She stared at him and wished vaguely that she could slap that satisfied look off his face only because it was so irritating. Then, as the full realization of what had happened went through her brain, she pushed up on her elbows and made herself sit up. Pain zinged through her scalp like a thousand nasty beestings. “You . . .” It took an immense effort just to swallow. “You what?” She managed to swing her legs over the side of the cot on which she was lying. When she found her footing, somehow Violet got herself in an upright position. “You stupid, stupid son of a bitch!” Fury rammed through her, but she wasn’t sure what was stronger—her rage or the monstrous ache in her head. She reached automatically for her hair and found it covered by a bandage, then she balled up her fists and tried to hit Garth. Surprised, he dodged out of the way. “I was there!” she cried. She flailed at him again, but her strength wasn’t there yet, she was still in too much pain to be effective; he avoided her next swing, then caught her by the wrists and let her rant. “I was fucking there, and you brought me back!”
Garth’s expression twisted into something she couldn’t read—pain, regret, she didn’t know what. He let go of her wrists and she grabbed him by the collar and pushed him backward, using her weight to slam him against the wall. She felt the vibration run through the incision in her scalp, and it was just another ugly, jolting reminder that she was still alive. Garth grunted as the breath got knocked out of his lungs, but he didn’t try to defend himself or push her away. “Why?” Violet demanded. “Why? Explain that to me!”
His blue eyes were wide and this close, Violet could see that now he was nearly crying. “Isn’t it—” he began, then shook his head as his voice choked. His voice was thick with anguish as he tried again. “Isn’t it obvious?”
She glared at him, eye to eye, then flushed and released her hold on his shirt. Her hands fell to her sides as she stepped back and her gaze on him changed into dismay. Dear God—
He was in love with her.
TWENTY-TWO
She and Garth faced each other outside the truck as she got ready to leave for the last time. He kept trying to meet her eyes, to pin her down with his pain-filled gaze, but Violet wouldn’t do it—she knew better. Instead, Violet looked to the left, to the right, at the ground, up at the beautiful, star-filled night sky. Seeing that sky was nearly as painful—it would have been better had it been full of clouds, heavy thunderclouds ready to spit lightning and spill cold, cold rain on them both. To stand beneath a sparkling blanket of heaven with a man, a good one, who loved her, but whose love she could never return—God, Violet would have rather gone through the pain of dying again. And really, that wasn’t so far off.
Finally, she gritted her teeth and let her eyes meet his. Instead of holding it, his gaze dropped to the meta-crystal he’d finally convinced her to wear; he reached over and touched it, and when Violet glanced downward, she saw that only the smallest sliver of white remained on one edge. Garth had performed a miracle in bringing her back, but even his miracle had its limitations.
“Violet,” Garth said hoarsely, “since you left with the boy, I’ve been working like crazy. Just like . . . crazy.” When she tried to glance away again, his fingers reached out and gently steered her face back to look at him. “What that kid wrote down . . . there’s something there. I can see it, and maybe if you just stuck around—”
She shook her head and looked away again, staring at the ground. She didn’t have to say the words for him to know that she would not be talked out of leaving. Not this time, not anytime. She’d lost too much, and she couldn’t rebuild this time. If she did . . . well, it was nothing but a never-ending cycle of loss. She couldn’t go through that again, even if she were able to survive. Especially if she could.
Garth’s fingers had been resting on her forearm, and now he let them slide down so he could grasp her hand. His fingers squeezed hers gently and she could feel the desperation in them, the want. “In all the time I’ve known you,” he said mournfully, “why won’t you ever let anyone in?”
This time Violet did meet his gaze, didn’t look away or try to downplay anything. “Because,” she said simply, “these moments, as beautiful as they are? They’re fucking evil when they’re gone.” She inhaled deeply, feeling the chilly air seep into her lungs and spread outward from there, like energy radiating from a power cell into a machine. She nodded at him, then eased her hand out of his and turned her back.
Without saying good-bye, Violet disappeared into the night.
It was a stupid, stupid thing, but it had never occurred to Violet that they would have told her husband she was dead.
In retrospect, she’d been an idiot. Of course they would have done that—he was like a bulldog when he set his mind to something, and it would have been the only thing that could have stopped him from hounding them about releasing her. It would have also, at least in his mind, if not justified that made him accept the reason they had killed their son. She could almost hear the lies they would have made up, perhaps about how she had been one of the alpha victims and the virus hadn’t strengthened itself fully yet, and so she had succumbed more easily, more quickly than the Hemophage victims who came later. He would have never dreamed that she could not only recover but escape the clutches of the ArchMinistry—
Just as she had never considered he might move on.
