Authors: V J Chambers
Trembling (17 page)
But as the day wore on, I began to wonder if it did.
After a barrage of video, Noah and Gordon dug through the rest of their
evidence. Police reports. Transcripts of interviews. Photographs of dead
bodies. They showed me the pictures of the kitchen in the sorority house. There
was blood spattered on the ceiling. They showed me a picture of Tami's body.
Her face was mottled with bullet holes
—
her
features barely recognizable. With everything they showed me, they pressed me.
How could someone do these kinds of things and not be evil? How could I claim
to love someone like this? Why couldn't I see that Jason was a monster?
I refused to talk to them after a while. I refused to answer their questions. I
didn't know what to say. I felt like I knew Jason well, but I was realizing
that I knew very little about Jason's past. I had never really tried to get him
tell me about it, because I had assumed that it was too painful for him to talk
about it. It didn't matter. I loved Jason for who he was. I loved Jason because
he was everything to me. So I didn't ask. I didn't demand he spell out
everything for me. Besides, after we'd gotten to
that behind him. He'd just wanted us to be normal kids. I wouldn't have ruined
that by forcing him to dredge up old memories.
I told myself that the Jason that I knew was a kind and good person. But I
couldn't help but remember the way that Jason had ripped at my clothes in a
hotel in
the insistent way his hands had twisted my skin. I couldn't help but remember
watching Jason quickly and systematically shoot the members of the Sons in my
aunt's dining room. I couldn't help but remember Jason, just a few days ago,
covered in blood, staring blankly as I tried to clean him up.
Worst of all, I remembered things that Michaela Weem had said to me when we'd
met her in November. Things like Jason was going to burn thousands of people
and that he was going to eat me alive. Things like our combined power would
drive men mad. And
—
It had!
I didn't like to think about that. Jason and I had never talked about it. Maybe
it was because it scared us too much to acknowledge that it had actually
happened. But a group of ten or fifteen members of the Sons had all gone crazy.
Right after Jason and I kissed. They'd been trying to shoot us and then they'd
all just come completely mentally unglued, wandering around like frightened
children.
It had been easy for me to dismiss the event. I'd told myself I didn't believe
what Michaela Weem had said. I'd told myself that she was crazy. I'd told
myself that I didn't believe in fate or destiny. I'd told myself that as long
as I believed in Jason, in us, then none of that mattered.
But it did matter.
It was time I was honest with myself, even if I wouldn't be honest with Jude
and my brothers. I was terrified of Jason. I was terrified of Jason and me
together.
It had been easy, all of those months, to blame my uneasiness and fear on
external sources like the Sons. If I were afraid of the Sons, I could fight
them. I had control. I could learn to shoot guns. I could spin conspiracy
theories about Mr. Sutherland and bells being put in my purse. As long as it
was something outside of myself, then I could fight it. But the truth was, I
was completely out of control.
I didn't know who Jason was. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know who we were
together. The Sons thought Jason was the Rising Sun
—
a messiah who would unite the world under one
government. The Satanists thought Jason was evil incarnate
—
a monster who would destroy free will
and enslave the world. The Satanists thought I was the messiah
—
the one sent to kill Jason and end
his reign of terror. As for what the Sons thought of me, I had no idea. I'd
thought that I was nothing more than a blip on their radar until Sutherland had
showed me those email messages and hinted that the Sons thought that I was the
Kali to Jason's Shiva. His dark half. Finally, there were Michaela Weem's
prophecies. She said that her visions had changed when Jason had showed up in
my life. She said that now she saw visions in which Jason and I did horrible
things together.
Whoever you asked, they thought that Jason and I were powerful. And they all
thought that there was some sort of capacity for badness in the cards for the
two of us.
I was away from Jason now. Maybe I was getting a little bit of distance on the
situation. I'd been raised to believe that I made my own destiny. I didn't want
to believe that there was anything to what anyone else said about Jason and I.
Especially when these people were trying to predict the future, something I
regarded as impossible. But the Sons and the Satanists came from completely
different backgrounds. They had nothing in common with each other. Except for
the fact that they'd both picked Jason and me as either a messianic or
destructive force. They disagreed about which was which, but that wasn't really
important.
Could it really just be a coincidence?
Or could it be true somehow? Were Jason and I powerful? Did one of us or both
of us together have the capacity to destroy the world?
