I was alone—except for Tristen’s body.
Except for Tristen.
Not daring to believe, I swiped one arm across my eyes and slowly turned my face to his, sucking in my breath at the sight of his open eyes. Astonished not just by the fact that Tristen was alive but by the expression on his face.
I heard the wonder, the confusion, in my voice as I dared to say his name.
“Tristen?”
Chapter 46
Jill
TRISTEN SAT UP SLOWLY, still holding his stomach, his face still pale and his breathing still shallow. There was something different about him, too, aside from looking like he’d been to hell and back, as maybe he just had. Something had changed in his eyes. Something was missing, it seemed. The haunted, hunted look that had always been there, even when he laughed.
“Tristen?” I took his arm, helping him slide up straighter so he could rest his back against a lab table. “Are you okay?”
He couldn’t be okay. Could he?
He leaned his head back against the table and closed his eyes, obviously exhausted and still hurting. But as I watched his face, wondering if maybe now we should get to a hospital, he smiled. “I’m fine, Jill,” he murmured. “I’m fine.”
At first I thought he was still incoherent. Or that maybe this was some calm before a new storm and he might double over again. The suffering he’d just endured . . . He couldn’t be “fine.”
“Tristen, let’s get help now,” I urged, gripping his hand.
“No.” He shook his head, still beaming that strange, blissful smile. “No, Jill. I just want to rest for a minute.”
“What’s happening?” I asked, wishing he’d open his eyes again. What was that look I’d seen there? “What . . . what are you feeling? Are you in pain?” Was I about lose him again? Because I didn’t think I could bear it.
“What I feel, Jill, is peace,” Tristen said. “The first peace I’ve felt in years.”
My own eyes widened in disbelief. Although I’d seen the change in his expression, I couldn’t quite grasp what he seemed to be implying. “You’re not trying to say that the formula worked. . . ?”
He squeezed my fingers, smiling more broadly. Some of the color had returned to his face, and he looked almost rested. “Let’s not question it right now, Jill. Let me just be at peace for a moment. Okay?”
Tristen tugged my hand, drawing me closer, and I shifted to sit beside him. He let go of my hand and slipped his arm around me, pulling me close in that protective embrace I’d thought I’d never feel again. He opened his eyes then, meeting mine, willing me to look closely at him. It was almost like he knew that he must look different and was showing me, trying to prove to me that he had changed.
Trust me, his eyes said.
As I stared deep into his familiar, yet different, brown eyes, I knew with certainty that whatever had happened to Tristen on the floor of that classroom, whether it had been the formula he’d drunk or by sheer force of will, he had beaten the monster that had tormented him. The dark shadow that had always seemed to lurk inside his eyes was gone. The Tristen who held my gaze was still the boy I loved: confident, smart, and commanding. But he wasn’t scary anymore.
He closed his eyes again, leaning his head back, and I rested my head against his chest, feeling his heart beat. Feeling completely happy for the first time I could remember since maybe elementary school—when I’d moved beyond the circumscribed happy sphere of my parents’ acceptance of me for who I was. Since before I’d come to realize that being shy and plain were bad qualities in most people’s eyes. Tristen’s arms recreated, in a very tangible way, that circle of approval I’d known in childhood.
Gradually his heart started to beat even more strongly. He rested his cheek against the top of my head then turned his face to kiss my hair, whispering, “Thank you, Jill.” He squeezed me more tightly. “Thank you for coming for me and for staying with me.”
“I couldn’t leave you,” I said. “You drank too much—” I wanted to scold him for being too reckless, but my voice suddenly threatened to break at the memory of him writhing on the floor, growing cold.
“I had to destroy it,” Tristen said, alluding, for the first time since waking, to the defeated beast. “It wanted you too badly.”
Tristen wanted me, too. I knew that as he again brushed his lips against my hair.
I forced away the image of Tristen shoving me against the desk. That was over now. I was safe. I was wanted. For the first time in my life a boy—one that I was crazy about—actually wanted Jill Jekel.
I turned to see his face, our eyes met again, and I saw then that the new warmth there was burning a little more intensely.
“I want to kiss you, Jill,” he said softly. “Just me.” He paused, watching my face, maybe seeing my uncertainty, because he added, “Do you still want me? Or has what happened . . . what nearly happened . . . Are you sickened by me? Frightened of me?” A shadow crossed his face, dimming his happiness. “Because I am sickened by me. By what could have happened here if I hadn’t heard your voice—”
“Nothing happened,” I reassured him, even though I flinched again, too. Images of Tristen’s eyes turning that scary shade of steel, the rasp of his rough skin against mine, the pressure of his body bending me back over the desk . . . I forced them all out of my mind. “Nothing happened,” I repeated, wanting to erase recent history for both our sakes. “And I’m not frightened now,” I added truthfully. Because I wasn’t afraid of Tristen anymore. The beast was gone.
But . . . I was lying, too. Because I was a little scared. Not of monsters but of the very things
