She hesitates a second then shrugs. “Ten.”
Josephine
I have no clothes that are suitable, and as I stare at my filthy home, my tiny suitcase and its meager contents, I have a moment of complete despair. I almost start crying, but I don’t, because that’s not what I do.
Instead I force myself to be proactive and I spread every item of clothing I own over the mattress. I have a pair of ratty old black jeans with holes in the knees; I decide to cut them into shorts. I have no scissors, so I have to rip them as well as I can, then I cuff them twice so that they’re quite short. My single pair of stockings have a ladder in them, so I rip them a couple more times, hoping it will look like they’re supposed to be like this. My scalp isn’t as sore as it was a month ago so I painstakingly brush my long black hair. I keep meaning to cut it short, but can’t quite bring myself to do it. I have no idea why—maybe it’s simply that I’ve always had long hair, and cutting it all off would seem a bit like losing the last part of me that was once innocent.
There’s one top in the pile that I’ve never had occasion to wear. It’s a deep emerald green, buttoned down the front with no back. I consider what I could wear underneath it, then remember that I’m supposed to be cutting loose tonight and decide to wear nothing under it. My bruises have faded, but tonight I don’t really care if people can see them, and this way my tattoos are visible too. Lastly, I add my black leather wristband, a long earring made of a bird feather in one ear and, because I can’t find the other one, a black stud in the other. Impatiently I brush on some mascara and red lipstick.
I only have a small cracked mirror in the bathroom, so I take a look at myself in there. I look like a completely different person. I can’t find myself anywhere in my reflection, and I like it. I feel dangerous. And even though this is usually the last thing I would ever want to feel, tonight I want to be wild and difficult. And angry.
There’s a knock on my door. My stomach lurches but I ignore it. He let me leave, and he made me confused, and I don’t need that shit in my life. I told him that I wanted him, for god’s sake, and he just stood there and didn’t say anything! I’ve never been so humiliated.
There’s also the much more important fact that I can’t trust myself around him. If I let myself have feelings for him, I might hesitate when the time comes. And that isn’t an option—killing myself is a necessity.
Anyway. I only invited Luke tonight because I need a designated driver and because I’m fairly sure no one will talk to me if I don’t come with a good-looking friend.
I open the door and we stare at each other. Oh Lord, the man is trying to destroy me. The stupid bastard looks like he hasn’t made any effort at all, and yet somehow he looks hotter than he ever has. He’s wearing slim-fitting, charcoal-colored suit pants very low on his hips. A pair of suspenders hangs carelessly from the waistband. I can quite clearly see the outline of his muscular chest and arms through his white tee, and he hasn’t bothered to shave so there’s dark stubble over his square jaw. He leans against the doorframe, and he looks at me with an expression I have never seen him wear before. It’s like he’s just as dangerous as I am, just as deadly, and he’s had enough of the games.
Luke’s green eyes travel over my body and I feel flushed. He doesn’t smile, but I can see in his eyes that he’s pleased. “You look hot.”
I turn and grab my black boots, pulling them on. I glance at his feet and see an ancient pair of sneakers. The bottoms of his pants are scuffed. All those fancy new clothes in his wardrobe and he insists on wearing items from the Stone Age. Even so—he can’t help but exude lazy sexuality.
“Come on,” I mutter as I brush past him. “Did you get any alcohol?”
“Was I meant to, Your Highness?”
“We’re going to a party and I told you I want to get drunk so what do you think?” I’m enjoying being snarky. I want to ruffle him, make him angry. I want to push every single one of his buttons. In fact I want to make everyone angry, everyone in this whole damn world.
“You’ve got a fakey—you can get your own booze,” he comments.
We arrive at the warehouse and head inside. It’s full already, even this early. The lights are low and there are bodies everywhere, moving and pulsing to the music. Crates full of drink line the walls and we grab a beer each. I also spot a bottle of vodka and manage to pinch the whole thing. I stalk away from Luke, realizing I don’t need an escort—nobody cares who arrived with who. There’s a carelessness here. Every person in this warehouse has lost something or is missing something from their lives. I can see it in the way they’re desperate to forget.
