Melancholy: Book Two of The Cure (Omnibus Edition)

by Charlotte McConaghy

  There is a moment of silence, and then Luke asks, “But what if I did do it?”

  Cold shears through my heart, but I say, steady as iron, “Then we’ll make sure nobody ever knows.”

  Chapter 17

  February 20th, 2066

  Josephine

  I am making my way home from my secret meeting with Luke when it happens. I am feeling like a bit of an idiot, creeping around in the dark for no reason, when I see someone move behind a nearby building. I pause, something about the movement piquing my curiosity. There’s nothing behind that building – it’s just an equipment shed, with only a few yards of space between it and the wall.

  I hesitate. Maybe if someone hadn’t just been murdered I might not be so nosy. Or maybe I would. Who cares. I walk closer, keeping to the shadows.

  Flattening myself against the side of the building, I listen. The soft scuffle of footfall reaches me, and then two male voices. They’re too soft for me to distinguish the words. I peer around the corner as carefully as I can until I can make them out.

  Both big men, their silhouettes roughly the same height. One is slimmer than the other. They are speaking with urgency and jerky hand movements. There is a long silence, and then they move, falling into each other’s arms.

  And as they do they catch a shaft of moonlight, and I can see perfectly who it is, kissing as though their lungs don’t work.

  Hal and Eric.

  *

  I dawdle home, not wanting to see Pace. My stomach is in knots. What am I going to tell her? Nothing – it isn’t my place. But how can I look at her and not tell her she’s in love with a guy who is clearly in love with someone else?

  If it wasn’t so horrible for her, it would almost be funny that I tried to pick up a gay guy. I clearly have zero ability to detect sexual chemistry.

  Pace is crying again in her room when I get home. “Oh god,” I mutter. Taking a breath, I knock on her door.

  “Go away!”

  “I’m coming in.”

  “Dual, I swear to – ”

  I barge in and sit down on the bed, despite her groan of annoyance. She buries her face back in her pillow so I won’t see her tear-streaked cheeks.

  “This is insanity,” I tell her. “He’s not worth so many tears! No guy is!”

  She looks at me over the pillow. “Now I just feel sad for you.”

  “Huh?”

  “You don’t let yourself feel anything for anyone.”

  “That’s not … true,” I say faintly.

  “You just pity yourself.”

  My mouth falls open in outrage. “I’m feeling something for you right now and it ain’t good!”

  “Go away,” she moans.

  “Just please promise me you’ll either talk to him or stop this moping. You slept with the guy. It’s awkward now. It’s not the end of the world.”

  “I hate you.”

  I head for the door.

  “I’m not crying because it’s awkward, you idiot,” she sniffs. “I’m crying because I’m in love with my best friend and he doesn’t love me back. And that’s, like, the worst thing ever.”

  I sigh, because it’s not the worst thing ever, but I guess it is pretty bad.

  *

  February 27th, 2066

  Luke

  “We’re never gonna finish it,” I sigh morosely.

  “Still got four days,” Dad disagrees.

  “I don’t have enough hours in the day.”

  “We’ll work through the night then.”

  I am sanding a piece of wood that I’ve cut into a rounded shape. Dad’s drilling holes in his, using a battery-operated drill that isn’t really big enough for the job, but he’s making a heroic effort to ignore that fact.

  “Wanna come to training with me and Josi?” I ask him. It’s late, and we’ve been in the shed for a few hours now.

  Dad smiles slightly. I notice it because he rarely smiles anymore. “Think I’m a bit beyond training, mate.”

  “Rubbish. You could help me with her.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  I shrug. “She can’t connect with it. Can’t focus. Her head’s a million miles away all the time.”

  He considers this for a while, working away. Eventually he suggests, “Put some music on while you train.”

  I stare at him, and then I smile. “You’re a brilliant man, Dad.”

  “I am,” he agrees.

  *

  February 28th, 2066

  Josephine

  Tonight Luke shows up to the training room looking excited about something. He’s holding the old stereo from Raven and Quinn’s house, and he’s got a long extension lead, obviously connected to the generator.

  “What are we doing?” I ask curiously.

  He puts the music on and it pounds loudly through the room. Everyone turns in surprise to stare at him as he starts dancing.

  I watch, astonished.

  “Today’s lesson,” he says over the thumping, sexy bass, “is to get out of that damn head of yours.”

  I start laughing; I can’t help it. Everyone does.

  And then Luke runs a training session with all the trainees where we basically just dance while we punch, and it’s actually really fun.

  *

  March 1st, 2066

  Josephine

  I have been studying with Hal every day for the last fortnight. He’s taught me a bunch about how the train runs, the mechanics of the engine, the algorithm and programming that determine the train’s movement patterns, and how to reprogram, override, maintain and repair the basics.

  I haven’t talked to him about The Thing I Saw. And despite the fact that my discomfort with his dishonesty is making things a tad awkward between us, I am still enjoying myself immensely. There’s loads more to learn, but he says I could get by at a pinch now.

  Today he spoke at length about the elasticity and damping properties of the rail bed, plus the equation of motion for the interaction system, and I ate it all up. He loves having someone to tell this stuff to, as he’s pointed out that no one else in The Inferno could care less about how the train works, just as long as it does.

