by Isla Jones
Adam cut in; “We’re supposed to be keeping a low profile here.”
The glare Castle touched him with even made my toes curl. Yet, Castle didn’t argue. Teeth clenched, he shut his eyes and took a deep breath through his flared nostrils. As he tried to find some scraps of patience for me, Adam pushed from the wall and doused the argument between Castle and me with just words.
“Recovering Leo should be our first priority.” Adam paused to throw me an unreadable look. “We can detain Dr Miles until we agree on what to do with her.”
It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, or even promising enough to feed me hope. But it was enough to make Castle nod stiffly. Then, without sparing me a glance, he handed me a gun.
Not a minute later, we left the closet and crept through the sterile halls to where I was sure Leo was being kept. That was the easy part. But I knew … the hard part was yet to come.
Curses and blessings come in all shapes, colours and sizes.
Sometimes, they come masked as each other. I’m still unsure which one Castle and Leo were. Life itself could be either.
When we made it to that thick security door without bumping into Summer, I couldn’t tell whether or not that was a curse in blessed wrappings. Time—as it always did—would tell.
We’d passed two soldiers on the way, not far from the closet we’d taken refuge in. There mustn’t have been a hit out on the deltas yet, because the soldiers had hardly spared us more than a glance or two.
Still, Castle and Adam take no chances.
I looked away while they did it.
Two quick snaps of the necks, a heaped thump … silence.
Life is fickler than my conscience—a conscience that seemed to have drowned under the faucets.
At the door, I rounded on the panel and looked over my shoulder at the deltas behind me. Castle held my stare, unwavering. He wasn’t going to look away. I pushed closer to the panel and swiped the card. Cupping my hand, I shielded the code from his steady gaze.
There were some things I trusted Castle with. My life, for example. Then there were others things … like my sister’s life and the code to her card.
The door groaned before it swung open to the blinding fluorescents beyond. I frowned under the horrid lights.
Guns raised, Castle and Adam swept inside without even a blink.
I wasn’t as trained. I rubbed my sore eyes and shuffled in after them. The door re-bolted shut behind us, making me jerk a little. Castle looked back at me, a flicker of a question on his face.
“I’m ok.” My mumbled words were followed by the squeak of my wet shoes as I hurried closer to them.
The three of us kept tight down the wide hall.
Most of the rotters from before were still inside their secured rooms. I spotted Noah, the cargo-boy, and the doctor who Summer had blamed for the outbreak within the CDC. Though, now that I knew how much she’d lied about, I suspected she’d infected him on purpose to gain control.
The reminder of the infected sergeant only strengthened my theory.
Castle stopped at the sergeant’s window. I’d forgotten to tell Castle about him…
“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, he’s infected. Um, Summer didn’t want me to tell you because that means—”
“I have rank,” he finished to himself.
A spark of something burned in his eyes. A curse or a blessing yet to form.
We moved ahead, straight to the end of the hall until we all stopped at the window to the left.
There he was. Worse than I’d expected. Weak.
The sight of him silenced all three of us. It turned us into statues and we all just … stared.
I blinked out of my horrified daze and dragged myself to the glass door.
Inside, Leo didn’t look up. He stayed slumped against the wall, knees drawn to his chest, head in his bloodied and bruised hands. Whatever they’d done to him, he’d tried to stop it. He’d fought, hard. The tears on his skin said as much, and the white pants he wore were shredded in some places, stained with the red of his blood. Or someone else’s.
My gaze refused to leave his defeated posture.
I raised my hand and balled it into a fist, but I hardly remember knocking against the thick glass. It wasn’t thick enough to silence my knock.
Leo stirred.
Lazily, he lifted his head and looked up. He might’ve moved in a way that told of agony and defeat, but his eyes burned so darkly that my heart jumped up to my throat.
A whisper of relief came from my lips as we locked gazes—with his eyes so dangerous and full of life.
We weren’t too late.
