soul and sanity and because her life was more important than his freedom. Sure, he might get locked up. He might never grow up to do all the great things he had dreamed about. But he couldn’t just let some girl die — not even an annoying goth girl.
He went back to his bed and picked up the journal, recapping to himself everything he now knew. Nikki had prepared a room. Edward had called Marla on Thomas’s phone. He had lured her out somewhere.
Thomas flipped ahead a few pages to an entry from a week later.
Stupid modern goths. This chick doesn’t even have a clue about the real thing. I showed her some pictures, real gruesome ones of attacks and battles — all blood and limbs. She couldn’t handle it. Hah! I guess she just likes black hair dye and whiny music.
Hyde seemed to know a lot about Marla’s interest in goth culture. It was starting to make sense, though. What else but something she was really interested in would cause a girl to sneak out to meet up with Thomas, a guy she hated, a guy that had just left her looking like a fool after a hookup? It had to be something she was really into. He remembered the poster in her room:
Then a vague memory, like a dream, began to take shape. These days he could never be sure which of the many Marla scenarios in his mind were real and which were just
his imagination fueled by the fear of what he could have done. But this felt somehow different from the rest. He remembered thinking about that poster, talking to someone about it on the phone, then a laugh on the other end.
I didn’t know you were into Diablo, Thomas!
I’m soooo into Diablo. Loved your poster.
Then fading laughter. Was it his laugh or hers? Maybe it was Edward’s.
Back at his computer, Thomas looked up Samson Diablo. He found a list of appearances, concert photos, interviews with surprisingly Googleable “underground” goth publications. Then, as his cursor moved across the options, he saw that there was one link he had visited before. Strange. He didn’t remember ever researching this douchy emo faux musician. The site was for an invitation-only meet and greet with Samson himself, scheduled for the same night that Marla was kidnapped.
The address for the meet and greet had been unfamiliar, but as Thomas strolled the smaller streets around it, he began to realize that he had been here before, and not just in some Hyde-induced blackout when he had no control of himself. He had been here in his regular life. Where was he exactly? He zoomed out the map on his phone.
It would make sense for Hyde to take Marla somewhere Thomas would know. But where would the meet and greet have taken place? There was nothing on this street but boarded-up stores and abandoned trash cans. The address was right, though. He took a few steps forward. Now he was standing in exactly the spot the website had advertised. But this was just some back alley.
He opened the website again. He noticed now that there were more than a hundred comments underneath.
Totally fake.
I never heard of this.
Diablo left town already. No way he’s doing a private thing.
Every comment was about how the advertisement was a fake.
Thomas was about to close the page when he caught sight of the page administrator. Nik45666.
Figures. Nikki again. She must have made a fake website so that Marla would believe she was about to meet her idol.
Another Jekyll, Another Hyde Page 19
