Limerence: Book Three of The Cure (Omnibus Edition)

by Charlotte McConaghy

  “How’s the gas going, Dodge?”

  He looks up from a very burned Petri dish, waving a handheld blowtorch toward us.

  “Woah!” We jump backwards and he immediately points it down.

  “Sorry!” Once he’s turned it off and raised his goggles he shrugs. “Gas is coming along. I have several canisters already, and I’ve been working with Teddy to come up with a time-release for it.”

  “When do you think it’ll be ready to go?”

  He scratches his chin, getting soot all over it. “A week, maybe?”

  I nod. “Great. We gotta head but you’re doing brilliant work, Dodge.”

  When Zach and I are moving quickly down the tunnel once more I say under my breath, “We have a week to get everything set up and to destroy that gas.”

  *

  I take the time to visit Coin tonight. I’m not sure why. The thing about not wanting to be ungenerous, I guess. He’s lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, and he barely acknowledges me when I sit beside him. This is a very ‘past Josephine’ thing to do, not a very ‘current Josephine’, but I set aside the different versions of me for the night.

  “Do you want to come for a walk with me?” I ask him.

  “I’m pretty tired …” Stroke, stroke, stroke that hair.

  “Please, Coin.”

  It surprises him, so he nods.

  When he realizes where I’m leading him he stops. “I don’t think I …”

  I take his hand and lead him gently on. It doesn’t take us long to reach the cliff opening where Malia died a year ago. We sit with our legs dangling over the edge and watch the ocean.

  “Some animals eat their dead,” I say.

  “That’s awful.”

  “Yeah, I thought that too but now I’m not so sure.”

  He glances at me like I’ve lost my mind. Sometimes I’m not entirely sure I haven’t.

  “It’s kinda like taking their life force and living off it. It’s like having them inside you even after they’re gone.”

  He doesn’t say anything for a long while. Then, “Well, I’m not saying I want to eat her or anything, but I wouldn’t mind having some of Malia in me.”

  I smile.

  But then he says, “It hurts all the time. I thought it was meant to get better but it doesn’t. I feel so alone.”

  I put my arm around him and pull him against me. “I know.”

  “I don’t know what the point of all this is. It feels like we live in hell. We’re all alone in hell.”

  With a breath I decide to tell him the thing I learned on the day I tried to kill myself, but instead saw a bird.

  “You and Malia were both born fourteen billion years ago,” I murmur. “All the things that make up your heart have existed since the start of time. Your bones were once comets streaking through the sky. Your muscles might once have been ocean. All of you is made of all of this.” I gesture to the world laid out before us, the sky and the sea and the infinite horizon. “Malia didn’t disappear when she died, she went back to all of this, just like you and I will. So when you feel alone, think of how unbelievably connected we are. We’re part of an enormous, beautiful, miraculous family. That’s the point.”

  He buries his face on his raised knees and I feel him trembling as I stroke his hair. I do it for him because some compulsion makes him need it.

  I think it again, I think it like a mantra: We are all the same. The cured and the uncured, the Bloods and the Furies. We are all made of the same atoms that make up the last living bird, and the disease that wiped the rest of them out. The only sense I can gather from that is that no one thing is worth more than another, no person or creature of more value. And if someone tries to make the world otherwise, make us believe otherwise, then he can’t be allowed to remain. When I fight – and fight I will – it will be in the name of that.

  Coin says, strangled, “It’s my fault she died.”

  I hesitate, then say the thing I never would have admitted before the Furies, before Intirri. “Yes.”

  He sucks in a breath. “So how does being connected with the universe make that better?”

  “It makes you strong enough to own it and carry it. That’s yours now, and it’ll be yours until the day you die. But so will the grace of the world.”

  “Shame and grace. That’s what we get?”

  I look at him, at how young he appears in the moonlight. But that treacherous moon plays tricks on us all. Coin’s not young. None of them are.

  “Yes.”

  Chapter 22

  April 5th, 2068

  Dave

  The tunnels are in a flurry of activity. Plans are being made left, right and center. I’ve been keeping close to my brother so I know what’s going on, but it’s becoming clear not just to me, but to everybody, that Josi isn’t being transparent about her plans. Luke and I are on the way to the arena when we catch sight of her and Zach disappearing down a ladder to somewhere I thought was out of bounds.

  I glance at my brother to gauge his reaction, but his jaw tightening is the only indication I have that he’s bothered.

  “What’s going on with you two?”

  He shakes his head. We go over to the bag so he can make me punch even though it’s obvious I’m not improving. I just don’t care about fighting. Of all the things that have changed, considering myself a pacifist isn’t one of them.

  “She’s stopped talking to me,” he says abruptly. “She only talks to Zach.”

  “You don’t trust him?”

  “Fuck no. He’s a suspicious creep and I have no idea why she can’t see that. Or won’t.”

  “What – do you actually think he’s still working for his father?”

  Luke doesn’t respond either way, but he doesn’t dismiss the idea. “Josi’s lost her center. She’s soft about the things she should be hard about, and hard about the things she should be soft.”

