Limerence: Book Three of The Cure (Omnibus Edition)

by Charlotte McConaghy

  The back of my neck is tingling.

  “I’ll paint you a picture,” she offers, even though it sounds like each word and each breath must be agony. “Four hundred Bloods moving their way through the veins of the earth, intent on destroying everything in their path. Finding, instead, a force sent straight from hell. One made by you. A hungry one.”

  My poor, inadequate mind is only now catching up, only now allowing the pieces to shift into place. Why she wanted them alive. Why she said nothing of her plans.

  There’s true fear in the minister’s eyes now. “Do you believe I’m that stupid? We knew of the Furies. There weren’t enough to face the force I sent.”

  “There weren’t,” she agrees. “There are now. The tunnels are crawling with them. Do you think I would have returned without an army?”

  She coughs and I see blood splatter her chin and shirt. But still she says, holding all the power in this room, all the power in the world, “No one’s coming to save you, Shay. Your Bloods are all dead.”

  Then, without moving her arm, she fires the gun at her thigh and shoots my brother in the chest.

  Something snaps with a rubbery twang inside me.

  Chapter 27

  November 13th, 2067

  Josephine

  This time when I go for the truck, I look both ways first.

  Five days I lay on my back, in and out of consciousness. There is a pink shiny burn on my face and black, clumsy stitches in my throat. I felt these being sewn into my body; I remember very well the moment I opened my eyes to see Medusa leaning over me with a needle.

  I don’t have time to waste lying on my ass. Once the fever passed I rose and started hunting. There are people around here, and I don’t know where they came from or how they survived, but I need them. For the plan. The plan. Don’t ever forget the plan, don’t ever let go of it. It’s the only reason you’re still here. It’s everything.

  So I find the hiding spot of the tiny group whose members cut my throat; I find them because I can move through the dark as though born to it; I can hear and smell them without need of my eyes. I wait until they’re asleep and then I kill one of them with a silent twist of his neck. I drag his body over the earth, all the way back to the seaside town. He’s heavy and I’m weak – it takes a long time. I make sure none of the Furies are nearby as I load him into the back of the truck, now gassed and powered up.

  Then I start the engine and drive out onto the road. I wait.

  They come, curious and ravenous for meat.

  And this is how I’m going to get us back. I don’t want to do it on my own. Nothing’s good on your own. You need people, even if they’re barely people.

  I drive and they follow the corpse on the back, Medusa and Washington and Astro Boy at the front of the horde. My bird flies above.

  I think I don’t know who any of you were before this, and I’m so sorry this was done to you. I’m so sorry to be taking you back. But the world needs you yet.

  The plan. The plan. Nothing else matters.

  *

  April 3rd, 2068

  Dave

  I’m smooth and unblemished. I see clearly and without emotional bias. I am a pacifist. This is what I tell myself as I creep into the dark and make the call I was sent here to make.

  It takes time to patch through. There are security measures so no one down in this hell hole will detect my call.

  But when he comes online I say, “They’re in the tunnels. They’ve been hiding underground among the Furies. I have coordinates. They plan to attack the Blood compound by taking out all the comms, including their own. Luquet is out – they don’t trust her anymore so she won’t be a problem. How should I proceed?”

  Falon Shay says, “Good lad. You’ve just ended a war before it’s begun and saved thousands of lives. I’m recommending you for the medal of honor.”

  “And my family? You said they’d be safe.”

  “They will be. Of course.” He pauses and then murmurs down the phone line, “You’re a strange creature. Why does it matter to you that they’re safe?”

  I would answer if I could but I don’t know how. “What are my orders?”

  “Place the router near their comms so we can listen in. And when you know it, relay the exact date and time of attack. Dave, I … You mean a lot to me. You know that by now. You’re the most remarkable thing I’ve ever made.”

