“Of course I do,” I say firmly, but she won’t meet my eyes.
“What’s the condition then?”
“Tell me about Luke. All of it, every single detail from the time you met up until the day you arrived here.”
Her strange eyes flash dangerously. “What happened to privacy, Doc?”
“That doesn’t exist anymore. Not for you, and not in this room.”
“Why?” she demands. “Who gets to decide that?”
“I do, because you’ve tried to kill yourself three times.”
There is a slow-burning silence. A clap of thunder finds the right moment to startle us both.
I stand up from my desk, but can’t manage to move from behind it. It feels safe behind the desk. “Josephine,” I murmur. “I need to figure out what’s inside you.”
The truth is I already know—an abused child can respond to being hurt in a number of different ways, and Josephine’s hallucinations are a perfect example of that. But I need her to speak about it. She never speaks, not in the ways I want her to. Without words we’ll get nowhere together.
She smiles and there’s ice in my veins. “You could have just asked, Doc. It’s simple. There’s an inferno.”
September 17th, 2063
Josephine
I’m on fire; everything in my entire body feels alight. Even though my ears are pounding, I need noise, loud enough to drown out the screaming I hear when I blink, and I need darkness dark enough to black out every horrific image I imagine myself to have committed last night. I go into the first place I find, the pounding bass reverberating all the way out into the street. I push my way through a loud crowd, feeling every accidental touch against my skin. I manage to find a seat on a couch and slump down onto it, closing my eyes. Nobody comes near me—nobody even looks in my direction. I’m not sure why this is, but it’s always been the same. No matter where I go or what I do, I’m ignored.
I sit for a while and sink into the noise around me. Pain lances through every muscle, every bone. My mind whirls, entranced, dazed. The music helps to keep me here in the room, as does eavesdropping on other people’s conversations. There are two girls behind me who won’t stop talking about the benefits of wearing primer under their foundation. “I’d die without it,” and “Where do you get yours from?” and “Thank god they make travel-sized bottles!” I had thought primer was something you painted a house with, but I’ve clearly been labouring under a misapprehension and might die unless I get myself some fast.
“Hello, beautiful.”
It’s a deep, rough voice. I don’t look at him straight away. Instead I roll my eyes. I don’t get hit on much, but when I do it pisses me off. Opening with “hello, beautiful” is uninspired. At best.
“Hello,” I start to say, but as I turn I forget the second half of the word. He’s looking at me. Like, really looking at me. And he’s beautiful. Despite the fact that he looks like he might not have slept in a month, he has incredibly bright green eyes. There are dark bags beneath them, and they’re bloodshot as hell, but damn they’re green. He has short dark hair and stubble over his square jaw, and even as he sits there, completely still, there is an undeniable sense of movement in his long limbs. I can’t work it out, but he’s sort of … animal.
In all my life I can’t remember seeing anyone with a gaze like his.
“It’s rude to eavesdrop,” he points out, cocking his head to listen to the girls.
“It’s rude to point out when something’s rude,” I mumble.
“What’s primer?” he asks me while wincing at a shriek of their laughter.
“No idea.”
He gives up on listening to the girls’ growing hysteria and looks at me directly. “You looked really lonely.”
I pull myself together and give him a bleak stare. “How do I look now?”
He smiles slowly. “You look good.”
Yes, he’s gorgeous, and yes, he’s got possibly the most delicious smile I’ve ever seen, but in one line he’s just reverted into every idiot drone who doesn’t have a clue. I feel so tired—and angry, too angry. I want to tear this whole place to pieces so they won’t all be so happy. Their lives are just … easy. This man sitting before me is easy. I want to run and scream and cry and shut it all out, except that then I would be left alone with the blood moon.
“Just go away,” I sigh. I regret coming here. It was stupid. I am almost too tired to get up and leave. I consider what might happen if I curl up on this couch and go to sleep. Would they leave me here? I can’t imagine anyone touching me for long enough to move me. I can’t imagine anyone even realizing that I am here.
“I can’t,” the man says. At a guess he’s early twenties. He’s a boy, really. Or, he’d look like a boy if he weren’t wearing that expression. He would have received the cure at fifteen, like everyone else, which means he didn’t get much time. He didn’t get many years of freedom before they stole his personality.
“What do you mean you can’t?”
He shrugs. “I mean I can’t before I make sure you’re all right.”
I eye him suspiciously.
“So are you?” he presses.
“I’m fine.”
We stare at each other. “You can toddle off and feel really good about yourself now,” I murmur coldly.
“I’m not trying to pick you up,” he says.
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You’re the saddest girl I’ve ever seen.”
“So why didn’t you run the other way?”
“Because if sadness goes next, I want to remember what it looks like.”
And just like that, I am made of sand and sinking through the cracks in the floor. I have an absurd desire to have his skin against mine, to see what it feels like, to see if it burns as hot as mine does. I am a long way from words, but he doesn’t grow awkward, he simply waits for me to come back.
“What does sadness look like?” I eventually ask in a soft, rasping voice.
He tilts his head and eyes me critically. “It’s cold blue and warm brown. It’s blurry edges and stillness. It’s unnerving,” he says, “and beautiful.”
