The Plague (Book 3): Winter Storm

by Isla Jones

  Castle’s room.

  I’d meant to find the pool, but I faced the door and reached out for the handle.

  The door was unlocked. It swung open to a dark room.

  Staring into Castle’s darkness, I froze. It lured me in. Called to me. But a part of me tried to drag my feet back to my own room. Castles pull was stronger; I stepped inside and flicked the light on.

  He wasn’t there. His unlocked door told me he wasn’t far away. Maybe in Leo’s room. Maybe looking for me—or not. Just because my feelings were built naturally didn’t mean his were too. If he had any for me, that is.

  I roamed the room and paused to pick through some of his things. Books were stacked neatly on the desk against the wall, some pens scattered over beige papers and his bed was perfectly made.

  The stark contrast took me.

  This was him. Organised, strict and tidy.

  My room was me. Messy, cluttered and reeked of dog waste. Already, there were dirty mugs and plates scattered over my furniture and smears of toothpaste on my sink. But if I’d packed up all of Castle’s belongings into a box, his room would look bare, as if no one had ever stepped inside let alone lived there.

  He lived in me.

  As much as I hated that fact, I felt it burst through me in that moment and with it came the familiar burn at my eyes. I blinked back the tears and sat on the edge of his bed.

  On the nightstand was a leather-bound book, tied with a leather string and next to some grey pencils.

  I shouldn’t have, but I pulled it onto my lap and unfastened the string. My fingers didn’t hesitate, not once. And as I opened the book, I stole a peek into what I’d thought was Castle’s strategy book, but turned out to be something much more intimate than that.

  I stole a peek into Castle.

  CASTLE’S JOURNAL

  ENTRY TWENTY

  The pages captured my gaze, my soul, and my heart.

  All air was hit out of me the moment I opened that book. The pages, thick to the touch, kissed my fingertips with memories from the outside. This journal wasn’t like mine, but it was a journal. While there were no words staining the paper, sketches filled in the blanks

  A flutter tickled my heart as I flicked through them.

  Castle must’ve found the book at the cabin. Before the cabin, I’d searched through his bag for a flashlight. There had been no journal in his bag then. But the pictures sketched into this journal were of those weeks we’d spent together.

  The first sketch snatched me back to the lake. Just the lake, with the edge of the woods hugging it too close. The next was the cabin, sketched in pale greys and a hint of black crayon.

  I turned the page.

  A grimace twisted my face and I sucked in a breath. Any questions I’d ever had about how Castle had killed Billy were answered on that page. And though the image staring back up at me was so gruesome that I had to look away, I understood why he drew it. Revenge—for the pictures Billy had taken of his victims.

  Castle saw beauty in revenge. Or would he think of that as poetic justice?

  That night at Toys for Boys marked a shift between us. The drawing was that mark. Billy’s death had brought us closer together. Shame should flood me at the realisation, but I only feel the flutter in my heart travel down to my curling toes.

  That mark showed on the next page.

  It took some squinting before the lines merged together in my mind and I saw the picture for what it was. Our feet—wrapped in socks, poking out from a blanket with the Jeep’s trunk door as the rough backdrop. The first night we’d slept so closely together. Entwined, like vines. That was the night we kissed.

  Then, I made a real appearance in the journal. Not my sock-clad feet, but my face.

  I ran my fingers over the pencil stains. Each line that made up my sleeping face was soft, curved, as if drawn from caresses between pencil and paper. That was how he saw me, or at least how he drew me. But even through his secret-artistic gaze, he drew truth.

  Drool was sketched onto my chin, tangled hair bunched beneath my head, my mouth was agape and hung to the side, and my cheek scrunched against a pillow.

  I’m not a pretty sleeper.

  I snuck in more and more with each page I turned, until I became every page. Over half of the books was filled with just me, mostly at ordinary times doing ordinary things.

  Me. Reading a magazine. Asleep with Cleo on my arm. Standing on the road, my gun at my side, facing Zoe. Shooting a rifle from a rooftop. Sobbing in the restricted RV. Then memories that flared my body with pain.

