by Isla Jones
“Do you wanna do something later?” I stretched out like a cat, fighting the onset of stagnancy. “Go to the common room, maybe?”
Vicki didn’t bother shaking her head or saying no. She just looked away.
I looked away, too.
Stagnancy settled back in, undefeated.
֍
I jerked awake to the sound of a knock.
Groggily, I glanced from Vicki beside me on the bed to the door where the sliver of light underneath was fractured by feet. I untangled myself from the sheets and plodded out of bed.
The gentle knock came once more before I pulled the door open.
Adam’s bulky body stood in the threshold, blocking most of the hall’s light.
“Got a minute?”
I rubbed my eye and squinted at him. “What time is it?”
“Three AM,” he said, tugging me out of the room. “I got off shift a few minutes ago. Castle just took over.”
I raised my eyebrow at him. “So?”
Adam gave a huffy sigh. “I don’t want to get involved—”
“Then don’t.”
“Listen for once.” Adam paused to glance up and down the empty corridor. “Castle’s in the central command room. He won’t come to you.”
I threw up my hands in a ‘so what’ gesture.
Irritability crept into his tone; “It wasn’t him who shot your sister. Christ, the pair of you are too stubborn to admit how miserable you are. Leo is the one who killed her. Leo. Why is Castle the one you’re punishing?”
“Punishing.” The word spat from my tongue like poison. “I’m not doing anything like that. Castle and I have had these problems for a while now. I’m grieving. This has nothing to do with him.”
Adam shook his head with little patience. “Whatever lies you want to tell yourself is your business. I only thought you should know that he’s suffering. Castle and Leo are my brothers and they both, for some reason I can’t comprehend, care about you.”
“If Leo gave a damn about me he wouldn’t have killed my sister.”
Adam clicked his fingers. “That’s exactly my point. They both care. But only one of them loves you. It’s up to you if you plan on punishing him for the rest of your lives. I’ve said what I came here to say. I’ve done what I can for Castle, god knows I owe him more than I can repay. But it’s on you now. It’s your choice. Make the right one.”
Adam turned his back on me and strode down the hall. Before he could disappear through the glass door, I ran to catch up to him and grabbed his elbow.
Adam looked at me with furrowed brows.
“Why are you telling me this? Because you owe him?”
“There are other reasons.”
“Like what?”
“Leo and his way with words. I don’t want to see you make a choice that will leave Castle in ruins. He’d never tell you this, but he’s afraid that so much time will pass that maybe you’ll forgive Leo one day—and it’ll be too late.”
“That will never happen. I’ll never forgive him for what he did. Every time I think about him I want to cry and scream, throw up. Sometimes I even want to kill him.”
Adam shrugged in answer. “Fears aren’t always rational. And down here, the days are long. Life is long. Who knows what will happen in years to come.”
I ran my gaze over him before I stepped back. “Thanks for letting me know what you think.”
A worried crease wrinkled his brow, but it was gone the moment he turned and pushed through the door.
I went back to the room. Crammed in that bed between Vicki, Cleo and the wall, I didn’t sleep a wink. Hours passed before I rolled back out and tugged on a sweater.
Before I knew it, I was marching through the halls, one destination in mind.
COMMANDS CENTRE
ENTRY THIRTY
I watched him through the glass for a while.
The panel beside me flashed red, on and off, on and off, like it was trying to glare me away. Not that I could get inside without my own card and code. I’d have to knock, to let the man on the other side know that I was there.
I wasn’t ready just yet, so I watched him—the way he bowed over the controls embedded into a curved table, how his head tipped up slightly to the massive screen on the wall, the glimmer of the lights dancing over his profile. His eyes were open, aimed at the screen, but a glassy sheen ghosted over them.
I wondered if he was reading the codes that I didn’t understand or if he was caught in a daydream. Was he reading those jumbled numbers and letters, or was he thinking about me?
The thought sent a jolt through me, a jolt of excitement and fear.
Fear isn’t always rational, Adam had told me.
The churn of panic in my gut, was that rational?
I couldn’t be sure, not as I stood there, studying the sawdust hues of his hair and the way his grey t-shirt hugged his slowly returning muscles. It was the first time in two weeks that I’d seen him. It wasn’t easy. The sight of even just his side had my heart and stomach in a dangerous flurry. My body itched to do things that my mind hated myself for; my lips ached to speak words that my heart wanted to lock up safe.
But not even I have much control over myself.
Before I could turn around and pretend I’d never come, my fist shot out and rapped against the glass. That was it.
Castle’s muscles tensed in a ripple. He slowly looked over his shoulder.
From the flash of shock that blazed his emerald eyes, I suspected that I was the last person he’d expected to see at the door.
My breath hitched as he turned his back on me. Didn’t he want to see me? Had Adam lied? But then, just as quickly as I’d been robbed of breath, it sucked back into my body—Castle typed a code into the command keyboard.
The door slid open.
I slipped inside, tugging the hem of his old sweater down passed my shorts. Warm baseball socks padded my feet against the firm tiled floor beneath me—a piece of clothing ‘borrowed’ from Castle after I’d been drenched the drowning room.
