“Jericho?” she said.
He could hear her heartbeat quickening in alarm. But his blood was powerful. It spoke to him: I am the übermensch, a god among men. The world belongs to me.
He wanted her.
“The time is now,” he said, and threw her over his shoulder, heading quickly to the woods on legs made even stronger by the serum coursing through him. Frightened and confused, she struggled against him. He held her tighter. They’d reached the clearing. He lay her down on the soft bed of pine needles, pinning her hands to the ground with his.
“Jericho! What are you doing?” Her voice was high-pitched. Terrified.
Some part of Jericho fought up from the depths. No, it said. What are you doing? Wrong. Not like this.
“Jericho! Please!”
He wanted her. Hadn’t she come to him last night? Hadn’t she kissed him and let him put his hands on her body? She wanted him. That was the only answer. He wanted her and he would have her. Like a hero. Like a conqueror. Conquerors did not ask. They took. He crushed his lips against hers. When she turned her face away, he forced it back and kissed her harder. She tried to shove him off. His hands pushed hers back against the grass, holding them down. He was on top of her. The victor. To the victor go the spoils. No. No. Not like this.
She fought. It infuriated and excited him. Her knee tried to come up and jab him in a sensitive spot. But he was bigger. Stronger. He ripped at her dress and she screamed. She slipped a hand free and slapped him hard. He liked it.
The report of a gun echoed in the forest. Jericho jolted as the tranquilizer dart pierced the back of his right thigh. He whirled around, angry. Ames held the gun. Jericho leaped up and lunged for it. Ames fired. Another dart caught Jericho in the side. Already, he could feel the drug entering his system, tripping along the veins and wires alike. Fight or flight. Hail, hail, the conquering hero. He staggered toward Marlowe. The third shot buckled Jericho’s knees, but he kept going. He had only one thought: Win. Win at all costs.
“Dammit, man, fire!” Marlowe instructed. Another dart and Jericho was now crawling, scraping up fistfuls of dirt in an effort to advance. “The world… belongs… to…” And then he was motionless, the scent of Evie’s perfume still inside him like a dream he needed to own.
Just before he lost consciousness, the serum began its retreat from his system, leaving him cold and confused, like an animal that had chased its prey and now stared up from the depths of a pit trap into which it’d fallen. He saw Evie’s horrified, tearstained face as Henry threw his coat over her and led her away.
“I’m sorry. So sorry,” he whispered, and blacked out.
In a gilded bathroom styled like an Egyptian palace, Sam sat on the marble floor beside Evie and held a cold washrag to her bruised lips. “When that son of a bitch wakes up, I’m gonna punch his lights out.”
“No, you’re not. That won’t solve anything.”
“It might.”
“It won’t. And I’m perfectly all right.”
“Bushwa, you are! You’re still shaking,” Sam said. “Excuse my language.”
“Whatever Marlowe’s putting into Jericho made him do that,” Evie said.
“Yeah? Or maybe that’s just an excuse. Maybe that serum is just meeting up with what’s already inside Jericho to begin with. You ever think about that?” Sam folded the rag over, finding a cool spot and applying it to Evie’s forehead.
She winced as it hit a raw spot. “Ow!”
“Sorry.”
Evie took the washrag from him and held it to her face. “Really, Sam. I’m okay.”
Sam leaned back against the giant tub carved with rosettes. “This place gives me the creeps. It feels all wrong.” Sam gave Evie a long, searching look. “On the level—you jake?”
Evie could feel tears wanting to come, but she was determined not to let them. Jericho had attacked her. He wasn’t a stranger. He was her friend. But this morning, it felt as if she’d never really known him at all. “No. But going to bed seems like my best plan tonight,” she said.
“You want me to stay?”
“I doubt there’ll be trouble tonight. All those tranquilizers in his blood.”
“I don’t know. The giant’s pretty strong. I heard Marlowe say he’d be back to normal by morning. Whatever that means.”
“I’ll be okay.” She struggled to her feet, reached into the bathtub, and pulled up a baseball bat. “Found this in a closet. I’m keeping it close.”
Sam rinsed out Evie’s washrag and laid it on the side of the sink.
“Lock your door?” he said on the way out.
“Oh, yes. And a chair under the doorknob.”
On the walk back to his room, Sam detoured through the moonlight-dappled ballroom. He felt that strong presence again. It seemed to be coming up from the earth itself. He thought he heard his name being called very faintly.
“Mama?” he said to the still room once more, but there was no answer.
After Evie had locked her door and shoved a chair under the knob, she crawled into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. Many times Evie had fantasized about petting with Jericho. In her fantasy, she imagined surrendering to a dominating Jericho. She’d liked it as a fantasy. There was something wild and hedonistic about the idea of allowing herself to be taken over by a big, strong, handsome man, as if she had no say in the matter and so no responsibility for making love with him: Why, it just happened! What could I do? I was helpless! But in reality, it hadn’t been that way. It had been confusing and utterly frightening to have no say and no control, like a rag doll wielded by a careless child. It was like not being a person at all.
Now that she thought about it, what Jericho had done to her, well, wasn’t that what Marlowe was doing to Jericho? Taking away his control? Making him an experiment, an object that Marlowe didn’t even take the time to read? Did Marlowe even see Jericho as a person anymore? Had he ever?
What if Sam was right, though, and there was some part of Jericho that really was that brute in the woods? What if it couldn’t be blamed completely on the serum? That thought made Evie’s stomach hurt. Tomorrow was their last day at Hopeful Harbor. Marlowe said Jericho would be back to normal in the morning. What if he didn’t remember what he’d done and he was sitting there at breakfast tomorrow morning as if nothing had happened? What would she say?
She wouldn’t go to breakfast.
No, that was a terrible plan. If there was anything Evie was unsuccessful at, it was avoiding breakfast. Most likely, Jericho would still be asleep tomorrow morning, she told herself. But just in case, she’d take the baseball bat with her.