Mom seemed unable to finish the thought, and Tristen and I shared a worried glance. “Mrs. Jekel?” he asked, moving to Mom’s side. “Are you all right?”
“Just tired,” Mom said. “I came down for my medicine . . .”
“Here,” Tristen offered, taking Mom’s elbow and leading her around to the sofa. She sank down next to me, and as Tristen backed away, he smoothly swept up the list, which had been in plain view, folded it, and tucked it back into his pocket.
But Mom had seen it. “What was that?” she asked, suddenly sharply alert again. “That paper?”
My heart jumped into my throat. I wasn’t sure if Mom even remembered talking about the list, but I was afraid that if she saw my dad’s blood again, she might go into a tailspin. Get completely catatonic. That couldn’t happen. I looked to Tristen for rescue. Tell her something. Distract her again. Take control.
“It’s a school project,” Tristen said coolly. “That’s why I initially came here. To ask Jill for help.”
Mom eyes narrowed, like she was trying to remember something. “It looked like—”
“You said you came down for your medicine,” Tristen noted, interrupting her. “Can I get it for you? Just tell me where it is and what you need. I’m actually quite familiar with the regimen and the importance of following the schedule.”
I looked at Tristen with surprise. He was familiar with the medicine? But he’d said back in the school that he didn’t know much about his father’s methods . . .
Mom started to rise, but weakly. “I should do it.”
“No.” Tristen pressed her gently back down with a hand on her shoulder. “Let me. Please.”
“Thank you,” Mom agreed. “The bottles are on the counter. I need two of the generic benzodiazepines and one Atarax.”
“Keep your mother company,” Tristen told me. “I’ll be right back—then on my way, of course.”
When Tristen disappeared into the kitchen, Mom rested her head back on the sofa. “He seems nice, Jill,” she said quietly. “I suppose it would be silly to think you’d never have boyfriends. That you’d always be the innocent little girl who hid behind my skirt on the first day of kindergarten, too shy to play with other kids.”
She was starting to sound so melancholy, like I was abandoning her, that I felt a lump rise in my throat. “I’m still pretty innocent, Mom.”
“I know, Jill.” She gave a faint smile and patted my hand. “You’re a good girl. I do trust you.”
Tristen returned then, interrupting us to offer Mom a handful of medicine and a mug of water. “Here.”
Mom looked into her palm, counting the pills, wisely not trusting a high school boy to dose her, even one descended from Dr. Frederick Hyde. But Tristen must have followed her directions, because Mom popped her hand to her mouth, raised the mug to her lips, and swallowed.
“Drink it all,” Tristen advised. “That’s recommended.”
I shot him a curious look. How did he know that, too?
But Tristen didn’t meet my eyes. He was watching my mother drain that mug. Watching intently.
Seconds later, before she was even finished, the mug dropped from Mom’s hands and rolled to the floor, spilling water on both of us. Her head lolled sideways, and she slumped against me. “Tristen?” I cried, alarmed, shaking my mother.
She didn’t respond.
“I had to do it, Jill,” Tristen said miserably. “For all of us.”
Chapter 36
Jill
“YOU DRUGGED MY MOTHER?” I yelled, snatching at her wrist, feeling for a pulse. I raised my eyes to him, hurt and betrayed and terrified. We’d almost kissed. But he’d done this . . . “Why, Tristen?” I demanded. “Why?”
Why had any of this happened? The near kiss, the assertion that he liked me—the attack on my mom?
“She’s fine,” Tristen promised, kneeling next to us and taking her other wrist. “Her heartbeat is steady. The dose was completely safe. Just a little extra Atarax crushed in her water.”
Seeing his hand on Mom, I felt a protective, almost maternal instinct come over me, and I shoved hard at his shoulder, pushing him away, sending him sprawling backward on the floor. “Get away from her! Don’t touch her!”
I loathed Tristen at that moment. Loathed and feared him. How could he? He was a monster.
Tristen rose off the floor, dusting himself off, and I was suddenly very aware of his height and the muscle that I’d felt those two times he’d held me. The strength that had once seemed comforting, now menacing.
“Get out,” I ordered him. Or maybe I begged. “Please, get out!”
“Your mother saw the list, Jill,” Tristen said, sounding guilty and wretched even as he tried to justify what he’d done.
But he couldn’t, because he was a terrible, evil beast—just like he’d said he was.
“She didn’t just see it,” he clarified. “She recognized it.”
“So what, Tristen?” I cried, all at once sick of secrets.
“So what?” he asked, incredulous. “What if she’d demanded it back, taken it away from me? Just as I’m on the brink of performing an experiment that might save my life!”
“It’s my family’s list,” I reminded him, voice shaking with fear and anger. I kept my fingers wrapped around Mom’s wrist, reassuring myself that her pulse beat steadily. “Not yours! The list isn’t yours, and the box isn’t yours. You act like they are! But they aren’t!”
Tristen didn’t say anything for a few seconds. He just stared at me.
And when he finally spoke, he no longer sounded remorseful. He sounded angry. “The list, the box—those are my legacies, too,” Tristen advised me in a low growl. “Mine.”
I shook my head. “No, Tristen! They belong to my family!”
“Your family?” Tristen spat the word. He started to pace but stared steadily at me. “Do you want to talk about your precious family?”
I wasn’t sure. I held Mom’s arm . . . but followed Tristen with my