  “You have an engineer’s mind,” he tells me.

  I don’t tell him that it just seems that way because I can remember every word he says. Instead I smile and say that maybe one day I’ll be an engineer as good as he is.

  It’s an odd prospect. Certainly not something I ever imagined myself doing. I mean, I was never going to be able to get a proper job in the city – not with the Bloods watching me, and not with people’s aversion to me. But here … I guess in a way I can do whatever I want, as long as it’s needed by the settlement. No chance of ever being a concert cellist, of course, as I imagine in my most secret of hearts.

  “How did you learn all this?” I ask Hal.

  “My dad. We came here together.”

  “Not your mom though?”

  “She died from the injection.”

  “From the cure?”

  He nods.

  “God.”

  “You don’t hear about all the people it kills when it’s administered,” he says. “They hide it well.”

  I rub my eyes. Why do they keep using it? It is bewildering. “I’m constantly amazed at people’s capacity to hurt each other,” I say.

  On that topic, we have made no progress in the murder case. Meredith said she ‘might’ have found something on Batch’s body, but has been taking ages to analyze it and won’t even tell us what it is.

  “That’s true,” Hal says. “But we’re very good at caring for each other, too.”

  “Are we?”

  He looks at me but I drop my eyes, not wanting the intimacy of his blue gaze. “You haven’t been cared for?”

  I shrug. “Yeah, sure, I know what you mean. Guess I’m just a pessimist.”

  “But have you?” he presses.

  I frown. I don’t want to talk about this. Two people have taken care of me in the course of m
y life. One of them is dead. One of them is not, but his method of taking care of me was to lie to me and report my behavior to the people I hate most.

  “Being taken care of is overrated,” I say shortly. “Taking care of yourself is better all round.”

  “Pace takes care of me,” Hal admits. “She’s one of the few. It feels good.”

  “And yet you lie to her.” It’s out of my mouth before I can stop it. But now that it’s out there, I can’t help wanting his response.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I saw you,” I confess. “You and Eric.”

  Hal freezes.

  “Why do you keep it a secret? Why not just be open about it, and then you wouldn’t have to lie to your best friend who also happens to be in love with you?”

  He says nothing – too shocked, I think.

  “Also, while we’re on the subject – why did you sleep with her if you’re gay? It seems cruel to me.”

  Hal closes his eyes, mortified beyond belief. “Sexuality can be fluid, Dual. I wanted to want her, and every now and then I kind of did. I love her. I’m just not – ”

  “In love with her,” I finish. “If you were upfront from the start there wouldn’t be a problem.”

  “I couldn’t be!”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a long story,” Hal says, shaking his head.

  I watch him for a while. I don’t have much sympathy for lies. But I do feel sorry for the guy. He looks so thoroughly miserable right now that my anger ebbs away and I simply wonder at the difficulty he must go through, keeping his true feelings a secret from the people he cares most about.

  My heart jerks painfully in my chest as I realize that this is exactly what Luke did for the last three years and I can’t forgive him for it, can’t even find space in my heart to feel compassion for what he went through. It’s a burden, keeping secrets and telling lies. But surely it’s also cowardice.

  “I hope you can be honest with her,” I tell Hal, and then I start climbing back up the steps out of the tunnel.

  “You’re not honest,” he points out.

  “Yes I am.”

  “You’re the most dishonest person I’ve ever met.”

  It hits me like a blow, like a mortal wound. I don’t know if he’s just trying to hurt me or if it’s true.

  When I emerge into the afternoon sunshine it’s to the sound of screaming.

  The horde of Furies beyond the wall hasn’t lessened or abated. It’s impossible to ignore, as they have now surrounded the entire settlement and spend all day and night screaming to get in.

  I shudder as I walk. Keep walking. Not even sure where I’m going. I would go onto the wall but I don’t want to see the Furies. They’re too frightening, their gazes too cold and too human and too savage. They have never flocked like this, according to the resistors – they have always roamed, which was how we were able to hunt them. Something has changed. Now they’re trying to get in.

  So I go for a run. The circuit around the wall is twelve and a half miles and takes me about an hour. I do it in fifty-five minutes today, and as I run I feel myself start to calm. I think of all the things I should have said to Hal. I wish I had encouraged him more, instead of berating him. I wish I had asked about Eric, given him some hint that it’s a wonderful thing to have found mutual love.

  Because Pace and Hal haven’t been speaking much lately, it’s been down to me and Will to make the conversations happen, which means we inevitably start talking about weird stuff like the wingspans of bats or the names of constellations or the height of the ocean tide in relation to the type of moon in the sky. He also really likes it when I tell him stories like the one Luke told me about the Seaborn. He knows a few of his own Celtic myths. There was one about a kelpie – a dark-spirited water horse – whose sole purpose is to drown humans in the watery depths, and one about fey creatures who are physically incapable of telling lies, but are very good at cunning tricks. I love that one, and think I will tell Luke. And now, after so much talk, I think I’ve decided I like Will better than the other two idiots. They can stay silent and surly forever as far as I’m concerned.