  Me on the sofa-bed, recovering, knocked out cold by the morphine. And the sketch that dropped my heart to my bum and parted my lips. Leo and I, gazing at each other.

  Castle drew something in that shared gaze. He drew love. That’s what he saw in Leo and I, so it’s what he drew.

  I felt sick. I swallowed back bile as it all sank in.

  Castle thinks I’m in love with Leo.

  I tried to replay it all in my mind. After the cargo-fiasco, after everything, we distanced ourselves—because he’d been using me. He’d told me as much, hadn’t he?

  I wasn’t sure anymore. The pills muddled my mind, fogged my brain, and scrambled my memories. Nothing but faint outlines and shadows swam under my skull, not unlike the pictures on my lap.

  I shut the book and fumbled with the string. Prying into Castle’s mind wasn’t something I was ready for. I’d jumped in too soon. My fingers shook, my hands suddenly clammy, and I couldn’t see through the sting in my eyes.

  I wanted to run back to my room. But I didn’t get that chance.

  The book was swiped from my hands.

  I sucked in a breath and looked up into green, glacier eyes. Icebergs. Cold and sharp on the surface, dark and deadly beneath. Never before had so much outrage twisted his face or blazed behind the icebergs.

  I couldn’t look away. His glare glued me to the spot.

  Castle was torn. He huffed a breath of disbelief and threaded his fingers through his hair. Then he turned his back on me and—I flinched as he pitched the book at the wall.

  Heart racing, I whispered, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have … I stopped, but …”

  What could I say? I’d looked at most of the book. And if I’d ever caught him reading my diaries … The mere thought churned my stomach.

  With his back to me, Castle kept his fingers threaded through his hair and steadied his torn breaths. I watched his hands slide out of my sight and down his face. The air stayed trapped in my throat as he dropped his hands.

  Facing the wall, he asked in a tired voice, “Why is it so hard for you to keep to your own business?”

  I got the feeling it was a rhetorical question. My gaze landed on the floor and I bunched up my hands.

  “You had no right to touch that,” he said, his voice breaking—cold, hard anger revealed beneath the cracks. “You have no right to half the stuff you do.”

  “Why do you draw me?” The strangled question blurred out from my unwilling lips.

  I heard his scoff of disbelief before he turned to slice me with his stare. I couldn’t bear to look at him.

  “Why did you let me think you were pregnant?” he threw back at me.

  He drew back until the desk touched him.

  My fingers dug into the edge of the bed and I dared a look up at him. The sheer intensity of his eyes hit the air out of my lungs. I had no more lies to tell.

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head, the itch of a tear tickling my cheek. “It happened and then … We all just got so busy and … Maybe I didn’t want to tell you the truth.”

  “I’m beginning to think truth is a foreign concept to you, Winter,” he said quietly.

  I wiped at my cheeks. They were wet again within seconds. A stream had started, unlocked, and I couldn’t rein it back in.

  “What I did was fucked up,” I admitted. “But that whole superior bullshit isn’t gonna work, Castle. You’re a liar as much as I am. More, even.”
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  Castle let defeat slump his shoulders. He bowed his head and set his jaw, hard.

  “Both of you have been lying to me since day one,” I said through a snivel.

  Shadows stretched up his dark expression. “Leave Leo out of this. Right now, this is between you and I.”

  “What’s there to say?” My face twisted under the threat of sobs. “Now that you don’t need me anymore, I just figured we’d stay out of each other’s way.”

  The dark expression turned ugly as he curled his lip into a smirk-sneer hybrid. “And into the way of others?”

  Confused, I just frowned at him.

  The sneer drifted from his lips, leaving a bitter smirk in its place. “Adam told me how busy you’ve been, making friends.”

  “Don’t,” I hissed. “Don’t be that guy. I ruined Mason’s cheesecake, I apologised, and that’s all there is to it.” I bowed my head, ignoring the strands of peachy hair that fell over my face. Leo’s implications echoed in my mind, his roundabout way of calling me a slut when he realised I’d been with Castle. The memory gritted my words; “Don’t be like Leo just because your ego’s bruised.”