After a while he adds, “I’m Luke,” and holds out a hand for me to shake. I don’t, because there is still blood on mine, and even though he won’t be able to see it, I’ll know it’s there. I haven’t touched or been touched by anyone in years, except for the occasional brushing of a shoulder.
“Josephine Luquet.”
“All right, Miss Luquet. If I asked you why you’re so sad, would I be the first?”
“That’s presumptuous.”
“Probably. Would I be?”
I shrug, unwilling to admit that he would be. “Are you going to ask me?”
“Yes. But not tonight. Right now I’m going to walk you home because you look like one touch might send you to dust. Come on.”
I follow him outside, blinking to rid myself of the haze I’m trapped in. He feels like a dream. My teeth ache. And my fingernails.
He lights a cigarette and I look at him properly. In the spill of light from inside he looks pale. His white t-shirt is dirty and full of holes, as are his jeans, which sit low on his hips. He’s wearing ratty old flip-flops, and I can’t believe he got into the club dressed like that. On the other hand, he is undeniably attractive, and men probably spend hours trying to make themselves look as careless as Luke does. He’s tall and lean like he might be a little underweight, but he’s no less muscled for it. The strength through his arms and chest is real—it’s the type that comes from hard work, not from muscle enhancers.
His cigarette smoke makes me feel like I might throw up. My head is pounding and I realize I must get home immediately or I’ll be in danger of collapsing in the gutter with a strange and eloquent man named Luke for company. I take off down the street and he follows, uninvited.
“Should we get a cab?” he asks.
I ignore him. He doesn’t actually think he’s coming home with me, does he? I stumb
le slightly and he’s there to catch me by the elbow, but his hands on me cause my heart to lurch with fear and I pull away. This is too strange. No one even looks at me, let alone… this. “Don’t touch me.”
“Sorry. You were about to eat concrete.”
“Are you following me?”
“I’m escorting you home, like a gentleman.”
It’s becoming too much. I can’t breathe. Just last night I … Oh, Jesus, I can’t face that—not yet. But there was a last night, and now I can’t have … this. I can’t have him looking at me and saying nice things to me and being a gentleman. I’m not a girl who understands those things—not today, on the 17th. Today I am a wraith. A shadow.
I am covered in the blood of the moon, and I’m the only one left who can feel angry about it.
We reach my block of apartments and I face him. No way is he finding out which number I live in. “Okay. Bye.”
“Josephine,” Luke says quickly. The moonlight makes his eyes look greener.
“What?”
“It’ll be all right.”
I smile, and even I can feel the chill of it. “You’re a silly boy.”
He searches my face with a look of his own. I suspect that among people who know him this look must be famous. It is very assured and direct. It says you don’t frighten me because I am more than I look. “I’ll be back in the morning.” I think this is supposed to be a promise, but it feels more like a threat.
“No you won’t.”
“I have a question to ask.”
“Luke.” I lick my lips and try to give my next words weight. “If you come back and ask that question, I don’t know why but I think I might answer it. And the truth is, if that happens, we’re both going to regret it.”
Luke
I watch her go into her apartment with the hopeless awareness that my life has changed. She’s different—so alarmingly different that I knew it the first time I caught sight of her. Under the calm, she’s rabid. And I’ve been waiting a long time to find someone like her.
The world is a sea of ghosts. When the plague annihilated us there were riots in the streets. Buildings came down in a flood of dry rubble. A fury made of fear was born, and the world grew dangerous. Nine years ago the government—every government—built walls around the remaining cities and started administering the cures. No more anger for humanity. No more aggression. The fight went out of us; we were malleable, controllable drones. But with one emotion gone, the other parts of us grew skewed and out of shape. Now everything is distorted—our perceptions of the world are damaged. A woman cheats on her husband and he can’t manage to care. A house is burgled and the occupants think it’s funny. A child is lost and nobody understands the importance of this except the Bloods. These aren’t rational responses—they are the reactions of damaged psyches, brains that are scrambling to connect pieces of pictures that have been pulled apart.
It is rumored that in three years the first of the sadness cures are scheduled to be administered. And what will the world be made of then?
Society has gone mad. I’ve been suffocating—until tonight, until she looked at me. I’m not sure what she is, or what she means, but I must ask that question, even if it will make her hate me forever.
Chapter Two
September 18th, 2063
Josephine
I am inspecting my bruises in front of the bathroom mirror when I hear the first knock at the door. I ignore it, sure it must be someone trying to sell me something, or worse—the landlord asking where last month’s rent is.
My body is covered in dark blue, purple and yellow. The worst of it is on my right hip and down the length of my spine. My muscles feel stretched and sore, like I’ve just battled karate black belts or laid under a train. There is a long thin cut along my thigh that looks like it might be getting infected.
Yesterday was a trance of horror. Today is worse. Today is clear and real, and so glary my eyes hurt.
The knocking sounds again, more persistent this time. A foolish thought occurs to me—could it be the Bloods?
My momentary hope flounders when a voice floats through the door.
“Josephine! I know you’re in there! Open the door!”
