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

by D. S. Wrights

  I didn't understand why my heart beat went down, or the heaving of my chest lessened, or why I sensed a strange warmth on my cheeks.

  It couldn't be blood because no matter how hard I tried to wipe it off, it kept being there.

  “Jay, relax”, I heard this second word for the first time, or had I not perceived it before?

  The red was still consuming me, but somehow it felt less real all of a sudden. So, I did the only thing that seemed to help me focus, and through this insanity: the voice I was hearing. It was so familiar. It had been there every time I had woken up before, and I clung to it like a log. And all of this felt even more like a dejá-vu now, as if I had been through this a thousand times, without being able to remember it.

  It felt like the blood was gluing my eyes shut, but I felt the desperate need to open them, tear those lids apart. And it hurt. Not opening my eyes, but the bright, clean white light that flooded the room so artificially, emphasizing the fact that this room, this jail, had no window. The light seemed to wash away whatever had tried to drown me, dull me, and when I had adapted to the burning perception I could see her.

  Something stopped me from saying her name, but I didn’t care to wonder about it. I was just too relieved to see that she was safe and sound, that my nightmare had been wrong.

  “You’re back”, she stated, and her smile was nothing but a sign of relief, since she seemingly was worried before and only then that I realized that even if I would have wanted to, I wasn’t able to speak, and could barely move.

  A flash of red blinded me for a moment, but I blinked it away quickly, shaking my head, seeing that they were IVs in my arms again.

  The warmth on my cheeks had faded, as I had shaken myself loose from Valerie’s grip, and now I could feel it on my shoulder. It was one of her hands.

  “You burned up the tranquilizer, too fast and went into this fugue state”, she explained, doctor as she was, “I had to... sedate you.”

  I didn't need to look at her face since her voice told me already that she wasn’t being entirely honest. Her heart rate was slightly exhilarated, and her breathing was a tiny bit shallow. And I could remember that I had fainted.

  Valerie Winters was obviously alarmed since I had been able to shake my head. I fought for keeping up my denial, but the Beast was stronger now. I could feel it crawling up inside of me, beneath my skin, the sensation of it now becoming more familiar, but nonetheless painful.

  She looked at me, trying to conceal uneasiness and worry and I looked right back at her, feeling how my body was fighting off whatever chemical was coursing through my veins. It felt like it was cutting through my veins, but this time, all I did was tense my muscles, trying to stay put, seemingly calm, seemingly paralyzed.

  It was instinct. It wasn’t me. Not anymore.

  The lack of words between us waved out into the room now with no one to stop it. Neither her nor I really saw the other, just pretending to do so, being alert, alarmed, waiting for the next thing to happen. Both of us knew better, the truth, pretending not to.

  Doubt has an icy grasp, asking us if there would ever be a way for me to return to something normal. Looking at her, looking around, I knew that it was never meant to be.

  Winters did something unexpected.

  “They want you paralyzed and awake”, she suddenly said and made a step closer to check on my infusion. “They want to use your new state for their advantage”, she explained, and I swallowed, feeling the freezing grip of fear claiming my limbs, until something warm broke it: Valerie's hand on my lower arm.

  I looked up to her while she continued speaking lowly: “I don’t know how many injections you got and they didn’t speak to me” – both lies – “I just heard them saying that it’s the most advanced version they have. I just know they started doing tests on you about two months ago.”

  That was the truth.

  So, since they felt like they were losing my trust about everything, they made Valerie drop lies between truths now, hoping to regain it.

  I could feel that fire blazing up inside of me again. And I remember asking myself what I was now.

  The Hulk? Were anger and fear triggering this?

  Could other emotions do that as well?

  And then I realized that this exactly was what she was speaking about.

  “They tested your physical reaction, now they want to check the psychical ones”, she continued calmly.

  They wanted to make me believe that they were treating me, that everything they did was about healing me. But I knew, I could feel that I was perfectly fine – apart from the drugs they were giving me in order to weaken me and the raging Beast that was screaming at me to release it.

  The time for conversation was over when the door was opened and two men in white lab coats entered. She gave them one straight look, to which I believe they responded in the same way.

  Time to remind the lab rat that it actually was a lab rat.

  Valerie’s heart was speeding up slightly, just like her breathing. In the almost exact moment she left my room, letting the door shut behind her, she slumped against the wall directly next to it, pressing her back to the wall, trying to calm herself down, swallowing dryly. I could listen to her inhaling through her nose, exhaling through her mouth, telling herself to calm down.

  She was afraid of me.

  Had my simple movement scared her that much?

  A pain on my arm broke my calm and focused my senses, as well as my eyes on the extra needle in my arm. It wasn't an injection, just a test. And I just flinched.

  “That’s not good”, the male of the white coats said and the woman nodded carefully, instinctively making one tiny step back, but the sound of her heel echoes in my ears.

  I hadn’t seen one of them before. Both had dark short hair, but that was the only similarity they had. She was almost pretty; he looked like he had had a serious case of acne in his teens. His eyes were brown, hers were somewhere in between blue and gray. He looked like biting on a lemon; she smiled at me in a weak attempt to make me calm down.

