by Jones, Isla
I just sat on the armchair. Sometimes, I wrote in you. Other times, I watched Vicki’s back shake as she cried into Cleo’s fur. Never once did I tell her that it would be ok or that he was in a better place.
I’m not religious. I believe in no God, I only believe in the devil—us.
I told her nothing of my thoughts.
Words—even hopeful lies—do no good to someone in grief. So I stayed silent and hoped that the quiet was enough.
23.
I won’t lie. The following days were slow and bizarre. I’m certain that for much of those days I spoke very little and mostly wrote in you.
Lotan brought us both meals whenever he could, and—wait for it—Adam brought us the rest. I hated that. I hated that Adam carried trays of fresh fruits and sandwiches to us after how hard he’d pushed for Mac’s death on the road. I made sure that, when he did the meal drop-offs, I slammed the door in his face afterwards.
Neither Leo or Castle visited.
Every time someone knocked on the door, my heart skipped—and I hated myself for it. It wasn’t until the morning of the fourth day that one of those knocks actually was Castle.
I opened the door, expecting Mason, Lotan or Adam. When my tired gaze rested on Castle in the doorway, my breath caught in my throat.
I looked a mess. My hair was tangled, banished to a bun at the top of my head, and I wore my pyjama pants and a plain singlet. Not that how I looked mattered…
Arms folded, Castle ran over me with unreadable eyes. He paused over my stomach a beat—checking my bullet wound. It’d healed over on the outside, but it still ached when I put too much pressure on it.
Castle’s muscles were starting to come back, I noticed.
“Do you have a minute?” he asked.
I drifted my gaze to Vicki, who hugged herself on the bed with Cleo. “I’m not really comfortable leaving her alone.”
Castle arched his eyebrow, his gaze suddenly readable. I saw my thoughts in his eyes—and he voiced them.
“Perhaps others had the same concerns about leaving you to yourself. Sertraline should keep her too numb for any rash decisions.”
I frowned and leaned against the doorframe. “Is that what you did with me? Doped me up so you could have all your little meetings and secret stuff without the worry that I would—”
He cut me off, sharp. “You’re on those meds because you need them. Dr Wong wouldn’t have prescribed them if she didn’t agree with me on that.”
I was too tired for this.
Castle stepped back into the corridor. “Come with me. I need to show you something.”
I hesitated, but the severity of his hard face made my decision for me.
“Fine.” I grabbed a cardigan, whispered a goodbye to Vicki—who just grunted in response—then followed Castle out of the Common Halls.
We walked right by my favourite room with the stone pew and pot plants. My gaze lingered over it until another corridor swallowed us up and stole it from view.
After a while, I let my complaints fly free; “Long walks through beige corridors don’t really help with my injuries, you know.”
Castle shot me a side-glance, his hands clenched in his pockets. “It’ll be worth it.” After a pause, he added, “You liked the retreat room. Where I’m taking you is better.”
My brows unfurrowed as I studied him. Clenched hands, set jaw, averted eyes. Castle was nervous. Normally fidgeting fingers were his tell, but he’d balled up his hands to hide the nervous tick from me. In that, Castle was acknowledging how well I knew him—and when he stopped on a mostly vacant corridor, he revealed how well he knew me.
“The garden,” I whispered, awestruck.
Glass doors—like those at malls—slid apart to let the fresh smell waft over me. Leaves, flowers, dirt, grass—it all wrapped into a single alluring aroma that coiled around me. A shaky breath fluttered from my lips as I stumbled into the room.
All the fresh vegetables at dinner made sense in that moment. Pot plants and little green boxes grew lemon trees, apple trees, vines of tomatoes and strawberries and peppers, herbs. Ahead, at the far end of the massive room, were rows of soil with buds of something (potatoes, maybe) poking out from the dirt.
An indoor farm of sorts.
The grass beneath my feet was fake—I felt it the moment I crouched to run my fingers over every blade. Though fake, the sheer touch of it brought a small smile to my lips.
