The Evolution of Mara Dyer

66

NOAH FLASHED ME A LOOK THAT FROZE MY blood. “Don’t you dare.”

Then Jamie spoke. His voice was like the edge of a diamond, brutally sharp and compelling. “Let me go,” he said to Jude.

And to my enormous shock, Jude did.

I watched Jamie drop to in slow motion, but just before he hit the ground, Jude gripped his neck again, pulling him up.

Then landed a brutal kick to Jamie’s stomach. Jamie curled in the sand.

“Don’t speak again,” Jude said.

I shook with rage and hatred. Jude looked at me with clinical interest. “Here’s how this is going to work,” he said, against the background of Megan’s now-constant sobs. “The longer you make me wait, Mara, the more you will make them suffer.”

“This has nothing to do with them,” I spat.

Jude nodded. “Exactly,” he said. “So are you going to make them pay for what you did? All you have to do is take their place.” He smiled like a reptile and looked at me like I was a rat. “Otherwise you’ll kill them slowly, and I will make you watch.”

Noah placed a hand on my stomach very softly, keeping me back. “You aren’t killing anyone, Mara,” he said to me. Noah looked straight at Jude. “He is.”

That shadow had crept back into Noah’s voice, into his face. I had never, ever seen him lose it, but I had a feeling I was about to.

It was frightening.

Jude trailed his finger along the crown of Megan’s sweat-damp blond head. The sand beneath her darkened with urine. “Who will you choose first?” he asked me.

I was mute. Transfixed. Jude knelt down to Megan slowly.

Then Noah shifted me gently, subtly behind him.

Jude took Megan’s face in his large hand and as he did, Noah moved so silently and fast I almost missed it.

Noah was in the garden. His fist met Jude’s face with a sickening crack.

Megan and Adam let out a double, inharmonious gasp, but I didn’t turn to look. I was riveted, spellbound by what I saw: Jude used his size like a wrecking ball, inflicting carnage with heavy hands and feet. But Noah was incisive and swift, lithe and fierce. He knew instinctively what would hurt most, and that’s what he did. Noah hit Jude again and again and again and I couldn’t look away.

But then I heard my name—in Megan’s voice. Just before she and Adam slumped forward at exactly the same time.

A memory flashed—Jude stabbing himself, dropping to his knees on a wooden dock.

I was assaulted with memories then. The man at the marina who died when he tried to rescue me from torture. John, my bodyguard, who died in his car from a stroke. I remembered dead fish beneath the dock and dead birds that fell from the sky.

Not my fault. But not random, either.

“Noah,” I whispered, looking back and forth between Megan and Adam and Jude. I finally, finally understood.

Jude could heal himself like Noah—by killing things, like me.

He didn’t have to touch anyone to kill them. He didn’t even have to think it. He just had to be hurt himself, and if he was, anything and anyone around him would die.

Like John. Like the off-duty cop. Like the fish.

I was lethal, but Jude was worse. And animals could sense it—our neighbors’ pets disappeared the day I came home from the psych ward—the same day Jude began haunting my house.

Noah had Jude prone and locked to the sand. He pressed his forearm to Jude’s throat and leaned over his face. “I will murder you,” he said calmly. “And before you die you will beg for her forgiveness.”

Jude might have made a noise but I couldn’t hear it because Megan and Adam groaned in anguish.

Insurance, Stella had said.

Jude’s chest heaved and his shoulders shook. He was laughing.

“He’ll kill them,” I said, my voice rough and miserable. “If you hurt him, they’ll die.”

“If you don’t kill me,” Jude said, his voice hoarse, “I’ll slice Mara into pieces so small you won’t—”

Noah released Jude’s throat. And shattered his kneecap in one brutal move.

There was a scream—from Jude, this time. It fractured the air. Jude twisted onto his side, but after a minute, he was laughing again. Still.

His laughter and my heartbeat were the only sounds I could hear. “You want revenge?” Jude asked. His words echoed in the quiet space. He nodded his head at Megan and Adam. “Take it.”

My eyes darted toward them—they were unconscious now, but still breathing. Her hair was mixed in with the sand—almost exactly the same color, too. Bits of it stuck to Adam’s buzzed head.

Jamie and Stella, however, were both awake. They were silent, but their eyes glittered with awareness. Taking it in, just like me.

Just like me.