I didn't know what I thought about the stories that Gordon and Noah were
telling me. I didn't know if I believed them. And I didn't know if it mattered
to me if Jason were actually a killer or not. I was really more concerned, I
realized, not with the fact that Jason might have killed people, but with the
idea that Jason might have lied to me about it. I'd always thought that the
first people he'd killed had been the members of the Sons who'd killed my
parents. I did know that I had to face up to the evidence about Jason and me.
As more and more of it piled up, I had to realize that Jason and I weren't
normal. That we were vastly different than most teenagers. And that there might
be something about us, something special, something powerful, something
destructive. Even though the thought seemed insane, I was going to drive myself
insane if I didn't accept it.
I was sinking in my thoughts, drifting away. I didn't see the documents that
floated in front of me. I didn't hear Noah's or Gordon's voice anymore. I lost
track of all the things they showed me. None of it mattered anymore.
There was only one thing that mattered, and I told them when they were finally
finished. The floor of the abandoned room was littered with papers and manila
folders. I was sprawled Indian style on the floor, surveying my brothers, Jude,
Lilith, and the evidence. The afternoon sun streamed through the windows,
giving everything a lazy, tired glow. I looked them in the eye, one after
another, and I said, "It doesn't matter. I won't kill him. I'll never kill
him. I don't care what he's done."
I knew that was true, too. Even if I became convinced that Michaela Weem was
absolutely right, and that lurking somewhere inside Jason was the monster she
said was there
—
dangerous,
destructive, violent
—
even
then, I couldn’t kill Jason. I loved him too much.
Everyone stared at me as if there were something completely wrong with me.
Jude's phone rang. We all turned to look at him as he answered it. He didn't
say much, just listened. I watched his face contort in a mix of rage and pain.
He ripped the phone away from his ear and dashed it against the floor.
No one said anything.
Jude seethed, pacing in a frenzy.
Finally, Noah said, "What? What is it?"
Jude stopped. "It was him," he said.
"Jason?" asked Noah.
"I have to go," said Jude. He crossed the room to a suitcase that sat
in the corner. Knelt by it. Twisted the combination. Opened it. He took out the
keys to the van. So that was where they kept them, was it? Now, if only I could
figure out some way to get down here to that suitcase. Maybe tonight. But how
was I going to get past the combination?
"Wait, you can't just go," said Noah. He was on his feet, moving to
intercept Jude.
"I'm going," Jude said, weaving around him.
Gordon had stood up too. "You can't hurt Jason!" he called after
Jude. "Azazel has to
—
"
"Fuck Azazel," retorted Jude, and he was out the door.
We heard the van start and drive off.
"Dammit," said Gordon, staring after him.
* * *
Less than twenty minutes later, the door to the house
burst open and Jude came barreling back in. He was carrying a bundle of cloth.
It had red stains on it. Was there something inside it?
Gordon got to his feet and stalked over to Jude. "You can't just run off
like that," he said. "You can't just take the van. What if there was
an emergency?"
"Emergency?" repeated Jude. "This
was
an emergency."
"What happened?" asked Noah.
Jude clutched the bundle tighter. "If he'd only been there when I'd gotten
there, I would have
—
"
"You wouldn't have done anything," said Gordon sharply. "Because
this isn't just about you."
"But it's about my mother!" Jude said, his face twisting like he was
about to cry. "He's got my
mother
.
Do you understand that?"
"What happened?" said Noah.
"What happened?" repeated Jude. "What happened! That
bastard!" And Jude choked up.
"Jude?" prompted Noah.
Jude flung the bundle of cloth at Noah. Noah caught it awkwardly. He knelt and
set it on the floor. Then he stared at it. It was close to where I sat. I could
see it better now. It looked like a ripped piece of dress or skirt. And the red
stains had a brown tint to the edges. They were some kind of liquid. The liquid
was still wet.
I refused to let my brain make the logical connection. Jason wouldn't have . .
. Jason had been bluffing, like I'd thought. When Jude called his bluff, he
hadn't . . . He couldn't . . .
"Unwrap it," Jude ordered, his voice harsh.
Noah hesitated.
"Do it!" Jude said.
Gingerly, Noah began to pull away at the edges of the cloth, peeling it back so
that he could see what was inside.