  Silence met me in answer.

  I sniffed back snot and used my sleeve to wipe at my eyes.

  Castle chewed on his thoughts. It wasn’t until he looked at the wall that he managed to spit out those thoughts into words. “When it comes to you, Winter, I never know what to think or expect. You’re harder to read than I’d ever imagined.”

  I hid behind my sleeves, tugged over my hands, and smiled a grotesque smile. “I can’t do this.”

  Though my hands muffled my words, panic surged between us both. Tears gathered at the back of my throat; I swallowed them down.

  Castle saw me cry, but he didn’t get to see the breakdown that swept through me.

  “I’m barely holding on,” I finished in a whisper. “Being here changed nothing for me. I’m empty. I feel … dead.”

  Why is it that with Castle, truths I hadn’t even realised came spilling out of me? I might not be the key anymore, but he has one to my secrets.

  After a beat, Castle spoke softly—as softly as he could with undercurrents of storms roughening his voice. “Are you taking the pills?”

  “Of course you know about those,” I groaned into my hands.

  “They were prescribed at my suggestion.”

  “Oh?” My hands slapped to my lap, leaving my blotchy, wet face bare. “And when did you become a qualified psychiatrist? When did you think it was your right to control my medical treatments?”

  “A minute or so after our talk on the stoop.” His response was firm, unyielding. No apology or shame. “They will help you. Depression is a serious condition, to you especially.” He jerked his head to my stomach, where my wound was bandaged tight behind my top. “When it comes to you and your mindset, I’m more concerned about your mental health than that bullet wound.”

  I pressed my hand to my stomach and looked up at him from behind clouded eyes. “Why do you even care?”

  Castle tore from the table and advanced on me. “Do you want to get into this?”

  No. But instead of voicing that, I shrugged and turned my gaze down.

  “Fine,” he said. “I care because when I first met you, I despised you. I thought you were stupid, inconsiderate, rebellious and entitled.” He held up his hand. “No, not entitled—spoilt. To me, you were a spoilt brat, too nosy for your own good.”

  I glowered up at him. “How did you become this charming?”

  Castle ignored me. “The day I realised why Leo brought you into the circle, the attack separated the group. I was stuck with you.”

  My tears still leaked, but they’d turned to tears of anger. Glare glued to his face, I clenched my jaw and endured the sudden rush of rage that ached to kick him between the legs.

  “I came to know you,” he said, as if admitting to a terrible crime. He lifted his shoulders lightly and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I learned that you’re stubborn and infuriating and proud. Never in my life have I met anyone as nosy as you, or as naively cunning. You set expectations of yourself low, then surprise everyone around you with how devious you can be.”

  “So this is honesty hour, is it?” I arched my brow. “All right, my turn. I hated you then, and I hate you now. I would take another bullet if it meant smacking the crap out of your arrogant face. But I’m not jumping into tangents about it, am I?”

  I do, though. In my diary. But that doesn’t count.

  “The point,” spat Castle, “is that my …”

  He paused to take a deep breath that filled his lungs and puffed out his chest. It was almost as though he was about to do something nerve-wracking, like jump out of a plane or swim with rotters.

  “Do you recall what I told you at the auto-shop?”

  I looked at him blankly. “You told me a few things there, some of them lies no doubt.”

  “One thing in particular was true,” he said. “It was true then, and it still is today.”

  I only managed a shrug and frustrated, glassy stare.

  Castle dragged his hand down his face. “Are you going to make me say it?”

  “Say what?” I snapped. “All you ever say is a whole bunch of nothing! You’re wasting my time, so speak or I’m out.”

  His pregnant pause jolted with panic. With a huff, I slid off the bed and stretched out my sore stomach. Before I could turn for the door, Castle moved in front of me and blocked my way.

