Melancholy: Episode 1

by Charlotte McConaghy

Goodbye, Ben, you visionary idiot. You well-meaning moron. You kind-hearted fool who destroyed the world.

  I turn and see that Luke is hacking away for his life. “That all looks very impressive,” I tell him.

  “I’m no Harley,” he replies, and I can hear the tension in him, see it all through his back.

  “You’re doing well,” I encourage. The mission needs him to not tense up and ruin everything. The mission needs him relaxed and working well, so I rub his shoulders, and I feel immediately like I have betrayed myself.

  “There are so many firewalls,” he mutters distractedly. “But Ben is alive. I’m tracing his movement from the night in the lab. So far I know he was admitted to the hospital and fitted with a pace-maker. Then he was moved.”

  I knead the knots in his back.

  “Josi? That’s distracting me way more than it’s helping me.”

  I recoil from his body. “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s cool. I mean it’s sweet of you, I just …”

  “It’s fine, get back to work,” I all but shout, then stride into the kitchen and look around carefully.

  I cross to the fridge and open it to find a whole lot of rancid food, the stench of which hits me in the face. “Woah.”

  “What is it?” Luke shouts from the other room.

  “Nothing!”

  I go into Ben’s bedroom and check all the cupboards; his clothes smell like moths and mold. He has a whole bathroom shelf of medicines and I read every label. Several have been prescribed to me, several I have stolen to ease the pain of my transformations, and several I have never heard of, which immediately interest me. I study these closely and realize that some are medications for a heart condition, meaning Ben’s heart was faulty before he endured that nightmarish night in the lab and I left him to die of heart failure. Some are very mysterious, all of which were prescribed to Adele and seem to be for symptoms such as paranoia, irritability and disassociation. There are mood stabilizers, anti-psychotics and tranquilizers. It’s very full-on stuff. I gather the bottles and shove them into my backpack, wondering what Dodge will make of them and imagining that Ben might also be able to explain it when we get him home. After further thought I grab the entire contents of the shelf, because if Ben is taken out west with us, he’s going to need his medication.

  “Josi!”

  I track back into the computer room. “What’s up?”

  “I can’t transfer this – can you look at it for me?”

  I scan the image on the wall. It’s a blueprint. I let every detail take its place in the picture in my mind. “Got it.”

  “Sweet, let’s roll.” He heads for the back door and checks it carefully.

  I’m about to ask him why we’re going out the back when my eyes trace over the inside of the doorjamb and catch on something. There is a small black screw on either side of the doorway. Which isn’t weird, except that …

  “Wait!” I hiss.

  He freezes. But it’s half a second too late – his foot is sitting on something that makes a very soft click.

  Luke and I look at each other. “That’s not what I think it is … is it?”

  He nods. Breathes out. “Sorry, girl.”

  “For what?”

  “You’d better run for it.”

  I shake my head. “You really are a heartless bastard if you think I’m doing that. Tell me what to do.”

  He scratches his chin, peering at the screws. “It’s a spring-loaded sensor that’s probably connected to a small detonator.”

  “Probably?”

  “Want me to step off and find out?”

  I glare at him. “Is it like a mine?”

  “More advanced, but yeah. Theoretically we’d have to disconnect the wires within it, but they’re tricky things and it can’t be done while I’m standing on it.”

  I remove the radio from his pocket and click it on. “Will. We have a problem.” I talk Will through the situation and he tells me to hang tight. When the crackling cuts off there is silence.

  Luke looks at me. “Fool’s hope.”

  “Just shut up, Luke.”

  “I don’t want you to die in here, Josi,” he says, and he sounds angry. “This is a bullshit ending to it all.”

  “I agree,” I reply bluntly.

  Will and Shadow arrive, and after searching the shed out the back of the house they manage to find a power tool that allows them to cut through the floorboards around Luke’s feet. He hasn’t moved once – he is the picture of still calm, and I am reminded of life before I Found Out. This was what he was: still calm.

  It’s a strange understanding – like a tingling in my chest, this return of the man I knew.

