Page 76 of Fragile Wicked Things
"I was wrong to bring you to Thornfield Hall, knowing as I did of my cursed and wretched life," he said, his voice coarse. Finally, he responded when I spoke his name, although I had spent the hours before pleading with him.
"It was Catherine who first brought me here. And now Blanche." I knelt next to him and placed my hands on his, pulling them away from his face. "You let me go once. And I know you would have kept your word at the end of the year. You have shown me kindness, great kindness at times. It is not you who keeps me an inmate in this house."
My words seemed to have softened him, and when he looked at me, I saw that the darkness was no longer there. He arched his eyebrows, and a glazed look crossed his face. "I permitted myself the delight of being kind to you; your face became soft in expression, your tones gentle. I liked to hear my name pronounced on your lips and enjoyed any chance meeting I encountered with you. Now, I beg for forgiveness. I was wrong to believe I could have you here with that demon. Time has not quelled her longing for vengeance; it has not hushed the promptings of rage and aversion. I left her in bitterness and hate, and she comes to me now with the same multiplied a thousand times over." Rochester wrapped his hands around my face and drew me closer. "Say you forgive me, Jane, for bringing you to your death."
I started at the word "death" and tried to free myself from his grasp, but he would not let go. "We must find a way to get out."
"I cannot save you," he said. "Blanche has awoken a darkness in me that Catherine had quelled."
Rochester's words frightened me and again I pulled myself away from him, but a struggle ensued and I could not loosen his grip. I clawed at his hands, struck him, and shook my head. His hands held tighter, and he emitted an otherworldly sound, a deep growl like no animal I've heard; his eyes darkened, and his teeth sharpened—the darkness came to life. He threw me to the floor and pounced on me, holding my wrists above my head and slamming them down several times.
"Stop! Edward!"
"Don't say his name. I am not him. I can no longer separate myself from the monster. This is my true face."
"Will you force the soulless creature on me as it was on you? Am I to spend an eternity in the torment you've tried to take refuge from?"
His lips were on mine, his tongue searching for a way in to silence me. I moved my head and shook his lips off mine, then his tongue traveled down my neck until the jagged teeth found a sweet spot to sink themselves into. I let out a scream at the sharp pain.
"Blanche…she…" Concentration was difficult. "Blanche may have returned as the same vengeful, murderous creature you left behind…but, stop…but she has returned to a different man."
The teeth sunk in further, and I stopped struggling, wrapped my arms around him and moaned. He shifted and bit into another part closer to my breast. I moaned again. I hadn't meant to, but I couldn't refrain from doing so. My body ached for him. He fumbled with my blouse, and his mouth traveled to my breast, where he bit me again, draining me a little at a time. And I knew the difference between what he was doing to me and what he had done to the blond girl earlier. Rochester was turning me. And at that moment I wanted him to. I spoke the words of protest, but it was all in pretense, a game we were playing and held no validity to them.
"You're wrong, Mr. Rochester. Oh…I…oh. I have seen your true face, and it doesn't resemble this. Catherine showed it to me."
The monster was tamed and broken at the sound of her name, and Rochester released me. Leaning his head into me, he sobbed, the wet of his face drowning me. After a short time, he began to mumble, repeating the words until he finally cried out.
"Free me." He leapt off me and ran to the fireplace, then, picking up the poker, turned to me with such anguish in his countenance. I understood what he was asking, and it horrified me.
"No, I won't do it," I said, lifting myself off the floor. Rochester went down on his knees, grabbed my hand which he wrapped around the poker and held the point to his chest.
"Take me out of my misery. Destroy the creature before it devours you. Blanche told you what I did to my family. And, if what she said is true, if I did something to unknowingly turn them and they are trapped in filthy graves, their souls unable to enter the Kingdom, then I must be damned to hell. Do it!"
We struggled. Rochester held my hand in a firm embrace and he pushed the poker deeper into his chest until it broke flesh.
I looked on in horror and said, "Will you leave me here alone with her then? Have you considered what she will do with me?"
He stopped, his shoulders sank and he let go of me, the poker crashing to the floor with a loud clank. I took a step towards him, and he reached out with such a desperate embrace before carrying me to the bed, where he laid me down and climbed in beside me. We lay in stillness until the early hours of the morning with no more talk of death. It was dark out and in a few hours the sun would be up and we would have lived another day.
* * *
We lay in my bed,my head nestled on Rochester's chest, and although it was nearly four in the morning, slumber did not overtake me. My ear was flat on his chest, listening to the silence. The underside of my hand was on his flesh, and he was motionless. His chest did not rise and fall as mine did. I wondered if he could feel my warm breath on his flesh, hear the beats of my heart, and tickled by my locks of hair. What we did share was blood, my blood and just as it flowed through my veins, it rushed through his. We were forever intertwined.
Someone shouted. Another scream was muffled and a ruckus broke outside my window at the back of the house. Rochester untangled himself from me to look out my balcony door, pulling back the curtain. I sat up in bed.
"What is it?" I said.
He turned to me, opened his mouth, uttered no words and shook his head.
"Tell me."
"They have Thomas," he said.
Rochester was mistaken. Thomas had left days before and would have been in Chicago. I climbed out of bed, intent to prove him wrong, but when I peered out, discovered Rochester had told the truth. Thomas was down on his knees, illuminated by a porch light. Behind him, twisting his arm back until Thomas writhed in pain, was Franklin. Another of Blanche's men loosely held a wooden stake that he shoved up to Thomas’s face, taunting him, threatening. Franklin pulled him up to his feet and pushed him towards the door and inside where I lost sight of them.
I bolted to the bedroom door, twisting the knob every which way, then pulling on it to get it open, but it was no use. Blanche had locked us in.
"Jane." Rochester's voice was quiet as he spoke and when I turned to him, I noticed he held the knob from the balcony door that he had snapped off. "Quickly."
