Melancholy: Book Two of The Cure (Omnibus Edition)

by Charlotte McConaghy

  Into the walkie, he says, “Red team, elevator is below us so don’t set off the gas until I give you the go-ahead.”

  “No problem,” Pace replies. “We haven’t even retrieved it yet. There’s drones everywhere. Like rats.”

  “Why are there so many here this late?” I wonder aloud. Luke doesn’t reply because he doesn’t know the answer any better than I do.

  Handing me the two coils of rope from over his shoulders, Luke lets me start tying the harness knots while he aims his weapon down the hallway. There’s a silencer on the end of his long, sleek Glock, and his stance is relaxed as I fumble my way nervously through the knots.

  I loop the ends around Luke’s legs and hips, making sure the knots will tighten under pressure and allow him movement. I do the same for myself and then take the hammer and pins.

  “Take it easy, we’re not in a rush.”

  Amazingly, he doesn’t sound sarcastic. The calm in his voice eases something inside me and I hammer the first pin into the metal grooves inside the shaft.

  “It’s not every day you have to make harnesses out of ropes.”

  “You’re doing great.”

  That’s when we both hear voices. I freeze, nearly dropping the hammer down the shaft. Luke keeps his gun aimed and, as two men round the corner, he takes out the first and then the second with two perfect shots to the head. They drop like lead weights.

  My body goes numb.

  “Keep going,” Luke says, but I’m staring at the two dead men. “Josi.”

  I blink, dazed. Find his face.

  “Long, deep breath.”

  He breathes in deeply, and I copy him, though I don’t think breathing will do me any good at this point. There are pins and needles in my fingers and toes. “Okay, now turn around and keep attaching the harnesses. Now.”

  I turn with a jerking motion and wedge the second pin behind the steel brackets.

  That’s when the elevator starts moving up. “Shit. It’s coming.”

  Luke motions for me to get out of the way. “Stay flat.” I hold myself against the wall, not wanting to see any more shootings. My bottom jaw is trembling in this really weird way that’s making my teeth chatter.

  The elevator stops at our level. Fuck. Of course it does.

  It pings and the doors slide open.

  One, two, three shots from Luke’s gun. A single yelp and then the heavy slump of bodies.

  I squeeze my eyes shut as Luke climbs into the lift and uses one of the dead people to set the scanners to ascend.

  “Wait,” I say. “Why are we doing all this shit with the ridiculously dangerous homemade harnesses when we could just ride the lift down to the bottom?”

  “It could stop at any of the other levels on the way.”

  “So? You’re happy to shoot everyone anyway.”

  He looks at me, his eyes abruptly vacant. “I’d rather not shoot anyone, if it can be avoided,” he says in this flat voice.

  I swallow, feeling nauseous. “So why don’t we climb on top of the carriage and ride it down?”

  “And if someone presses for it to go up? We’d be crushed.”

  “I don’t know if this will hold us,” I try desperately. “I haven’t tested the texture of the rope against the pins or what our weight and the movement of our descent will do to it – things have variables, Luke – anything might cause it to destabilize – ”

  “So we’ll close our eyes and hope for the best.”

  With the lift set, he climbs out and we watch the doors slide shut and then disappear upwards.

  “Someone’s going to see all these dead bodies,” I say through gritted teeth as I loop his rope through the pin and synch it with a hang knot.

  “Yes. But hopefully not before we gas them.”

  “You hold this one,” I tell him, passing him the rope. “You let the tension go like this when you want to descend. You grip it to stop.”

  He nods, taking the rope. I turn to attach mine.

  “We just murdered five people,” I say numbly.

  “This is an op, which makes that collateral, and we didn’t do anything – I did it.”

  “It’s murder.”

  We pull our backpacks on, check our weapons, check the ropes again and then we walk backward over the edge of the shaft. There’s sweat trickling down my neck. If this fails, it will be entirely my fault.