  “Just go,” he says tiredly, like a sigh.

  We ignore him. Shadow has burrowed beneath the ground and found the mine, and now Will is working on it with tweezers and pliers. My nerves are shot – I’m expecting an explosion any second.

  “Josi,” Luke says suddenly.

  I look at him. I’m standing apart, but still here, still in the vicinity, just as Shadow is. Will is brave enough to work on the mine, and Luke is brave enough to be so still, so we will stand here with them.

  “Do you really hate me?” he asks.

  And there’s a world in my heart, one in which I used to live. This world was where I lived before I met him, and after he took me to the asylum: it’s a world of longing for something I can’t have.

  I’m brutally alive with it, with the longing for something that used to be, something that can never be again. And with the longing comes the stark understanding of the beauty of what we shared, like the tension has finally snapped on the rubber band of my heart. I cross the floor to him.

  “It was special, wasn’t it?” I murmur, not caring if Shadow and Will hear me. “And too real.”

  He struggles to speak, and then says, “Go. Please, go.”

  I hold his eyes, remembering everything.

  And that’s when Will says, “No need. It’s disconnected.”

  *

  As we leave, Luke radios the other team and tells them to head to the rendezvous point. When he and I reach the safe house the resistance have been using for years, he spots surveillance and radios the others not to enter. We circle around and meet a few blocks away in an underground parking garage to figure out what to do. We aren’t ready to go straight for Ben – we’ll need time to work out a plan. So we need a place to stay for the night.

  “What do we do now?” Pace demands. She, Hal and Will all look rattled to have lost the safe house – they’ve obviously counted on it more than once.

  “We need a new place to hide out for the night,” Luke says calmly.

  A dark thing uncurls inside me and I don’t know how to name it, but I certainly recognize it. It’s there because I’m realizing that we don’t have any other choice but the one I never wanted to reveal.

  “I have a place,” I say flatly.

  “Run me through it,” Luke implores.

  “Apartment block on the east side. Run by dealers, but I know them and they used to let me stay in one of the apartments. It’ll be safe for a night.”

  Luke frowns, searching my face. I silently beg him not to ask me. Don’t ask why they let me stay. He doesn’t – he trusts me enough to let me lead the way.

  *

  Luke

  We illegally catch two different trains and then walk for about two hours to get to the other side of the city. The atmosphere changes drastically. This is poverty, I think, and I remember it well because I grew up about five blocks north of here. I can’t offer for us to stay at my parents’ house though – after what happened to Harley I would rather die than lead the Bloods to Mom and Dad.

  Josi takes us into the heart of the drug-using populace, larger and more rampant now than it has ever been. It’s no surprise that people who feel alienated from themselves and terrified of their confusing behavior would find solace in drugs. I came here a thousand times as a Blood, back when I was a Red
. And I even did a few rounds here as a kid before I was recruited. Which is why I know how rough it is, how cruel, how unforgiving. And which is why I feel sick to my stomach to know that Josephine lived here. How many times have I wanted to change her adolescence? How many times have I wanted to smash the skulls of the heinous pigs that hurt her?

  I feel a raw, aching fury find its home in my skin as I follow her into a dilapidated building. It scares me, how much more anger I feel since being injected with the same shit that made Josi a bloodthirsty killer. It scares me to imagine what it’s doing to me.

  “Get your wig off,” she tells Pace, who happily wrenches the blond wig off to reveal her shaved head. “Try to look less … preppy,” she tells the rest of us.

  Hal takes his jumper off to show his tattoos and messes up his hair a bit. The rest of us can’t do much but try not to look like complete pushovers. It’s quite unfortunate that Will is wearing spandex tights.

  The lift takes us up toward the top floor. It’s hideously bright in the way only elevators are.

  “He’s going to call me by my real name,” Josi says suddenly, not looking at any of us. “I’m sorry I never told you the truth. But I didn’t want to be me anymore.”

