The Murder Complex

by Lindsay Cummings

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  HarperCollins Publishers

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  CHAPTER 37

  MEADOW

  My father used to fill me with a fury so strong that once I swore to him that I would run away and never return.

  Instead I buried myself at the bottom of his massive wooden tackle box. I figured I would stay there until he got scared. But then it got too hot. My head started to spin.

  When I tried to lift the lid, it was locked. I remember the cold sweat, the pressing feeling of claustrophobia closing in around my body, suffocating me, like someone had shoved me into the Pit, and I fell to the very bottom of it, miles and miles beneath the city streets.

  All I had to do was scream and bang on the lid, and then it was lifted open in a burst of light, and my father was standing there, frowning down at me. He wiped my tears with the bottom of his T-shirt and gave me a moment to cling to him, apologizing. Then he set me gently aside and opened up the lid of the crate again. “Now climb back in and learn to cope with it, Meadow.”

  So I did. As he helped me settle back in, he smiled. “You are strong enough.”

  I wish my father were here now, to pry the lid from the crate and pull me out. Hold me to him and tell me never to be so stupid again. But he taught me how to do it right. He taught me to be strong. So now, as I sit here, thinking of him, I know that I must be.

  Nine hours.

  That is how long I’ve been sitting here.

  They dumped the crate somewhere and moved on. But I can hear cranes beeping, doors slamming, maybe trucks, and I know it is not safe to try and escape. Not yet.

  It is scorching hot. It feels like I am sitting in a dark oven, like everything is going to bubble and pop and boil around me, and I will die here, soaked in blood. My tongue feels like cotton. My throat sticks to itself.

  Suddenly I am being lifted again. I reach down and grab a Pin.

  It is rectangular and solid, as if it is made of titanium. I wonder if the nanites are still inside it, or if they died with their human host. What did Orion tell me about the Pins? Impossible to destroy.

  I jam the Pin between the slats of the wooden crate. I lever it, side to side, twisting, turning. My palm is raw, so the Pin starts to cut into me. But I don’t stop until a sliver of light pours in through the opening.

  I suck in the fresh air, then scoot closer and press my eye to the gap. I am on the bed of a truck.

  There are vines, twisting and snaking their way up fat trees. Everything is wild and overgrown. And there is water everywhere, brown and muddied with old gnarled branches bobbing up and down in it.

  It is the place people talk about when they think no one is listening. My father once told me that if I ever found myself here, my life would be forever changed. He warned me that I would never, ever be able to forget what I saw. And as the truck lifts me along the overgrown path, I know that this is exactly where I am.

  I can just see a brown building, well concealed in the foliage. As the truck moves closer, the side of the building opens wide, like a yawning mouth.

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  CHAPTER 38

  ZEPHYR

  I’m standing in the mirrored room again.

  “You failed your mission, Patient Zero,” the voice overhead says. Soft. But so angry it makes the skin on my arms crawl.

  I turn in circles. My hands are covered in blood.

  My whole body is covered in it. I start to feel pain in my shoulder, my leg, my head.

  “Where am I?” My voice echoes back to me.

  “You failed your mission, Patient Zero,” the voice says again.

  “What mission?” I say. “Who are you?”

  The pain in my head gets worse. It pulses and grows like a living creature, and before I have a chance to scream, a woman appears in front of me.

  “Do you not remember me?”

  Lark.

  “You,” I say. “I know you.”

  I think she smiles at me, the same way she did when I was younger, but I can’t really tell.

  “You failed.” She sighs, and shakes her head at the floor. “I always knew you would.” She paces around me, silent as a ghost. “Still,” she says, stopping in front of me, “you were the first. It will be sad to see you go.”

  She reaches forward and places her hand on my chest.

  Pain. So much pain.

  My body seizes up and the world goes black.

  “Is he dead?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “So then poke him!”

  “No, gross! You poke him, Molly.”

  I hear the scuffling of feet. A high-pitched voice squeaks just above my ear. “Fine. Give me the stick, ChumHead.”

  A stick is jammed into my side. I ignore it, hoping the brats will just go away. But there it goes again. Poke, poke, poke. I roll over and open my eyes. The world comes in and out of focus as I blink. I see two browned faces peering down at me. “Go . . . away.”

  The two Ward children scream, and the stick clatters to the ground as they sprint off into the trees. I almost laugh. It takes all of my strength just to sit upright. My head churns and I realize I’m soaked in sweat and blood.

  Flux. What happened to me?

  “Oh, great, you’re awake.” Talan sits on the ground next to me, a plastic bottle of brown water in her hands. She shoves it roughly at me. Her voice is so loud it makes my head throb. “Don’t ask where I found it. Just drink up, party boy.”

  “What’s going on?” I ask, my voice a raw croak.

  I’ve felt this way before. Twelve other times.

  Except today, there isn’t a body at my feet. My head feels like a sponge and nothing makes sense.