  “Damnit, Winter,” he muttered. “Since after the cabin … my feelings turned on me. I’d been trying to figure you out and keep you close enough so you wouldn’t kill yourself … and while doing that, I fell into your trap.”

  “My trap.” I scoffed. If I had such a thing, Castle is the only man to have ever commented on it, or ‘fallen into’ it.

  “Leo came back” continued Caste. “The moment he did, you pulled away.”

  I took a step closer and jabbed my finger against his chest. “I did no such thing,” I hissed. “You know exactly what happened, and it wasn’t Leo.”

  Castle’s voice rose; “I waited for you by that RV when he came back. You walked past me as if I wasn’t there at all. Without a word, you turned your back on me. The next time I saw you, you’d ripped off Leo’s shirt and directed your fit at me. You disobeyed orders in place for a reason, broke into the restricted RV, and in there …” He hesitated, then growled his next words, “You looked at me with utter hatred and disgust.”

  I choked on a watery laugh. “That’s not fair, Castle. It was much more than that.”

  “Yes, I lied to you.” He spat the words at me. “The same way you lied to me about your pregnancy and how you would choose me over Leo. When you made that promise to me, you lied. That’s the difference, Winter. Never did I lie to you about what was happening between us. My lies revolved around my duties.”

  My chest heaved with anger; a hot flush gathered at my cheeks as I breathed those shaky words at him; “I remember, Castle. I remember when I woke up in that caravan, bleeding to death, and I saw you.”

  He blanched and looked at the wall.

  “You were bored.” My voice squeaked out of its whisper, and my hands trembled at my sides. “You stood there, wrapping a bandage around your hand, and watched me almost die like I was nothing. So you know what you can do?” I swallowed back a thick sob and stepped around him. “You can shove your lies up your ass where they came from. Though, I’m not sure you’ll find room, what with the stick already up there.”

  Without a backwards glance, I stormed out of the room and left him to marinate in his anger. I had too much of my own to tame.

  Castle didn’t try to stop me.

  A BREATH OF NATURE

  ENTRY TWENTY-ONE

  Even with the drowsy effects of the pills, the days grew increasingly harder to get through. Some days, I let the knocks at the door go unanswered (Summer would let herself in any time she pleased). Then came the days that the pill
s picked me up and took me out of my room.

  That morning, a week into the CDC, Vicki dropped off Cleo before she went to spend the whole day in the ICU with Mac. He was waking up, slipping in and out.

  I took Cleo to breakfast and sat her on the chair beside me. Some of the white coats shot me dirty looks for having a dog at the dinner table with me, but if they’d spent a few minutes in the world outside with our group, they would have learned that hygiene and proper manners died a long time ago.

  Castle sat a few seats away from me with the other deltas. It was difficult to ignore the sheer burn of his constant stare on me—a stare so fierce that it scared off the others from talking to me.

  I ate alone, as I normally did. I’m ok with that … most of the time.

  But that day, I felt a little starved for company, so it was a relief when I bumped into Mason in the partition corridor (the one that separates the residential wing from the other wings).

  Mason was quick to kneel and greet Cleo. He grinned up at me.

  “You’re up and about,” he observed. “A good day, then?”

  “Would be better if I could find Summer,” I said. “Do you know what corridor her room is in?”

  Mason’s lopsided grin dazzled from his mocha skin. “White coats live in a nicer wing,” he said, rubbing Cleo’s head. “They’ve got a garden and working pool.” At my raised brow, he added, “This place was built for an outbreak or a war. With all the resources here, human lives can be sustained for over a century. How can that be done without a pool?”

  I didn’t laugh at his joke. Instead, I squeaked my plimsole against the hospital-like floor. Linoleum, I think it’s called.

  “Why not ask Corporal Hill to let you through?” he asked.

  I rested my shoulder on the wall. “Can he do that?”

  Mason laughed to himself. “Corporal Hill can do whatever he wants. He’s the only high rank around here still in the Common Halls.”

  I assumed the Common Halls were the residential corridors, but …

  A crease knitted my brows together. “The deltas are high ranking?”