I don’t feel very human as I look at the man. I turn my eyes from him without a word, which I know will get under his skin more than anything. “Jean. I’ve missed you.”
She looks really pissed. “Well haven’t you turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life.”
“I reckon a lot of people feel that way about me.” I smile darkly.
“You surprise me, Prime Minister,” Josi interrupts the reunion calmly. “I sort of pictured you as a cockroach.”
Shay smiles. “And why is that, dear?”
“You’re the one man who manages to survive through everything because you hide out of sight and avoid danger. And yet here you stand. In a building seconds away from being blown up.”
“They won’t blow up their leaders,” he says, unbothered.
It’s Josi’s turn to smile now, just a slight tilt to her lips. “Oh dear. You thought we were in charge? Not at all. We’re soldiers, easily replaced and sacrificed if need be. You understand that, don’t you?” Her eyes move to the dead Blood on the ground.
Shay watches her. He’s not amused anymore. I can see him weighing it up. He’s itching to get the hell out of here. But he’s also smart, and thinks she’s bluffing. She and I are big gets, now that we’ve openly waged war on the cure. He wants to string up our corpses as examples for all to see.
He gestures and the four Bloods take hold of Josi. She struggles with a wild snarl of rage, but they hold her firm and there’s no way out of it.
Something strange uncurls within me. Something dark.
The drug inside surges back to life with a vengeance, but I think it’s carried by a wave of my own fury, a beast of a thing that has lain in wait for a very long time, yearning to rise.
Thoughts go. Logic and rationale go. Control goes. Fear with it.
I am animal. I’m a brain that has flushed my limbs with grunt guts blood fists balls teeth fight. My amygdala explodes, flooding me with the primal screaming shrieking need to survive and to kill.
The glass separating her from me must go.
I slam my fist into it. Pain slices up my arm. But there’s power there, too, unnatural power. I punch the glass a second time. Blood smears it. I punch it again and again and again and again and again and again –
My hand breaks, the bones within splintering. Ravens fly around my head, hundreds of them. They make me strong.
I punch again.
The glass cracks.
Josi is screaming at me to stop, please stop, but they are dragging her away and I know that if I don’t get to her now I’ll never find her and I must kill Shay now now now –
A roar leaves my mouth as I smash through the unbreakable glass.
Shards slice through my skin and blood pools to the ground. I feel nothing. Nothing but rage. It overwhelms, drowns. I am saturated in it.
*
Josephine
I can’t get free, even as I struggle with all I have. The hands on my arms are too strong, too tight. Shay and Jean lead me down an empty corridor, fast like they finally believe the building could blow at any second.
They’ll put me in a prison I can never escape from.
Luke will die trying to break through my glass cage.
We reach the front reception. Through the front doors I can see what looks like hundreds of people all flocked behind a partition. Police sirens wail. Cameras flash. Loudspeakers bark at people to remain back.
I’ve lost my radio so I have no idea why the hell Will hasn’t blown the place yet.
Four more Bloods enter from the front to meet us.
It takes me several seconds to realize. They are mine. My soldiers. Not Bloods at all. Shadow, Eric, Blue and Rina.
They move smoothly to flank us as though they have been ordered to. “All clear, sir,” Eric reports.
Jean and Shay don’t bat an eyelid, but continue their path to the doors.
Until the prime minister’s feet falter. He slows, frowning. And then he spins, drawing his gun. I am pulled hard against his chest, his weapon shoved to my temple. The second he moves, everyone else is moving. The resistance fighters point their guns at the Bloods, who point theirs straight back.
“Stop,” Shay shouts before anyone can fire. “Nobody move or she dies!”
Everyone freezes mid-standoff.
“You thought I wouldn’t recognize you,” Shay breathes. “But I’ve looked at your file a thousand times. A million. I know your face better than any in the world.” He pauses, draws a breath that I can feel tremble. “It’s not every day a man steals your wife and then murders her, after all.”
