by Isla Jones
Summer turned back to me. “These horns will keep us connected. Always. No matter how far apart we are, we’re together when we have these.”
I nodded, but my face still twisted with sobs.
Two of the suits pulled Summer away from me.
“What are we?” she shouted. “Look at me—what are we?”
I snivelled and sagged against the stranger holding onto me. “Winners and Sinners.”
Summer’s familiar voice woke me that morning. Her singing voice always brought tears to my eyes. I’m over emotional, I know—but when Summer sang, even our parents would cry sometimes. When they were alive.
She sang mom’s song.
I shifted closer to her and held on so tight that she probably couldn’t breathe. Still, I held on like she would float away any moment.
When Summer stopped singing, we swam in our silence a while. Then, she spoke in a raspy voice that spoke of her own tears; “I’ve always underestimated you, Winner.”
I smiled against her arm, caught up at an odd angle between us. “Everyone does.”
Like mom used to do, she ran her fingertips up and down my arm. It almost lulled me back to sleep.
“What did you do to get here?” Summer whispered the question, as if afraid to ask it or hear the answer—and Summer was never afraid. Each inflection of her words jumped from hoarse to light; taut, like violin strings.
Summer asked me so much more than that one question. She was asking me who I betrayed, who I killed, how I really managed to scrape my way across the states and live to admit to my wrongdoings.
“I broke my halo,” I said.
ONE BROKEN HALO, TWO HORNS
ENTRY EIGHTEEN
It must’ve been well into the morning, but neither of us wanted to leave the bed. We shared short tales of the outbreak—me, caught in the chaos; her, in a lockdown at work. I told her about everyone I met along the way.
Summer is sharp. She noticed how lightly I touched on two deltas in particular. I’d given her a list of traits I hated in Adam, waffled on about Mac’s gentlemanly ways, but all I said about Castle and Leo was that, together, their names made up Cleo.
“Those soldiers have quite the fixation on you,” she said with a knowing smile. “Castle and Leonardo.”
Leonardo.
It didn’t sound right.
“It’s just Leo,” I said.
Summer’s brown eyes shimmered like honey. She didn’t have to ask, her eyes told me that she’d already strung together her own theories. Still, she asked again; “What did you do to get here?”
My grin tilted my face, crooked and tired. “You mean who did I do.”
Summer laughed and gave an indifferent shrug. “I’ll take that as confirmation.”
I know she was teasing, not shaming. It was just her way.
Her hand found mine again and her smile slipped away. “I don’t embellish when I say they are fixated.” Her finger traced circles over the back of my hand, but her eyes searched mine for all my secrets. “Jo informed me that Castle was rather insistent about your medical treatment.”
At my confused look, she rested her hand over mine.
“Jo Wong,” she explained. “I believe you’ve met.”
I nodded and picked at the crust in the corner of my eye. “Yeah, she did a check-up when I got here.”
“More than a check-up from what I have heard.” Summer fixed me with a studious look. “Castle happens to think you’re pregnant, Winter. He had Jo perform an ultrasound.”
“Oh…” I grimaced and shifted my gaze to her chin. “That.”
“I read your results before I came to see you. We both know you’re not pregnant, and Jo mentioned that throughout the whole assessment, you didn’t alert her to a possible pregnancy.” She reached out to pluck stray strands of hair from my pale cheek. “Your friend, Victoria, on the other hand tested positive and was eager to have certain pills returned to her.”
I touched my gaze to hers.
Warmth filled her eyes. “Do you want to tell me what exactly is happening?”
“Castle and Leo caught me looting tests for Vicki. They just assumed and … I don’t know why I didn’t tell them. Vicki wanted me to keep it between us, then I didn’t really get the chance to pretend to take a test.”
I picked at my nails. Summer pinched her lips and pulled my hands apart to stop me. To her, nail-picking was as scattered DVD boxes were to me.
“I figured it would be easier to just say it was a pregnancy scare,” I said, “than to get into the whole truth of it all, you know?”