  We’re both wearing gloves, but as we hold and release the tension I can feel the burn of it all the way through the material. The first moment of weightlessness causes my stomach to bottom out and I nearly pee myself with fear. But after the second release, and the third and the fourth, I’m starting to feel that weightlessness move inside me – it’s as though the fear is untethered and lifts free.

  We have to make sure we don’t swing too wildly, but keep the rope in the one spot, which is harder for me as I don’t have as much weight to keep it steady as Luke does. It’s all hard, actually – a lot harder than it seems when you read about it in a book. My hands and shoulders are starting to really ache, and the rope is cutting into the flesh of my thighs painfully.

  “Ah shit,” I gasp as my fingernail catches and rips off inside my glove. I scrabble to catch the rope but am flailing badly.

  Luke reaches over and grabs my tension rope before I fall too far. I close my eyes and breathe through the pain before nodding for him to let go.

  Above us something creaks and rumbles. We look up to see the elevator returning down the shaft.

  I make a weird, strangled sound just as Luke shouts, “Go!”

  We abseil as fast as we can – so fast we’re almost free falling. I can feel my rope working against the pin and know it’s about to come loose. I’m more concerned, however, about the elevator reaching where the ropes are connected, because as soon as that happens the pulley will unravel and we’ll be done for.

  You just have to get as close to the bottom as possible before that happens, I tell myself. Minimize how far you fall.

  My hands are burning terribly and we’re flying toward the ground, closer and closer to the bottom with every second –

  The elevator hits the pins, knocking them free and all the tension goes out of the ropes –

  I look once at Luke in the dark, our eyes meet, and –

  We fall.

  Chapter 10

  May 20th, 2064

  Josephine

  “If you knew you were going to die,” I say, “If you had a split second before it was going to happen, what would you do in that split second?”

  Luke groans. “I don’t wanna play this.”

  He’s basting a chicken that must have cost him a fortune, and I’m watching him from the stool behind the kitchen bench. This is how we spend most of our lives: Luke cooking, me watching and thinking of stupid things to ask just to get a reaction out of him.

  “Go on. Tell me.”

  “How could I possibly know?” he asks.

  “Use your imagination.”

  “I’d stop myself from dying.”

  “No, that’s not one of your options.”

  “Why? How am I meant to be dying?”

  “That doesn’t matter. It’s inevitable.”

  “Nothing’s inevitable.”

  “You’re not playing properly,” I whine. “It’s a hypothetical.”

  He hides a smile. “A split second isn’t enough time to do anything,” he counters, holding out a teaspoon for me to taste his plum sauce.

  “Mm, yummy. Okay, five seconds.”

  “Five seconds? What could I do in five seconds?”

  “Okay, a minute.”

  He tilts his head, pausing to think about it. “One minute to live, huh? I’d eat crème brûlée.”

  I stare at him, smiling slowly. “You’re a hopeless addict in need of an intervention.”

  He shrugs, smelling his chicken and giving a delighted sigh.

  “I was going to say that I’d use my last split second or five seconds or minute or hour to kiss yo
u.”

  He freezes. “Oh, shit. Wait. Can I change my answer?”

  “Too late, pal. You value food over your girlfriend, and you can never take that back. Nev-er.”

  Luke rounds the kitchen counter and leans in for a kiss, but I dance out of his reach. “Go back to your cooking, crème brûlée boy.”

  He walks over to the tray with its beautifully basted and trimmed roast chicken, a creation that looks and smells so utterly mouth-watering that every time I take a breath my stomach grumbles. He lifts the whole tray and walks into the living room.

  Confused, I follow.

  And watch as he goes outside and throws the whole thing off the balcony.

  Turning to me, he says, “I’d never throw you off a balcony.”

  I stare at him, utterly stunned. “How generous of you,” I manage.

  “Do you believe me now?”

  “All I believe is that I’d much rather come in second to food if it means we get to eat dinner.”