I was unaffected. They were unaffected. Which meant that if Noah could keep Jude engaged—maybe I could get them free. I looked around frantically for a weapon, a tool, something sharp—

“She’s right,” Jude said, nodding at Stella. “I don’t want to kill Mara.” His voice was raw, but laced with delight. “Torturing her is too fun.”

Noah kicked him again; flattened him onto his back. Knelt. Pressed his forearm against his throat again.

Which was what Jude wanted. Adam made a wet-sounding noise; the tattoos on his arms stood out against his now-pallid skin. Megan didn’t make any sound at all.

“You’re killing them,” Stella said loudly.

Noah looked deceptively, chillingly calm but I knew he was out of control. He could only think of Jude dead and me safe, not the price he or anyone else would pay for it. If Jude had threatened anyone else, Noah could hold himself back. But he couldn’t not react when Jude threatened me.

I was his weakness.

Noah would never forgive himself if he gave in.

I said his name.

Noah’s expression had been viciously hollow as he waited for the oxygen to leave Jude’s lungs, but at the sound of my voice something changed. He leaned back, just slightly, releasing some of the pressure on Jude’s throat, enough so he could breathe.

I looked around the space hoping to find something, anything, to help us. But the garden was in the center of the compound and the walls around it were bare and sparse. No furniture, just a scrolled pedestal in the corner holding a green porcelain urn.

The object triggered a memory—of Phoebe smashing a vase to the ground.

And then I had an idea. “Hold him,” I called to Noah as I rushed to the far corner of the room. I tipped the pedestal forward and the urn smashed on the stone tile. I snatched one of the shards—maybe I could cut them loose with it? Was it big enough?

But then Stella screamed, shattering the scene in the garden, scattering my thoughts.

Jude was standing. Noah’s side darkened with blood.

A slow, lacerating smile appeared on Noah’s lips.

The two of them were locked in a silent stalemate and those of us who were still conscious watched. I was hypnotized in my private hell. Even knowing Noah could heal, even seeing his savage smile and knowing the pain didn’t bother him, that it electrified him—seeing him hurt still dipped me in acid. My hands curled into claws and I felt a sharp pain in my palm—

The shard. I was still holding it.

I forced myself to tear my eyes away from the boy I loved and darted forward to help my friends. Jamie was closest.

“This is so fucked,” he said under his breath as I began sawing at the zip-tie that bound his wrists. The jagged piece of porcelain was cutting my skin but I kept sawing until Stella shouted Noah’s name and then I had to look up.

Jude had repositioned himself so that he was now nearer to me than Noah was; he moved when I moved to try and cut Jamie loose.

“Run,” Noah said to me, his voice almost a whisper. It was soft and desperate.

I couldn’t leave him. It would have been smart, maybe, but I couldn’t do it.

And I couldn’t leave Jamie and Stella trapped either. So I ignored Noah’s plea and attacked the tie on Jamie’s wrists and feet with an even greater fervor.

They came free. Jamie sprang up on startlingly quick feet and Jude dove forward, toward me, just as Noah lunged for him.

Jude knocked me down. The shard fell from my hands.

“Get them out!” I screamed to Noah as Jude’s arms snaked around my body. As a steel blade pressed against my skin. It would take nothing to break the flesh. To plunge it into my neck and bleed me out like an animal in front of Noah.

Noah, who watched me with an expression that others would take for rage. But I knew better.

It was terror.

A hot tear slid down my cheek as Jude lifted me up and held me tightly against him, my back against his broad, awful chest. I stared at Noah, his perfect face frozen, his limbs radiating tension as he stared back at us, motionless.

But Jamie had set Stella free and they stood. Stella cradled her broken wrist. Megan and Adam were unconscious, but alive. Jamie hauled Megan up beneath her arms, dragging her toward one of the hallways with Stella by his side. We were still locked in the building, but Jude would leave them alone now that he had me.

“Go,” I said to Noah, even knowing that he never would. His jaw was iron and his stare was fierce. I would miss it.

I was saying good-bye, I realized.

Noah saw it in my expression and shook his head slowly. His voice was calm and strong, just for me. “You’re going to be fine,” he said.

I will fix this, he meant.

But Jude’s grip tightened, and the blade pressed into my neck. The breath I was holding escaped and he gripped me tighter. A trail of warm blood trickled down into my shirt.

“I will give you anything,” Noah said to Jude. His voice was quiet. “Anything.”

Jude spoke to Noah, but his lips were at my ear. My flesh rotted beneath them. “There’s nothing you have that I want. Not anymore.”

