The Beast In Me (The Beast And Me Book 2) Read online

  Still, my head, just like the rest of my body has a will of its own. I know how helpless and at someone else’s mercy you must feel, and I don’t want to make you feel worse, but I... I really can relate to that feeling, even more... until he brought you here, until I first realized that it was you... I literally wasn’t myself.

  You saved me and yet, you are the reason why I am going to Hell.

  You are here because of me, because I couldn’t think straight, because I clung to you as if you were my humanity, and... you are. White realized that. I don’t know how quickly, but in the end it doesn’t really matter, does it?

  Even though it was him giving out the order, it was me who made the choice. It was I who brought you here, ultimately.

  How will I ever be able to live with that? That, I might have managed, but not what I did to you.

  How can you love me after what I have done to you?

  I was out of it.

  They had prodded and poked me the whole day, enraged me, brought me to my limits. I had spent months, years, trying to regain control over my own body, but that day, and all of those days that followed until that one night, they just...

  I know they wanted to strip all self-control of me. Still, I really don’t understand why.

  I could try to find an explanation, but it doesn’t matter. I will never know, maybe, or surely, definitely, that’s what White wanted.

  That first time they brought you into my cage... I was used to fighting others in there, being watched, being monitored.

  This new scent that was you... it paralyzed me.

  Your heart pounding in my ears, so much faster than my own, your shallow breath, while you were obviously trying to calm yourself... and just like that I found myself at the bars separating us.

  I was in some sort of trance.

  Like I have written before: I was aware of what was happening, but it felt like a dream, like watching something slightly resembling myself, but being far more similar to an animal than to a human being.

  I still remember inhaling that scent, your scent, so familiar and yet different, evoking a part of me that had been buried somewhere along the road of becoming what I am now.

  And then, after somehow I was calming down, I could hear that barked an order telling me to retreat and I did. I think for the first time ever, being fully ‘transformed’, I followed an order.

  I guess that was your downfall.

  Until that one day the meetings before are just a blur to me, still, even though I know it felt like being baited, as if White was juggling a bone in front of a hungry dog.

  I guess that was just what I was.

  I really cannot tell whether it was two days or a week. I guess I would have to read your diary to know for sure, but I don’t, I can’t.

  And I wish, I truly wish, that I wouldn’t be able to remember that one time. It annihilated the days before that very one.

  All I can recall is the scent of your hair, the sound of your pulse, the noise of your uneven breath.

  And all of this just feels like a dream, a nightmare, me sitting in that train that is about to collide with you.

  Maybe my being afraid for it to happen, eventually made it happen.

  I should have apologized to you.

  I know I have, but it doesn’t do justice to what I have done. It just makes me realize what a monster I truly am.

  Before that day, I know I was able to touch you, I know that it felt like I was finally clutching at a straw after a lifetime of almost drowning.

  Even though I denied believing it was you. After all, they still showed me footage of you. I didn’t know that they had taken you.

  I remember feeling your skin beneath my hands, and how my eyes were closed as I just allowed my fingers to explore what they touched.

  For the first time, I think, I didn’t try to hold back and now I feel so guilty about it.

  Meghan, I should have been stronger, I should have put up a fight against this creature inside myself, but I didn’t. I was so weak, and I still am.

  Even though I know, I keep telling myself, that right then and there I could have done nothing to stop this, that it was White’s fault, and those scientists’ fault for tormenting me too long, too harsh...

  I know that I could be a thousand explanations and excuses for what had happened if I tried, but in the end... In the end it was these claws attached to my hands that ripped your skin and made you first whimper, then whine, and then scream in agony.

  Your hoarse voice, your cry still haunts me, now more again than ever...

  I couldn’t make myself stop.

  I just couldn’t.

  It was you.

  All of it was you.

  And I still am in awe how you managed to speak, to tell me that it was okay, to relax, to breathe.

  And I remembered sitting with you, me outside of that closet you had locked yourself in, as we had played hide and seek; how I heard you scream in panic, because you weren’t able to push open that door again as the darkness inside scared you. I remember telling you the exact same words. That it was okay, to relax, to breathe, over and over again, cradling you in my arms.

  Only this time it was me losing it, this time my arms didn’t cradle you, but imprisoned you, until you lost consciousness and I caught you.

  I remember standing there, being fully aware of what I was, being completely changed AND myself in that very moment you passed out due to the injuries I had inflicted.

  I would have never let you go if I hadn’t been myself, because me – the human – knew that you needed help. The Beast in me wouldn’t have realized.

  Day 104

  I just feel like it is not blood that is running through my veins, but sand.

  Dry and dirty.

  Maybe they have started to drug me again, so that I stay in this human, weaker form.