Abruptly, he jumped back and cried out a little, tossing the bundle away from him.
It landed right in front of me. I swallowed hard, but I couldn't help myself.
I leaned forward.
Looked inside.
It was a finger.
hapter Twelve
Text message transcript between Jason Wodden and
Hallam
03/15/09, 05:15 PM
Jason Wodden: any tips for cauterizing a wound?
Hallam
are you hurt? where are you?
Jason Wodden: am fine. not my wound. have u done it before or not?
Hallam
tell me where you are!!!
Jason Wodden: can't. i tried to do it and botched it. wound still bleeding
heavily.
Hallam
Wakefield: give me your location.
Hallam Wakefield: jason?
I let out a little gasp. Muffled it immediately with
my hand. I wanted to look away, but I couldn't. The severed finger sat inside
the stained cloth, blood still seeping from it. It was a woman's index finger.
She had a long, manicured nail. "Oh," I whispered, shaking my head.
"Oh, oh, oh."
Gordon pushed past Jude to see what was in the bundle. He turned on his heel
and went back to Jude, grabbing Jude by the shoulders. "How did you get
this? What happened?"
Jude was sobbing. Huge tears were spilling out of eyes. He didn't talk. He
didn't look at Gordon. He just cried.
Gordon shook Jude hard. "Stop it," Gordon ordered. "Talk to me,
Jude."
"He called me," Jude said through his tears.
"We were all here when that happened," said Gordon. "What did he
say?"
"He said . . ." Jude's sobs cut him off.
Gordon shook Jude again. "What did he say?"
"He said, 'Your mother has something she'd like to tell you.' And then I
heard her screaming and screaming and screaming. And then he hung up."
Jude sniffled. "When I got there, I found this. It was still warm."
"Oh," I whispered. "Oh. Oh."
"Jesus," said Noah.
He did it. He did it. He actually hurt Michaela because I didn't show up. Oh
God. Oh God. Jason.
"There was another note," said Jude. "It said that if I didn't
bring Azazel tomorrow, I'd find more pieces." He shuddered.
"She's his own mother," said Gordon, dropping Jude's shoulders and
coming to look at the finger again. "How could do that to his
mother?"
"He's evil," whispered Noah. "He's just pure evil." He
looked at me. "And you won't kill him."
I stood up then. "It's a trick!" I screamed.
"What?" said Jude.
I advanced on Jude. "It's a trick," I repeated. "It's not a real
finger. It's not a real finger. You're just trying to get me to kill Jason.
You're all lying to me!" I shoved Jude then, hard.
He stumbled back from me, surprised. There were still tears in his eyes and his
nose was running. He recovered, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand, a
movement that made him look so much like Jason, it hurt. "You think I'm
faking this?" he demanded.
"You faked everything else," I shrieked, shoving him again.
Jude shoved me back.
"Hey," said Gordon, grabbing me and pulling me away from Jude.
"Don't shove my sister."
Jude flipped him off. "Her fucking boyfriend is cutting up my
mother!" he yelled. "I'll shove her if I feel like it."
Gordon put me behind him. "Jude," he said. "Give me the keys to
the van."
"No," said Jude. Jude reached behind Gordon and grasped my wrist. He
yanked me over to him. "No," he said. "No, I'm taking Azazel,
and I'm taking the van, and she's going to tell me where the hell Jason
is."
I tried to pull away from Jude. "I don't know where he is," I said.
"Jude," said Gordon, "let go of Azazel." He moved forward,
reaching for me.
"No," said Jude, and he reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun.
Gordon stopped moving.
"Shit," said Noah.
"Put down the gun, Jude," said Gordon, but his voice was shaking.
Jude aimed the gun at Gordon, then at Noah. Then he put the gun to my temple.
In a sick sense of déjà vu, I remembered Jason holding me this way, tight
against his body, a gun to my head. But I'd trusted Jason. I didn't trust Jude.
"We're going," said Jude. "Don't try and stop me."
Jude backed up, dragging me with him.
"Jude," said Noah, "let's talk about this."
"One more word," said Jude, "and I blow her head off."
I didn't think he was serious. After all, his big plan was to get me to tell
him where Jason was, which he couldn't do if I was dead. But I didn't know.
Jude was pretty upset. I willed Noah and Gordon to shut up.