  I unscrew the bottle and let the warm water slide down my throat. It tastes like acid as it goes down, but the whole thing’s gone in seconds and my throat still feels like it’s lined with cotton.

  Talan punches me in the shoulder. “Enough games, already, Zephyr. Fess up.”

  Stars, that hurts. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Um, news flash, pal. You disappeared with that girl yesterday. And have you seen yourself?” She stares at me like my chest has just sprouted a fresh pair of boobs. “I mean, Zeph, you look like you’ve just come back from a war. You tell me what I’m talking about. Hey!” she snaps and the sound is louder than a gunshot. I just want her to shut up already. “I’m waiting. Where did you go with that girl?”

  I look down at my hands. Stained with crimson, covered in cuts that have already scabbed over.

  Why can’t the nanites fix my brain, too?

  “Fine. You don’t want to talk. I get it. I, uh, had a little private meeting with your doctor yesterday,” Talan says, her cheeks turning red. “And he gave me this.” She holds up a can of the fake skin stuff the doctor used on my arm.

  “Talan,” I groan, “you can’t just pawn yourself off like you’re a worthless Leech. You’re better than that.”

  “Oh, please.” She rolls her eyes at me. “I’m a big girl. I can do what I want. Now shut up and take off your shirt.”

  She pulls it over my head for me. Skitz, that burns.

  “Yikes,” I hear her say. She starts spraying the liquid skin on my shoulder. Crusted blood covers the shirt in my hands. I toss it aside, disgusted, and see my thigh. “Here,” I say, and Talan slices my pants with a dagger so she can spray the wound.

  The weapon is silver. Sharp. It reminds me of Meadow.

  “Where did you get that?” I ask.

  It looks like Meadow’s dagger. It is Meadow’s dagger.

  “You had it in your hand when you were playing Corpse Boy.” Talan sprays the liquid on my thigh, closing up a deep wound. The nanites will heal me, eventually. But this is faster. This keeps the pain at bay.r />
  I reach up and feel my face. I wince. There are claw marks that have scabbed over on my cheeks and forehead.

  This can’t be happening to me. No. Not again.

  I lean over and spew vomit all over my chest. It splatters Talan. She curses and scoots away. “Are you kidding me? Next time you show up like this, you can find someone else to take care of you. Disgusting.”

  I put my head in my hands and ignore her. The pieces start to come together. Meadow. My moonlit girl. We were together yesterday. It was perfect. Free.

  All of the blood. Her dagger. The wild spinning in my head. The throbbing pain all over my body. The bottoms of my feet are burned. It sounds like a train is barreling toward me, a loud siren wailing in my ears. The last person with me was Meadow. So why isn’t she here now?

  I already know why.

  I think I murdered my moonlit girl.

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  HarperCollins Publishers

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  CHAPTER 39

  MEADOW

  My mother stares back at me.

  It’s a painting. Gentle brushstrokes have made her come alive. She has my silver hair, my slender frame and gray eyes. But the artist got it wrong.

  The expression on her face makes her look dangerous. Chin up, lips pursed. An expression of power, of fierce control. She is looking down on me, on all the Initiative scientists and officers who bustle about the massive warehouse. The painting is framed in gold, with ornate twisting designs littering the sides.

  My mother was no one, especially not to the Initiative. Why would they ever honor her, a lowly citizen murdered like so many others?

  Surrounding her painting is a group of photographs. Some of the faces I recognize. The young woman I stole lilies from on the streets. A man who whistles out of tune as he scrubs the streets on Collection Day.

  And Zephyr.

  He is younger. Much, much, younger, but I know it is him. I would recognize his green eyes anywhere, the curve of his jaw, his lips, the way his brown hair flips out from his ears.

  Beneath the portraits are three words, scripted in bold, bloodred.

  The Murder Complex.

  “You can’t escape destiny, Meadow.” My mother’s voice comes back to me now as I stare at the red writing. I had rolled over and closed my eyes that night. I never saw her face again. She never returned to the boat. But I remember now what she said as she walked away, just after she clasped the charm bracelet around my wrist.

  I watch Initiative workers bustle in and out of my line of vision. Some are in lab coats, others in military greens. These are people who would never come in contact with someone like me. They pace back and forth, scribbling notes onto notepads and talking in hushed voices.

  Computer screens imbedded in the walls all display the same information. Numbers. They tick, tick, tick, in rapid fire, like machine guns.

  275.

  290.

  310.

  I watch the count rise.

  “Last night was successful,” someone says. “Look at these stats!”

  The numbers just keep going up.

  367.

  Somehow I know, as I watch the workers taking notes on their pads and nodding with approval, the same way the Commander did when he watched the live feed on the yacht, that the screens are totaling the deaths last night.

  Deaths should not be celebrated. Deaths should be mourned. And I realize, as I sit here, trapped in blood, that the murders are not random. There is a system.

  My father was right. He warned me that if I came here, I would never stop digging until I got answers. That I would never give up until it all made sense.