  I’ll never forget their faces, even though I don’t know their names.

  Right then, I wondered why exactly she was trying to smile at me, but the quick beep in my head answered my question. My pulse was elevated again.

  “He shouldn’t be able to move”, the male said again and my eyes caught another movement.

  I felt my lips twitching as I felt another needle in my leg, but my eyes were on the door. The doctors noticed, but didn’t comment, I only heard the woman’s fingertips on the screen of the tablet as she made electronic notes on my reaction and behavior.

  Apparently I didn’t worry them too much, not as much as I had worried Valerie Winters, who had fled the scene.

  “Dr. Winters”, someone outside of greeted my caretaker and I heard her tense.

  This time, however, I tensed as well, making the two scientists hesitate. I knew that voice outside. I knew that person. I knew that aftershave.

  “Sir”, Valerie responded, failing miserably at trying to keep her voice calm.

  It was White. Again.

  I felt that acid fire blazing up in me even more, like a heartburn.

  “Why’s he upset, all of a sudden?” I heard the guy as if he had been shoved into the distance, while my hearing concentrated on the two people in the corridor.

  I would have been awed by my new ability, if I hadn’t been fighting to keep that Beast within restrained, trying to keep the fire low. But the two, who were with me in this room decided to disturb me.

  I closed my eyes and breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth. Like Valerie had done before, concentrating on her trembling voice, listening to her as she said to White: “He is awake, and able to move, barely, but he can. I suggest we wait with further examinations and allow him to accommodate to being awake.”

  Seemingly, Winters waited for an answer, but White stayed silent, so she continued, her voice ridden with nervousness and agitation, as i
f she couldn’t wait to get out of here.

  “The gas was the last resort and it didn’t last very long either,” she emphasized the urgency in between words. “His restraints didn’t hold him back long enough as well. He is extremely strong. We are endangering staff as long as his mental state is not stabilized.”

  There was no way calming myself down thinking of this. My heart monitor was speeding up again, and this time it was deafening, this time that acid fire inside of me ruptured into an explosion.

  The Beast in me roared, claiming dominance as victor of our last fight. And I could feel it, see it, as red flashed before my eyes again. This time I seemed to be even more aware, despite my fury, because I almost wanted it to happen: my skin trying to turn itself inside out, claws growing, tearing my fingers, teeth bursting into fangs trough my jaw. I heard myself growl lowly, but strangely enough the pain was less, because I was astonished?

  While my body was changing, still restrained to my bed, my sight was altered as well, as if I could see the heat radiating off the bodies around me and outside.

  This was impossible, but I didn’t care to wonder.

  I didn’t want to calm down, I wanted to show White once he got in here how much I despised him, but then again, wouldn’t that give him the triumph? I focused on what my enhanced eyes were able to perceive and tried to regain that hearing that had allowed me to eavesdrop, while I did my best to ignore those two doctors watching me closely. There was a little bit of amusement because I was confusing them. That emotion did not belong to me.

  Right in that moment White moved towards the door and I could sense how my body moved, was moved by an invisible force. It wasn’t me, and yet it was. My body sat up. I could see White’s face through the barred window.

  “Increase the dose!” he ordered the doctors.

  Right then and there it dawned on me that White was scared of me. His pulse increased just like his breathing the second he had seen me. And that was when I started snarling and I couldn’t stop. It wasn’t even me.

  Still, all of this was just a bad joke, wasn’t it?

  The people inside the room started babbling incoherently and it seemed as if someone talked to them via a speaker – how I would get used to that noise in the future. But I couldn’t hear them anymore.

  My skin was burning, as if I was covered with acid. I was having some sort or allergic reaction to the higher dose of whatever they gave me. My body was trying to fight it, but it felt as if it was poisoning itself. My veins were evaporating. I could feel it. It was even worse than changing, worse than waking, worse than everything. It felt as if they were trying to kill me.

  My sight turned red.

  I barely remember what happened next. There are in fragments, bits and pieces, but it’s enough. Just as I have written before: I will never forget those faces of theirs because I painted that room red with their blood.

  That’s why I always spoke of the Beast as if it was not me, but a different creature, a different persona. Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide. But I know now that this is me, too.

  I tore those two scientists into shreds. No limb remained in their sockets. I didn’t only cover the room with them, but myself as well.

  Even though I do not remember every single movement my body made, I do recall the sounds. The alarm in the background. Them locking up the security door, while those scientists were screaming their lungs out, while I was ripping them out.

  Outside White was watching me while I killed his two employees, not even flinching as they tried to escape, as they yelled, pleaded, gurgled for aid. He was still monitoring the massacre after Valerie Winters had already turned away and run off in horror. Our glances met after the deed had been done. My chest was heaving heavily, my clothes drenched in blood. I could see my own reflection in the window as I stared into the proud eyes of this madman. It wasn’t only my clothes, it was all of me. I could even sense smithereens beneath my fingernails after the claws had retracted. Instinctively, I licked my lips only to taste blood that wasn’t mine.