  As I end the call I think about being made, or created, and how that happens. I know I didn’t make myself, not as I am now, so maybe he’s right. Maybe I am as he made me. I suppose it doesn’t matter as long as I know what I know and fight for what’s right. Hurt the few to save the many. Stop a war. Surely they knew these concrete tunnels would be their tombs?

  I’m a pacifist.

  I am.

  *

  April 8th, 2068

  Josephine

  The trajectory of the bullet slows mid air and my mind stretches out beyond it in every direction, deep into the earth and high into the sky, back into the past and forward into the future.

  I live a single moment of knowing.

  I thought love was what separated the humans from the animals, the innocent from the monstrous. I thought I had to be dangerous, I thought I had to be creaturely to survive and to win and that meant I couldn’t also love.

  I was wrong.

  It was there all along, only I couldn’t see it. It was there in the gentle touches of the Furies, in Medusa’s finger on my face and the threads she sewed into my throat. It was in their simple generosity and the way they kept each other alive though it might mean their own deaths. I saw it in the eyes of my bird, in the flight of her wings, felt it in the weight of her on my arm. I saw it in every moment she came to find me, knowing somehow that I needed her. There is love in even the most beastly of creatures, in the care they offer each other; it lives in the atoms of their bodies, in the molecules of those giant trees and the shelter they provide, it lives in warm bodies huddled together against the cold and in someone carrying for you a tin of tomatoes over miles and miles even though you’ll never be able to get it open. It lives in the worst parts of us as well as the best. It lives deepest of all, sometimes so deep you can’t see it anymore, so deep you can forget it’s even there.

  This is what I think as my bullet cuts straight through Dave’s chest and he hits the ground hard.

  *

  It’s Shay who cries out. He lunges for Dave, cradling him and giving the game away in a single moment. Had I not known before, I would know now. But I did know before. I’ve known all along. It’s Luke who couldn’t hear it, who would never have believed it had I not just proven it.

  He stands frozen, too shocked to move at all except to take a few dazed steps away from them. He looks like he could spit on his brother, there is so much hatred in him. He looks as though he wishes Dave dead.

  That’s what I’ll mourn in all of this. That I doused the love between brothers.

  The Bloods close in to protect Shay, too well trained to leave a gap through which to reach him. I can’t get to him any more now than I could a moment ago. But I don’t need to. I just need to keep breathing.

  And I need to say the one thing that matters. The one thing he should die knowing.

  “You’re wrong,” I tell Shay breathlessly. “Love is only a weakness to those who can’t feel it. But to those who feel it deeper than all else, deeper than life or death – to them love is a weapon. Withhold it, and you arm your enemies. Offer it freely, you arm your friends.”

  “Bitch,” he hisses. He is serpent-like: I see the forked tongue dart from his mouth. No. Calling him animal is too kind. In this moment of hatred he is all too human.

  “You have a son,” I remind him. I point with one finger at Dave’s still body. “That’s not him.”

  “My son,” Shay snarls, “is a failure of feeling. A mess of human flaws. But David was pure. Scraped free of everything that sullied him. More my creation than any child of my body could ever be.
You’ll all burn for this.”

  And we would, too. There are six heavily armed Blood agents with automatic weapons aimed at our hearts. Turn this into a gun battle and we all die – that’s been clear from the start.

  But I have another ace up my sleeve, one who finally moves into play.

  I warned Shay. I did. Withhold love and you arm your enemies.

  One of the Bloods moves. He reaches down and takes Falon Shay by the throat, hauling him back against his body.

  “Don’t move,” the Blood says.

  “What are you doing?” Shay demands. “Stand down!”

  But the Blood’s gun is pressed hard against Shay’s back, right over the heart, and he doesn’t stand down. “I want you to know,” the soldier says, “it isn’t love that killed you. It’s your cruelty.”

  He pulls the trigger and the Prime Minister drops, dead.

  With them facing away from us, I fire and Shadow fires and Will fires, killing all five of the Bloods. Leaving the sixth to remove his helmet and reveal himself as the son of the minister.