Time had been . . . different for her back then, a blur of faceless people and vaguely colored images, the stream of overhead fluorescent lights that looked like the white and colored ribbons of light in time-lapse photographs taken of congested city highways. Somewhere in that mental muddle she had gained strength and started struggling against it on her own, managing to avoid her medication just enough so that awareness could creep back in, then more and more. Not swallowing her pills, honing her acting skills so that even the experienced nurses couldn’t tell that the slack-faced, dull-witted patient really hadn’t been taking the medicine like an obedient little zombie. As time returned to normal, the waiting became agony, the time spent lying in absolute stillness beneath the stark white hospital sheets a form of torture she wouldn’t have wished on anyone. Hers was a world of white anonymity, where no one—doctors, nurses, aides—talked about anything other than medications and the virus,where nothing was decorated to denote the passing of seasons or holidays and windows were a long-ago fantasy. It wasn’t until later, much later, that Violet would discover that it hadn’t been months since her incarceration and her son’s murder, but years,and that the rest of the world, her uninfected husband included, had accepted her “death” and gone on about their business.
Their old apartment was empty, and the only indicator that the building hadn’t been simply abandoned was a faded yellow real estate sign that hung askew in the bottom corner of the living-room window—
FOR SALE! PRIME LOCATION!
While that should have been a major clue, back then—especially because she’d just regained her freedom—Violet had still been full of that crazy stuff called hope and belief and love. Undaunted, she’d headed back to the medical center, careful to stay camouflaged and away from the security teams and police. She wasn’t going to go inside—never that—but if she had learned nothing else from her imprisonment at the ArchMinistry, she had learned patience. So Violet waited, seated in the shade of one of the ancient, massive oak trees that lined the walkway outside the main entrance. It was actually nice, just to sit there and enjoy the smells of the leaves and bushes, of the recently mowed grass, to take in the sight of people dressed in something other than hospital whites and isolation suits. It didn’t take long—not going by what most people would have called that anyway—but Song jat had come out with too many other people, several other doctors and nurses. It had been impossible for Violet to approach because they’d moved to the parking area in a cluster and to follow would have forced her to walk past the parking lot’s security checkpoint; there was nothing she could do but watch as her husband got into a black Mercedes-Benz and drove away . .
. but not before Violet had a chance to jot down the license plate number.
With a little research—automobile license information was public, if you knew where to find it—Violet had her husband’s current address. She didn’t wait around or dwell on whether she should or shouldn’t try to contact him. There was no question involved here: Song jat was her husband, her partner, her soul mate—the man with whom she’d once stood before God and their family and friends and pledged to spend eternity. The companion she’d breakfasted with each morning, the lover with whom she’d conceived a child. She’d meant forever back then, and she still did.
The address led her to a house in an upper-class neighborhood, an area a lot more ritzy than she and Song had been able to afford when they were together—that was good, because it meant his career was going well. The new house, which was second in from the cross street, was a little older, one of the classier ones around and built in the style of a Swiss chalet in a white and chocolate color scheme. Three stories and probably a basement, one of those tri-century dwellings of the reproduction period that had been refurbished with solar power to meet the modern energy and environmental requirements. It stood on a large lot but property was still a precious commodity, so it was fairly close to the sidewalk, probably to save yard room for the back, where it really counted. Violet couldn’t help grinning as she imagined a patio with repro-Adirondack furniture and a fancy gas grill—he’d always loved to cook out.
The familiar kind of oak trees made a wall on either side of the lot and separated the property, throwing shade onto the sides of the house but leaving the front open to the cooler northern exposure. That meant the backyard would be bright and splashed with sun in the afternoons, and the thought made Violet’s stomach twist a bit as she realized this was something she would never be able to truly share with Song. Had he put in a covered patio? It didn’t matter; they would still have plenty of other good things in their life together. It might take a little effort to keep her hidden, but he was intelligent, well connected, and affluent, so Song would find ways to do it. After all, he loved her.
Violet made sure her sunglasses were in place, then turned onto the walk that led to the front door. She’d taken no more than four steps when the front door swung open and Song stepped outside. Her heart skipped a beat—he looked so handsome, just as he had the last time she remembered seeing him! His hair was still dark, free of the silver that had peppered his father’s hair at a much younger age, and he’d clearly worked to keep himself fit and strong while she’d been in the hospital. She’d almost been afraid to see him for the first time, worried that he’d let himself go as so many people often did when a family member had a serious illness and they spent all their time at the hospital—she’d seen it hundreds of times back when she’d been a nurse.
He stopped on the porch and he was already smiling. Violet lifted her arm to wave but the return smile forming on her lips froze as he turned back toward the still-open door and ushered more people out of the house. Her hand wavered in the air and dropped back to her side as two small girls ran out on the porch. An instant later they were followed by a pretty young woman whose blond hair was cut in a short, expensive style that framed her face and accented her large eyes. Even from her position at the end of the walkway, Violet could see they were a startling bright green.