  I consider this. “You’re the leader of the resistance.”

  “No, I’m—”

  “You are, Luke. So start making some tough decisions. It’s your responsibility to keep your people safe.”

  “What are you saying? That Josi’s a threat?” He sounds incredulous.

  “No, I’m just saying watch her. Get her talking. You need to know what’s going on down here. And you need to be in control.”

  He doesn’t like this, I can see, but he doesn’t argue. I punch the bag and he scoffs impatiently. “Stop fucking around and give me a real punch.”

  I try to punch harder but I don’t have much strength to begin with. “I’m coming with you, right?”

  “No, mate. You’re not in any shape.”

  I let the bag go and it swings to him. “Luke. I’m coming with you.”

  “Why?”

  Because I can’t be in these tunnels when you go, that’s why. “Because I want to help.”

  “But why?”

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “I dunno. What’s motivating you to risk your life?”

  He’s always pushing me to admit I feel more than I do and I wish he’d stop hoping. I say, very clearly, “Justice, and a peaceful world. Whatever you may think about me, I don’t wish for the deaths of others. So if I can help to ensure the safety and prosperity of our city, I deserve the right to, don’t I?”

  Luke tilts his handsome face. It was so startling to see him grown up into this unknowable man. I still catch myself peering at him in wonderment. His hair is quite short – about the same length as his beard, now – and beneath his dark brows the set of brilliant green eyes look at me the way they always used to. With admiration. It makes me uncomfortable.

  “Of course,” my brother says.

  Something in my stomach falls. My whole life is rushing to a point from which I can’t turn back.

  “I’ve been practicing the pieces,” I tell him.

  His smile is so delighted that for a moment I imagine slipping into his skin and feeling what he must feel. Because that’s the
thing about Luke. I think he feels more than anyone down here, more than most of them combined. How must it be, to be so wrapped up in emotion? So driven by it? It’s been so long for me that I can hardly remember.

  “Can I stay in your room tonight?” I ask him. “Mom’s driving me nuts. She’s made me eighteen cups of tea today and keeps trying to make me put on more layers.”

  “Sure.” He laughs. “Got plenty of room now that it’s just me.”

  “What was it like between you … before she changed?” We’re not talking about Mom now, obviously.

  He rests his head on the bag and his smile changes, turns sad. “It was … big. Sometimes I got scared by how big. I thought I’d never be able to handle the size, and how much she always seemed to need from me.”

  “So why’d you keep on?”

  “’Cause it costs nothing to give someone what they need, mate. In fact it feeds you. I learned that from her, ’cause of how much she was always giving me.”

  This stirs something in me, but I’m not sure what. I keep prodding, wanting to inventory what’s going on in my brain. “So why … what happened to her?”

  He meets my eyes. “She got wounded too deeply, so she built herself a new skin, a much tougher one, thinking it’d protect her from enduring the same again.”

  “But you think it won’t?”

  He shakes his head. “It may do. She’s got the strongest will you’ll ever come across and she’s made it tough enough to keep me out. Maybe it will protect her. But I’m more worried about that first wound. It’s still under there, eating away at her, ’cause she never let the saltwater get inside to heal it.”

  I breathe out in a rush. The back of my neck is prickling inexplicably. “I’ll follow her tonight. Come, but stay back where she can’t see you.”

  *

  “Following her” is much easier said than done, especially when you’re carrying a guitar and a massive cello and she moves like a wraith in the night.

  I catch up to her, panting and dizzy, at the chicken coop of the farm. “Josi,” I gasp.

  “Relax.”

  I realize she stopped to wait for me and thank god for small mercies. “How’d you know I was following?”

  “You’re no spy, Dave Townsend, let’s just say that.”

  There’s a silence.

  “Come on then. Are you gonna try and convince me to play or will I send you back before you can bother?”

  “I’ll bother.” I hand her the cello and bow and she takes them reluctantly. “I still can’t believe my brother built something so beautiful.”

  “Why can’t you believe that?”

  “He was only ever good at pulling things apart.”

  “That was a long time ago. You should give him more credit.” There’s definitely a bristle of protectiveness in her voice.

  “I’ll reserve judgment until you show me how it sounds. I’d bet money he cut corners somewhere.”

  She laughs softly at my poor attempt at manipulation.

  I spread my hands. “Listen. Here’s the truth. I play, and stuff happens inside me that I thought would never happen again. I need help to explore that. You said once that we all need to know. Well, this is what I need to know.”

  It’s not the truth, as it happens. But Luke needs this. And I’m better at manipulation than I’ve let on.

  She searches my face and sees only honesty, so with a sigh she strides up the hill and plonks herself on a stray log. She tunes her cello and plays a few practice notes. I can already hear in them her skill.

  “What do you want to play?”

  “Anything.”

  “No, not anything,” Josi corrects impatiently. She’s pissed off – I can feel it in waves. “Tell me which pieces you like and I’ll tell you which I know.”

  “We could just make something up?”

  “You want to jam?” she snorts. “Fine, go ahead.”