  Like they did before, haven’t they? I think they did first when they started to show me the footage until I didn’t need it anymore the whole time.

  That’s why I believe that in the beginning they probably put me – us – in a coma and that is the reason I barely remember anything.

  And what I remember rather seems like a series of nightmares.

  * * *

  I still don't dare to read what you have written, because I don't want to betray your trust, but I can't stop asking myself if you know how important you are to me, if you could imagine that no one is more important to me than you.

  And I can’t stop thinking that I might never be able to tell you all that is, buried in my head.

  If I would have had any chance to make sure that you'd be safe and return home without having to go all through this, all that I have put you through, I would have done everything, anything.

  And thinking of this I can't... I can't stop myself from imagining what you might be going through right now, what White is doing to you right now. What torment you have to go through right now.

  * * *

  Usually I don’t have that much time for myself; usually I am not so much in control of myself either, so that I am able to keep track of time. And then again, I never cared about time before.

  Until you came here, and changed everything.

  Now he left me to rot.

  I am sure that he wants to drive me mad. It's not about testing boundaries anymore, or to see when I break; he can't make me believe that.

  I had never been in for games with him. I never had a reason to fight him either.

  Now my days are nothing more than that: working out to keep the restlessness at bay, because that’s what it is, the Beast in me: it’s a wild animal, a cougar, pacing up and down in its cell that is my body.

  It’s irritated, it’s hungry and it yearns, for so many things, even more than I had expected, until they set it on you.

  What a terrifying realization to learn that they know that thing inside of you better than you do. I guess they had enough time to watch and study their creation.

  Usua
lly they test and prod me, which they strangely don’t do right now. And that’s what keeps me worried even more. That is the thought I have to fight back to keep myself sane.

  They stripped our lives away from us, our humanity; they made us beasts from the inside out and some of us beyond the point of no return. I thought I was just like that, one of them, the lost ones, until he showed me videos and pictures of normal humans.

  At least that’s what I thought it was all about: to torment me, to show me what I was not anymore, to study my reaction to exactly that. And that was when I saw the first picture of you.

  You seemed so familiar, like I had known you in a former life, probably the one I had been stripped from. If I had realized who you were right then and there, I don’t know if I would have acted differently. But this familiarity was not the reason why I couldn’t tear my eyes away in the end: you seemed so lost, sad and alone. Just like me.

  I couldn't stop looking at you, watching you, getting to know you. If I had known that this would mean dooming you to such an existence I wouldn't have done that.

  Now I cannot undo it. Not even the torture that came to you through my own doing.

  Now I have a reason to fight. Not for my soul. I'm damned anyway. But for you.

  Looking back, I think that was what all of this was about. And that is why he, White, never has to bring you back to me anymore, because he knows that I would do absolutely anything for just catching a glimpse, for a sign that you are alive and well.

  I would tear down the world just to make sure that you are just that and happy. And he knows it. Even worse: I couldn’t care less that he does.

  It’s been two weeks.

  I can’t remember us two being separated for this long. And I feel like I am slowly but inevitably sinking back to what I was before you were with me.

  It’s not fair to you and I know it.

  I can’t make you my salvation, my savior; I have to save myself in order to save you as well. You can’t be my excuse for everything.

  Still, you are my reason to fight and to endure all of this, because despite everything I did to you, you still somehow managed to care for and trust me and I hope that you still do, that you still can.

  I won’t read your diary and clinging to that is strangely helpful. Though it’s laying right here next to me, under my pillow, somehow it gets easier every day to withstand the urge, the temptation to browse through the pages.

  You were keeping yourself sane writing words on these pages, and I will try to keep myself human doing so as well.

  Until you return to me.

  There is no way that I will allow anything to cloud my hope this time. Even though I am sure, even though I believe to know that you are pregnant and that this is the reason why they keep you away from me, I know with the same clarity: if I prove to them that I can control the Beast inside of me that there is a chance I can see you again. And that is all that truly matters, that’s all my thoughts are circling around.

  I keep myself even more disciplined than before. I keep working out until I am too tired, too worn out, I follow whoever takes me to my examinations, I don’t flinch when they stick needles into me anymore, I do what they ask of me, I keep silent, I don’t look at them. And I know that this is all White ever wanted of me.

  Almost, at least.

  I wish there were more interesting things to say about my day, or days in general, but there aren’t and I catch myself realizing that it was an upside for me not being self-conscious all the time.

  Knowing where I am, what I am, is messing even more with my head.

  Two weeks. It’s different than before, somehow, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

  Maybe, for the first time, I am fully aware of the emptiness inside of me that you create when you are gone, because you filled a void.

  The same void you created, when you left my life when we were kids, a hole I have forgotten.

