CHAPTER 2: She Comes Undone
As Jake lay dying on the sidewalk, I tried to think of something comforting and supportive to say, but nothing was coming to mind. How do you tell someone on their deathbed that they're going to be okay when you know it's not true? How do you assure them that things will all work out when you haven't the slightest idea? How do you lie to someone you love when you know you'll never see them again?
I clenched his hand on the sidewalk as a larger and larger crowd gathered. "Stay back!" someone shouted. "She's dangerous!"
I could have morphed and left before the police arrived. No doubt they were going to arrest me, take me in for questioning. They had enough damning evidence to put me behind bars for life. I didn't know how the witnesses would explain me leaping across the street in the blink of an eye, or why I was comforting him now. The human mind was a funny, fragile thing, and they would piece together the bits and pieces that made sense, concoct their own stories.
I could morph and run far, far away. I could run and no one would stop me. But I knew that I couldn't, couldn't leave him here alone.
Tears were streaming freely down my face now, and my mind was racing. This was Jake, my Jake. We'd been together and apart, in lover's quarrels and fights to the death to save the world. We'd fought and survived, lived so many times when we should have died, won so many times when she should have lost. It wasn't fair that he could be snatched away from me like this, right under my nose. Not like this. Not now, just when I was hoping to make things right between us.
A cold hand gripped around my heart and twisted. I could not let Jake die thinking I hated him. No matter what we'd been through, we'd been through it together. I admired him, trusted him, respected him. Loved him.
"I love you," I whispered to him. The words were unbidden from my lips but true nonetheless. "Anything that happened between us, Jake, I swear it's in the past. I love you." My chest quivered as I tried not to lose every last shred of control I had left. As I tried not to break down. I tried, just this once, to be strong.
For him.
He looked at me with those chocolate brown eyes that once upon a time had been so young and trusting. They were now old and tired, but the look they held was the same. Those eyes said everything. All was forgiven between us, all was forgotten. He struggled to speak but gurgled instead. He rolled weakly onto his side and coughed up blood. If the bullet hadn't pierced the heart directly, it had at the least punctured a lung and scraped the heart. Sirens wailed in the distance but they would be too late. I wanted to help him, but I knew there was nothing I could do for him now.
As he regained his breath, he turned back to me and fought with every last ounce of energy that he had to speak. "Cassie," he wheezed, eyelids drooping.
"I'm here, Jake." Oh God. He couldn't die on me. I couldn't lose him. Couldn't.
"I love you, too. I never… stopped loving you." I couldn't take it any more. My shoulders heaved with grief as I sobbed, clenching one of his hands tightly in my own and bringing my other up to my face to block out the horrible image. The pain on his face… I didn't think I could take it, but Jake was the one who'd been shot. Jake was the one who was dying. If he could take that wound and die in front of me, brave, like the man he'd always been, then the least I could do was be here for him.
The least I could do was watch. It felt like somebody had to be there to witness and record the final chapter in the life of Jake Berenson, the Animorph leader. He was history, he was a legend, a savior.
He was dead.
His hand went slack in mine, his head fell back to the pavement, eyes wide and lifeless. Already they were beginning to glass over.
Two police officers approached from the sides, one pointing a gun at my temple, the other holding a pair of handcuffs. They were going to arrest me, to hold me responsible. But I didn't care, it didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore.
He was dead.
"Hands on your head, lady!" I sat there for a moment, not thinking or breathing or blinking. "Now!" Slowly, as if coming out of a trance, my hands found their way to the top of my head and I laced my fingers together.
I could run. I could escape. I could morph.
No, I couldn't. They would find me. Someone, somewhere.
I could wake up now.
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law." The cop's voice was far-away, the words not registering in my mind.
This wasn't real. Couldn't be. No God would be cruel enough to weave these twists of fate, to create this world we live in where people cheat and lie and steal and kill. Kill. What was it they had called me, back in the day? Killer with a conscience. As far as the rest of the world was concerned now, I was just a killer.
"You have the right to be speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning."
It was a nightmare, every last bit of it. I would wake up tomorrow next to Ronnie and we'd still be together and Jake would be alive and I'd be able to find that goddamned pair of earrings. Funny, the things our minds think of in the midst of terrible tragedy.
"If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense."
I was numb. I'd be all over the news in minutes. The first news van was wheeling around the corner. Oh, God, what would my parents think? My mother would just die. Die, that was funny. I would have cried, and kept crying, but it wouldn't have done any good. There wasn't enough sorrow in my heart for Jake, and now for myself. There weren't enough tears in all the rivers in the world to mourn the passing of such a hero.
Jake Berenson was dead, a feat not even the most powerful of Yeerks had been able to accomplish. And all the rest of the world knew was that Cassandra Chase had killed him.
And that strange woman, whoever she was, still had my earrings.
* * *
The cell was small, about four by eight, and the gate slammed shut with a steely clanking sound. Everything was exactly as I would have pictured it to be, had I ever actually imagined myself going to prison. The other inmates stared at me as they brought me past, wondering what such a tiny chick was doing in the hardcore block with the murders and psychopaths. But my own cell was in quarantine
I didn't bother to protest. To throw a tantrum and scream, 'I didn't kill him!' It wasn't a very convincing argument. Someone who looked exactly like me had killed Jake. Hell, maybe it was me. Maybe I was completely insane, doing things and committing crimes that I had no memory of. Like in Fight Club. God, I hated that movie. Way too violent.
My mind kept doing that. Grasping at straws, bouncing back and forth to things that seemed completely irrelevant. I was in shock, I knew. From far away I could see myself, observe my actions and behaviors and symptoms, and diagnose them. That's right, I thought, think of yourself as just another animal in just another zoo far away. This is all happening to someone else. It's not real.
It's not real.
There were five guards stationed outside of my cell. The police knew what I was, everyone did. The guards had been given orders to shoot me on sight if I tried to morph. There was no escape. They'd even arranged a special, private trial for me the next afternoon, to convict and sentence me as quickly as possible. They didn't want to keep a crazy Animorph pent up in a cell for too long, lest she go insane and start killing people. Rachel would have been flattered. But no, Rachel was dead, wasn't she?
Just like Jake was.
Just like I would be.
In ten seconds, everything had changed and I had been helpless to stop it. And now? My life was forfeit. Even if I walked away, I couldn't survive long. Not without Jake. Not with all the questions and what-if's running through my mind. What if I had been a little faster? What if we'd never broken up? What if I could have saved him? What if I had run? My thoughts circled over and over in my head, reverberating through my entire being.
What if? What if? What if?
As the shock began to wear off, I realized just how ruined my life was. I had no friends left. Whoever had killed Jake, really killed him, was out to screw me over good. Couldn't trust anyone now.
Jake was dead.
Trust no one.
I was in jail.
They're all your enemy.
It was over.
As the cruel realities bombarded me, one after the other, I began to cry all over again, for everything and everyone I had lost along the way. This was it. Really it. I'd been too slow and now Jake was dead and now my life was unraveling, coming undone right in front of me while I just sat here in a tiny little cell and watched.
This was really, truly happening.
Jesus, save me.