Castle shadowed me as I wandered inside.
I strolled between two rows of tables that held plastic trays of small plants. Some had grown already into lush pockets spilling over the edges, but others were tiny to the eye, yet to be nurtured to life.
As I stopped to dance my fingers over mint leaves, Castle stayed a bit behind me and spoke in such a soft whisper that I suspected he couldn’t bear to hear himself speak those words; “It’s as close to a farm life as I can give you.”
I snapped my gaze from the herb to his eyes, not unlike the mint leaves. He captured my entire focus for an eternal moment—then he looked at the fake grass beneath us.
I hugged the cardigan closer to myself. “It’s easy to say things like that when there are only a few women left in the world and too many men.”
I watched his jaw work a while; it’s a wonder his teeth didn’t shatter.
Before he could meet my gaze with green-tinted ice blocks, I turned my back on him and let the rows of plants lure me further in. One of the white coats were invaluable, I decided.
Recovered, Castle crept up behind me. He traced my every step the way he did back at the gun shop with Billy’s leer glued to me. The thought tickled my gut—I had a bad feeling.
I paused and reached out for a fluffy green plant I didn’t recognise. My fingers gave me away as they trembled.
I lowered my voice to a shaky whisper, “What’s wrong?”
Castle came up behind me. His chest brushed against my back some as he caged me between him and the table.
“Mac was killed.”
The hairs on the back of my neck prickled from both his words and the brush of his breath against my skin.
“They said blood clots formed in his leg and travelled to his lung. I checked the data. It doesn’t add up.”
I bowed my head and traced a circle in the soil. “Is that why you brought me here? To tell me conspiracy theories?”
His sigh ran from my neck to the curve of my shoulder. He must’ve dropped his head too. Anyone who saw us would see a painful moment between star-crossed lovers.
“I saw his blood reports, Winter. There were traces of a toxin. I’ve used it before to kill. Quick and painless. Someone injected it into Mac’s system. That is what killed him.”
“Wouldn’t they just … I don’t know, turn off his oxygen tank or something?”
Castle shook his head (I felt the brush of his breath move). “Suffocation or failures in the capsule would rouse suspicion. Whoever did this didn’t predict that I would recognise the toxin.”
I sighed and shut my eyes. “This seems like the sort of stuff you’d talk to Leo about and lie to me about.”
Castle didn’t argue. “I can’t claim to understand you, but I know that you’re smart, Winter. Smart enough to realise that if I had the option of discussing this with Leo, I would.”
“What’s stopping you?” I asked, my finger stilling.
“Leo’s gone.”
My heart hit my stomach.
Leo left? He’d gone back to the outside?
Eyes full of horror, I spun around to face Castle. “Gone? What do you mean gone?”
Castle didn’t step back—he still caged me in, his warm fruity breath on my face. The sheer closeness of his body sent familiar tingles through me. Castle was once safe. Is it wrong that security warmed my insides more than passion?
“The day after Mac was killed, Leo disappeared. I thought…”
He sighed before he could speak the words that I understood.
Leo had run off for tw
o hours after the whole pregnancy test fiasco. But back on the road, Leo pushed for Mac’s premature death as well. It wasn’t likely that he’d taken time for himself after hearing about Mac’s death.
“Do you think Leo killed Mac?”
Even asking the question drained all the blood from my face to my blotchy chest.
“No.” Castle ticked his jaw, the way he did when drawing on scraps of patience. “I can’t access the surveillance footage, his room has been undisturbed for days, and he hasn’t attended any of our scheduled meetings. The thing is, someone can’t simply vanish down here. There’s nowhere to go.”
Castle bowed his head; his forehead almost touched mine. Every fibre of me ached to melt against him. I resisted—my stubbornness is stronger than my weakness.
“Winter.” He spoke my name gruffly. “Nothing is as it seems here. The sergeant should be in charge of this entire operation. The CDC is under Martial Law. Since we arrived, everyone has had an excuse on the sergeant’s whereabouts. He’s dead, and they don’t want us to know.”