What? It’s well known that the Minister’s beautiful, young wife disappeared twenty years ago and was never found.
I pull against Shay’s arms, but he jams the gun harder into my head. I scan the faces of my friends, but I can’t see any –
Oh, shit.
Shadow. There’s death in his eyes, and hatred. I’ve never seen such hatred. He’s staring at Falon Shay as though he was born to destroy him.
“How have you survived this long?” Shay asks him.
Shadow says nothing.
“We don’t have time for this,” Jean snaps, but Shay doesn’t move. I can feel his heartbeat against my back and it’s pounding.
“Let her go,” Shadow orders softly.
Shay laughs, this sick sound hot against the back of my neck. My skin crawls.
“How did you do it?” Shay hisses. “How did you murder my wife?”
“Let. Her. Go.”
“You think I wouldn’t kill her in front of you? You think I haven’t dreamed of this moment for the last two decades?”
Shadow steps forward and Shay cocks the gun, that familiar click sounding throughout the eerily quiet reception area. “Come closer,” the Minister says. “I dare you.”
I can see agitation in Shadow’s face.
And then Falon Shay says, “You and all of your people are under arrest, Philippe Luquet.”
I blink.
Shadow’s eyes meet mine.
The air goes from my chest.
“Josi – ” he whispers.
But that’s when Jean gasps and we all turn to witness her slump bonelessly to the ground. Behind her stands Luke, his knife dripping with her blood.
But it isn’t Luke. Not really. I can see that he’s gone from his body and the blood moon has come early for him. He’s monstrous as he kneels over his former boss. She is squirming, trying to get up.
“You always knew it’d be me, didn’t you?” he asks, and he sounds nothing like the man I know. His hand is shattered and bleeding but he holds the knife without any concern, and he slices it straight through her throat.
It breaks the trance the rest of us are in. Guns explode as both sides fire at the other. Shay yanks me backward toward the exit, but Shadow appears and cracks him over the head.
The Minister loosens his hold on me and I manage to wriggle away.
He has already facing Shadow in a brutal fight, decades in the making.
I turn to see the Bloods fighting the resisters, but really, Eric, Blue and Rina aren’t working all that hard because Luke has gone full Hulk, and is smashing his way through the four Blood soldiers.
I circle him, knowing that he’ll turn on his friends as soon as the closest bodies are out of his way – there’s no control when the virus takes hold. No choosing who to kill and who to save.
And that’s when it hits me.
There’s no choosing.
All the pieces suddenly fall into place and I am awash with a relief so fierce it blinds me.
But there isn’t time now to deal with any of that, or to dwell on it – Luke is killing the last Blood, and next in line are the resistance fighters. I continue on my path, moving to edge in behind him –
He looks quizzically at me over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”
I frown. “Oh. Shit. I thought you were, like, turned.”
“Still here.”
I feel
like an idiot. But I’m also relieved. Until a whole bunch of Bloods burst through the door.
And goddamn Falon Shay grabs hold of me. “Again?” I snap. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Shadow rising woozily from the ground.
Every single person in the room then hears the crackle of Eric’s radio and Will’s voice echoing through the reception. “The goddamn failsafe just activated! Thirty seconds until detonation! If anyone is still in that building then get the hell out!”
We freeze for half a second, and then everyone launches for the front doors, not caring which team anyone is fighting for, just scrambling like mad to get out.
Except for me. Because Shay is dragging me further into the building. A yelp of horror takes me and I thrash against him. “Stop, you freak!”
“He’ll watch you die,” he breathes against my ear. The man has totally lost it.
Abruptly his weight pitches on top of me and I hit the ground hard. Wriggling from under him, I see Shadow wrestling Shay off me.
“Run!” he yells at me, struggling to hold the prime minister down.
There is no way I’m running without him. I lunge forward to help, but hands take hold of me, lifting me off the ground.
“Shadow!” I scream.
