Eric takes a breath. “Hal and I have been together for a few years. Had been. He … broke up with me recently because he wanted to try to make it work with Pace.” He stops, shaking his head in disbelief. “The kid was seriously messed up. So I let him. I fucking knew he’d come back. But sometimes people have to try stuff. They need to know. So whatever, he went and had his little fling with his best friend, and I waited around feeling like a bit of an idiot. Batch and I … We’d been best friends since we were kids. He came over and we slept together. It was a bit stupid and it surprised us both. He left my place late and he was murdered that same night. Hal and I got back together, briefly, and then he was murdered too.”
I breathe out in a rush. I don’t know how to take it in, the amount of grief he must be enduring. I don’t know if he even knows how to take it in. He seems numb and lost and utterly dazed.
“Eric, I … Fuck.”
“Yeah, fuck,” he agrees.
“Do you …” I take a breath and try to gather my thoughts. “Do you remember what time Batch left here that night?”
Eric shrugs vacantly. “Maybe like four or five?”
So he left this house and was killed on his way home. It makes sense, suddenly, all that time we couldn’t account for after Batch’s shift on the wall had ended.
“Why are you doing this?” Luke asks suddenly, looking at me.
“What?”
He stands thunderously and heads out the door.
I look at Eric awkwardly. “Sorry. He’s … a bit unwell.”
“Hal told me about the two of you.”
My mouth opens but nothing comes out.
“He was really fascinated by the story. I was too. By the man who was so … loyal to this woman he’d left behind. We knew about you long before you got here, Josephine.”
I meet Eric’s eyes. Smile a little helplessly. “I could never live up to the story.”
“You have,” he says. “You have surpassed any story.”
Something catches in my chest and I don’t understand. “Why?”
He thinks about it, considering me with that face I really like, and really liked even the first time I saw him. “You’re resilient,” he says eventually.
And I am so close to tears that I have to stand and make my way to the door. He follows me. “I know it probably doesn’t mean anything, but I’m here for you, any time you need anything,” I tell him.
Eric nods. “You’re the only one who knows the truth,” he admits. “I mean they probably guessed after my toast, but I feel … I might need to keep seeing you.”
“Please do.”
He kisses me on the cheek and I hug him tight for a few seconds.
Outside Luke is standing with his back to me, looking out over the veggie garden. “Luke.”
He turns to look at me with such disappointment that for a second I can’t believe he is the same person. He has never looked at me like that. “Why were you doing that?” he asks. “Putting him through that?”
I don’t know how to answer, filled abruptly with shame.
“Why are you forcing us through this fucking charade, Josi?”
I swallow. “Because we have to chase the leads. If Quinn and Raven find out what we know about Batch and Eric, and then see that we haven’t been following it up, then they’re sure as shit going to know we’re hiding something.”
It’s beyond belief that someone like Quinn, who seems so nice, could be capable of punishing his people with death. Luke is his friend, for god’s sake, but there is no doubt in my mind that it doesn’t exclude him from the rules. Quinn is obsessed with the rules.
I take Luke’s hands. “We have to build some sort of case. Something to show him. He has to know that we’ve at least been trying or he’ll start snooping around.”
“It just feels so awful, making Eric drudge up all that shit about Batch and Hal while the whole time I just sit there in front of him …”
“I know. But I think it helped him to know that we know. That someone knows.”
“It’s awful being the only person to hold a secret.”
I touch his cheek. The first touch we’ve allowed ourselves in a week. “Will you come with me to check on Lace and Batch’s daughter?” he asks me.
I nod, and we walk to their house.
May answers the door again. But this time she smiles in relief to see us, and the expression builds knots of confusion in my chest. “Come in,” she implores. “Do you have questions?”
“We …” Luke falters. “No. We just wanted to see how you and Eve are.”
“Thank you, sweetheart. I wanted to say sorry for how obstinate we all were about Batch’s body.” May has a steady stream of tears sliding down her face. “Maybe if we’d let you take him there wouldn’t have been such a terrible mistake and sweet Hal would still be with us. Maybe you could have even saved my Lace.”
“No,” Luke says emphatically. “That’s not on you, May. It’s not. There was no … No way to stop the mistake. It was …”
“There’s no explaining violence,” I say. Her daughter. She had to bury her daughter four days ago. And now she’s raising her grandchild. “We can just try to make the world a little less violent for Eve.”
*
After we’ve left, Luke and I look at each other in the evening light.
“I never know what to say,” he mutters. “Why don’t I ever know what to say?”
“No one ever knows what to say. Or what to feel.”
“You’re always so sure of your feelings.” This surprises me, because it doesn’t seem true at all. “I’m just reaching around in the dark for something to grab hold of,” he adds with a wry smile.
“Is this the right place for that child?” I ask abruptly, thoughts still with Eve. Because I’m listening to the sound we here at The Inferno have forced ourselves to become accustomed to – I’m listening to the scratch and scrape and growl and moan of the Furies beyond the wall.
I walk to this wall, tracing it around to the gate. The guards are up there, firing what few arrows we can make into the fray below. It doesn’t seem to be slowing the creatures. The gate trembles a little; they are even now trying to open it.
