I dug my fingers into the soft place in my back just above my kidneys, feeling the lower edge of my ribs. “You can’t substitute a person’s organs with a deer’s. That’s impossible.”
“So is vivisecting a dog and a bear to make a man. At least that’s what they tell me. Perhaps they should ask Balthasar.” His eyes gleamed as though I were some fresh specimen on his operating table. “The injections are to keep your body from rejecting the foreign organ tissue. If you stop taking the serum, your organs will fail. You won’t regress like they do. You’ll die.”
“You’re mad,” I said. My eyes flickered to the glass cases, where a shadow slunk over the rows of jars.
“Don’t you see?” he continued. “They exist because of you. If you hadn’t almost died, if I hadn’t taken the risk of substituting animal flesh to save your life, I’d never have known it was possible. I’d still be in London teaching ignorant medical students how to dissect street dogs.”
I pressed my eyes closed. Even so, I could feel the shadow moving closer.
“I’d never have sliced open that first dog if it weren’t for you. I’d never have come to this island. Never rivaled God in his power to create. You’ve made everything possible, Juliet. You’re responsible for all of it.”
I wet my shaking lips, feeling faint. All those years of worry, all those sleepless nights, wondering if my father had unlocked some dark science that made him a monster. And it all came down to me. I was to blame for all the rumors, the scandal, even Montgomery’s years spent as a slave on a madman’s island.
It was my fault.
The wind blew the door half closed, dimming the light.
“So you see, you do share my blood. We’re more alike than you think.”
I balled my fists, practically feeling his poison blood coursing through me like a disease. That was the source of my dark inclinations. Him. I could never escape what flowed in my veins, not even if he was dead.
The sound of a boot crunching broken glass came from beside the cabinets where the pane had shattered earlier. The shadow approached. Father turned, but not fast enough.
Edward jammed a needle into his neck. Father clawed at his arms, but Edward held him with an incredible strength for a man his size. At last Father went limp. Edward let him slump to the floor, unconscious.
I fell back against the table. A held breath slipped out between my lips. Edward fumbled in Father’s pockets for the key ring.
“I thought he’d kill you,” I said breathlessly.
Edward found the small key and unlocked the manacle. “So did I.”
He took my hand and we raced for the door. I stepped around Father’s prostrate body. Maybe I was his flesh and blood. Maybe I was as cold as he. But I wasn’t totally without feeling.
I hated him.
WE DASHED OUT OF the laboratory. My head spun with everything I’d learned, and it was all I could do to stumble behind Edward toward the wooden gate.
“Wait, he took Montgomery,” I said breathlessly. “He had a pistol. I’m afraid he might have—”
“Montgomery’s alive. The doctor has him caged outside the walls.”
Relief spread through me. He was alive. We could still escape. Edward sorted through Father’s key ring, and then shook his head, frustrated.
“He must keep the gate key elsewhere. We can’t go through the barn thatch. They sealed the roof.”
“We don’t need a key.” I darted into the barn and dug through the toolbox in the tack room. My hand fell on a smooth, heavy crowbar. Edward and I both had to strain to wrench the boards from the gate. At last a thick plank came free, and we climbed through into the thick grass below the carved Lamb of God and Lion of Judah.
“This way,” Edward said. We hurried along the north wall, where the jungle grew thickest. The early sun beat down on our necks before we plunged into a dark tunnel of trees that seemed to close in on us the farther we went, until we were climbing over vines and branches, pulling ourselves forward. The vegetation pressing in started to make me panic. I imagined the vines holding me there, ensnared, waiting for Father to wake and find us with the dogs. Father, or the monster.
I pushed away a slick leaf, and my fingers grazed something metal. A bar.
“Over here,” I called.
We spilled out into a clearing tangled with overgrown vines. A circle of rusted cages, big enough to hold a bear or tiger, rose from the jungle floor like a new, terrible kind of thicket.
I caught a glimpse of movement in the farthest cage. Someone standing up.
Montgomery.
I rushed over, threading my fingers through the rusted bars. A deep bruise covered his jaw. “You’re alive,” I said.
He wrapped his powerful hands around the bars. “He thought to punish me. He puts the islanders here when they disobey. Locks them here for days without food or water or shade. He told me . . . blast, it doesn’t matter anymore.” He didn’t have to finish his thought. I understood the tender pain in his eyes. Montgomery had believed he was like a son to my father, but in the end we were all animals to him.
Edward searched the rusted cage until he found the lock and tried each key. My heart faltered with each failed try. I paced, chewing on a fingernail.
“How did you know these cages were here?” I asked.
Edward tried another key, uselessly. “I came across them when I was trying to find my way back after I shot that . . .” His voice seemed to slip from his lips as he remembered killing the beast. The next key turned with a groan, banishing the terrible memories. The cage door swung open on rusted hinges.
Montgomery climbed out, slapping Edward on the shoulder, and gave me a look like he wanted to do all sorts of scandalous things to me. My body longed to touch him, but I told myself there wasn’t time for that.
“This way,” he said.
We trekked through the jungle, slowing as the sun rose. The midday heat was humid, and sweat soon poured down our backs. Montgomery led us away from the wagon road, in case anyone was looking for us. He never once hesitated. The island was as familiar to him as our childhood home was to me.
He stopped at the edge of a bamboo grove, staring ahead. I squinted, but all I saw were leaves.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The village. Twenty yards ahead.”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“Neither do I. That’s why I’m worried.” He nodded at the crowbar in Edward’s hand. “If you have to use that, don’t hesitate. They won’t.”