But it’s Luke, and he’s carrying me away. “Don’t!” I shriek. “Shadow!”
Shadow looks up in time for our eyes to meet. He shouts, “Go.”
And then Luke is hauling me away, sprinting as fast as he can, and we’re outside and I’m screaming my throat hoarse and beating at him but he isn’t letting me go and we’re too far away now –
The building explodes into a mighty inferno.
We are thrown off our feet by a massive burst of energy. My ears explode and everything goes black.
*
When I gain consciousness again the world has descended into chaos. Fire engines roar and sirens wail. People are running all over the place and the clinic is a burning wreck of smoking rubble.
Luke is out cold beside me; I reach urgently to shake him awake. We’re in a grassy ditch beside the main road, and have been so far overlooked in the dark and the madness, but that won’t last long. My ears are ringing terribly, but I seem to be getting some hearing back.
“Luke!” I hiss, slapping him hard in the face.
He lurches straight up, disoriented but adjusting quickly. We struggle to our feet and take off down the hill, running for all we’re worth. I can’t see any of the others, but I think they made it out before we did.
We have to get through a dozen streets, past cars and people swarming everywhere, but we manage to reach a residential area and climb over into someone’s backyard.
Ducking behind some shrubbery, we peer around in the dark. There’s no way we’ll make it back to the garage like this, not with so much chaos going on. We’d be just as likely to lead the Bloods straight there.
“We need to find somewhere to hide for the night,” I say.
He can’t hear me; his hearing hasn’t healed as quickly as mine. Loudly, he says, “Gotta find an empty house.”
I cover his mouth quickly. “Shhh! Jesus.”
We start backyard hopping, searching for anything empty. Several times lights come on and we have to run for it. It seems we’re never going to find anywhere and I’m not sure how long I can keep going on pure adrenalin.
*
September 13th, 2066
Josephine
It’s 1 in the morning before we manage to find somewhere. It’s a guest studio, but thankfully there’s no view of its windows from the main house, and it’s empty.
Luke can’t pick the lock because his hand is broken and swollen to the size of a watermelon, so he has to talk me through it. I fail – my fingers are trembling too much – so we wind up breaking one of the windows as quietly as possible and climbing in.
We don’t turn on any lights, but even in the dark I can see it’s a studio with a bed, a table, a mini fridge and a sink. It also has a small bathroom to one side. Luke takes one look at me and leads me straight to it. I feel so numb I’m not sure I’ll ever feel anything again. I’m in shock, and I know this as if from very far away. My teeth are chattering.
He gently removes my clothes, even though it must hurt his hand. I remove his, and we both move as if in a trance. We are filthy with dirt and soot and blood. Our bodies are bruised and broken. We are ghostlike in the dark bathroom.
He turns the shower on and together we step in, letting the warm water sluice over our bodies.
He runs his good hand over my skin, using his fingers to remove the dirt and blood, moving it through my hair to clean it. I don’t have the energy to do the same for him. My legs can’t hold me up any longer. I sink to the floor and he sits with me, drawing me into his arms.
I look up into his face. Water runs over the lines of it, dripping onto me. The last time we were in a shower together was the morning before he told me he was a Blood agent. One year ago, I realize.
“It’s alright, darling,” he whispers to me.
But it’s not. “His real name was Philippe Luquet,” I say numbly.
Luke frowns, searching my face in the dark. “Who?”
I swallow. “Shadow.”
He breathes out, like someone has punched him in the gut. “No.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, fuck.”
I press my lips hard against his, wanting quiet and loud and hard and soft and anything at all but this fist of thorns in my chest.
He pulls back. “Josi.”
I kiss him again, more firmly. I push him until his back is against the shower wall and then I slide my legs over his hips. My hand reaches down to find his cock, already hard. I slide it inside me, my mouth opening against his.