As I wandered in further, Castle let his gaze drift down to my socks, then slowly dragged back up until our eyes locked.
We both waited for the other to speak. Neither of us were going to say what was on our minds. When I realised that, I felt some of the tension drift from my shoulders.
“You have something for me?” I folded my arms and perched on the edge of the keyboard table. Under Castle’s steady unflinching gaze, I added, “The ID card. So I can get into the garden.”
Castle wiped away any shadow of emotion from his eyes with a single blink. He drew back from the commands table to the desk behind him. I watched as he pulled a beige envelope from the drawer and handed it to me.
It was bulkier than I’d expected. Stuffed to the brim.
I made to open it, but Castle dropped into a chair opposite me and said, “The badge and code are both in there … among your sister’s personal belongings. You might prefer to sort through the items alone.”
A blow to the gut—that’s what the reminder of her death felt like. For a moment there, I’d almost forgotten … What kind of monster did that make me?
“Right.” I tucked the envelope against my chest. “Thanks.”
In answer, he gave a slight nod.
I looked down at my socks, feeling the familiar cut of his gaze on me.
“You didn’t come to see me,” I mumbled. “You didn’t even check to see how I was doing.”
Castle was quiet a moment before he spoke in a voice gentler than any I’d ever known from him; “Do you think Adam dropped in three times a day out of the goodness of his heart? I sent him, Winter.”
At my frown, Castle leaned back in his seat and threaded his fingers through his sandy hair.
“We both know you didn’t want to see me,” he said.
He was right. Though, how he knew that was beyond me. Maybe he could read me the way I could read him. Maybe Adam was right and Castle really did love me—to love s
omeone you need to know them on that deeper level. And it scared me.
“I’ve been working on something for you,” he said, guarded. “I’d like to show you tomorrow.”
I shrugged. “Can’t you show me now?”
His gaze cut to the digital clock on the wall. According to the clock, we’d crept into dawn. Well, dawn outside. Above. Not below.
“Leo takes over my shift in thirty minutes. You can wait or meet me at my door before breakfast.”
Hugging the envelope to my chest, I slid off the table and glanced at the clear doors. “I’ll meet you later. If I see him …”
I shook my head and let the words linger between us.
Castle reached forward and hit a few buttons—the doors slid open.
“My room in an hour,” he said.
Without a backwards glance, I left and headed straight for my own room. Not Vicki’s. Mine. An hour is all I had to sort through Summer’s things and shower. Things I wanted to do in private. But my time was cut even further when I turned onto the dorm corridor and saw Leo standing at my bedroom door.
FAILURES
ENTRY THIRTY-ONE
“You.”
The envelope hit the floor.
Leo lifted his hands up in a gesture of surrender. I charged at him.
My jog jolted into a run.
“Winter, hang on a sec—” A grunt cut off his words as I barged right into him. He staggered back a step or two; I took the force of the impact.
Leo tried to steady me. The touch of his hands on my arms set a vengeful fire inside of me.
I punched out at him.
With a slight turn to the side, he easily evaded me. But I kept the hits coming. My fists barrelled against him until I felt the crack of bone.
Leo cursed and shoved me away from him.
Enraged, I watched as he rolled his red jaw. I ran at him again.
“Winter, stop!” He dodged another hit. “I came to make things right!”
“Right?” I hollered, a blood rush burning my face. “You fucking killed my sister!”
I kicked out at him. Leo huffed an impatient noise then, in a blur, he had me pinned to the wall, the push of his legs against mine immobilising me.
Through heavy breaths, I tried to fight his hold.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I paused long enough to throw him an incredulous glare.
A sigh of defeat escaped him. “I’m sorry that what I did hurt you.”
“But not that you killed her,” I spat.
There wasn’t a single fleck of remorse or shame in those mossy eyes I’d come to loathe.
“No,” he said. “Not for killing her. I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.”
A fierce scream tore through me before I tried to headbutt him.
“You don’t know what she did to me,” he shouted. “And after I heard what she did to you, I wanted to kill her all over again!”
My lips curled as I hissed back at him, “I’ve been fed too many of your lies. Now I know just how they taste. The only reason you killed her was to get revenge for what she did to you. Not for me, not to make this place safer. You did it for yourself, because that’s the sort of person you are.” A shaky breath of caged fury whispered from me. I glowered up at him and added, “I had a plan. She didn’t have to die. I…”
My voice cracked.
Tears wet my cheeks. Leo loosened his grip and stepped back.
“I had a plan,” I choked out. “You took that chance from me, after you promised … you promised—”
“Castle was the one to make promises.”
I pushed from the wall and screamed up at him, “You promised you would take me to Summer! You said you owed me. And after I save your sorry ass, you shoot my sister?”
“She was out of her damn mind!”
“It wasn’t your call!” My hand shot out and cracked across his cheek. Slowly, I paused to catch my breath, gaze on the growing pink mark he wore.
Leo turned his stormy eyes one me.
Unafraid, I backed up to my door and pointed my finger at him as if it was a weapon.