The seconds ticked by, and I held my breath, waiting—waiting for her gaze to turn disapproving, for her lips to purse or a tired sigh to come from her. Summer warmed me as she shook her head in a superior, amused way. “You have a knack for winding up in the middle of a drama, Winter. You always have. Even in these times, you have your little episodes that belong in some cheesy television show, like Days of our Lives.”
I snorted. “Days of our Doom.”
Summer’s face lit up with a brilliant, breath-stealing grin. “Days of our Doom,” she echoed and patted my hand.
With a sigh, she peeled herself away from me and sat up on the bed.
Suddenly, cold swept over me with a rush of panic. “Where are you going?”
The look she gave me stirred with sorrow and pity. “I have an infected subject to meet, and I should take samples from Leonardo Perez before breakfast starts.”
She checked her white-gold watch. I craned my neck to sneak a peek at it—it was minutes after six.
“It might be the Days of our Doom, but some of us still have jobs to do.” Summer’s hand found mine and squeezed. “I will see you soon. For now, you need to rest. These walls—” She drew back and gestured around. “—mean safety. You aren’t out in those trenches anymore, Winter. Rest, join the others for breakfast, and let your wounds heal.”
Summer brushed out some wrinkles from her fitted, knee-length skirt then stood. She smiled down at me, and the sight fluttered something in my chest. Realisation.
My sister stands before me. My sister bosses me around.
My sister is alive.
“I love you, Winner.”
My smile was lazy. “I love you, Sinner.”
Summer gave a short laugh and strode to the door, an air of importance stiffening her spine and tilting her chin up. Now, she was Dr Miles, and Summer no more.
Before she left, she paused at the door and fixed me with a stern look. “I should tell you that Mason worked very hard on that cheesecake after your arrival. I’m told he used the last of our tinned strawberries to make it—strawberries whose fates ended with the floor of the dining hall.”
Shame flooded my cheeks. I pushed myself up against the headboard. My toes curled under the disapproval in her stare. “I’ll say sorry.”
“You’d better,” she said, then smiled. “I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
In a blink, she was gone and the door shut behind her. I slumped and let out a harsh breath that had brewed deep within me for who knows how long.
It took Summer to show me, but as I sat there, I saw it.
The walls kept me safe. The room kept me clothed, clean, and warm. And the food kept me nourished.
Maybe it wasn’t so bad at the CDC after all.
VICKI’S CHOICE
ENTRY NINETEEN
Walking into that dining hall after what I did the day before was like walking into a courtroom, and I was the one on trial. Only, my crime wasn’t so bad. It was cake-swatting, a misdemeanour.
The eyes that followed me sparked with intrigue, and mere scattered pairs captured glints of judgement.
Summer might be cross with me, but I left my crutch back in my room. I couldn’t limp into the dining hall with it—that would have just been too pathetic, even for me.
Instead, I wandered in and fixed my gaze down at the clean tiles. Without looking at the spread on the table, I could sniff out most of what was there. Bu
t even among the fresh fruits and jams and cereals (with real milk), there was one specific, identifiable fragrance that gurgled my stomach and wet my tongue.
Toast.
Oh, I missed toast. More than I’d ever realised. Bread is all good and fine, but when it’s toasted? Divine. I lived off that stuff in LA. Never had there been a time that I didn’t want toast.
I licked my lips and lowered myself, carefully, into the same seat as the day before. Vicki wasn’t at the table. In fact, none of my group were, except Adam two seats over. Some comfort came to me at his distance from the other soldiers. He sat alone, he wasn’t one of them yet, and neither was I.
Any unity between us was gone, though. Adam spared me a sour look before he dug back into his honeyed oats.
I scanned for a plate, then cursed inwardly when I spotted them farther up the table. I’d already sat down. I can’t say why, but the thought of standing up again and drawing attention back to myself riddled my stomach with fluttering moths.
Further up the table, Mason rose from his chair and grabbed a plate. He piled pieces, here and there, onto it before he sauntered down to me.
