by Jones, Isla
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 someone 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.
31.
“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.”
He threaded his fingers through mine, his hand warm and rough. “Your sister was the one who failed—she failed you, Winter. There was nothing you could have done after she made the choices she did. But it’s your choice whether you carry the weight of her mistakes for the rest of your life, or accept that she wasn’t the person you thought she was and make the most of what you have here. A chance.”
Tears burned my eyes as I looked up at him. Then I found myself slowly nodding and leaning into him.
Castle’s fingers tightened around mine. “This is our room,” he said. “If you want it to be.”
“And if I don’t?”
Something shattered behind the stone surface of his eyes. Whatever it was didn’t touch his face. “You can stay here and I’ll set up another room for myself. But I’d rather be in here with you.”
“Why?” I whispered.
Castle levelled his gaze with mine. Long lashes fringed a storm of emotion, the kind that warmed every part of me—every part. “You know why.”
I was on him.
I didn’t even have a second to think before I threw myself at him. I don’t know what it was that made me do it. His veiled confession? My broken heart in need of soothing? The rejection from Summer that Castle offered to fix?
Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. Because either way, I was latched onto Castle like a monkey to a tree. Hands in his hair, lips on his, toes pushing me upwards.
Castle paused a mere moment. Then he was pushing me onto the sofa. I kicked off the cushions and tore at his belt.
I once wrote in an old diary that with Castle, it would never be passionate. I was wrong. For the first time in two weeks, all the horror that was my life vanished, stolen away by hungry kisses against my lips, desperate hands grabbing at every part of me.
We were crammed on that sofa, bent at odd angles, clothes tangled around our limbs, but I wouldn’t have changed a thing. On that sofa, we were one. We were us. A mess, tangled and not quite right, but we fit.
I knew it then. It was him, it would always be him. We fit perfectly, two pieces of a wretched puzzle. A castle in winter.
Castle rested his forehead on mine. With each gasp that escaped my lips, I came closer to letting those words free of their cage—then they whispered out in a breathy moan.
“I love you.”
Castle’s grip tightened on me. I needed to hear those words back from him. But he didn’t say them. He pulled me closer and kissed me.
He spoke into my mouth, voice hoarse with restrained groans; “Say it again.”
That was it. Castle translation.
I love you too.
32.
The meat served at dinner had to come from somewhere. But I’d never given it much thought before Castle did the worst thing he could have done. He showed me the ‘animal farm’.
The maze of a room was sectioned into pens and cages. Inside were chickens, pigs, goats, even monkeys.
Castle had told me, ‘They had to test on something.’
That flippant comment churned my stomach almost as much as the monkeys trapped in cages. I managed to save two goats and the chickens. After I named them, Castle realised his mistake. Now I won’t let him touch them. Besides, they’re better used for eggs and milk than a quick meal.
A month has passed since the day we moved in together, and for that whole month Castle treated me as though he was afraid one misstep would send me running. It would be a lie to say I didn’t enjoy the extra influence.
Everything is beginning to seem … normal. We all have our routines.
Oscar runs the kitchen with one of the soldiers. Lisa was promoted to the inner circle of the deltas. Vicki moved in to the room next to mine, and every day we meet at the pool to swim with Cleo. I’d never imagined I would have split custody over Cleo in this world, but that’s what happened—day by day, we swap over at the pool.
And Leo…
We don’t speak to each other anymore. He keeps his distance, I keep my anger inside. Still, we’ve learned to co-exist. We all have.
We’re not just neighbours, we’re a community. It felt that way, at least. Especially the morning that Vicki joined the rest of us for breakfast—the first time she’d left the new residential wing in a month.
The mood was vibrant that morning.
Down the far end of the table, the last of the soldiers shouted over each other and laughed as the scrawny one tried to stuff as many quiche-cakes into his mouth as possible. I sat up with the deltas and remains of our old group, minus Leo who was on shift in the commands room.
Oscar fussed over Cleo’s growing belly as she turned up her nose at the lettuce in his palm. Still, she was determined enough to stay put on his lap and wait for an offer of eggs or bacon.
I spared her a small, proud smile before I turned to Castle.
“Are you going to finish that?” Before he could answer, I snatched the mini chocolate muffin from his plate.
But as I took a bite out of it, C
astle grabbed it out of my hand.
Aghast, I gaped at him. Unapologetic eyes met mine as he made a show of biting into the fresh muffin.
Through a mouthful, he said, “I was saving it.”
I scowled and settled for the last bacon strip on his plate.
“I was saving that, too,” he said.
I challenged his stare. “Law of the apocalypse—eat faster or miss out.”
Any comeback he had for me fell on deaf ears. The moment the soldiers fell into a hushed silence, my attention snapped to them. They all stared at the entrance behind me. I followed their gazes to the archway where Vicki stood, arms wrapped around herself.
A stunned smile took my face. “Hey! Over here.” I waved her over and tapped the empty seat next to mine. “Vicki!”
Reluctance showed in her slow-moving legs as she crept towards the table. Before she could even touch her bum to the chair, Lotan was leaning over the edge, piling food onto a plate, his eager eyes glued to Vicki’s face.
Cleo leapt onto the table and trotted over to Vicki.
“Winter!” snapped Caste. “Keep the dog off the table!”
I made no move to stop her and, instead, glowered at Castle. “Call her ‘the dog’ again and you’ll be sleeping on the sofa.”
A few choked snorts came from the soldiers—but they knew well enough to swallow back their laughs. Castle sighed a weary sound, leaned back in his seat, and draped his arm over the back of my chair.
I turned to Vicki as she dug into Lotan’s offered plate. Cleo had settled on her lap.
“Finally, she emerges,” I said, quietly enough for only her to hear. “About time.”
Vicki give me a small smile, cheeks bulged with food.
“All right, B-Team,” Adam called. “Time’s up, let’s move.”
Adam knocked on the table and stood, his chair scraping against the floor. The soldiers under his command—soldiers who wore pale skin and shifty gazes—downed the last of their coffees and OJs. I couldn’t blame them for being nervous.
“What’s happening?” asked Vicki, eyes on the soldiers. “Where are they going?”