This was what the hand had been pulling me to—Father. To say good-bye or to claw his face or just to stand outside the door and make my peace while he burned in flames. Some kind of closure.
Beyond the main gate, Montgomery and Balthasar waited for me. I only had to cross the threshold and never look back. Forget peace. Forget closure. We’d sail to London and never spare another thought for the island.
But my feet took me to the laboratory door. The heat from the nearby barn made me sweat. Paint bubbled on the tin, and I let my fingers hover a breath above it. Was he standing just on the other side, waiting for us?
He’d left me behind without a single letter, so why shouldn’t I do the same to him? The newspapers had called him a genius, but they’d never mentioned the little girl he’d abandoned. As far as the world was concerned, Dr. Henri Moreau was a collection of brilliant research papers and a grisly story. Was he more than that to me? Was he a father? He’d thought of me as nothing more than another experiment, a chance to see what happened when humans and creatures bred.
Anger curled inside me. I pressed the tips of my fingers to the burning door, letting the pain sear and stir my anger. Something caught my attention from the corner of my eye—a shadow slinking along the portico. It didn’t run. Didn’t attack. It came forward stealthily, its eyes glowing in the moonlight.
“Jaguar,” I muttered.
Maybe I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t. It wasn’t me he was after.
He stopped just paces away. This was the creature Montgomery had once called a brother. And were we really so different? We were all animals, in a sense. Even a sixteen-year-old girl needed to eat and drink and survive—and might kill to do so.
A rustling within the laboratory drew Jaguar’s attention. He glided past me, his tail flicking against my feet as he slunk toward the door. His thick paw slashed at the door latch with claws as long as my fingers. He tried a few times, cutting grooves in the door but unable to grip the latch. A growl rumbled in his throat, low and angry. His golden eyes looked back at me.
I knew what he wanted.
But twisting that latch didn’t just mean opening a door. It meant murder. Jaguar wouldn’t hesitate to slice my father into little chunks of flesh. It was exactly what he wanted—what all of them wanted. Revenge. If Jaguar could speak, he’d tell me it had to be this way. Father was brilliant. He’d escape from the burning laboratory. He’d start over. There’d be another island. Another Jaguar. Another Edward. Or worse.
My fingers dropped to the latch.
Jaguar’s hind legs tensed, ready to spring. But how could I open that door, knowing what lay on the other side? No good-bye. No reconciliation. Only a bitter, ragged end.
The barn roof cracked and splintered. A shower of sparks rained down. In another minute the whole structure would collapse. Edward would be killed, burned alive or crushed under falling beams. Even though logic told me Edward couldn’t be allowed to live, my heart said he didn’t deserve to die either. It wasn’t his fault. It was that of his maker, who hid in a locked room while his children burned alive.
Edward had said I could make things right.
Maybe I could.
My fingers felt for the latch. The flames leapt to the bunkhouse. It would catch quickly, then the salon, then my room. Beside me, Jaguar’s claws dug into the portico ground, ready to spring.
I squeezed the latch.
The door came open in my hand, almost too easily. Father’s fail-safe had accounted for the beasts’ limited dexterity, but not for deceit. He’d been too arrogant to think one of us would betray him.
I opened the door an inch—that was all it took, just an inch.
I fell back, my face burning from the heat. Jaguar slunk inside.
The barn roof collapsed with a roar. The heat singed my cheeks as I clutched the wooden box to my chest and stumbled back toward the main gate. Montgomery was there in the entryway, calling for me. Whether or not he’d seen me open the door, I didn’t know. His hand latched on to mine, and he pulled me from the flaming compound into the cool evening air, where Duke pawed at the ground, ready to bolt. Balthasar took up the reins as we clambered into the wagon and vanished into the jungle, leaving the smoldering wreckage behind us.
Forty-five
FROM THE STRIP OF sand at the ocean’s edge, we could still hear the fire’s roar. The beasts had started howling as the fire intensified, filling the night with wild screams. Montgomery held me close in the back of the wagon, hands pressed over my ears. But nothing could keep the sounds away. They’d haunted me since childhood. They would haunt me forever.
At the dock Balthasar stopped the wagon. Our blue-and-white boat waited, tethered to the pile, ready to take us to sea. Only when Balthasar climbed down from the driver’s seat and offered me his massive hand did I remember my promise. You can come with us, I’d told him. But I’d never had any intention of bringing him. Someone would find out what he was and try to replicate him. Someone would take it too far, just like my father.
Balthasar cocked his head at my hesitation. I took his hand and climbed out of the wagon. Montgomery was already carrying an armful of jars down the dock. His steps were purposeful and determined, as if he was as ready to get off the island as I was, even if it meant abandoning the place he’d called home for six years.
Would he be the one to tell Balthasar or would I? We’d never spoken of it, but I knew Montgomery felt the same way. This island was my father’s prison, his tomb, and all evidence of his work had to be buried with him. Even Balthasar.
Balthasar picked up two water jars, his tongue lolling out of his mouth, and followed Montgomery down the dock. My heart wrenched. Was I a monster for leaving him behind? Balthasar was the only innocent one of us. He hadn’t killed. I didn’t think he was capable of it.
I cradled a glass jar in the crook of my arm, watching the two of them in the moonlight. There should have been so many more of us. Alice. Edward. Their ashes tied their souls to this horrid island.
Montgomery came back to fetch a small trunk that contained an expensive china set. He glanced at me. I sensed that his resolve had hardened, as if he was steeling himself for the awful task of leaving Balthasar behind.
“We don’t have a choice,” I whispered. I shifted the weight of the glass jar to my other arm. “They were cursed as soon as they were created.”
He didn’t answer but hoisted the trunk onto one shoulder and started down the dock. Balthasar took a load and followed Montgomery like a shadow. I brushed the hair out of my eyes and looked back toward the burning compound. I couldn’t see the flames, but the column of smoke said enough.