At the sight of him, my face reddened and my toes flexed in my sneakers.
“Hey,” I said awkwardly. “Um … About that whole thing yesterday, I was … You know, I was tired and—”
My words flopped. I couldn’t string them together in my mind, let alone in my mouth. They came out all tangled.
Still, Mason wore a charming smile as he put the plate in front of me—a gesture that Adam noticed and, though I hadn’t thought it possible, his face turned so sour that I’d half-suspected there to be peeled lemons in his oats.
Mason slid onto the seat next to mine, but didn’t bring it any closer to me.
I was grateful for that.
“My sister told me you made the cheesecake,” I said, eyes on the plate. I scanned the fruits first—I really should have eaten them before anything else—but the buttered, dark toast called to me. “For what it’s worth, it looked good.”
Mason chewed on a smile and fell back in his chair. “I shouldn’t have shoved it in your face like that,” he said. “You’d just woken up, you’ve gone through a rough time out there …”
Like mine, his words failed and he ended with a half-shrug and apologetic look. I might enjoy his company more than I’d thought.
“Please,” he said, jerking his head to the plate. “Don’t be polite about it. We all eat like savages around here.”
On most occasions, I need to be told twice, thrice, a thousand times over and I’ll likely still do whatever I want to. This wasn’t one of those times. I snatched two pieces of toast and chomped on them both as though they made a sandwich together, but without filling.
Mason cleared his throat and shifted closer. His chocolate eyes avoided mine as he said, “When you arrived … when you were dressing …” He bit down on his lips a moment, then met my blank gaze. “I wasn’t looking at you … that way. I just wanted you to know that.”
“I caught you staring at me,” I said, my voice as quiet as his was nervous. “It was pretty obvious.”
Mason nodded, but the hint of pleading still danced in his soft eyes. “I was … It wasn’t the way you think.”
I’d finished all the toast on my plate. The yoghurt pot was next to be devoured. “Then what way was it?”
“It was your scar,” he said and tapped his finger to his shoulder, under where his collarbone started. “It looked like a bullet wound, and it caught my attention I suppose. I’m sorry about that, I didn’t mean for you to feel uncomfortable.”
Mason drew back into his chair.
Before I could lift a second spoonful of yoghurt into my mouth, he added, “You’re a pretty woman, but women aren’t really my … preference.”
My brows shot up. Was I his sudden confidante? When did that happen? Was he a masochist who decided to befriend me after I destroyed a piece of his cheesecake?
I swallowed down the vanilla yoghurt and shrugged. “Oscar’s the same. But that’s sort of obvious.”
Mason’s handsome—yes, now that I know he is gay, I will call him as he is, and that is handsome—grin swept over his face as a light chuckle rumbled his chest. “The first thing he said to me was, Where are my Gucci pants? I told him they’d been burned in the furnace during decontamination. He hasn’t spoken to me since.”
I choked on a spoonful and smiled with my eyes. Not a real, genuine smile. It was my newer smile—the unnatural, stiff one that tightens my face even when a natural one wants to burst through.
“He’ll never forgive you for that,” I told him. “And Oscar likes to think of himself as our group’s our mother hen. He does the cooking and all that, so eventually when he finds out you’re the cook, you’ve got a life-long enemy on your hands.”
Mason laughed, but waved away my words. “I’m not the cook, Jason is.” I had no idea who Jason was and Mason didn’t tell me, either. “I have the feeling Oscar isn’t a worthy adversary. What’s the worst he’ll do? Sprinkle glitter on my bed?”
I pinched my lips. “That’s actually really annoying and hard to get out.” At his arched brow, I added, “I passed out in my bed one night after a festival. Couldn’t get the stuff out of anything—sheets, pillows, even my carpet, all covered in pretty me pink.”
“You’re funny.” Mason didn’t laugh to back up his claim. He studied me with a small smile on his face for a pause, then slapped his hands to his thighs. “I should go, work doesn’t stop for too long down here. Hope to see you back here for dinner.”
“Maybe.”