  I threw up then and there.

  It was the last time for a long time that I turned back into my human self.

  * * *

  I don’t know how much longer I can take seeing you like this, wrapped in apathy like it’s a blanket shielding you from whatever makes you freeze. What would I give to be that blanket for you, to see you react to anything around you, to smile at me. What would I give to hear you speak, to see that softness in your eyes, when you look at me, or to hear the fierceness when you talk about things that seem impossible for me but not for you.

  I feel as if every time I see you like this, another part of sanity disappears. Every time I leave this room, the Beast in me takes over a bit more of me. Calmness vanishes slowly and is replaced by... not impatience, I could never be impatient with you, who has been an abundance of patience with me. No, it’s fear and rage again.

  Knowing this, I wait for the moment my sight has this red flare again. I already feel it inside of me.

  * * *

  Waking up after that time had been just the same as diving out of water after being forced to hold breath for much too long. Instinctively, I wanted to sit up, pull in as much air as I could, but there was still no way to move. It felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest, along with the pressure and pain. Yet again, I had been alive when I thought I wouldn't be.

  The light was dazzling, seemingly flickering as I blinked and looked around. In fact, I was alone, all alone this time, in a room that wasn’t the one I had been used to.

  It was my cell.

  I could feel panic gnawing at my bones, as if it was trying to swallow me. My pulse hunting ghosts, still my breath was uneven and shallow, and the light burned in my eyes. I reminded myself to concentrate, to focus, gritting my teeth together, sucking in the air through them, pushing it out through my nose, forcing my breathing to calm down, somehow.

  The last thing I wanted to do was to turn into that monster again, a monster that had mauled two human beings.

  It worked only slowly and the strange pain in my hands was oddly helping. I had been clenching my fists so hard that they seemed to cut me, until I realized that they probably did, with my own claws. Something I would have to get used to.

  This thought flashed through my mind, creating a lump in my throat, making me struggle to calm down my breathing and pulse once more. I would undo it, I decided. I would find a way. Once I got out of here.

  Another lie, another denial, another attempt of hope.

  I closed my eyes, focused on breathing once more, trying to find pictures behind my eyelids that would help me to compose myself. And I started imagining all those happy moments I had had with my family. But they wouldn't help, ending in a blur, mixing themselves with guilt, chaos and pain. That was when I realized that there would be no memories saving me.

  Everything hurt and nothing changed. I barely kept up the rhythm I had chosen to breathe in. My ears were rushing and I saw the light burning through my closed lids.

  I remember asking myself: there is no peace, is there?

  I would be in this situation for the rest of my life, never being able to research and work on a cure because I chose war over science. I would end up destroying everything in an emotional outbreak, if I tried to pick up my education where I had left it. I wasn’t fit for the world outside.

  Breathing out through my mouth, clawing into the sheets and mattress beneath my hands, feeling how I had stained them with my own blood. Every fiber in my body hurt and I could sense losing control over it, how the skin seemed to peel itself inside out again. Strangely the pain was less than I had recalled. I needed to stop this.

  But, how? Why? What for?

  When I hadn’t been conscious at all, when they had triggered whatever was the cause of transforming me into this vile, lethal creature they had created, they had been unable to control it.

  The safest for me and the word was to let go of myself. And that’s what I did.
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  Day 136

  Learning to be in my Beast form AND be aware of myself is something I have been training for days now. I haven’t mentioned it, because I haven’t figured out a way to be the Beast AND be me without... blowing it every single time. I can throw myself into the state that the Beast surfaces and takes over, which is already in progress, but actively deciding what the Beast does, does not work.

  I can’t just take its form. The very moment I do, it also takes over control. And this means that I’m still not in balance with myself. I don’t know if I ever will. I don’t know if my theory is true that the Beast really is a part of me, my subconsciousness, my instinct, something I can align myself with. What if I am wrong now and have been right the entire time before? What if the Beast really is a foreign creature inside of me? That would mean there is no way for me to control it. It means that no one will ever be able to control me. Only you. You were able to make me relax, to soothe me, tame me.

  I’m starting to believe that if they want to really use me in battle, they will need you to do it. Just as a police dog needs its master. It makes me feel sick to think like that.

  Yes, I can become the Beast and, yes, after some time I can regain control, but that also means changing back.

  You’ve seen me doing this a few times. Everyone might have believed that it was easy for me, that I could simply flip a finger and it would happen. The thing is, it was only slightly easier with you around, because you are affecting what I am feeling.

  And emotions are the key, which is why I can never find balance. Because when I am balanced the Beast won’t show, it cannot reach the surface. I need fiery emotions like wrath, envy, hunger, hate, and fear for the Beast to surface, everything warm or cool just doesn’t make it happen. The Beast is and always will be a wild animal caged inside of me.

  I just don’t only need you because I love you, Meghan. I need you to stay myself, to be human.