  Before anyone can reply the doors open and we are met by half a dozen men. They are all wraith-like, with gaunt features and detached-looking eyes.

  “Take me to John,” Josi says softly, and I am stunned by the sudden coldness that has descended upon her.

  “Who are you?” one of them asks.

  “A runner.”

  “And who are they?” the guy asks of the rest of us. He looks particularly concerned by Shadow, who is having a hard time concealing his complete disgust at this situation, and is also a lot older than the rest of us.

  “Recruits.”

  After his eyes land on Pace appreciatively he takes us down the hall. The room at the very end has a group of people sitting around on old, torn-up couches that smell like shit. A hologram plays in the corner, some old sitcom with people flailing their arms around.

  The people in the room look up as our delivery boy clears his throat. “Runner and recruits.” The guy bolts before the sentence is even finished.

  “Holy shit,” says a scratchy voice.

  A man stands from within a throng of women who all look doped out of their minds. I see one of them using a needle to inject another. The man is tall, very thin and very muscular, with a face that would be handsome if it weren’t covered in disfiguring scars. They are scars that can be made only by serrated knives, and I know abruptly who he is.

  John Smith. Lord of the east-end drug cartel.

  “Josephine Luquet,” John says, moving to eye her up and down with an undeniable smirk.

  My friends barely react at all to her name being spoken aloud for the first time, but to me it is obvious. Hal and Will both baulk, frown and then manage to cover it. Pace smiles a little. And Shadow goes more still than I have ever known him to be, if that’s possible.

  “John Smith,” Josi says calmly, softly. There is the slightest edge of a purr in her voice. “If that is your real name.”

  It’s obviously a shared joke, for he smiles in a nostalgic way. And then he leans in and kisses her on the mouth, and I think I might kill him where he stands.

  A hand takes my wrist and I look to see Shadow holding onto me. His grip calms my racing blood. Fury: she’s a seductive companion. She wants me to tear this fool’s head off, and I want her to help me do it. Instead I watch as John kisses Josi and then pulls away to rake his eyes over her body. She has not moved an inch. Has not kissed him back, has not reacted at all.

  Until she says, so softly I almost miss it, “Touch me again, with any part of your body, and I will make sure that part is torn free and fed to you.”

  John stares at her and then he smiles. “I’ve missed you, rabid heart.”

  “My friends and I need a room for the night.”

  “Your friends. You’ve never had any friends before. I’m curious. Shall I show them my party trick?” He considers us respectively. Looks first at Hal. “Pretender.”

  Hal frowns, a bit confused.

  John looks at Will and says, “Desperate.” Will’s eyes drop, embarrassed.

  John’s inventory shifts to Pace with a smirk. “Frightened.”

  Her lip curls savagely, but Josi places a calming hand on her shoulder.

  Next John moves his eyes to evaluate Shadow. He is enjoying his power. Knows he’s good at reading people and their insecurities. Takes pleasure in what this ability affords him, and the discomfort of others. It is the behavior of a small, weak man to make himself seem stronger.

  Quietly John says, “Ashamed.”

  I see Shadow’s face tense fractionally. Not enough for most to notice. But John does, smiling a little and then moving on to me.

  I meet his eyes.

  The smile spreads in this astonished, delighted way. “J, who’s this one?”

  Josi glances at me. Doesn’t say a word.

  I haven’t moved. Haven’t given him a single thought or feeling or expression. But he shakes his head, laughing a little. “You, big fella, stand at the very edge of it all.” He spins back to Josi. “And all of them uncured. You are my favorite person in the world, Josephine Luquet. But then I guess you always were.”

  “The room, John?”

  “The room’s yours for tonight for a vial of blood from each of them.”

  “What for?”

  John considers us again, but he’s too smug not to tell us. “Like I said, they’re uncured. I’ve got people looking at the difference between cured and uncured blood.”

  “So you can come up with an antidote?” Josi asks, and the mockery drips from her voice.

