“You can put us in holding in the morning,” Luke tells her.
“What did you think would happen?” she asks. “You flagrantly break the rules and expect no punishment?”
“In the morning,” he repeats flatly. I can hear the danger in his tone. She’s an idiot if she can’t.
“No – ” Raven replies, and that’s when he moves.
He steps forward and flattens Carlos with a punch to the jaw. The big man goes down silently, and Luke is already twisting Kim’s arm tightly behind his back.
“If you don’t go home now, I break his arm.”
“You think I care about his arm?” Raven asks.
Luke shoves Carlos away and advances on Raven. He is brutal, and she evades him for only a few moves before he takes out her legs and pins her to the ground.
“I could kill you so easily,” he murmurs. “And who the hell would care?”
Raven gives a feeble struggle, and I can see the hurt in her eyes.
“If you come back before morning I will fucking annihilate the lot of you.” He lets her up and she scrambles away with a grimace of hatred.
I watch emotionlessly. Luke is completely out of control these days, but I feel nothing about any of it right now, except mild envy that he can punch his feelings away and I have no outlet for anything anymore.
He opens his front door and gestures me inside. I walk in, a bit dazed.
“I have to go somewhere,” Luke tells me. “Don’t move. I’ll be thirty seconds.”
I blink as he sprints away into the night. It is very odd, but I’m having trouble fathoming or caring about anything. I wander listlessly into the middle of the room and look around. It is empty of any personal possessions. It looks nothing like the house Luke was raised in, full of mess and chaos and memories.
Where did I imagine these children of mine would be raised? Surely I didn’t think I could have them here? In The Inferno? The two of us are under constant scrutiny, enemies in the place that’s meant to be our refuge from the enemy. And then there’s the death that seems to follow the two of us around – the corpses that stretch between us won’t stop growing in number.
Me as a mother. What a joke. I am broken and have always been broken. Of course my body wouldn’t be fit to conceive children – I’ve spent my life as a danger to everything around me. What was I thinking? I actually allowed myself to fall in love with three completely fictional children. I am standing here pondering my own lunacy when Luke returns.
And in his hands he carries an object. An impossible object.
The breath is stolen from my lungs. I stare at what he holds, struck dumb. My eyes flick up to his face. He looks vulnerable and hopeful.
I feel my heart break and mend and break and mend.
It’s a cello.
An imperfect, mismatched cello, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
“You built me a cello?” I whisper.
He nods. “Me and Dad.”
“You built me a cello.” Tears spill from my eyes. “Oh my god.”
“I’m your family,” Luke says. “Always.”
I start crying and he puts the cello down to take me in his arms, holding me against his chest and pressing his lips to my temple. His hands are in my hair, along my spine.
This: the sweetness of being loved by Luke Townsend. The generosity of it. From the very beginning. From those first days when all he cared about was my safety and my happiness, when he gave me a place to live and he spent his days helping me to find an answer. He came here, to the west, for me. He went back to the city for me. He has done everything for me. I am the luckiest woman in the world, because something conspired to have him take a job that would one day lead him to me.
“Thank you,” I tell him.
“Play,” he murmurs against my ear. So I do.
I cross to take the cello in my hands, feeling electrified at the sensation of the wood. I carry it, measuring its weight like an old lover – no, it’s more intimate even than that. A part of me. A shadow of my own soul, here in its shape and its weight.
I sit on the edge of the couch and move the instrument between my legs. I trace my fingers over it, over every beautifully sanded edge and lovingly glued join. It’s remarkable, what he and Tobias have created.
I feel the bow in my hand and run my fingers over the strings, plucking them lightly. They’re rough but it doesn’t matter. I tune the instrument carefully, twisting the awkwardly shaped pegs and plucking until I hear the right notes.
I lift the bow to the strings.
“I’m nervous,” Luke says.
I meet his eyes and smile. “You don’t ever have to be nervous again, darling. This is, in my opinion, the best thing that’s ever been made.”
He blushes.
And I play.
I am wildly, effortlessly in flight. On fire and tingling and electrified. The notes explode gorgeously into the room and I feel ancient and newborn. I am come back to myself. A person once more. Alive once more.
My fingers tremble and the notes aren’t perfect but it doesn’t matter, they exist. There are notes coming from my hands and the bow and this miraculous instrument. And I think I love it more than I love myself. I love this cello like it is a child of mine.
In the notes I exist, abruptly. Here is the nameless thing I have been yearning for; here is one of them, at least.
*
September 8th, 2066
Josephine
Luke listens as I play for hours. And then he says, as we crash to the bed for an hour or two of sleep before they come to take us into holding, “Best night ever.”
I smile. There will never be any children. And it’s a tragedy. A profound reshaping of my place in this broken world. But there is sweetness and beauty in the same broken world, even without my two boys and girl, and I must try, I must try to be happy, because no one has stolen the ability from me.
Not yet.
*
I wake alone. I blink slowly, still exhausted. My hands reach out and find only empty bed. Struggling to rise, I feel it. A veil descending upon me. Something is wrong. My skin prickles. Dawn is only just breaking through the window; he should be here, where he fell asleep beside me.
