The Daughter of Doctor Moreau(96)

They began walking across the courtyard. Lupe limped, and Carlota tried not to lean her weight on her. But it was terribly hard to drag her feet. It was as if the anguish of the night had turned her legs into lead, and she was terrified that she might transform into a beast, as she had with her father. She had slammed him against the cabinet and harmed him, and then she had left claw marks on Montgomery’s chest.

No, that must not happen.

No, she wouldn’t.

Oh, and her father. Her father, her father. She wished she might run to his room and embrace him.

“I need to stop.”

“You can’t stop!”

“My…my lungs.”

Her body had caught on fire; her heart was a blazing coal.

“Breathe in. Come on, Loti, as your father says, slow breath then let it out.”

She closed her eyes and tried to calm down her desperate heart. She took a deep breath, then exhaled. God, it hurt! Her eyes were stinging. Finally, Carlota gathered her resolve and began walking. They had gone half the length of the courtyard when she heard the unmistakable sound of boots upon the tiles and Eduardo’s voice, rough and loud.

“I am aiming at your dog’s head,” he said. “Turn around.”

They turned. Carlota clutched Lupe’s arm and stared at the young man. He had a gun pointed at Lupe and gripped the ivory handle fiercely. Carlota’s mouth was dry as dust; she could hardly speak. On the patio floor the two women had left a thin trail of blood that seemed to tether them to the house, making it easy to trace their steps.

“Eduardo, please,” she whispered. “It’s all over.”

“Over? It’s not over. You’ve ruined my life!” he yelled, taking a step and wincing, as if he was injured, though his grasp on the gun did not slacken. “The lot of you, mongrel monsters! But if you think you are ever going to leave me, you are sorely mistaken. You are mine!”

“Yes,” she said, stepping forward, away from Lupe, holding her hands up to him. “Yes, I’m yours, but don’t hurt her.”

“I’m going to kill every last one of them and you…you get over here! I said you’re mine!”

He looked feverish, too, as if he were racked by a terrible disease. His hair was wild and sweaty. But his illness was hate, plain and simple. She knew he would shoot if she didn’t obey him, and she moved toward him even though Lupe tried to clutch her hand and hold her back, muttering a curse.

“I’ll go wherever you want.”

“Good,” he said, nodding. “That’s right, come here.”

“But put the gun down,” she begged him, because there was something terrible in his eyes, something wicked, and the way he clutched the pistol frightened her. It was still aimed squarely at Lupe’s head. He shook his head and licked his lips.

“My father is gone. That bastard killed him.”

“We had nothing to do with that.”

“You have everything to do with that! Get here, I said!”

She could hardly draw a breath, but she shambled toward him until she was at his side, and he gripped her waist with one arm, pulling her close to his side while he held the weapon in the other.

“I’m here,” she muttered, trying to soothe him.

His arm still held the weapon firmly in place, but for a second he wavered, his gaze skirting over Carlota with the slightest promise of sweetness. Then something foul clouded his eyes; she felt his muscles tensing around her, observed the telltale clenching of his lips, and she knew he would pull the trigger. She hit his arm, and the bullet flew through the air, missing its target. The pistol made a noise so deafening she felt the need to cover her ears.

He shoved her back, and she fell on her knees, her knuckles brushing stray weeds growing between the pretty, polished stones decorating the courtyard floor. Lupe had darted away, but he shot once more, and the girl yelped, wincing and stumbling.

Lupe was clutching her arm, and Eduardo was hurriedly cocking the hammer, pressing forward, intending to shoot a third time. He’d kill Lupe. She knew it. Now or tomorrow, but he’d kill her. His hunger had to be sated. She felt that same boiling pain she’d felt before, that rage in the pit of her stomach that she’d always tried to erase, that pressure in her chest that made it hard to breathe. Rather than attempting to fight it she let it explode, bright and scorching, like the fires that torched the fields in preparation of the new harvest, and she pounced forward with all her might, knocking him down.

The gun went flying through the air, landing with a splash in the fountain. Her hands were on his shoulders and she lay atop him, holding him down.

“You bitch,” he said and made an attempt to shove her off, but she pressed down harder, strength suddenly coursing through her muscles.

“Stop! Stop it!” she ordered. But he fought back. He bucked, tried to hit her, landed a punch that made her gasp.

“You!” he said and nothing more, but the word was laced with a corrosive hatred, and she knew he’d kill Lupe and her both.

Carlota arched her back and felt her vertebrae popping, bones and tendons shifting with a series of loud cracks, like the wood when heat and moisture make it bend with the season.

She felt herself changing, weaving herself into something else. The something her father had always feared, always warned her away from. But it wasn’t an ailment and it wasn’t a defect, it was raw power that she’d seldom tasted. It was the mystery of her body. At that moment, it was her salvation, and she let the change take place, spurred it forward, not even knowing how, feeling the lacerating agony of bone and marrow reshaping themselves in the span of a breath.