  I start plucking at my guitar, slow and gentle. I’m not sure what’s about to come out but I was always better at letting my fingers do what they want. Luke told me about Elgar, and I remember it perfectly, having played it just about every day for a year, but I’m not going to bring that out too soon. She’ll spook if I don’t ease her in gently.

  As I pluck the melody Josi lifts her bow and plays long, simple notes beneath it, filling out the sound until it swells over the quiet hills.

  We play like this for the next few hours. Somewhere behind us Luke is probably listening. And I’d even go as far as to say Josi’s enjoying it.

  Eventually weariness hits and I stop. “Thank you.”

  She doesn’t reply and I realize she’s struggling with words. “Don’t … tell Luke about this.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’ll think it means something it doesn’t.”

  “Like what?”

  “Really, Dave? You’re cured, not obtuse.”

  I smile. “Just wondered if you’d say it.”

  “Will you take this back for me?”

  I take the cello from her.

  “He thinks it makes me vulnerable,” she admits suddenly.

  “And doesn’t it?”

  “It used to.” What goes unsaid is obvious: it used to, but now nothing does.

  I am more determined than ever to keep an eye on her. Luke’s got love blinkers on, but I’m entirely free of those. I’m smooth, round wood without a single blemish, and as such I might be the one person who can truly see what a threat Josephine Luquet has become.

  *

  Luke

  In the end I don’t follow Dave and Josi. She needs her own space, and listening to her play without being invited seems like a betrayal. Instead I go to sleep and dream of Josi’s most brutal words – the thing we shared isn’t inside me anymore. The dream shifts, abstractly, to Jean Gueye’s face through the kitchen window, interviewing Mom about fifteen-year-old me. And then moves finally into something else entirely, something sticky with remembered violence, with the cold clinical deaths I’ve long since compartmentalized.

  I wake in a cold sweat to my brother’s face. “Easy,” he says. “It’s alright. You were dreaming.”

  I sit up and wipe my brow. “Jesus.” My heart won’t slow. I can’t stop my thoughts and suddenly I can’t keep lying here without an answer to a question I’ve never been brave enough to ask.

  I fling myself off the crappy mattress and walk over the freezing concrete to where my parents sleep.

  “Mom,” I whisper in the dark. “Mom.”

  She wakes with a lurch and grabs onto me. “Luke?”

  “Why did you let them take me?” My voice cracks.

  “What?”

  “You okay, Lukey?” Dad asks, waking too.

  Dave has followed me and stands in the opening.

  “Why did you let them take me?”

  “Who?”

  “The Bloods! Jean fucking Gueye! Why would you give your child to those monsters and let them turn him into one?”

  “Luke, it was better for you—” Mom tries.

  “You have no idea, do you? What they made me do? The only way you can become a full Blood is by murdering people! They make you kill, Mom. And they make you do it until it means nothing to you.”

  She lifts a hand to cover her mouth but there’s a vacant look in her eyes. At least she’s not laughing, I guess. I stand and pace away from them.

  “Luke—” Dad starts but I shake my head.

  “No, don’t. I just need to know why. Because when you sent me into that cold prison you took me away from my brother, and I wasn’t there to protect him. And maybe if I had been I wouldn’t wake in the dark to a stranger I hardly recognize!”

  Nobody says anything, they all just stare at me. The silence is unbearable. They never would have watched me suffer like this without either scolding me for the fuss or comforting me for the pain. This silence is a reminder of the flesh missing from the skeleton.

  “Somebody answer me, please,” I beg. I spin to fa
ce Dave. “Say something!”

  He remains silent and expressionless.

  I stride to him and shove him hard in the chest. “Say something, you goddamn robot!”

  “Enough,” Dad pleads. “Take a breath, boy.”

  I slam my eyes shut in fury but try to breathe, try to calm down. They don’t speak, just wait for me to become more like them, more contained. As the anger trickles away it leaves space for a terrible sadness that is so much worse.

  “I can’t stand this emptiness,” I whisper. “You’re all ghosts. I have a family of ghosts.”

  I leave and they don’t try to stop me.

  I search the tunnels for something. I know Josi won’t be down here, but I keep searching anyway, not sure what the hell I’m looking for. Someone. Something. Anything.

  What I find is Shadow.

  He’s alone in the arena, watching something on the projector. I move closer in the dark to see that it’s an old news report. He’s done this a lot lately, but I’ve never joined him. The reporter’s soothing voice drifts into the silo.

  The Prime Minister himself has issued a statement saying the best doctors in the city could do nothing to stem the onslaught of the particularly bad strain that took the life of his beloved wife. Olivia Shay, only nineteen when she married the minister, was taken far too young by the violence of this unidentifiable disease. Only compounding the senseless tragedy is the death of her infant child. Prime Minister Shay begs his citizens to vote yes on Proposition 42, the mandatory vaccination of all children under the age of twelve. He also promises further scientific progress on the matter of all infection, stating there may be a future in which disease doesn’t exist. The leader of the opposition has spoken out to hail this as science fiction, and by no means something the public should hope for.