I pull on yesterday’s t-shirt and jeans and go looking for him. My feet move slowly at first, and I have to force them to walk at a normal pace.
Stop being an idiot. He probably just went to the bathroom. But he isn’t there, and when I reach the living room I see that the front door is wide open.
I pause. I’m not sure my body is working of its own volition right now.
I walk to the door.
Stop.
There before me, strewn along the ground, are human body parts. A leg here, an arm there. A torso. A head.
Two people, I think. A woman and a man, scattered over the dusty road. I can’t tell who they are.
But there at the end of the trail lies Luke, covered in their blood.
I vomit violently onto the ground beside the door. I can’t cover this one up, there’s no way.
As I straighten I close my eyes and draw a breath. I block the sight from my mind. I breathe deeply and force myself to place walls around the horror. I have to be focused, or Luke will die for this.
Opening my eyes, I run to his side. He’s out cold, so I shake him hard. I don’t want him to see this – he has never seen the remnants of his murders before – but I can’t drag him inside without pulling him through the body parts.
He stirs groggily. Squints up at me. Groans. “Ugh, Jose, I feel like shit – ”
“Get up now.”
Luke blinks, starts struggling up. “What?” And that’s when he sees it. The tableau of death.
It’s also when I realize we are no longer alone. Standing a few feet away, mouth agape, is Raven. She gazes at me and Luke, and at the dead bodies.
I meet her eyes. “Raven …”
But she is already dashing away, and I know it’s
too late. It’s way too late. I sit back on my haunches and look at Luke. His face is pale green with shock and horror.
“Get to my parents,” he says abruptly. “They won’t be safe. You’ll have to get them out of here, once I’m dead.”
I recoil. “Woah. Don’t even – ”
“Promise me!” he yells.
I stare at him in shock. There is iron in his eyes, an ocean of steel. He’s preparing himself to die.
“Promise me.”
“I promise,” I tell him.
“Go now, or you’re implicated in this too.”
“Raven’s already seen me!”
Luke stands with a burst of energy and I can see that whatever phantom passed through him during the night has gone – he is restless and powerful and bursting out of his skin. This was never how I woke, on the morning after the blood moon.
I remain crouching; I don’t seem to be able to move. This isn’t right. It isn’t. There’s something … I look at my watch. It’s 5:23. My mind pulls a thousand pieces together, tries to make them fit. There wasn’t enough time.
Quinn arrives at a run, followed by Raven. Shadow is with them. They all stop and stare in horror.
And in the silence Luke says, “I’m so sorry.”
Chapter 25
August 9th, 2065
Luke
Hal waves me over to his table. Surprisingly, tonight Will and Pace are elsewhere, so he’s sitting with three people I haven’t met yet. Hal introduces the guys as Batch and Eric, both big, solid-looking men. The woman, who is young and pretty enough to catch my attention, is Lace.
“We’re finally graced with the Mighty One’s presence,” she grins.
“Sorry – I’ve been meaning to get around to meet everyone, but there aren’t enough hours in the day,” I reply.
“All good,” Batch tells me, passing me a mug of homebrew and a bowl of curry.
“I wonder if the man will live up to his legend,” Lace says. She’s either mocking me or flirting with me – I’m not yet sure which.
I take a mouthful of the vegetable curry and blink in astonishment. “Damn! This is good.”
“Lucky,” Batch points out. “If you’d said otherwise I would have had to kill you.”
“Did you make this?”
Batch nods.
“And if anyone ever insults The Vegetable Curry, he goes all Hulk on them,” Eric smiles fondly.
“Luke’s a great cook too,” Hal offers.
“I’ll give you the recipe then,” Batch tells me.
“Ooh, he never gives anyone the recipe,” Lace points out. She winks cheekily at me, and I realize she’s definitely flirting. I glance between the four of them, wondering about the dynamics of the group.
“Your place for poker?” Eric asks her.
Lace shakes her head. “My parents’ll be up. Your place.”
“I share with Old Bat,” Eric points out morosely.
“Old Bat?” I ask around a mouthful.
“We call him Old Bat ’cause he’s old as shit and batty enough to be committed,” Batch explains.
“We can go to my place,” I offer. “I don’t share with anyone.”
“Why would royalty deign to share his abode?” Lace asks.
I roll my eyes and we head to my place.
*
Several hours later all four of them are drunk as skunks and virtually passed out around me. I haven’t been drinking, so it’s been highly amusing to watch them wipe themselves out. I’ve also cleaned up in the poker game.
What I have gathered so far: Lace and Batch are married. Surprisingly, since she keeps looking at me as though she’d like to eat me. She’s got a very deadpan sense of humor that reminds me, painfully, of Josi’s. Batch is boisterous and full of ideas that he has no shame about announcing in pseudo-poetic fashion. Eric and Batch are best friends from years ago – they escaped from the city together. Eric is gentler than Batch and Lace, and finds them both hilarious. Hal slots into the edge of the threesome with easy grace because he’s Hal and everyone likes Hal. I suspect Eric likes Hal a little more than the others do – in fact, I suspect he likes Hal more than he likes anyone.
