“No, Tristen,” she says, those angel wings pressing against my chest. “No, I trusted you. I trust you.”
“As you should, love,” I tell her, withdrawing my other hand from behind my back and swinging the blade slowly around until it presses against her throat. Another surprise! “As you should.”
“Tristen?” She is confused at first. She does not understand. “What . . . ?”
“Trust me,” I whisper to her, lips twitching with mirth, like the jerking legs of a hanged man in his last moments. “This . . . this will be beautiful. Beautiful like you.”
“Tristen!” she wails, realizing my betrayal, fighting in my arms. “Tristen? This isn’t funny. Tristen!”
Tristen, Tristen, twisting against Tristen. The harmonious words play in my mind, pleasing me further. Making a wonderful moment even more delicious.
She continues her pointless struggle, writhing against me, fighting to spin, and I yield slightly, wanting the pleasure of seeing her face as she dies.
“Tristen!” she screams, turning to confront me, accuse me, implore me—and her eyes, her unusual hazel eyes, are so wide, so round as I plunge the knife deep, deep inside of her, loving her for her sacrifice, for sharing the blood that flows across my hand dripping down my wrist.
“Tristen!” she cries, using her last few breaths to call my name, collapsing into my embrace. I hold her body, which is growing limp, and watch the life drain from her chest and her eyes. Still, on the brink of oblivion, she needs to know.
“Why, Tristen? Why?”
I awoke at dawn exhausted, spent, and shoved my hands deep under my pillow, too terrified to look at them, because I wasn’t really sure, not until I’d finally summoned the courage to withdraw them, shaking, my whole body wracked with tremors . . .
Until I saw that my palms were wet with sweat and not blood . . .
Until that moment I wasn’t really sure if I’d murdered Jill Jekel. I’d been at her house. Drugged her mother to save myself. Yelled at Jill, unfairly. Destroyed that kiss I’d wanted so badly.
I rolled onto my side, unable to look away from my clean hands, the only proof of what little innocence I had left.
Jill.
It had never been Becca Wright, as I’d believed. Of course it hadn’t been. All along the beast inside me had wanted Jill. Just as I did.
I swung my feet to the floor and pulled on my clothes, not bothering to shower.
If I didn’t cure myself that night—if the experiment didn’t work—well, I didn’t think anyone would give a damn about how my lifeless body smelled when it was discovered on the floor of Mr. Messerschmidt’s chemistry lab.
After a moment’s consideration, I assembled my textbooks, deciding to attend classes. School would provide a diversion—a sense of normalcy—while I waited for the day to pass so I could enter the empty building again, alone, at night.
Still, as I shoved the books into my bag, I thought that I was curiously calm for a man who was probably destined to die that day.
Perhaps I was composed because, as I’d awakened from the dream of Jill Jekel’s murder, I’d realized, with dead certainty, that I loved her. Maybe we loved her, I and the beast that I harbored. We were both drawn to Jill’s innocence, her wide-eyed trust, the fragile way she yielded to us—and the subtle strength that held us both accountable for our varying degrees of sin.
The difference was the beast wanted to shed Jill’s blood: consummation by destruction. But I—I had awakened more than willing to shed my own blood on her behalf.
I slung my messenger bag over my shoulder and left the house, striding into the morning sunlight. It was really just a matter of who would act first.
Chapter 38
Jill
I FOUND TRISTEN AT LUNCH sitting on the bleachers, just far enough from the usual crowd of stoners and hard cases to define himself as the loneliest of the loners. Or more accurately, the king of the loners. A monarch too proud to sit with commoners. As I picked my way across the seats, he watched me, and raised his hand. I thought he was about to wave, then realized he was putting a cigarette to his mouth.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” I said when we were close enough to speak.
“Every prep school kid in England smokes now and then,” he said, taking a deep drag then exhaling into the brisk, chilly air. “Are you going to lecture me? Is this worse than swearing?”
“It doesn’t seem good for a runner,” I said, thinking Tristen seemed in a strange mood, even given the terrible events of the night before. Or maybe it was his sunglasses, which obscured his eyes, that made him seem remote. I shaded my own eyes, trying to see him better. “You’ll let your team down, won’t you? You’re their leader—”
“I might not be running much longer,” he interrupted with a shrug.
“Not running?” Although I was done with Tristen and had sought him out only to get back the Jekels’ documents, I felt uneasy on his behalf. I sat down, the metal chilly against my legs. “Why not?”
He didn’t answer me. Instead he held out the cigarette. “Drag?”
I recoiled, holding up a hand. “No, thanks.”
“Good girl,” he said with a small smile. “Don’t succumb to vice.”
I studied his face, wishing he’d take off the sunglasses. “Tristen . . .” Where should we start?
“How’s your mother?” he asked, stubbing out the cigarette.
“She was groggy, but okay when I left.”
“Did she mention—?”
“No,” I said. “It was like you predicted. She doesn’t seem to remember anything.”
“Good.”
We gazed out over the empty football field, where Todd Flick would have played his final glorious games if Tristen hadn’t ended Todd’s season before it had hardly started. “Tristen,” I said, “I need the box back. And the list.”
“Sure, Jill.” He surprised me by agreeing. Of course, there was