I take a long gulp of the vodka and nearly vomit. It’s without a doubt the most disgusting thing I’ve ever consumed. I don’t drink much because drunk people tend to get emotional, and I can’t afford to do that. I soon find that if I chase the vodka with the beer it’s slightly more bearable. I want to talk to someone, someone who has no idea that I’m a freak.
Three people are standing close by, two guys and a girl. One of the boys is chatting with the girl and making her giggle, but the other guy is staring into the sea of dancing limbs. He looks carefree and quite handsome, with his blond hair and collared black shirt. I approach him and his eyes glance over me. They quickly take stock of me and then keep moving. My feet falter for a moment, but then I’m reminded of the barn and I don’t really care about the fact that he won’t look at me. I refuse to allow every person in this place to ignore me.
“Hi,” I say when I reach his side. This time he manages to hold my eyes for a few seconds before looking away again.
“Hey,” he says shortly.
“I’m Josi.”
“Chris.” He looks me up and down and sort of reconsiders his reluctance. I can see the thoughts crossing his mind as if they’re neon-lit signs. He doesn’t know why he didn’t want to talk to me. I seem perfectly normal. And he probably doesn’t get many girls going out of their way to talk to him. Chris swallows and tilts his body more in my direction.
“Having fun?” he asks.
“I only just got here, but yeah, I guess.”
“You’ve certainly got your drink sorted out,” he mutters, gesturing at my bottle.
“Do you want some?”
He takes the vodka and has a few gulps. I follow suit and then we look at each other awkwardly.
“So … are you, like, on something?” he asks. “Your eyes … They’re kind of … manic, or something.”
My eyebrows arch. Is he serious? What was I thinking, coming over here to talk to a stupid child? I let a slow smile curl my lips; it is closer to a sneer. “I’m sorry. I thought you might be interesting. My mistake.”
I walk away from him, even though he calls out for me to wait. What a fucking joke. I press into the dancers, but feeling their skin against mine makes me jerk in shock. This isn’t the right way to be touched. I push through them, trying to head for the door, trying to find Luke.
At last I make it to the other side of the massive warehouse. A couple moves to the side and I am finally faced with Luke. He’s standing beside a girl in a sparkly red dress with amazing breasts and curly blond hair. She’s leaning close to him and he’s telling her something that requires lazy hand gestures and a mildly interested smile. She laughs, tilting her head back and shaking her tits.
I want to sink into the floor and cease to exist. Instead of dying, couldn’t I just stop being? That would be really nice.
But that’s when Luke’s eyes move in a cursory glance about the room. They reach where I’m standing and he stops. His eyes stop, his hands stop, even his mouth stops mid-word. Very slowly he starts to smile.
I hate him and I hate that damn smile. It hits me in the guts and heats my skin to flames.
Luke doesn’t even look at the girl as he brushes past her. She says something and then looks devastated that she’s been ignored. I barely notice this because my eyes are locked on Luke as he crosses the floor and leans close. “You look really lonely, gir
l.”
I swallow. He’s taking up every inch of the world. His presence is always larger than anything else. “This place is full of stupid little boys.”
“I hate stupid little boys.” He grins, teeth absurdly white. “Am I a stupid little boy?”
“I haven’t decided what you are yet.”
Luke moves his hand to my cheek and strokes his thumb to the corner of my mouth. “Well you let me know when you do.”
I feel sort of breathless. I want to kiss him, but I won’t, because I saw things in the barn today, and they make me want to die.
“Are you drunk yet?”
“Sort of.”
“And has it made you feel better?” he asks gently.
“Not really.”
“Why are we here, Josi?”
“I don’t know.”
Something loud explodes and shocks me so much that I jump. Luke’s hands are already pressing me behind him. It takes my poor, throbbing ears a moment to understand that it was a gunshot. I can’t figure out what’s going on, but people are starting to scream. A girl shoves into me and nearly knocks me off my feet, but I manage to stay upright.