That was the best I could do. Vicki’s absence meant one thing to me—she’d taken the pills. I wanted to check on her, bring her some breakfast, and wander around some. Today felt like a wandering sort of day. Today felt lighter than the dreary days before it.
Mason left me to my plate of scraps. I filled a mug with lukewarm coffee and drank it halfway before I glanced at Adam. Lava stared back me, almost ready to boil over. How long had he been looking at me like that?
My brows lowered and I held his stare. “What?”
Adam just scoffed and shook his head, his stare dropped to his finished oats. He mumbled something under his breath, though too low for me to hear.
With a sigh, I pushed myself up from the chair and finished the rest of my coffee. “Have you seen Castle and Leo around today?”
Adam sneered. “Why? You wanna fuck them over again or just fuck them?”
Stunned, my wide eyes stayed on his for a beat. An ick-sound gathered at the back of my throat before I stomped up to the plates and filled one for Vicki.
I went straight to her room.
֍
Her door was unlocked so I let myself in. Cleo was quick to greet me—as was the potent punch of pee.
My nose crinkled.
Cleo had left a few puddle-presents all over. I shut the door and heard a dry, guttural retch from the bathroom.
“Vicki,” I called and set the breakfast plate on the foot of the bed. “I brought you something to eat.”
A heave was the answer that ripped through the ajar door.
I hesitated before I grabbed a towel and cleaned up Cleo’s mess. For me, it was slow, painful work. But Vicki did for me, so I returned the favour. The stink lingered, but the hit of it had dissipated some by the time Vicki emerged.
She leaned against the doorframe and rubbed the dark bags under her eyes.
“Thank you,” she said. “I was meaning to do that but—” She gestured to her stomach. Cramps, pains, nausea, digestive issues. I understood.
“You should eat something.” I pushed up from the floor and kicked the towels into the bathroom. “How’s Mac?”
With a groan, she fell onto the bed. “Dr Wong will let me know if anything changes. Lotan came by earlier. He said Mac is out of surgery.”
I sank into my favourite piece of furniture—the armchair—and stretched out my tummy. “So he’s not awa
ke yet?”
“They’ll let me know as soon as he is. For now, he’s too sedated to even know his own name if he wakes up.”
Vicki barely sipped from the juice box I’d brought her when there was a knock on the door. I slid off the chair and gestured for Vicki to stay where she was.
I answered the door to see Lotan on the other side, a tray of breakfast and coffee in his hands. His face fell when he saw me. Lotan was quick to catch himself and pull on a cheery smile, but I kept my brows lowered as I stared back at him.
“Vicki wasn’t at breakfast,” he said. “Thought she might be hungry.”
He shrugged one shoulder and handed me the tray, but his gaze roamed around me. Around. Over my shoulder, the side of my head, above my head. His gaze traced my outline.
“She’s not feeling well,” I said as kindly as I could manage. It doesn’t come naturally to me. “I’ll make sure she gets this.”
After a goofy dip of the head, he backed down the hall until he was out of sight.
I wondered if that oddball knew how deep Vicki’s love ran for Mac. Poor Lotan probably thought Vicki’s feelings for Mac were built from the ruins of the world. The whole ‘last man and woman on earth’ sort of thing. It had taken me a while to see the strength in them as a couple. But when I did, I saw that their love was true and as sweet as it could be with a delta.
I stayed with Vicki for a while before she eventually drifted off to sleep. Cleo had no desire to leave the warm bed and I think she sensed Vicki’s pain. So I left on my own and wandered the halls with my thoughts of ruined feelings and feelings of ruins.
Those broken pieces of me were caught between two men I wasn’t sure I even wanted. In the early days of my time in the group, I developed feelings for Leo—from the ruins of the world.
But Castle ... I got to know him. I bonded with him, shared secrets I held close to me always. Those feelings I harboured for him, while toxic, weren’t built from the ruins, but they were ruined in themselves.
Sometime during my wander, my legs connected with my thoughts and I changed direction. I found myself at Room 10.