Last night comes back to me in a rush. It’s him. The strange man from the club who followed me home. Jesus fucking Christ. He can’t be serious, can he?
Pissed off, I grab a dressing-gown from the bathroom. I can’t believe he thinks it’s okay to turn up at my door.
“Josi!” he shouts. “Come on, open up.”
Did he just call me Josi? I open the door a crack but keep the chain in place so he can’t push his way inside. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I told you I’d be back.” He smiles disarmingly. He has a wide mouth full of straight white teeth, and the expression is so gorgeous I can barely believe it.
“How did you know which apartment I live in?” I demand.
“I watched you go inside last night. Come on, let me in.”
“No way,” I all but snarl. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re clearly a sociopathic stalker. Insanity has risen a lot since the cure, you know.”
He grins as though I’ve said something funny. “Come outside for a walk then. It’s a beautiful day.”
“Luke—it’s Luke, right? I can’t deal with this right now. I haven’t even had a coffee—”
“Great, there’s a café around the corner. Get dressed and let’s go.”
He bounds down the stairs, whistling something ludicrously cheerful as he goes. I want to strangle him. Instead I shut the door and go back to bed. My body hurts, and my head hurts, and I’m too tired for his smiles.
September 19th, 2063
Josephine
I wake to pounding on my door. Disoriented, I lie in bed and try to blink myself awake and into reality. I’ve got no idea what time it is, or what day. But this feels like déjà vu. Is it Luke again?
As consciousness returns I become aware that my throat is raw and shredded.
Then I hear, “Ma’am? It’s the police!”
My heart lurches in my chest with wild terror and hope. Could it be that someone has finally found a clue? A piece of evidence?
Have they come to take me to jail?
I stumble out of bed and pull on some clothes before running to the door. There are two men standing in the dingy hallway. To my disappointment, they’re not Bloods, but just normal, low-ranking cops. One of them holds his hat in his hands, twirling it over and over. The other is leaning against the opposite wall looking bored.
“Yes?” I ask breathlessly.
“We had a call early this morning, ma’am.”
“Yes?” Nobody is getting any handcuffs out. They’re not reading me my rights.
“From a concerned neighbor. Says she heard a woman’s screams coming from your apartment. Says she could hear it for most of the night. Are you all right? Are you the only one living at this residence?”
I stare at him and feel all my hope seep away through my pores. There’s no proof, no evidence. These men are not here to arrest me.
“Yes, it’s just me,” I sigh. “I’m fine. I have night terrors.”
The man leaning against the wall snorts derisively.
“Oh,” says the front officer. “Good then. Glad you’re okay. We’ll be on our way. You have a nice day, ma’am.”
I watch them leave, and that’s when I spot Luke sitting on the stairs leading upstairs. He’s just watched the whole exchange. I consider calling the cops back and telling them to arrest this stalker.
I feel a storm coming over me and try to breathe through it. What is he doing? “Leave me alone,” I order through clenched teeth.
He’s not smiling this morning. He looks like an entirely different man. A dangerous man. Shadows fall across his eyes. “I heard the screaming too,” he says bluntly. “When I got here this morning.”
I don’t know what h
e wants me to say. He’s got absolutely no idea what he’s hovering at the edge of, and it almost makes me laugh to imagine how he’d react if he discovered the truth of me.
“You heard—I have night terrors.”
“You sure do,” he agrees.
I stare at him and then spread my hands. “What do you want?”
He stands and walks past me. “Come,” he orders, and this time there’s no nonsense in his tone. It sounds like he’s someone who is used to being obeyed. I’m about to slam the door again when he pauses and adds, “If you don’t come and get a coffee with me, I’ll be back tomorrow morning, and the one after that, and the one after that, until you agree. I might even start coming at night, too. So it’ll save us both some time and pain if you just get your skinny butt out here now.”
My mouth opens in fury but no words come out. What a prick! My mind whirls, trying to figure out how to respond. I could call the cops on him. I could have him thrown in prison for harassment. And stalking. I could move—I’m due to find somewhere new anyway. I’ll probably get kicked out pretty soon. I could just out-wait him—I bet I can ignore him for longer than he can be bothered to keep coming back.
I don’t trust him for one single second, but I have a disastrous flaw called curiosity. I have no idea what his interest in me is, but I find myself wanting to find out. And wanting, if I must admit it, to understand the look he keeps levelling me with, because it’s one I certainly haven’t been looked at with before.
I plod back inside and pull on some ratty old jeans and a long-sleeved tee that will cover the bulk of my bruises. I don’t bother brushing my hair because this meeting might be a good opportunity to repulse him. Shouldn’t be too difficult.
Outside, he’s smoking again. And he seems to be back in his cheerful mood. When he sees me he grins and winks. “Good girl.”
Condescending wanker.
I roll my eyes and storm past him, headed for the nearest café. I push inside, head straight for the counter, order myself a black coffee and then cram myself into a table in the corner, all without looking at Luke. I hate being around so many drones—they make me deeply uncomfortable.
Fury: Book One of the Cure (Omnibus Edition) Page 2