They stared after us as Jude led me to the car, their eyes wide and luminous.
Once outside, Jude threw open the door to the van and forced me inside. He
slammed the door after me and hurried around to the other side. I watched him
as he started the car, backed up the van, and pulled away from the house. I
turned away from him once, to see that Noah and Gordon had both come out on the
ruined porch of the abandoned house and that they were gazing after the van as
it left. Then I turned back to Jude.
Jude was steering with one hand. The other hand was gripping the gun so tight
that his knuckles were white. I thought about saying something to him. I
decided not to. He was the one with the gun, after all. He was in charge.
We drove in silence for some time. The road ahead of us wound through the
backwoods of
Eventually, we emerged in
town where I'd met Michaela Weem just a few months before. Jude drove up and
down the streets, looking around. Did he think he was just going to see Jason,
walking around?
"He's got to be here somewhere," Jude said more to himself than to
me. "He's close. Close enough to cut off her finger and leave it there
still bleeding. Where is he?"
I didn't say anything.
"Where is he, Azazel?" he said, rage filling his voice.
"I don't know," I said softly.
"And if you did, you wouldn't tell me, would you?" he said.
It didn't really seem wise to answer that question. "I don't know where he
is," I repeated.
Jude swallowed. "You understand why I'm so upset, don't you?" he
asked.
What was this? Was he looking to me for reassurance? He was the one with the
gun.
"She's my mother," he continued. "She's all I've ever had. Maybe
sometimes I got angry with her. Maybe sometimes I even hated her, but I can't
let anything happen to her."
"Trade me tomorrow, then," I said. "What do you care? Your
mother will be safe."
"No," said Jude. "No, I can't do that. Then Jason wins. I can't
let Jason win."
"Even if it means your mother gets hurt?" Maybe it wasn't a good idea
to push him like this, but he seemed vulnerable. Besides, if I could focus on
how Jude was feeling, then I didn't have to think about the fact that Jason had
cut off his own mother's finger. My Jason. Had tortured someone. What did that
mean?
"You don't understand," said Jude. "She'd never forgive me if I
gave in like that." He shook his head. "If I gave you up, she'd hate
me. Us finding you and getting you and convincing you to kill Jason is the most
important thing in the world to her. If I ruined that for her, she'd . .
."
"She'd what?" I asked. "She wouldn't be grateful that you saved
her life?"
"Of course not. Her life isn't important. Not unless she gets you to
destroy Jason."
We'd reached the end of
big town. Jude took a turn, taking us down another windy country road. I
realized that he must know his way around here pretty well.
"Did you grow up in
asked, wanting to change the subject. Maybe if I could get Jude to talk about
happy memories, he'd calm down enough to think rationally. Maybe then I could .
. .
I could what? Did I think Jude was still my best friend or something? He had
just threatened to kill me.
"Yes," said Jude. "I've lived here my whole life. Until I went
to
find you."
Jude took another turn, this time onto a dirt road. The van bumped along the
rocky road.
"I hate it here," he said. "I was so happy to get away."
He hated it here? "But your mother is here," I said.
"I hate my mother," said Jude.
What? "But you just said that
—
"
"I know what I said." Jude pulled the car over onto the shoulder. He
put his gun inside his jacket. He turned the keys in the ignition and pocketed
them.
"We're stopping?" I said.
"I can't talk to you while I'm driving," said Jude. "I can't
concentrate."
"Okay," I said. What did he want to talk about?
Jude shook his head. "Oh, Azazel," he said, looking close to tears
again. "I don't know how everything got so screwed up."
For that matter, I didn't either.
He looked away from me. Up, at the interior of the van. "You don't know
what it was like growing up here. Everyone knew my mother was Crazy Lady Weem.
Everyone hated me. I defended her, but they used to beat me up anyway. And when
I got home, it wasn't much better. All she talked about was Jason. All the
time. The abomination. How to destroy him. How to end the madness she'd created.
"My mother got pregnant with me almost as soon as she'd had Jason,"
Jude said. "And she never told me who my father was. She always said that
I was her second chance. That I was the great light. What she had brought into
being to correct her mistake. But she never really seemed to love me. She never
seemed to see me as anything other than a tool she could use to stop Jason. So,
I was always lonely. But I didn't know that I was. I didn't know what it was
that I wanted. I'd never had anyone. I'd never had any friends. Not until
you."