His hand traces over my collarbone, down over my breasts, resting for a moment against my heartbeat. Then moves to grip my hip, pulling me against him as he moves deeper into me. A soft moan leaves me as he grinds inside, his fingers reaching to stroke my clit at the same time. I gasp, my heart and skin and nerves exploding into wingbeats that thrust up into the sky.
My fingers go to his hair and tug on it, and I lean down and bite his shoulder, hard, until I draw blood. He thrusts harder inside me and I can feel the tingling pressure building. I can’t think straight or feel straight and I don’t want to. I don’t want to think or feel again, except for this, I want this forever.
“Don’t stop,” I tell him.
He lifts me quickly onto my back and moves much deeper inside me, and muffles my cry with his mouth. His tongue is on mine, against my lips, my teeth, he is biting my lower lip.
He takes my face in his hand so he can look at me as I come. As soon as he sees me dissolve he lets himself do the same, and then he slumps on top of me, the water still running over us both.
I don’t realize at first, until he looks at me and this expression of anguish twists his face. He leans down to kiss my eyelids, and that’s when I know I’ve started to cry. It builds in a great big rush of agony in my chest, a heavy weight that belongs to disbelief and anger and absolute unfairness.
Luke carries me to the bed and dries me off before wrapping me in a blanket. Then he wraps himself around me and holds me as I cry. The only thing that keeps me sane is the thought of the vial I stole and put in my pocket, the one that can cure me of this wretched sadness. The minute Luke falls asleep I’m going to inject myself.
*
Hours later I realize I must have dozed off at some point as I stir awake again. The gray light of predawn peeks beneath the curtain above us. Luke is staring at the ceiling, lost in thought. I roll onto my back beside him, keeping my hand laced with his. I’ve missed my opportunity. It will have to be when we get back to the garage.
Knox’s face is in my mind. I’m not sure I’ll ever get it out of there.
And Philippe.
“We did what we came to do,” Luke murmurs, as if responding to my thoughts.
“At what cost?”
&
nbsp; “It was always going to be messy. There was always going to be cost. It’s fresh right now. At least let the dust settle before you start questioning yourself.”
“I’m not cut out for this.”
“Actually,” he replies, “I think you’re the only one of us who really is.”
I don’t know how he means them to sound, but they feel cruel, those words. “People died last night.”
“You’re losing sight,” he says. “Don’t lose sight.”
“But who are we to decide?” I ask softly. “Why do we know best? What right do we have to choose for the rest of the city?”
There’s a silence, and finally he replies, “I don’t know.”
*
Luke’s hand is so mangled that it frightens me, and his lips are white with pain as I bandage it. We switch the television on, keeping it low enough that no one will overhear. News bulletins cover every channel, footage of last night’s mission that makes it look like a brutal terrorist attack.
I’m not entirely sure it wasn’t. It’s certainly a fine line between being a terrorist and a savior.
The bulletins all go on to say that despite the terrorists’ efforts, Prime Minister Falon Shay made it out alive.
Luke and I look at each other, shocked.
If the Minister got out, then maybe Shadow did too. Giddy longing is born in my heart, and I make a vow. If my father is still alive, I’m going to find him.
*
When Luke and I make it back to the garage the sun is just starting to rise and we find the rest of the crew in a maelstrom of emotions. They’re elated that the mission was a success, but they’re grieving, too, because Shadow, Blue and Rina didn’t make it out. I share my hope for Shadow, but no one looks as though they buy it.
The conversation falls to what comes next and an argument breaks out.
“We can’t go back there,” Pace points out angrily. “You heard Quinn!”
“It’s our home!” Eric replies.
“Not anymore. We’re dead if we go back there.”
“And how long do you think we can survive here? After what happened last night the whole city’s gonna be on red alert.”
While they argue, I walk over to the medical supply kit. Will sees me remove a syringe. I nod toward Luke, who’s standing stiff like an iron statue at the doorway, muscles locked with tension.
Melancholy: Book Two of The Cure (Omnibus Edition) Page 40