  I meet Zach’s eyes. His are rapturous, fevered. I’ve never seen such elation or freedom. The curl of his twisted, scarred mouth makes him terrible. I had no idea how much he truly hated his father, but I should have. I didn’t want him to do this, I wanted it to be me, it would have been me if I’d foreseen the shotgun to the chest. It couldn’t be Luke, not if he’s to lead the city. So instead a boy has killed his own father, and I’m frightened of what it’s stolen from inside him.

  “There are at least forty Bloods still inside this compound,” Shadow says quickly.

  “No time to worry about that,” I say. “Get Dave moving, now.”

  Luke looks at me, confused and so ghostlike. I’m not sure he remembers his name at this point.

  “He’s not dying,” I say as clearly as I can through my gasping lungs. “Move.”

  Shadow and Will lift Dave’s body between them, Zach comes to push my wheeling chair because I’m unable to move and Luke trails behind.

  Through the glass atrium we hurry, through the kitchen and into the medical wing. Bloods we kill because they won’t stop until we’re dead. Anyone else we disarm. Shadow and Will haul Dave’s body onto an operating table. The nurses cower in a supply room and we leave them be.

  It’s Will who remembers to take my mangled vest from me. I groan and sob with the pain of being moved; there is fire in my chest, all through the heart of me. I think I’ll never move again. “Shhh,” he whispers, easing me out of it and tenderly wiping the blood from my eyes.

  I nod in thanks, slumping once more in my wheelchair.

  Zach has removed his combat gear and washes his hands, pulling on plastic gloves. It’s a very different atmosphere to our shitty infirmary underground. Here the lights are bright, the sterilization is thorough and the instruments are advanced. He cuts off Dave’s shirt and then peers at the wound.

  “Right where you said,” he marvels. I nod. Straight between anything critical and out the other side.

  Luke is standing at the door, unable to take in the shock of his brother’s betrayal. He looks at me again, seeking an answer, condemning me with his eyes.

  The truth is a heavy burden. It was there to be seen all along – why else put Dave in Luke’s cell that first night?

  *

  February 1st, 2068

  Josephine

  He’s knee deep in mud when I approach him.

  “I need to speak with you.”

  “Hallelujah. What hell froze over?”

  I nod my head and Luke follows me around behind the pig pen where we can’t possibly be overheard. I take precautions anyway. “Where’s your brother?”

  “Helping Dad sort screws or some other stupid shit that doesn’t need doing. Why?”

  Again I look around to make sure we’re alone. “We’ve got a mole.”

  Luke folds his arms and levels me with a look. “Finally you’re catching on. Zachariah fucking Shay.”

  “It’s not Zach. I think it’s your brother.”

  The look turns into a look. “Come off it.”

  I step forward and take his face in mine even though I don’t like to touch or be touched. I do it because this is more important than anything. This is everything. “Listen to me,” I say, holding his green eyes with all the certainty I possess. “I might be wrong but I don’t think I am. I’m going to set you up with a plan. This is the plan you’ll share with your brother – with everyone. This is the information we’ll feed through to Shay. But I’ll be making other moves, ones I won’t even tell you about. What I need from you is to keep your eyes open, and when the time comes you have to lock me up. Make sure it’s public, make sure everyone knows I can’t get free to make any moves of my own. Make it clear I’m out of the game. You’ll know when the time comes – it’ll be when you’re about ready to kill me.”

  He doesn’t say anything.

  I hold him tight. “If I’m wrong, I’ll bear it. You don’t have to believe me, and he won’t get hurt. But if I’m right we’ll know. We have to know.”

  “You’re not right,” he says. “For the record. I know him.”

  “Okay, good. Will you help prove me wrong?”

  There is a long silence and then he says, because he’s Luke Townsend and he loves me, “Yes.”

  Love is a weapon. And I need every weapon there is in this fight.

  *

  April 7th, 2068

  Luke

  As her knee slams into my balls I can’t help feeling as though I should have said no. I sure as shit did not agree to have my testicles ruptured.