I thought back to the glass rooms of rotters. One of them was the sergeant. A secret I swore to keep. Shame that I’m not as good a liar as I think sometimes.
Secrets showed themselves on my face. But Castle misread them.
He pressed on; “Whatever is happening here, they don’t want me to know. As Corporal, my access is limited until the sergeant approves higher clearance. And once his deceased status is logged into the system, my rank automatically advances. They’re blocking it.”
“Why would they do that?” I leaned back against the table and gripped hard onto the edge. “I mean, it’s a lot of trouble to go to just to stop you from—”
“Running this facility?” His voice was as cutting as his fierce eyes. “It’s possible that it’s a mere territorial matter, but I suspect more is happening here. Leo’s gone, Mac is dead. Whatever it is, it has clear targets.”
My heart thrummed against my chest and nausea was quick to take me.
Summer had told me all of this, but now that I thought about it, she never told me why she couldn’t let the deltas take charge. Castle would be the last person to object to her corridor of rotters or that she perhaps experimented on them.
It had to be something else—something deeper.
I ran my teeth over my bottom lip. “So you think they’re knocking off the deltas one by one? Just to keep clearance?”
It sounded sillier when I heard it aloud; Castle disagreed.
“Yes, but to protect more than mere clearance ranks.”
“Like what?”
Castle made to speak, but his words silenced fast. His gaze touched to the plastic tray beside my hand—I swerved my own gaze down to see a shadow flicker over the plastic.
At the same time, we turned her heads to the entrance. Not a second later, the doors slid open. Mason stepped inside, eyes shifting between the pair of us.
I slid out from between Castle and the table, a smile forced onto my face.
“Hey,” I said. “Can you take me to Summer? I think I’m done in here.”
Mason winked, a sudden warmth to his features, and gestured for me to join him. I spared Castle a brief glance before I left with Mason. In that short glance, I told him something. Yet, I’m unsure what I told him exactly. Was it that I would look into Leo’s disappearance or Mac’s death? Had that been what he was asking me? After all, he did tell me more than he normally did—and he knew the type of nosy person I am, how I find ways to the truth no matter what stands in my way. It’s one of my few skills, and it’s one I’m damn proud of.
That was it, I realised. Castle had been asking for my help.
The only thing was, I wasn’t sure I would give it to him.
24.
Summer was in a different lab this time, closer to the rotter hall.
Dr Wong was with her. They studied data—that might as well have been hieroglyphs to me—displayed on a screen that rolled down from the wall. Projectors were only good for movies, I thought to myself. A thought that led me to realise I hadn’t watched a single movie since I got here, two weeks ago.
Mason, like last time, became a statue at the entrance.
“Hey, Sinner,” I said and flattened my hands on the desk. Summer kept her back to me as she studied the data, muttering some quiet thoughts to Dr Wong. “Whatcha up to?”
Summer peeled herself away from the projector screen and joined me at the table. Like her gaze, her voice was clipped. “I’m working. And you?”
I shuffled my shoe against the floor. “I feel like I haven’t seen you much.”
A half-lie. She’d come and gone a few times a week since I arrived, but I’d expected more than that. Maybe I’m just greedy…
Sinking into her chair, Summer peeled off her spectacles and levelled her gaze with mine. Then, she dismissed Dr Wong with a wave of the hand. “Reconvene in twenty minutes.”
Dr Wong made no effort to hide her frustration. With a glare my way, she grabbed her ID badge from the desk and strode out. Once she was out of sight, Summer fell back in the chair.
Her passive face softened to that of my sister’s, not some busy CDC biologist.
“You’re right. I haven’t seen you as much as I would have liked to. My time is squeezed dry every day. I would like to promise that my schedule will dwindle soon, but until we progress in our research, that won’t happen.”
It was her way of telling me work was more important. Not that she loved it more than she loved me, but overall it was vastly more important. I knew that.
Still, it hurt to hear it.