A BATTLE THAT KILLED ME
ENTRY TWENTY-EIGHT
Bolts of power jolted through us at the same time.
Just as he jumped to his feet, I rammed the card into the panel and punched in the code. Behind me, Adam took point for the entrance and Castle swept up to my back. He reached around me to whip open the door before Leo could stagger into it.
Instead, Leo staggered into me.
The force of his sagged weight almost took me off my feet. My shoes squeaked against the floor, but before the floor could rise up to hit me, Leo’s arms locked around me, tight.
I stood rigid for a moment, then, slowly, I wrapped my arms around his scarred waist.
“For once,” he rasped into my ear, “I condone your sneakiness.”
A smile tugged at my lips as I peeled myself from his hold. “You’re welcome.”
Castle took my place and pulled Leo into him.
That one shared hug yanked me back to reality.
As surreal as it felt watching them embrace, it was the truth right in front of me. A reminder. Leo and Castle were friends—they’ve been friends for years, long before they even worked together. Sometimes, I might’ve felt caught between them, but no matter what happens, who or what I choose, they’ll be friends until their final breaths.
Through the sudden realisation, I have to admit, I felt weight being lifted from my shoulders. Their embrace vanished a worry I hadn’t even known I’d had. But then, it wasn’t long before another worry took its place—
“Someone’s coming.” Adam’s sharp voice cut through the hall.
I traced his focused stare to the door where the blinking light stopped flickering. Someone was using the panel on the other side. Before I could react, Castle snatched my arm and shoved me into the rotter room.
A grunt came from me as I tumbled inside. I made to round on him, but the groan of the entrance stopped me.
In the hall, Castle shoved a gun into Leo’s hand and—a mere second of thick tension swallowed the world whole.
The silence shattered. Gunfire erupted in the hall.
I threw myself against the wall on instinct, the aches of healed wounds guiding me. My arms caged my head like a helmet, so tight that I couldn’t steal a peek at the hall.
Even when the shots stopped firing, I stayed rigid until warm hands pried my arms apart and I found myself looking into eyes the colour of ripe frosty apples.
“Who was it?” I whispered, almost too afraid to hear the answer.
Castle lingered his fingers over my wrists. “Dr Wong and a pet soldier.”
“They’re dead?”
The only answer he offered me was a single, unapologetic nod. The tight set of his jaw betrayed a whisper of unease. Did he fear I would judge him for it, I wondered?
I slipped my hands into his. “Ok.”
Our gazes stayed locked, even with the small temptation that tried pulling my stare to Leo at the door.
“Please don’t kill her,” I said. “I know you want to, but … I’m asking you to think about what I want. If you kill her—” I shook my head, ignoring the scoff of incredulity by the door. “—I’ll never forgive you. I couldn’t.”
Castle squeezed my hands once, an answer that settled the stir of anxiety in my chest. He stood, taking me with him. His hands didn’t leave mine—they lingered a moment. I didn’t pull away.
In t
hose seconds, with Castle in front of me and Leo fuming at the doorway, a rash decision almost slipped from my tongue. I bit down on it and drew away before I could promise something that I wasn’t sure I could stick to.
As we walked out of the cell, I caught Leo’s harsh look aimed over my head at Castle. The forest storm in his eyes betrayed his thoughts. He wanted my sister dead for what she’d done to him. I understand that. I should have wanted the same thing after what she did to me. But then, could you do it?
Lives are never easy to take, even when it’s to protect yourself. That’s why I turned the other way whenever one of the deltas pulled the trigger.
Summer was different.
When I walked back out into that hall, I managed to overlook the bodies by the entrance. If one of those bodies had been Summer, I would’ve been brought to my knees. That’s the difference.
In the hall, both Adam and I looked to Castle for our next move. With Leo as banged up as he was, I doubted it was best he come with us to find Summer. Not to mention, the dangerous look in his eyes stirred unease in my tummy—I suspected he meant to kill my sister despite Castle’s silent promise. That couldn’t happen.