  With a wild roar of pain I manage to get her onto the mats and pinned beneath my body. “This is it, right?” I hiss in her ear so the crowd of onlookers won’t hear. “I’m meant to be locking you up now? ‘Cause you said I’d want to kill you, and I do. I’d quite, quite like to murder you.”

  “This is it,” she agrees, before plunging her teeth into my shoulder.

  *

  April 8th, 2068

  Josephine

  I wish I had been wrong. I really do.

  Zach starts repairing the damage. He’s completely focused – you would never know that a short while ago he shot his father dead.

  “Did you bring reinforcements?” I ask Luke, Will and Shadow. They all look at me blankly, which I take to mean no. “Nice job.”

  “We were a little too worried about you to be thinking straight!” Luke exclaims, semi-hysterical. I’ve never seen him like this, utterly out of his mind. He’s lost his famous control. He’s what he would term a liability. And I’m not exactly much help either, slumped here like a paraplegic.

  “Easier to get in with fewer people,” Shadow explains. “Didn’t think far enough ahead.”

  “Can’t call for backup, either,” Will adds glumly. “No comms.”

  “Are the others okay?” Shadow asks. “In the tunnels?”

  “I evacuated them after you guys left this morning,” I answer. “They’re safe. Teddy can’t get the comms back up because he’s not in the tech room. Did you lose any at the Blood base?”

  “Not one,” Will murmurs. “Lost an awful lot of them, though.”

  I swallow, trying to rid myself of the ache in my chest. A life is a life is a life, no matter which side it fights for.

  The Bloods arrive. Outside the door, which we have barricaded but not well enough to last any extended amount of time. They order us to lower our weapons and come out with our hands up.

  “How original of them,” I wheeze.

  “Uhh … we’re kind of … stumped, aren’t we?” Will asks.

  “Can’t fight forty,” Shadow says placidly.

  “You can at least stop them from getting in those doors before I stitch the traitor closed!” Zach snaps.

  Will and Shadow move to block the door. There are no windows, only a skylight way up in the two-story ceiling, and that’s too high to reach from the outside. Yet again I’ve found myself b
arricaded inside, with enemies battering down the doors to kill us.

  Dave takes the moment to gasp violently into consciousness.

  “Stay down!” Zach exclaims, trying to hold his bleeding shoulder in place.

  Dave moans and struggles and Shadow crosses to hold him down. Luke doesn’t move anywhere near them, only watches blankly. “Give me a hand, son,” Shadow grunts.

  “Not a chance,” Luke replies with a repulsed curl of his lip.

  “Luke,” Dave pleads, crying in pain.

  “Easy, kid, you’re okay,” Shadow tries to soothe as Zach hurriedly packs the hole in Dave’s shoulder.

  “Why are you comforting him?” Luke asks. “The pain’s well and truly earned.”

  “Luke,” Dave tries, more in control.

  “Why’d you do this? How could you?”

  “To stop a war,” Dave pants. “You can see that, can’t you? What—owwww—what happened to my shoulder?”

  “Josi shot you.”

  He blinks and looks at me. “You did? Why? Because you hate me?”

  If I could move any closer I would, but instead I just sit here and try to see his face from this angle. “I don’t hate you, Dave. Believe it or not, I understand what you were trying to do. But if you’d helped us there would have been even less bloodshed.”

  “Stop it!” Luke snarls. “Don’t even talk to him – he doesn’t deserve it!” He whirls on his brother and I can see how badly he wants to hurt Dave in the tremble of his shoulders. “Mom and Dad would have been down there!”

  “He said they’d be safe! He was going to pardon my family!”

  “And you believed him? You’re a fucking moron.”

  Dave shuts his mouth with a snap. I see a sort of quiet come over him. I recognize it – he’s resigned to whatever fate has found him. The hatred of his little brother. The failure of his one objective.

  Luke isn’t done. Bluntly he says, “You’re not my brother. You’re nothing like him. He was brave.”