“One gate.”
“With reinforced locks and hinges.”
“How long can we keep them out?” I press. “It’s not safe here, Luke.”
“There’s nowhere else, Josi.”
I can’t help my jaw clenching as I listen to the chilling sounds. One gate, and one wall, and who knows how many ravenous monsters. “Well we’d better start thinking of a real way to solve this problem,” I mutter, “’cause I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
It’s simple. Locks can be unlocked from the inside. And there’s a man beside me who is not in total control of his actions.
*
April 1st, 2066
Josephine
We train, night and day. Luke plays classical music during our sessions, and it helps me to concentrate. He tells me it’ll help even more to meditate and I try, but I don’t know how and it’s now too dangerous for him to come over and teach me. Raven watches us with alarming attentiveness.
“Maybe we could find somewhere else to practice the meditation stuff?” I suggest breathlessly, finishing my round of squats.
“Like where?” Luke’s in training gear and has been working out alongside me, giving me orders in between lifting his own weights.
I’ve spent the last two hours doing lunges and squats and push-ups. My muscles feel like jelly. According to Luke I’m still very ‘out of touch’ with my body.
“I dunno,” I sigh. “Raven can’t watch us constantly, can she?”
“She has just about everyone on the alert to notify her if we’re spotted alone.”
“Gross! This is so messed up.”
“Uh-huh.”
I am distracted by his push-ups. I’m pretty sure he’s moved beyond the hundred mark now, and doesn’t seem to be slowing. “Do you know that
the record for most non-stop push-ups is 10,507?”
He pauses, looking at me. “Bullshit.”
I shake my head, smiling. “Sorry, pal. That’s fact.”
He immediately starts doing as many push-ups as he can, as fast as he can, and I laugh as I watch him. After he reaches two hundred I get bored. “Okay. I get it – you’re strong. Can we do something else now?”
He jumps up, full of energy and dripping with sweat. He grins and shakes himself off like a dog – all over me. “Ew, Luke.”
“Don’t you like sweat being sprayed all over you?”
“Can we make me a good fighter now?” I ask. “Seriously. All these exercises aren’t helping me punch anyone.”
“Haven’t you ever seen Karate Kid? We have to build your strength, flexibility and agility with seemingly unrelated tasks, and then when we start the combat training you’ll have all these miraculous new skills.”
“It’s a lot of work.”
“Yes, baby, it is.”
“If only we could montage it. Did you do this much work?”
He grins. “I’ve been training every day for the last nineteen years.”
“Ew.”
“I have an idea where we can go. Come on.”
*
We wind up outside Shadow’s place. “No,” I hiss as Luke knocks on the door. “I don’t want to meditate in Shadow’s house!”
“Why not?”
“It’s weird.”
The door opens and Shadow frowns. “Hey, man,” Luke greets him. “We have a favor to ask as part of your ex-student’s training regimen.”
Shadow stares at us.
“Can we use your house to meditate?”
He looks at us like we’re both freaks.
“It’s his idea,” I say quickly, pointing to Luke.
We wait as Shadow peers at us, then finally gestures us inside. His house is the same as Luke’s, a tiny one-bedroom studio. It’s awkward – I don’t want Shadow watching me meditate. He seems to intuit as much, for he makes some excuse about being on watch duty and leaves the house.
“Sit down and cross your legs,” Luke orders me, so I sit in the middle of the room. “Close your eyes.”
I do so. Luke starts telling me, in his soft, calming voice, to let my mind move through all the parts of my body. I do as he says as well as I can but I can’t really feel anything and mostly I just sit here and think about how we’re alone in a private residence for the first time in ages. I also think about the case, and I think about the cures, and Raven and Quinn and Hal –
“Look,” Luke says, abruptly bringing me back to the room. “You need to be present. Focus, Josephine.”
I focus, knowing I’m in trouble if he calls me Josephine. He talks me through feeling all the nerve endings in every part of my body but I’m just listening to his voice and how lovely it is –
Until he starts to touch me.
My heart jackhammers in my chest. “Woah, what are you doing?”
His fingers touch my toes very lightly. “Can you feel that?”
“Is that a trick question?”
“Concentrate.”
I concentrate. He’s touching my feet, and now my calves. His fingers are moving up and under my knees. Over my thighs and inside them. I’m breathing very quickly and suspect he might be trying to kill me. The nerve endings in my skin are on fire.
But I am existing, abruptly, within my body. Within each part of it. As I never have before. The sensation is electricity through every one of my muscles.
Luke moves his touch to my hands, tracing my fingers. Up my wrists, my inner arms, to my shoulders and my collarbones and my neck and jaw and cheek and lips …
“Luke, stop,” I breathe.
I feel him pull away.
“You’re torturing me. We can’t do this in Shadow’s house.”
“I think I’m dying,” he agrees, and I open my eyes with a breathless laugh.
“You’re a very good teacher. I can feel every inch of my body.”
“Not every inch. Not like I could make you feel it.”
We stare at each other. My skin is scalding, almost painful in its need to be touched. Why did I stop him? “It’s not fair,” I mutter.