I met Noah’s eyes and watched as something in him died.

I couldn’t take it. I wasn’t afraid anymore for myself; just miserably, desperately sad. “He won’t kill me,” I lied to Noah. “I’ll be okay.”

Jude inched us up against a white, bare, empty Horizons wall, crushing me in his arms. He edged us slowly toward the hallway, flanked by patient rooms on each side. I was trapped by him again.

Trapped. The word triggered a memory. I remembered—

A different hallway. Illuminated by the flash of Rachel’s camera.

Jude and I walked together behind Rachel and Claire, sticking to the middle of the cavernous hall. Patient rooms flanked it, and I didn’t want to go anywhere near them. When Rachel and Claire disappeared behind a corner I sped up, terrified to lose them in the labyrinthine passageways.

I had been trapped before.

And I escaped before.

With nothing more than a bruise on my cheek, which wasn’t even from the collapse. I remembered seeing the blossoming purple stain on my cheekbone in the hospital mirror. It was from Jude. From when he hit me.

I brought the asylum down, but I made it out unharmed. Safe.

But Jude escaped, too, my mind whispered.

His arms gripped me tighter and I knew his eyes were locked on Noah’s. The blade edged into my skin and I felt a rush of warmth and pain. Jude was eliciting every last drop of malicious glee from hurting me and being able to make Noah watch.

I wanted to hurt him back.

And maybe I could. Yes, Jude escaped—but without his hands.

Which meant I could hurt him, but not kill him; I’d tried so many times to kill Jude before and it never worked, but I did escape. I brought the asylum down and maybe if I brought this building down, I could get free.

And Noah. He might be injured if the building collapsed but he was different, like me—so he would survive like me. Even if he was hurt when the building collapsed, he would heal. He always did. Noah would be safe.

But Jamie? Stella? They were different like us, too. Like Jude. Which meant they would probably survive, but they might be wounded.

Noah could heal them, though. He healed my father. If I hurt Jamie and Stella by trying to get us out, he could fix them.

Jude’s hot breath tickled my neck, making me turn my head before we edged into the shadows. I saw the blood-soaked girl in the garden. I saw Adam lying in the sand.

Me and Jamie and Stella and Noah would survive. But we weren’t the only ones here.

Adam was probably still alive. Megan was when Jamie dragged her away. There might be others locked in their rooms behind their doors, too.

If I brought this place down like the asylum, anyone who wasn’t different would die like Rachel and Claire. Adam. Megan. Anyone else, anyone normal.

But they could die anyway, I told myself. Jude might go through each one of them until they—we—were all gone.

My skin tightened and the blood rushed in my ears and I felt Jude inching us farther away. If he turned the corner, Noah would be out of sight.

I was running out of time. I would have to choose even though neither option was good. Maybe a hero could see another way out of this, but I was not a hero.

You always have a choice, Noah had said once.

I made mine.

I used every bit of force I had to slam us both into the wall.

Jude wasn’t expecting it. His head cracked obscenely and I imagined fissures spidering from where it hit up to the ceiling and down to the floor, to below, to the foundation. The arms around my chest loosened as Jude fell to the ground.

But I didn’t run.

I whipped around to face him. I could hear nothing but my breath and my heartbeat and pulse and they were loud and fast but not with fear. With pure, cold, rocking fury.

I felt a strong, disturbing tug in my mind, but I gave in to it and something came free. I pushed Jude’s slack body up, up against the wall. Pinned him, crushed him against it so firmly that bits of plaster seemed to shake off and fall to the floor. I was stronger than I knew. I couldn’t kill Jude with my mind but I would kill him with my body and he deserved to die.

I knew Noah was behind me but he didn’t move to help. He saw I didn’t need it.

Jude was unconscious and limp and time seemed to slow down as spots of black and red crowded into my vision, as a colorless scent invaded the air. I crushed Jude’s throat with graceful hands that didn’t feel like my own. The sight brought a rush of savage joy. I felt myself smile.

Mara.

I heard my name whispered in a loved, familiar voice, but it was far away and I didn’t listen. I would not stop until this thing beneath my grip was dead—I would not allow it to escape or heal. I wanted to watch it die, to turn it to meat. The thought filled me with hot pleasure. The doors were still locked and I was still sealed inside but I would bring this place down, I would claw at it with my mind and my fingers if I had to. I would get the boy I loved out. I would set myself free.

That was the last thought I had before everything went black.