  *

  February 8th, 2066

  Josephine

  That moment is what fills my head as I fall through the elevator shaft. Luke wanting crème brûlée in the split second before he dies, and me wanting to kiss him. That moment, and numbers.

  One, two, three, I count before I feel my body smash into the ground.

  Pain erupts through my hip and spine and head and wrist, my wrist. I moan loudly as I squeeze my eyes shut and roll over in agony. Tears stream beneath my lashes.

  “Josi,” I hear Luke grunt, and from some place within all the pain I am immensely relieved he’s alive. It wasn’t that far, really, but it felt far.

  “Sit up,” he orders. “Tell me what hurts.”

  “Everything,” I moan.

  “Stop being a baby and sit up.”

  What an asshole. I struggle upright, woozy with shock. I probably have a concussion. The elevator has stopped a few feet above us, trapping us in a small metal hole in the ground – we won’t be able to get out of the shaft until it goes back up again, so we really need Pace and Hal not to gas everyone before that happens.

  “Identify your injuries,” he says. He has blood all over his face, dripping from what looks to be a cut on his scalp.

  I close my eyes, trying to move my limbs. My legs are both fine, my back is alright, my hip feels badly bruised, my head is pounding and there’s something definitely wrong with my left wrist.

  “Think it’s broken,” I say, holding it gingerly.

  Luke asks me if I can move it but pain slices through my arm and I yelp. “Yeah, it probably is broken,” he agrees. “But pain isn’t real, Jose. Concentrate on external stimuli to pinpoint your focus away from your pain receptors.”

  “Good job – the Blood-talk is aggravating enough to distract from the broken bone,” I mutter and he gives a breath of laughter.

  Luke searches in his pack for the med-kit and produces a bandage. Working quickly, he wraps my wrist and even though it hurts like hell, it feels a tad better when it can’t flail around as much.

  “Are you alright?”

  “Four broken ribs and a superficial head wound,” he replies promptly. I help him place a thick white patch over the cut and wipe the blood from his face – it’s hard in the dark and we fumble awkwardly for a few minutes.

  “What did you think of?” Luke asks me suddenly. “With your split second?”

  I am amazed that he remembers, that he thought of it too.

  “I knew I wasn’t going to die,” I lie. “It was only a few feet.”

  “I didn’t think about crème brûlée,” he admits, and that’s all, and it’s enough, because if he said anything else I think it might hurt inside my chest too much for me to ever climb out of this dark steel trap.

  *

  When the elevator finally moves up a few floors, we’re able to stand and pry the lift doors open a crack. Luke peers through, gun at the ready, and then hoists himself into the hallway. When he reaches for me I have to give him my right hand only, and it feels as though he’s about to pull my arm out of its socket.

  We creep down the corridor, on the lookout. The vent we need is on the right and along another hallway.

  Around a corner an armed Blood is standing outside a glass door. If we go for the vent he’ll see us. We stop, and Luke motions for me to wait. Then he rounds and fires rapidly.

  The Blood’s weapon discharges in response and the noise is like a blow to the head. Peering around, I see that Luke and the Blood have sprinted toward each other and collided, both their guns sent flying clear.

  Luke’s weapon hits the wall and slides into my reach.

  As he and the Blood punch and block and move too fast to believe, I grab the gun and aim it toward them.

  “Luke!” I shout. “Hit the floor!”

  “No!” he yells, but he flattens himself as I fire wildly.

  I don’t hit anything except the glass door, which is obviously bulletproof, for the bullet ricochets off into the vent, then embeds itself in the wall with a spray of plaster. The Blood uses the opportunity to kick Luke in his broken ribs while he’s down, and I realize I have just made things a thousand times worse.

  Luke sweeps his leg and takes down the Blood, rolls on top and crunches his elbow into the man’s windpipe, then cracks him so hard across the jaw that he’s out like a light.

  Luke staggers to his feet and glares daggers at me.