Hesitantly, I gestured to Leo. “Shouldn’t you … rest or something? Maybe sit this one out?”
I overstepped.
Eyes blazed all around me. The sneer that warped Leo’s face was so alien that it sent a chill down my spine. Through the cracks in his mask, I saw the side of Leo that he mostly hid from me. The side Castle wore without shame. The delta side.
I pointed square at Leo with a pruned, shaky finger. “No.”
It’s all I said. I didn’t need to say more; the swirls of fury in his molten eyes told me he understood. Only, they didn’t tell me he would listen.
֍
The corridors swept me back to the harsher days above. Days of creeping through the streets of ghost towns, clutching a weapon so close that it became a part of me.
Our footsteps treaded in unison, so softly that they made the quietest rhythm. A rhythm that thumped alongside my racing heart.
Those halls had never felt like such a maze before that day. We would turn a corner; my heart would jump expecting to see someone. A soldier, a white coat. Anyone. But each time we veered off into other hallways, there was nobody blocking our way.
They mustn’t have realised yet that I wasn’t dead, that Leo had escaped, and that blood had already spilled. We marched through the ghost halls until—a door ahead opened. And I knew it in my gut that it was her. A curse or a blessing, it didn’t matter. Because either way, it was time.
I heard the hum of her low voice before I saw her.
Time stopped—for me. Not for anyone else.
I stood, frozen in place, as Summer and Mason came into the hall and spotted us. My limbs wouldn’t obey, they wouldn’t move or flinch, not even as the sound of guns raising clacked all around me.
It wasn’t until she spoke that my entire world was obliterated alongside my heart.
“Winter,” she said, horrified. “How did you…” Her gaze cut to Leo before it settled on Castle. A fresh wave of frustration hardened her face. “How unfortunate.”
I heard a click—the sound of a gun’s safety switching off.
Eyes wild, I rounded on Leo. “WAIT!”
He didn’t wait. None of them waited. Leo fired first—then gunfire erupted all around me.
My cry of horror was drowned out in the blasts.
Before I could duck, hands grabbed me and threw me down to the floor. Legs barricaded me, a shield against the gunfire.
Cries and grunts carried over the blasts. I heard a thump.
Then, just as suddenly as it’d started, it stopped.
Even with the heavy breathing and muttered words above me, it was silent. Dead silent.
Slowly, I lifted my gaze to the one who shielded me. Castle, untouched by the blaze of bullets, stood over me. But as he looked down at me, I read the shards of panic in the coldest parts of his eyes. Sorrow—or fear. For me.
Summer.
She lay in a pool of blood ahead. Mason’s limbs tangled with hers, both sprawled out like broken demons. But one of those dead demons was my sister.
†
I can’t remember which came first. The scream from my sandpaper throat or the frantic scramble I made to reach her bullet-ridden corpse.
I didn’t make it.
My hands slapped into the crimson pool before I was lifted from the floor.
I only know it was Castle who carried me out of there—the familiar scent of his deodorant told me as much.
In his arms, I cried—I screamed the whole way back to my room. I would’ve told him to go to hell …
But we were already there.
†
This is part three.
The final part of my story.
A PLACE OF GRIEF
ENTRY TWENTY-NINE
It took weeks for me to leave Vicki’s room.
Cleo’s stink had grown so pungent that I just couldn’t stand it anymore, not even with Oscar’s daily visits with his bucket and cloth. Adam brought us meals.
Castle and Leo didn’t visit. I was glad for it.
Surprisingly, Adam became my outside source in those weeks. At first, I didn’t ask what was going on out there in the halls, he just told me pieces here and there with each meal delivery. He’d said that the soldiers and white coats had been divided into two groups. Those who pledged loyalty to the chain of command—the deltas—and those who didn’t.
The second group was a larger one. Though, I’m not sure how the deltas got them to admit where their true loyalties were. I just know, deep down in my gut, that those soldiers were killed.