“It’s criminal.”
And that’s when the door opens to admit Shadow. Luke and I jerk away from each other even though we haven’t been doing anything.
“Good session,” he tells me loudly. “Thanks, Shadow.”
Shadow stares at us as we rush past him.
We circle around behind my place, on the lookout for spies. It’s so absurd that I can’t stop laughing. Luke opens my window for me. “Uh-oh. You’re hysterical.”
“Who could possibly know if you stay the night?” I ask.
“I don’t know, but I won’t risk it.”
I reach for his face, running my fingers over his lips and –
– and then he’s kissing me. Hard and fast. His mouth is open and I can feel his tongue against mine and he’s pushing me up against the wall of the house. His hands slide beneath my t-shirt and along my spine, circling around to my breasts. His fingers trace my nipples and pinch them gently and I can feel it everywhere.
“I thought it wasn’t worth the risk,” I breathe against his mouth.
“I never said it wasn’t worth the risk,” he replies fervently, kissing me again, pushing me harder against the wall. “I just said I wouldn’t. But we’re not technically procreating.”
I laugh, shoving him away. “Killed the mood.”
His shoulders slump and he looks at me. I feel the gaze as if it’s a touch and it burns.
“Go home,” I tell him. “We’re not animal enough to die for it.”
He smiles. “I think I am.”
“Go home,” I smile.
“Love you.”
“Love you too.”
*
April 6th, 2066
Josephine
Ben looks like a wraith. He is fading fast. His skin is so thin it looks translucent – I can see the spider-veins running like black tar beneath his surface. He no longer paces, despite the restlessness in his body. I don’t think he has the strength for it. He’s starving to death.
“We have to feed him,” I say.
“And how are we meant to do that?” Raven asks.
Quinn, Luke, Raven and I stand on the other side of the glass and watch Ben. Meredith works nearby, ignoring us. Dodge isn’t here today, and it’s funny to think of him having any life outside this lab.
“People die here.”
They all look at me.
I spread my hands. “They’re dead. They won’t know they’re being eaten.”
“You want to feed our dead family members to a cannibal?” Raven asks incredulously. She bursts into laughter. “Oh my god, they’re going to hate you even more than they already do.”
“You really are incredibly unsentimental, aren’t you?” Quinn muses. “It’ll never happen. They wouldn’t even let us postpone a burial, let alone dig someone up and feed them to a Fury.”
I sigh. “Well when I die, I want it known that my body goes to science. Cut it into a million pieces for all I care. Let monsters feast upon it.”
“Morbid chick,” Luke mutters.
“You,” Quinn says bluntly to the scientist.
“Her name’s Meredith,” I point out.
Meredith looks up.
“Is there any work being done on this creature?”
“I believe Dodge has been working on him.”
“Doing what?”
“You’d have to ask him.”
“So you have no idea if the creature is even worth keeping around.”
“We can’t just let him starve to death!” I protest.
“And we can’t feed our people to him!” Raven snaps.
“If it’s possible,” Meredith interjects, “I’d like to start testing him. If this one cannot be kept alive, I’d like another, please.”
“For
what?” Quinn asks.
“You’ve got me synthesizing the chemicals in Miss Luquet’s blood,” she says. “I need test subjects if you ever want to inject healthy humans.”
And if we ever want to use it on Luke. I look over at him but he’s not listening. His eyes are locked on Ben and he’s lost in a dark world I know all too well.
*
April 8th, 2066
Raven
I wake from a dream of Luke with an idea. But before I can throw off the covers and dash to the shower, Quinn draws me to him and I remember the role I am here to play instead.
His kisses burn me in a way I like. Sometimes I am a doll in his arms, sometimes I am more alive than I have ever been. This morning as he kisses me, pretending he will be able to get an erection, I think of the dream I just had. Luke and I were walking through a building made of glass windows, which caused the two of us to seem fractured and multiplied. Everywhere I turned, there had been a piece of him, the back of his shoulder or the side of his ear. I’d been running through the twisting halls of glass, trying to find the real Luke, but instead I’d been faced with the real me. And she was very ugly.
As the dream reveals itself to me I feel sick and shove Quinn away from me.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I have work to do.”
“It’s barely six.”
“It’s not like there’s any point in me staying in bed with you anyway.” It wounds him, I see, but I don’t really care.
*
On the wall I fire my gun into the Furies, one after the other. The explosions of sound hit my ears and numb my head in a throbbing, whining way. Bang bang bang bang bang. The Furies surge toward the fallen and as I continue to fire I watch them lunge at their own dead, tearing into the flesh hungrily.
I kill more. I fire all the rounds in my clip and then I load a second and a third, watching the feeding frenzy I have started below.
“Raven!” a voice shouts and I turn to see Luke on the wall, raising his hands to me in a way that suggests I am a deranged lunatic.
“What?”
“Stop!”
I blink, looking around to realize that half the compound has come out to see what the gunshots are about, and now stare up at me with unease. I start firing again, angrily this time. Screw them all. More Furies fall under my hail.
Melancholy: Book Two of The Cure (Omnibus Edition) Page 30