Her gaze cut to the blood slides beside her, itching to abandon me for her work. I sighed and perched myself on the edge of the desk.
“How’s it been going?” I asked.
Summer lit up just like her name. “It’s a process, but with both Leonardo and patient zero, I can’t help but be optimistic.”
I picked at a pencil eraser. “Have you seen Leo?”
Summer drifted half of her attention to the blood slides again. “Not since yesterday’s study.” She looked up. “His results were fascinating. How long have you known each other?”
Yesterday’s study.
That couldn’t be right. Castle specifically said he’d been missing for days. Or was it a week? Time slipped by me here, more than it had on the outside.
“I haven’t known him long,” I said. “Three months, maybe more.”
“Is it romantic?”
I bunched my lips. “We have issues.”
“What about the other one, Castle?”
“What about him?”
“Are you and he…” She gestured with a delicate flick of her slender hand—a hand much nicer than my own. My hands are freckled and a bit dry at the knuckles.
Heaving a sigh, I shrugged and met her gaze. “For a bit. Then not so much.”
“If you could choose one, would it be Leo?”
“I … I don’t think I could choose,” I uttered, surprised. “Not that I want either of them.” I cringed at my own lie. “Why do you ask?”
Summer laughed and tucked a blonde, silky strand behind her ear.
“Why?” She threw up her hands, and even the statue in the doorway chuckled a bit. “Well, I thought my little sister died along with the rest of the world, but she shows up at my workplace intact—so to speak—and I want to know about her life. I want to know everything about her, because she’s my sister and I don’t allot her the time she deserves. Is that not allowed?”
I smiled and swung my leg.
“I’m confused,” I admitted. “I hate them both for what they’ve put me through. I don’t trust either of them, and still … I’m just not over them.”
Summer hummed before she gestured to beyond the room. “They’re everywhere here. Men. Should you be too afraid to leave your deltas for fear of eternal loneliness, don’t. I’m certain I’ve seen drool on the floors since you all arrived here.”
I smirked. “D
rool reserved for Vicki.”
Convenient that Mac died.
I frowned at thought of the solider who watched Vicki. “Lotan has his eye on her,” I added. “He doesn’t stand a chance against a dead man she’ll never stop loving.”
Summer just smiled. “Well, I should get back to work—”
“What is that?” I wasn’t ready to leave before I got what I’d come for. I slipped off the desk and hurried to her side. “Is that Leo’s blood?”
“Yes.” Summer tidied the blood slides proudly. “They’re from the initial health assessments.”
I jerked my head to the data (both Mason and Summer followed my aim). I quickly plucked her ID badge from the desk and slid it up my sleeve. “Does all that say why Leo’s blood is different?”
Summer grinned a patronising gesture and shook her head. “Not exactly, Winner.”
“But, like … one day, you’ll get a cure from all that?”
“A cure,” she said with a smile. “A vaccine, perhaps in a decade. But not a cure.”
“Oh.”
What use was a vaccine to us underground, free from the threat of rabies? Were there any survivors up above? If there were, the chances of them still being alive in a decade were laughable. But at least she was trying—I’d given up already.
“I’ll let you get back to work,” I said. “We should do dinner maybe? When you’re free. If you’re free.” I shrugged and picked at my cardigan sleeve; a nervous tick to her gaze, but really I was covering the ID badge. “Whenever suits you, let me know.”
In answer, Summer gave a tight smile that said she’d have to check her schedule. I gave an awkward wave, then followed Mason out of the lab.
Mason escorted me back to the Common Halls. On the way, I passed Adam at the fork of two corridors. His inquisitive gaze had pierced through me, asking me silent questions—I winked back at him, hoping that the unusual gesture between us had answered his questions: I’m on it.
To my surprise, Mason didn’t return to the Lab Maze after the door clamped shut behind us. He asked for a game of monopoly in the common room, but I promised him another time. After he was out of sight, I slid Summer’s ID out from my sleeve and swiped it through the slot.