“Nobody move!” a voice screeches out over the crowd. Someone has stopped the music. I peer around Luke to see that there’s a young man—the one who was flirting with the girl, Chris’ friend. He’s holding the gun high and there’s a crazed look in his eyes. He smiles wolfishly, giving an odd trickle of laughter.
His arm is around the girl’s neck, a bit like how he might hold her if he wanted to be affectionate. Her eyes have that eerie vacant look about them. She doesn’t know what to feel—she looks like she barely knows what’s going on.
“Let’s play!” the boy announces. There are a few sniggers in the crowd. One man cheers. Someone wolf whistles. Someone is crying. A few girls keep screaming in a really weird, abrupt way. I hear a high voice softly singing a skipping rhyme.
“Come on! Who wants to play?” He fires the gun twice into the roof, causing another eruption of chaos. “Don’t you want to see me shoot her?” And with this, the guy lowers the gun and points it into the temple of the girl.
“Stay here,” Luke says. He squeezes my hand once, and then he moves toward the boy with the gun. I feel a moment of terror in my stomach. Luke slinks into the empty space around the shooter. I don’t know what he’s going to do, but the girl needs help too. Quickly I thread my way through the crowd, moving around toward the back of the couple. I keep my eyes on them and Luke.
The stupid boy fires the gun into the ground this time, but the girl still doesn’t try to get away. Luke steps out in front of them. “I’ll play,” he says calmly.
The boy grins and aims his gun straight at Luke. He lets go of the girl and she stumbles sideways. I reach for her and pull her into the crowd. But Luke has the weapon aimed at his chest.
He’s edging his way closer and closer to the boy. Sounds are coming from within the crowd—whoops of excitement and jeers of encouragement. They’ve all lost their damn minds. Well, I wanted dangerous, didn’t I? Now I’ve got it. The static energy in the air is alive with unpredictability.
“I’ll play,” Luke says again, “but you have to come closer.”
The boy giggles and moves closer, pressing the butt of the gun into Luke’s sternum. Luke’s hand darts forward and swats the gun to the side. As this happens, he steps forward, beside the sounding shot, and into the boy’s chest. His fist connects three times with the boy’s chin, and somehow he manages to grab the gun and slip it into the back of his pants.
I blink incredulously. The boy is unconscious on the ground and Luke looks perfectly relaxed. He turns to look for me, but by the time he’s found me on the other side of the crowd, there’s another eruption from the back of the room. A huge fight has broken out and people are fleeing. Police sirens approach from somewhere outside.
Luke grabs my hand and drags me out through the swarming mass. I can hear shouts and screams and even some more gunshots. People are getting crushed by the crowd—one boy goes down and I look away quickly, horror building in my throat at the thought of him getting trampled. Luke keeps his hand locked around mine and deftly makes a path for us to escape through.
I can hear it all throbbing behind us—the chaos of it doesn’t fade until we’ve driven a long way away. I’m reeling from the whole thing, but Luke is still oddly calm. He’s the same as those lunatics inside. His calm is a product of his brain damage. It has to be.
Luke
The idiot with the gun has actually done nothing to wreck my mood. I still feel restless, right down in my bones. Josi looks outrageously gorgeous, and I want too much.
Impulsively I turn the car off the road. I’ve seen a map of this area, and I know that Josephine spent some time in a house out along the river. It’s a gamble, bringing her here, because she might loathe the idea of it, but I’m desperate to get her talking.
“Where are we?” she asks suddenly, sitting up to peer at the quickly passing trees. I’m driving too fast. I don’t want to slow down. I rip the handbrake and we slide around a corner. “Luke! Slow down, for Christ’s sake!”
I glance at her and smile. “It’s under control.”
“You’ll kill us!”
“I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“I don’t want you to die, you idiot!” she hisses.
My smile widens. “I can drive in my sleep. No one’s dying today.”