“It wasn’t your call to make,” I said shakily. “I’ll never forgive for that. Never.”
Leo didn’t try to stop me. I barged into my room and slammed the door shut so hard that it rattled the frame.
I waited a few minutes before I ventured back into the corridor for the envelope. I’d dropped it a little way up, and thankfully Leo wasn’t vindictive enough to take it.
I wasn’t left with much time before my hour was almost up. With tear stains on my cheeks and sweaty clothes, I tipped the envelope onto the bed.
My ID card and the code scribbled onto a piece of paper were the first to hit the mattress. Summer’s belongings crashed down on them like a hailstorm of reality.
Biting down on my cheeks, I picked through her things with a lazy, detached touch. Bits and pieces. A packet of gum, a necklace with a diamond pendant, a cough drop, an old book so wrinkled and peeled that I couldn’t read the golden letters on the spine, and a few hair-ties.
It was all useless. All of it but her ID badge. Her picture.
I ran my thumb over her impassive face.
“I’m sorry, Sinner.”
I sat like that for a while. A shower went forgotten. Then, I heard faint footsteps coming down the hall. Faint and panther-like.
With a sigh, I set the ID card on the pile and traded it for my own.
I went out into the hall.
Castle stopped at the door up from mine. His brow arched as his gaze rested on me. “Do you have a watch?”
I frowned. “No, why?”
“You make good time for someone without a watch.” Castle drew away from the door. “Let’s go, Ms Punctuality.”
My frown lingered, glued to him as he weaved around me, away from his bedroom. “I don’t know what I’m more confused about,” I said. “That you’re going the wrong way or that you made a joke.”
Castle stared blankly at me. “Are you coming?”
Rolling my bloodshot eyes, I followed him to an area of the CDC I hadn’t been to before. It wasn’t far from the control room, through a solid white door and down nicer corridors than those in the Common Halls. These were wider, taller; and along the glass walls were beds of flowers planted in packed dirt floors. The mere sight of them fluttered something in my chest—something close to what could one day be contentment.
“Where are we?”
Castle stopped at an archway. Beyond it lay an area circled with trees in glass casings, and wrought iron tables plotted around the stone floor—a courtyard so beautiful it could’ve been plucked right out of a landscape magazine.
“We’re in the TPRA,” he said.
I was too in wrapped up in awe for any frowns or rolling of the eyes. Slowly, we wandered through the courtyard, slow enough for me to feel the rustic touch of the tables and the thick petals of the fake flowers.
“What’s the TPRA?”
Castle leaned against the next archway, beneath flowerpots that dangled from brassy chains. “The Top Personnel Residential Area,” he said, eyes shadowing my every move. “This is where the doctors and higher-ranking soldiers stayed.”
This is where my sister stayed.
“It’s nice.” I dropped my hand to my side. “I like it.”
Castle inclined his head before he pushed from the stone arch. “I’ll show you to your room.”
Beyond the second arch, more courtyards were tucked into a wide walkway, like tiny atrium gardens. We passed doors without panels and more arches leading to rooms I didn’t imagine would exist down here—a cocktail bar, a gym and leisure room, a real lap pool, a lounge with a projector, and—what would be Vicki’s favourite—a library filled with books, wall-to-wall. There was even a small kitchen with a dining table.
“They really were prepared for the end of the world,” I said.
Castle made a noise of agreement then turned down a plainer corridor. Unlike in
the Common Halls, these doors were spaced further apart, had panels, and wore name plates instead of numbers. Though, most of them had been ripped off.
We stopped at one of the doors without a name plate. Castle typed my code into the panel, then gestured for me to swipe my card.
As I did, I admitted, “I’m not sure I like you knowing my code.”
Castle pushed the door open. “I know everyone’s. And I don’t need your code to access this room.”
I almost asked ‘why not’, but the answer was just beyond the door
Paper-screen doors divided the room down the middle, the kind that you’d see in a sushi restaurant. Through the screens sat a double-bed and an armchair was tucked in the corner. Those furnishings didn’t answer my question—the answer was in the small details. The book on the coffee table by the electric fireplace (fake, of course). The clothes hanging in the closet. Pens and paper on the desk below a computer screen.
I turned to Castle by the door.
“This is your room,” I said. “That’s your book on the nightstand—those are weapons on the shelf. This is your room, isn’t it?”
Castle shut the door quietly. “I was hoping it would be our room.” His head stayed bowed as he drew closer. “There’s a litter box in the bathroom for Cleo and I finished this for you the other day.”
Stunned, I just stared at him, at his loose hair brushing against his temple, the nervous pinch of his lips. He slid a small box from the mantle-place. His thumbs ran over the rustic edges before he handed it to me.
“A music box,” I said and flipped open the lid. A gentle melody greeted me and on the velvet ledge a ballerina twirled. “I used to have one when I was a kid. Before my parents …” I swallowed and shut the lid. “I don’t deserve this.”
Castle’s head jerked up. His eyes sucked me in. He moved closer, like a panther, until a mere inch separated us. “Because of her?”
“I failed her, Castle.” My voice cracked and I put the music box on the coffee table. “I failed her.”