And I like them all. I wish it hadn’t taken me so long to meet them.
I leave them curled up on the couch or splayed over the floor and creep outside. Sitting on the front step, I spend a moment enjoying the fresh air and thinking about Josi. One month until the blood moon. I leave for the city in a couple of weeks – I have to make sure Ben has the antidote ready, and then I have to bust my girlfriend out of the asylum.
“You hustled us,” says a voice from the doorway and I see Lace emerging to sit beside me.
“No, you got yourself drunk,” I argue. “I won fair and square.”
She sighs dramatically. “We do tend to do that.”
“How long have you and Batch been together?”
“Three years.”
“You met here?”
“Yep. He swept me off my feet with a mended hoe and gardening gloves.”
“Just what every girl dreams of.”
She laughs a little. “Is this how you imagined your life?”
“Not once.”
“Me neither.”
We sit in comfortable silence for a while, until she asks, “I’ve heard you have a girlfriend in the city.”
My eyebrows arch.
“Josephine, immune to the cure.”
“God, everyone knows, don’t they?”
“Word travels fast when you live in a rat cage.”
I glance at her, surprised by the sudden bitterness. “You don’t like it here.”
“Not particularly, no. Do you miss her?”
I am asked this often. Asked about Josi often. It is as though no one can quite grasp the concept of leaving a loved one behind in the city. I’m not sure I even understand it. What if I had brought her here with me? Would she have been better off?
No, I decide. It would have been like putting a snake in with the rats; she would have eaten them one by one, and then perished herself with the weight of all those wriggling bodies inside her own.
“Yes,” I say simply.
“I miss Batch,” Lace murmurs. “I miss him even when he’s with me.”
“Why?”
“Because he loves those two idiots in there more than he loves me.”
And then she kisses me. Just leans right over and plants her mouth on mine. I jerk away, startled. “Woah. Lace, no – ”
“Sorry,” she breathes, standing up quickly. “But now I don’t have to lie.”
I watch her go back inside, not knowing what she means but knowing it’s bad.
*
September 1st, 2065
Luke
I get what she means now, and yep, it’s bad. Apparently Lace toddled off drunkenly to bed and told her husband that I’d just kissed her. So Batch came around and started yelling that he wanted to fight me. When I asked Lace about the large man who seemed to think I’d grievously insulted him, she simply said she wanted to make him jealous to see if he still loved her. Needless to say, I got pretty pissed. But when I looked at her pleading face I couldn’t help but pity her, so I agreed to go along with it.
Now instead of being on my way to the city, I’m forced to face Batch in the ring for the honor of a woman I have no interest in.
“Private bout!” Quinn announces. “As you all know, Batch wouldn’t normally be eligible to fight Luke without having won several bouts prior, but because an insult to his honor has been made – namely, Luke having kissed his wife – Batch has the right to challenge Luke directly. If Batch wins, he takes Luke’s place in the hierarchy.”
Great. Now I sound like a philanderer. The whole bloody crowd is abuzz with it. I glare at Lace but she just gives me an apologetic shrug.
Batch moves into the circle, looking extremely aggressive.
I sigh and move to meet him.
*
September 8th, 2066
Luke
Josi sits; I pace. I can’t stop. I am bursting out of my skin. I have more energy than I’ve ever had. Josi looks the opposite. There are dark hollows under her eyes.
“They better hurry this up,” she snaps. I can hear her rage and I like it. It stirs something inside me, something primal. I’ve already compartmentalized the grotesque sight of my violence so that it can’t yet touch me.
The door opens to admit Shadow. His eyes dart between us and I can see quicksilver fear in them. It makes me cold. “They think you did all the murders.”
I am awash with the most intense relief I have ever felt.
Josi stands so quickly the chair goes flying behind her with a slam. “No,” she snarls. A she-wolf. She would have made a great mother.
“They know about the virus in his system,” Shadow says. “Ranya’s been spying for Quinn and she’s told him everything about Dodge’s tests. They pieced it all together – they knew even before this morning.”
“Fuck,” Josi whispers. She starts pacing now, while I remain still. “They don’t have any proof. There’s not a single scrap of evidence.”
“He was at the scene this morning.”
“So was I!” Josi says. “Being at a scene first means nothing.”
“Josephine had nothing to do with any of it,” I tell Shadow woodenly.
“They think she did. They know someone’s been covering things up.”
“They’re wrong.” They’re right.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she mutters to herself. She’s still trying to find a way out of this.
“What doesn’t?” Shadow asks.
But the door opens again and this time it’s Quinn. “Out, Josephine,” he orders her. “But don’t go too far.”
“What about Luke?”
“He stays.” Quinn folds his arms.
“Go,” I tell Josi. “Do what you promised me.”
I can see her wanting to cross to me, but instead she strides out. Shadow goes with her, and I am alone in the cell to contemplate what I’ve done.
*
Melancholy: Book Two of The Cure (Omnibus Edition) Page 35