Eventually, after a fairly harebrained trip through the trees I pull us to a skidding halt. Josephine looks murderous as she flings herself out of the car and slams the door furiously. I climb out but leave the car headlights on to give us some illumination.
“What are we doing here?” she snaps.
I wink at her and walk over to the bank of the river. There’s a long wooden boardwalk that protrudes out into the water. It’s shrouded with mangrove trees, their long, gnarled boughs creepy in the dark. The headlights are throwing strange light against them, making them sway and flicker like thin, knobbly fingers reaching out to trace the surface of the moonlit river. My feet pound against the wood as I follow the planks all the way to the end.
I don’t turn around to see if she’s following. Sometimes with Josi it’s like trying to tempt a small, stubborn child into playing. Or convincing a timid animal that it’s safe to eat from my palm. I hear her feet reach the wood and edge hesitantly toward me.
“Do you know where we are?” she asks.
“Yes. Do you?”
“The house I lived in when I was eight is just up that hill. I used to lie on this boardwalk for hours and stare up at the leaves.”
I can tell by her voice that she must have loved it here.
“Did you know that when you drove here?”
“Yes,” I admit. “I saw it in your file. You were only here for six months.”
She edges a little closer.
“Why did you get moved?” I ask carefully. I think I might be frightened of the answer.
Josephine doesn’t say anything. Maybe she is frightened too.
June 14th, 2053
Josephine
I can see the river at the bottom of the hill, glistening silver in the midday sunlight, and I burst into a run. Before I make it something slashes through the edge of my vision and hits me in the face. I yelp and skid to a stop, raising my fingers to my cheek. It’s only when I see the blood on them that it starts to hurt. My face stings like crazy and there are surprised tears in my eyes.
I look around and see that it was a rock that hit me. And it was thrown by Lachlan, my foster brother. He’s twelve, and a lot bigger than me. He’s fat. I hate his chubby fingers and his pink cheeks. I hate the way he chews with his mouth open, and I hate the way his nasty eyes always look for me, no matter where we are.
He smiles as he crosses the grass toward me. He must have been hiding behind a tree or something. I don’t say anything, but I make myself stop crying immediately. I don’t really understand why he
likes to hurt me, but I do understand that I can’t show him anything. None of the things I tell the trees. He can’t have any of my secrets or my thoughts or my feelings.
“Where are you going, Josy-posy?”
I don’t speak to him. I never speak to him. My words are mine too.
“Cat got your tongue?”
I try to move past him but he blocks the way and then grabs my hair. He pulls it so hard that I want to scream, but I don’t.
“Say something, you stupid little bitch!” he snarls. I know he got this name for me from his father. Probably everyone else in the house, too. They all call me that name. I don’t know why because I’ve never said anything mean about them. I’ve never spoken a single word to any of them.
Lachlan wrenches my hair, making me fall to the ground and skin my knees painfully. He sits on my back so I can’t move, even though I struggle like a mad thing. He’s too fat. I can’t get free. I can feel him pulling up my t-shirt. The sound of his pocketknife being opened is an alarm, but even as I squirm I feel the first sharp bite of agony. It’s along my hip, and it feels like he’s carving into my bone.
“Rude girls deserve punishment,” he says happily. His breath is close to my ear and it stinks like the licorice he’s just been eating. Then he says, in a funny voice, “You know I love you, Josy-posy. You’re my little sis. You belong to me, and it’s my job to protect you. All of my things need to be labeled, right? So no one else tries to use them?”
I don’t understand what he’s saying until he starts to cut me some more, deep slices of my flesh. I don’t cry. I bite down on a clump of grass so I won’t scream.
“Nearly there,” he tells me. “I’m just finishing up the N.”
A surge of rage floods my body. I can’t feel the small knife anymore. I can’t feel anything except a red tremble under my skin. A scream erupts from my mouth and I thrash so wildly that Lachlan is thrown off my back. He sprawls on the ground and before he can get up I lunge at him, grabbing him by the neck and squeezing until his face goes purple.
Fury: Book One of the Cure (Omnibus Edition) Page 12