  Sheepishly I hand him the gun. “Sorry?”

  “Get in the vent, Rambo.”

  *

  This vent is wider than the last so Luke and I can crawl forward side by side.

  “Move over,” I whisper.

  “You move over.”

  “You’re twice the size of me!”

  “And yet look who’s taking up more space. Get your bony elbows away from my ribs.”

  “Get your shoulder out of my face! It keeps clacking my chin.”

  “You mean that huge mouth of yours?”

  A grate below us comes into view and we both shut up, shuffling forward to peer into the room. As expected, we’re above the labs. I can’t see anyone down there. Pace and Hal have retrieved the gas, so now we’re just waiting for them to feed it into the vent before we can climb down.

  “Want to talk about John Smith?” Luke asks me.

  I glance at him. Light from the lab is shining up into his face so I can see it quite clearly. “Boring.” There’s no way I’m telling him about that period in my life.

  I’m finding it hard to concentrate on counting the seconds. My wrist hurts and Luke’s smell is familiar and too close in this confined space.

  “Where’d you learn to fight?” I ask him to change the subject.

  “Dad. I grew up in a madhouse. Mom threatened to move out just about every week ’cause we fought so much.”

  “So your dad really did teach you to fight? That wasn’t a lie?”

  He nods.

  “What kind?”

  “All kinds. I was a boxer though. Born and bred.”

  “As a kid?”

  “Yeah. There’s a league. And an illegal one.”

  “What’s an illegal boxing league like?” I ask curiously.

  “Bare-knuckle. No shirts, no shoes. You get thrown in and you don’t come out again until someone’s unconscious.”

  “And your father put you in this league when you were a kid?” I ask, disbelieving.

  “Sure.”

  “How young?”

  “’Bout nine, maybe.”

  “Jeez. How’d you do, then?”

  “Champ at seventeen.”

  “Champ of what?”

  “The city.”

  “In your age group?”

  “Nope.”

  I stare at him, trying to work out what he’s saying. “You were the boxing champion of the whole city when you were seventeen? Including grown men?”

  He smiles again, and this time it has a cocky edge.

  “I thought you were already a Blood by the
n.”

  “I used to sneak out. Met Dad and Dave for the fights. Nobody gives a shit what your job is when you’re in the ring.”

  “Was Dave good too?”

  “He was alright. Bit soft.”

  I lick my lips. “So … what’s the secret?”

  “To what?”

  “Boxing.”

  Luke looks at me and grins. “You want to know the secret to boxing like it’s a piece of information you can learn and then succeed at? It takes training, girl. Instincts, strength, speed … Things you develop over time and with discipline.”

  “Yeah yeah yeah. Just tell me. What’s the secret?”

  His smile shifts and he meets my eyes. He considers; it feels like forever. I want the moment to last until time ceases, the two of us in this vent with him looking at me like that. Luke leans toward me, close enough that he can brush his lips against my ear. His breath is warm.

  “It’s simple. You can’t be afraid to get hurt.”

  I consider this, looking at his mouth.

  “Train me,” I say.

  “You’ve got a trainer.”

  “He’s taught me nothing.”

  “You haven’t wanted to be taught.”

  “Whatever. Semantics.”

  What am I doing. Why am I saying this. The last thing I need is to be spending more time with him. But I know in my guts that if there’s any hope of me ever being able to defend myself, it’ll be because of Luke.

  “Want to make a deal?”

  I tilt my head suspiciously. “What kind?”

  “If I train you, you have to agree to something else.”

  I wait. There is a glint in his eyes.

  “You have to ask me questions. One a day, every day. I give you one-hundred-percent true answers, no matter what the question.”

  My eyes narrow. “How does that benefit you?”

  “It’s a long game.”

  “It won’t change how I feel about you.”

  He shrugs. “Great. Then agree.”

  “Deal.” We shake on it. “I’ll have no way to know if you’re telling me the truth.”