  John takes her throat in his hand. “Careful,” he breathes over her mouth. “You’re my favorite, but no one is exempt from manners.” It’s not that he’s angry. It’s simply that he must follow a set of rules, and she’s stepped outside of them. And I don’t care why he’s touching her like that, because I’m going to kill him either way.

  “Easy,” Shadow tells me.

  John’s eyes lift to me and he smiles again, at the height of his amusement. “Yes, easy.” To Josi he laughs, “You should leash your beast. Did you know he covets you?”

  “Covets?” she repeats coldly. “Goodness, he must be a heretic then. Shall we burn him?”

  John laughs again, but I can see a dead quality come into his eyes. His brain is telling him he should be angry at the mockery but instead it is short-circuiting to something else and his whole body is revolting against the unnatural interference. He must go through this daily, as an angry creature by nature. Which probably means he’s mostly mad.

  His brain rewires and an abrupt, unexpected desire blooms inside him. It comes from a similar, primal center. Rage, fear, desire. The three big ones. I watch the lust cross his face. He reaches for Josi’s breasts and ass, pulling her against him, and it is a single second, less than a second, in which I am about to hammer the shit out of him when instead Josi removes the pepper spray from her jacket and sprays him in the eyes.

  John howls in pain, falling to his knees and clawing at his burnt eyes.

  Josi smiles a little. Glances at us. “That was fun. Not quite as fun as it would be if he could get annoyed by it, but fun nonetheless.” To John, she says, “I told you not to touch me, didn’t I? Which room is ours?”

  “Eight-thirteen,” he gasps in pain.

  “A key?”

  John gestures and some kid passes her a key.

  “We’re going into room eight-thirteen and locking the door. Deliver a syringe and vials, and I’ll leave our blood on the sink. You’ll make sure no one bothers us tonight, or you’ll get a lot worse than this spray. Agreed?”

  He nods, his eyes streaming with tears.

  *

  Once we’re all locked inside room eight-thirteen there is a general exhalation of breath.

  “Christ!” Hal
announces.

  “Badass!” Will compliments Josi.

  “What the bloody hell are you doing with degenerates like that, Dual?” Pace hisses. “Or should I say Josephine?”

  Josi slumps onto a ratty old couch. “What did you find on Ben’s computer?” she asks me.

  “In the morning. We need sleep now.”

  Will runs into one of the bedrooms and excitedly bounces on the bed. “There’s a TV in here!”

  “Bet you ten bucks it doesn’t work,” Josi mutters.

  “Get some rest, guys,” I say.

  Shadow insists on taking first watch. Hal, Pace and Will then insist on the king bed in the main room, leaving Josi and I with the double in the second room. It’s an obvious ploy, but I wish they could read the room and see that Josephine – yes, the girlfriend I mooned over all last year – would currently rather murder me in my sleep than stumble into a romantic tryst in a shared bed.

  She looks at me. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

  “In the bed. Now. Tomorrow’s gonna suck.”

  And it’s a measure of how hopeless she feels that she walks straight to the bed and collapses.

  I cross to Shadow at the door. “Wake me up in a couple of hours. I mean it.” Then I trip my way to the couch and nosedive onto it, falling asleep instantly.

  *

  When Shadow shakes me awake it feels like five seconds later, but three hours have passed. He takes my place on the couch and falls asleep almost as quickly as I did. I head into the main bedroom and peer at the three sleeping bodies curled around each other like puppies. It’s actually kind of adorable.

  Reluctantly I shake Pace and Hal awake. “One of you on watch duty, just for half an hour.”

  They frown sleepily, but don’t question me on the odd time frame. “I’ll go,” Pace says, and as she gets up Hal slumps back to sleep. “What are you doing?” she asks me.

  “Lock the door behind me and don’t say anything to the others,” I order her, and slip into the hallway.

  Moving quickly, I feel for the knives sheathed at both of my hips. There are two guys out the front of John’s room.

  “Hey – ”

  I drop the first with a quick punch to the jaw. Calmly I spin to block the second guy’s fist, gripping his wrist and pulling him into my chest. My knife is at his throat, nicking the skin.