  A bird calls as I run past the gate. There’s a sudden gust of shock and hope in my chest and I careen around, looking for its source, but it’s only Shadow, whistling to me. Of course it’s Shadow. I wave to him and he motions for me to come up, but I shake my head and go past.

  At home I find another note on my bed. This one is on the back of a page from Brave New World. I want to know what passion is. I want to feel something strongly.

  Instead of writing on it he has circled letters and words that I have to piece together like a proper detective. It’s not for any reason except that he knows it will tickle me. Dodge’s lab at midnight.

  *

  March 2nd, 2066

  Josephine

  So I sneak over to our midnight rendezvous, feeling very clandestine. Luke is already there when I arrive, down the end in the single orb of lamplight with Dodge and Meredith.

  “Two things,” Meredith says. “First, I have managed to identify the Zetemaphine in Luke’s blood, and work out how it’s affecting him.”

  “Didn’t you already know that?”

  “No. I’ve identified the strain of virus, which is no easy thing to do when it works so seamlessly to transform the rest of his cells. Your real name is Josephine Luquet, isn’t it?”

  I blink. “Uh … yep.”

  “Then you’ve been infected with the Zetemaphine. Which means you are the sole survivor of the tests, which in turn means you’re the subject that Dr Collingsworth managed to inoculate, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “I will need your blood – lots of it – tissue samples, bone marrow, urine and stool samples, spinal fluid and brain fluid.”

  I stare at her. “Jesus. Why don’t you go ahead and just take my bones and organs too?”

  “I would if I could,” she assures me. “A brain scan would make this a lot simpler, but, alas – ”

  “Hell no,” Luke exclaims. “Ben didn’t need any of that stuff when he made the blocker!”

  “I am not Ben Collingsworth,” Meredith replies simply.

  As one we all turn to look at the man in question. Tonight he is crouched in a corner of his cell, staring at us with chilling awareness.

  “I need to identify the drug in your system, understand how it works against the Zetemaphine and synthesize it into something I can inject Luke with. I have no confidence that I can do this, because I have no test subjects and because the rapid rate of his cell degeneration means he has very little time left.”

  I feel cold cold cold in my heart. “Yes,” I say. “Do it, of course do it.”

  “Josi – ” Luke starts, but I hold up a hand for silence.

  To Meredith I say, “Take whatever you need.”

  “Excellent. Second, I have the results of the tests I did on the extra fluid I found on the victim’s body.”

  “Extra fluid?” I repeat. “That sounds gross.”

  “What is it?” Luke asks.

  “It’s semen. Not his own.”

  We stare at her, then at each other, our minds suddenly alive with what this could mean, if anything. It could definitely point to the fact that he was having an affair with a man, which could give us a new suspect for the murder. As Dodge and Meredith take as many of the samples as they can tonight, Luke and I talk and talk it around in circles, trying to work out who Batch might have been sleeping with.

  When we’re done, hours have passed and I’m feeling thoroughly poked and prodded. Dawn is nearing.

  “Do you think it means anything?” I ask Luke as we enter the blue-gray dark outside the lab.

  “I don’t know. It could.” But I can hear in his voice that he doesn’t believe it.

  I feel frightened, suddenly. Because I can see something fading in his eyes.

  “I deny it to myself every second I’m awake,” he tells me very softly. “But
at night the truth creeps out.”

  And the worst part is that I understand completely. I remember the denial, the disbelief, and I remember how under the moon the nightmares couldn’t be held at bay any longer.

  “You didn’t do it. We’re going to find who did.” But the promise sounds hollow to my own ears.

  “Can I come home with you?” he asks, his voice breaking just as my heart does.

  I close my eyes, willing every ounce of strength I have to the surface, every piece of coldness I possess. It’s so cruel, this coldness, for the hours he sheltered me from night terrors are too many to count. But if I spend the night with him I will spend every night with him, and to be with a man I don’t trust and haven’t forgiven would be the cruelest thing of all. It would poison the love between us, suffocate it from our lungs until we were both broken and spent. I can’t do that to him, or to myself. I am barely managing our new friendship as it is.

  “No,” I murmur. “I can’t.”

  So we part.

  I creep to my house, and Luke goes to his. I can’t help but watch him move down the road, his gait tall and strong as always, but slower now, as though he wishes to walk all night and never dream again.

  My treacherous heart is calling to him. Begging him to turn around and come after me, come to my house, my room, my bed. It is begging him to try harder, to fight harder, to ignore every word I’ve ever spoken about us being apart. The treachery of this heart knows no bounds, and I don’t know what I’m going to do with it.

  *

  The sun sinks and I stay in the field. Everyone leaves for the Den, but I stay and I don’t know why. I haven’t slept a second in thirty-two hours, not since well before the lab session I came from this morning. I feel dazed. And all I can think about is can I come home with you and you have very little time left.

  Tilting my face to the night sky, I breathe in the smell of salt. I run my fingertips over the wheat; it reaches as high as my head and I feel invisible. I feel I am vanishing.

  A rustle behind me. So soft I barely hear it. Turning a little, I see him. He’s moving slowly through the tall stalks, eyes on me.