  I have to know why Zephyr’s photograph is on that wall. I have to know what the Murder Complex is. And I will not stop until I discover why my mother’s face is staring down at me from the inside of a secret Initiative building.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

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  CHAPTER 40

  ZEPHYR

  My feet can’t carry me fast enough through the Catalogue Dome. I have to find it, the spot where her number would go. If she’s really gone . . . if I’ve actually killed her . . .

  I see her silver hair matted in dark red, her lips hanging open in a silent scream. I imagine myself on Collection Day, finding her body on the blood-stained concrete. And Talan, ripping the Pin from her once-beautiful flesh. “Oh, this is just some seriously sick skitz, Zephyr.”

  So I run, lungs screaming, because I have to know it’s not true. When I burst through the doors the first thing I notice is how many mourners there are. More than usual, especially since it’s the Silent Hour.

  I keep my head down when I pass by the Leech standing guard. He’s got a pistol on his hip, and I know he won’t hesitate to use it.

  Today everything seems out of order. It’s totally chaotic. The place reeks of flowers and the muffled sobs swirl around me. I want it all to end.

  “You,” a woman croaks from the floor. She lifts a trembling hand and points at me.

  “You did this,” she groans. “You took my Robert from me.” The tears are streaming down her face. “I saw you!”

  “No!” I yell. “No, I don’t even know him, I swear!” Everyone is looking at us in shock. No one speaks during the Silent Hour. Ever.

  But the woman stands and lunges at me, screaming. A boy my age stops her just before she reaches me. He holds her back as she spits and claws like some crazy person. He puts his hand over her mouth and tries to silence her.

  The Leech who was standing guard at the bottom of the Dome is running up the spiral hallway. I can hear his footsteps, and any second, he’ll kill this woman for making noise.

  “Just go,” the boy whispers. His face, too, is stained from tears. “Go and don’t come back.”

  I nod and keep moving, looking over my shoulder as the guard comes up the hallway.

  The woman stands, totally lost in grief, and lunges at him. “You didn’t even help! You just let everyone die!”

  “Mother!” the boy shouts, and then realizes what he’s done, too late.

  The Leech shoots them both.

  “Honor the Silent Hour,” the Leech says, looking at the mourners.

  Now it’s as silent as a grave again.

  I turn and walk down the fourth aisle of the Dome. I fall to my knees and start to crawl.

  I tell myself if I get to Meadow’s number, and it’s there, and she’s dead . . . then it wasn’t me.

  It can’t be me.

  72048.

  72051.

  I sag with relief against the wall. Her number isn’t here. Meadow Woodson is alive.

  My fingers find the healing claw marks on my face. They’re deep, like someone did it fast because they ran out of options. I sink all the way to the floor when I remember.

  “Please.”

  One word is all I hear, but it’s her voice.

  She’s alive. But it’s only because I failed to kill her.

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  CHAPTER 41

  MEADOW

  “Patient C7 has done well,” someone says. The speaker is tall and speaks with a clipped accent. “Progress is exactly as we hoped for.”

  “And the sister?” The two men in lab coats pause, right next to the crate.

  “Coming along nicely,” the first man says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “They are both responding well to their supplements.”

  “Commander?” A woman’s voice echoes through the massive space. I try to get a look at her, but the angle is wrong. “We have a situation.”

  “What?” I watch the first man’s feet whirl around. He’s wearing black military boots. They are made of
soft, supple leather that shines the way the sea does at night. Worth thousands of Creds.

  The woman approaches him now. I can see her black high heels. “Well, as you know, the cameras across the city have been shut down. It could be a minor electric issue, sir.”

  “And if it’s not?” The Commander asks. “If it’s them . . . ”

  “It can’t be,” she says. “We’ll solve the issue, sir. Not to worry. But . . . that’s not all.”

  The Commander’s boot taps on the floor. He does not speak, so the woman takes a breath, and continues.

  “It’s Patient Zero, sir,” she says. “It . . . well . . . he hasn’t quite finished his daily target yet. Our records show that he didn’t even go for the right one, sir. But he’s taken down others. Ones that the lottery did not assign to him. I thought we’d fixed his flaw.”

  “How much time do we have left?” the Commander barks.

  “One minute, sir,” she squeaks.

  “He has performed unusually well since . . . ” I think I hear the scratching of chin stubble. “Who was the target? And who did he go after instead?”

  “The target was a boy his age, but Zero never got close to him. And, well, who he went after is . . . the other part of the problem, sir.”

  It’s quiet except for the ticking of the tallies. “He went after someone who should never have been in the system. He went after Lark Woodson’s daughter. Meadow.”

  The Commander’s pad clatters to the ground. The screens fall silent. The ticking stops. And when I hear my name, so does my heart.

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  CHAPTER 42

  ZEPHYR

  The ocean used to be a pretty place. At least, that’s what the older Wards tell us.