  Maybe it’s because I have to fight for my mind to keep wandering back to the times I have seen you, living through those moments just so I can remember you. Because it also means going through the awful things I did to you, these horrors that made me wonder how you felt and I can’t imagine that you enjoyed it.

  Somehow I believe that they keep me locked away on purpose. Usually – at least that’s how I remember it – they would take me into the atrium, that place where you were brought once to tame me once again, where White held a gun to your head and told me that he gave you to me and that he could take you away from me. It seems to be so far away in my memories. Yet those words are etched into my brain. Being separated from you made me go rabid then and now I am the absolute opposite.

  I don’t know what has changed, how I am able to stay human and control these emotions that trigger the change, that give strength to the beast, maybe it’s because there is still your scent lingering on your diary. How terrifying is this thought? Believing that something so fragile, so elusive, is the very line between me being a human and me being a beast. Or maybe it’s just me thinking lowly about myself.

  However, usually they take me outside every other day, to train, to fight others. You know that they call me ‘Ten’, because I am just a number to them.

  There are twelve of us, twelve left. We were more once. Our platoon counted 50 people, but I don’t know how many of them survived or rather ended up here. And it is hard to remember.

  All I do recall is that there are another eleven, I meet regularly and one of them I have seen every day.

  You know by now that Peter is one of us.

  Day 105

  I was about to tell you about Peter when White visited. After that, you can guess, I wasn’t able to write anymore. This man, this... abomination of a human... you can guess that I didn’t feel like writing after that.

  It’s not that White actually dares entering my cell, though he acts like he doesn’t think me as human enough to be trusted.

  I don’t really want him to trust me, because that would mean there would be some sort of respect between us, still I want him to trust my composure, because I want to see you again.

  The shifting of the guard in front of my door made it easy for me to tell who was visiting. Since we were separated I have had one soldier guarding the door 24/7 and most of the time it is Peter.

  Like I said: I believe it is his own personal punishment as it is mine.

  Also, I think, to trick me and not sense White coming.

  However, more importantly, usually I wasn’t guarded in my cell, so I guess that White thinks me capable of doing something stupid in order to see you again. And that is really what worries me.

  He has to believe that I won’t.

  Still, I can distinguish Peter’s and White’s personal scents by now, even though it took me some time to... find out the difference between them.

  God, you probably don’t know that they are half-brothers. There is so much I need to tell you.

  However, I didn’t make any effort to hide that I was writing, and for me, that slightly confused expression on his face was, well... victory enough for me, because it makes me hope.

  I had forgotten how that felt: hope.

  “I must really say that I am impressed”, he spoke, sounding belittling, even though I think that it was an honest compliment, as honest as it can be when you are proud of a dog that finally has learned a new trick.

  “You are still able to control yourself and it has been two weeks already.”

  For a moment I hesitated to get up and step towards the door, in an attempt to show the respect his voice demanded, but I chose not to.

  The risk to give in to the hatred, the sound of his voice alone ignited in me, was simply too high and he had just started a conversation with me, when all I was used to hear was a monologue.

  Somehow I managed to bring out a “Thank you, Sir”, and put the book aside because I was afraid to maul it.

  “When was the last time the two of us had a decent talk?” Doctor Severin sh
ifted slightly and looked directly at me, waiting for an answer.

  “When you threatened to shoot Meghan”, was my response and I couldn’t make myself look back at him, so I dropped my glance to the ground, concentrating on the rough pattern and on breathing evenly.

  It was the truth; I didn’t know which answer he had wanted to hear, what he had in mind.

  The way he reacted, flinching slightly, his pulse, adding one additional beat told me that he had thought of another situation and I had to fight down the anger, no, push down the Beast that was attempting to rise.

  How could he have forgotten?

  “That was not really a conversation, was it”, I heard him state and yes, in a way that was true, however, for me, it was the first time he had really addressed me like an intelligent being again.

  “When you asked me if I wanted to live”, was my new answer and this time I had to see his reaction, silently praying that he wouldn’t smile.

  “Do you remember more than that?” he inquired and I realized that he was trying to figure out how far back to normal I really was – if anything was ever going to be normal about me.

  However, I frowned, but nodded.

  See, I already told you that everything seems to be a blur, especially when the memories have been made by the Beast and not me. The longer I have been in this... state... the easier it seems for my brain to make memories and now, that I am more and more able to stay human, it’s like I am regaining memories, piece for piece, no matter if I like it, like them, or not.

  “I do”, I answered and breathed in deeply, because I felt dizzy all of a sudden. “I remember that I was dying. My body was either hurting or numb, and it was hard to stay awake. And that was”, I looked straight at him, “when Peter brought you in.”

  You should know that Peter was part of our medical staff, that’s how we became friends.