"Jude
—
" I started,
then stopped. What was I supposed to say to that?
"I know," he said. "We're not friends. Not really. But that time
that I spent in
with you. Hanging out. That was the happiest time of my life. And I wasn't
faking everything."
"You faked a lot," I said. "You faked who you were. You're not
even gay, are you?"
"No," he said. "But I thought I'd be less threatening to Jason
if you thought I was."
"That worked well," I muttered.
Jude laughed. "Yeah, I guess he was still pretty threatened."
"He knew," I said. "He saw through you." And I hadn't. And
what was I doing now? Was I comforting Jude? Jude, who'd betrayed me? I sighed.
"You drugged me, performed Satanic rituals on my sleeping body, hit me
with a baseball bat, and most recently threatened to blow off my head."
"I know," said Jude. "And I'm kind of sorry about that. I don't
know. I wish that . . . that it could be real. The way things were. The way we
talked. All of that stuff."
He looked at me with sad eyes, and he was my old Jude again. Was this an act?
Was he trying to get something out of me by acting like this?
"I don't know where Jason is," I said. "Saying this stuff isn't
going to make me tell you where he is."
"I know that," said Jude. "I know you don't know where he
is."
"So, then, why'd you take me away?"
Jude looked at his fingers. "I don't know," he said finally. "I
didn't really think about that. I was really angry and upset. I didn't know
what to do."
This wasn't the way that Jude should be acting after he'd captured me. He
wasn't supposed to get all vulnerable and honest. How was I supposed to react
to that? If he'd been cruel, if he'd been angry, if he'd waved the gun in my
face, then I would have known how to act. After all, I'd been in that situation
before. But now, with Jude so unsure of himself, I suddenly felt unsure of
myself.
"You liked me, didn't you?" Jude asked. "You trusted me?"
I looked at him. I half-smiled. "Of course I liked you, Jude. You were my
best friend. I told you everything."
"Not everything," said Jude. "You kept your secrets. Yours and
Jason's. You were very loyal to that."
"I wanted to keep you safe," I said. "Back then, I thought that
you didn't know anything about all of this. I thought if you knew, you'd be in
danger."
"You were worried about me?"
"Of course."
"No one's ever been worried about me before," Jude said.
"That can't be true," I said. "I'm sure your mother
—
"
"No," said Jude. "She doesn't worry about me. She expects me to
worry about her, but she doesn't care if I live or die."
"Jude
—
"
"No one cares if I live or die," he said.
We were quiet for several long minutes. Then finally, I said it, because it was
true. "I care."
"No, you don't."
"I do," I said. "God knows why. You've done nothing but betray
me."
Outside, twilight was stealing over the
sinking slowly into the trees. I gazed out over the fields. "I guess
everyone I ever cared about has betrayed me. My parents. Lilith. My brothers.
You." I paused. "Even Jason. Jason went after Sutherland. He cut off
your mother's finger. For all I know, he's actually a cold-blooded killer.
Everyone's betrayed me." I turned back to him. "But it doesn't mean
that I don't still care about those people. Maybe I shouldn't care about them.
But it's like if I stopped, I wouldn't know who I was anymore. I'd lose my
connection to the world. I'd stop being me. Maybe I'd stop being human. I care
about you, Jude. I think I always will."
He smiled at me through the darkening interior of the van. "Thank
you," he whispered.
We didn't speak again for quite some time. Outside, it got darker. The stars
began to peek through the blackening blanket of the sky.
"I'm sorry about your mother," I finally said. "I don't . . . I
don't know why he did that."
Jude didn't respond at first. Then he said, "I do."
"You do?" I was confused.
"He did it because of you," said Jude. "He did it because he'd
do anything to get you back. Don't you remember what you said to me back in
if Jason knew someone had hurt you, he'd kill that person. Do you remember
that?
I did. "Yes," I said. "But
—
"
"You said it scared you."
I turned away.
"Does it still scare you?"
I hesitated. "Yes," I said.
"It scares me when you're scared," said Jude. "You're so brave,
Azazel. I saw you take down Sutherland when he tried to carry you off outside
the shooting range. I couldn't believe you actually went after him the next
day. You're brave."
"I was scared," I said. "You saw me after I ran away from
Sutherland."