Somehow, I was ok with that. Maybe I’d spent too much of my compassion and care already, and after Summer … I was simply tapped out. Empty.
On the day I finally left Vicki’s room, I thought that perhaps the garden or the farm might fill a piece of that hole inside of me. But the sealed door to the Lab Maze didn’t let me test my theory. No matter how many times I punched in Summer’s code, the door only beeped angrily at me. Eventually, I gave up and wandered to the kitchen instead.
Happy to be out of the room, Cleo trotted and panted at my feet. She stuck so close that her tail was like a miniature whip that whacked against my shins.
When I dipped through the kitchen door, I wasn’t surprised to find Oscar at the island counter running over some recipe sheets.
Cleo dashed between my feet and set to sniffing everything.
“Coffee,” was all I managed to say. I’d meant it as a request, but the way it choked out was rough and rude.
Oscar’s eyes remained filled with pity, and with pinched lips he brewed me a pot. When he pushed the warm mug into my hands, I muttered a hoarse ‘thanks’ and watched the dark liquid swirl in circles.
Oscar returned to his recipes.
Silence ticked by us. At every other second, I could feel his cat-like eyes cut to where I sat, perched on a chopping table.
After a while, Oscar asked, “How is my fabulous Victoria today?”
“Same as every other day.”
“She didn’t want to join you on your little outing?”
Join you.
He made it sound as though I’d done something that showed progress. All I’d done was wander away from Cleo’s stench.
I shook my head and watched Cleo try to paw out a scrap of lettuce from under a cabinet. It was the most stimulation she’d had in a long time.
“How many soldiers are left?” I blurted out the question before I could stop it.
A blink of hesitation passed over him before he sighed. “Twelve,” he said. “Two doctors. One assistant. Then us.”
A population of twenty-two all up. But the world’s population was unknown. More were out there in other CDCs, just like this one. All waiting to start again.
That was a problem for another time. A battle to be fought years from now. Decades, even.
“Have you picked up your badge yet?” Oscar asked lightly.
I looked up to see that he’d put Cleo on the island bench where she licked the edges of the recipe sheets.
“My what?”
“You’re credentials.” Oscar flicked an ID badge that was clipped to his studded belt.
Where had he found a studded belt, I wondered? All of our clothes had been incinerated on arrival.
“They’re being reissued,” said Oscar. “All new clearance levels. Castle has them.”
I sipped the coffee. “He could’ve brought mine to me.”
Oscar thinned his lips. “That’s a conversation you need to have with him.”
I wasn’t ready for that. A part of me blamed him for what happened. Castle had made me a promise, Leo had been the one to break it. Was that Castle’s fault? No. Still, I couldn’t stamp out that flicker of blame inside of me.
Oscar stroked Cleo’s head and fed her a small piece of liquorice. My nose crinkled.
“You should go see him,” said Oscar. “It might be worth your while.”
A frown wrinkled my forehead. “What d’you mean?”
Oscar gave a dainty lift of one shoulder. “That’s all I can say.”
I studied him with sharp eyes for a moment, then slid off the table. “Thanks for the coffee,” I said, placing the half-empty mug behind me. “But talking to Castle is something I’m not ready to do.”
The undertones of my stiff voice were plain and clear. It was my business and mine alone.
Oscar handed me Cleo with a tight smile. I took her and went straight back to Vicki’s room.
The stink of stale pee and sweat hit me like a punch to the senses. My face pinched in disgust. I kicked the door shut behind me and dropped Cleo on the bed. She dashed to Vicki who was curled up on the armchair, fiddling with her inhaler.
“Where were you?” she asked lazily.
“The kitchen.” I flopped down on the bed. “Oscar said everyone’s getting new ID badges.”
It was the only news I had, and it pulsed between us with a beat of excitement before it slapped to the floor like a wet fish. ID badges weren’t much of a conversation kicker. The truth is, we both found it hard to feel excited about anything anymore. The worst part of grief; the numbness of it all.