Everything in the world was abruptly blotted out except for the four people on that front porch. It was the perfect family picture—husband, wife, two beautiful children, framed by painted white posts on either side of a small front porch. Rosebushes bloomed on each side of the porch, the grass was green and lush, the heavily leafed oak trees rustled in the breeze. It was all so right.
Except it was also so very, very wrong.
Violet was paralyzed, trapped in place by her sudden inability to think, or breathe, or do anything. She wanted to run forward and shove the woman aside but she couldn’t; she wanted to backtrack, erase her steps and what she was seeing, pretend it had never happened at all and that she had decided to let Song jat Sharif go on about his life and the business of believing she was dead. But she couldn’t do that either, she couldn’t undo. She couldn’t do anything but stand there and stare stupidly forward with her mouth open as everything she had looked forward to—everything she had hoped—since her escape from the hospital disintegrated and burned away in the bright light of real life.
The girls, who were perhaps ages three and four, were laughing and dancing around their grinning father, then one of them glanced over and saw her. She stopped and tilted her head quizzically, and that movement, that tiny gesture, was enough to catch her father’s attention and make him follow her gaze.
Oh no.
Too late—her eyes met Song’s and his widened in astonishment and the realization of what—who—he was seeing made him jerk. His face drained of color and his mouth worked, and finally Violet managed to break her paralysis and start backing away.
“My God . . .” The slight breeze carried his shocked voice on the air currents and she heard it all the way out on the walkway, even though she was already nearly back on the sidewalk. “Vi?”
The woman on the porch had grabbed the two girls and was staring not at Violet but at Song, her expression a tortured mix of disbelief and pain. As Violet’s had done years earlier, her life and everything in it was crumbling right in front of her eyes, destroyed in a single instant by the appearance of someone who, at least to her, was a complete stranger.
Violet could not let that happen.
“Violet!” Song screamed and bolted down the porch steps.
She turned and broke into a run.
“VIOLET!”
And that last bellowing of her name would be her final memory of the marriage between her and Song jat Sharif.
TWENTY-THREE
Violet had been in cruddier places, although at this particular moment, she really couldn’t recall when.
This one was called the Contemplation Motel, which was an interesting name considering her state of mind. She hadn’t realized that when she’d checked in—the stuttering LED sign on the corner just said M TEL, and it was obvious that the O hadn’t worked in years. The tiny set of rooms was in a bad pocket of old housing just to the southwest of Chicago’s downtown area, an eight-block square that the city’s aldermen either hadn’t gotten around to cleaning up or had used the funds appropriated for it to spend on other items of, shall we say, “significant” need. Those things probably included nice little powerboats on which to cruise Lake Michigan in the summertime, memberships in the exclusive Standard Club, or dinners at Tru’s Restaurant or Spiaggia, where two hundred bucks was barely enough to get two people started on the way to the main course. Maybe the Contemplation Motel had once been an okay joint—it had sure never been as much as a two-star—but now it was a second home for synthetic drug traffickers, the streetwise ones who were at the midstep level, past the rookies who were getting started but proudly driving their first high-end automobile. The parking lot was a moving picturama of Mercedes, Jags, and the occasional Lexus, but at this point, the dealers still had to ferry themselves around; add three more years—if they didn’t get gunned down by another dealer or the drug force—and everybody in the lot would have a driver and a bullet-resistant limo. And, of course, they’d be plying their trade a long way from the Contemplation.
Violet’s room was . . . well, nasty. The sheets were gray and clearly not washed, and it stank of cigarette smoke and old sex. She found a couple of clean towels hanging in the bathroom and spread those on top of the bedspread before she sprawled onto it, flipped on her back, and stared at the ceiling. Like the walls, it was dirty and cracked, with black spots of mildew along the edges and old, dust-filled spiderwebs clumped in the corners. Cockroaches had been wiped out before she was born, but Violet had no doubt that this was exactly the sort of room in which they’d bred and fed in abundance. She’d seen pictures of them back in medical school because of the diseases they’d spread, and
she could imagine them scuttling along the baseboards and searching for water in the tiny, greasy bathroom. She’d gone in there and caught a hazy glimpse of herself in the spotted mirror—tangled hair that barely covered Garth’s stitchery, bleary, shadowed eyes—but she hadn’t cared enough to clean herself up.
Next to Violet on the bedspread, which was made of some kind of coarse, unidentifiable material in a horribly outdated and dark pattern, was her cell phone, and for at least the fifth or sixth time, the damned thing began ringing. It made a tinny, insistent ding, but Violet didn’t move—she kept her gaze on the ceiling and ignored the phone, too tired to even reach for it to shut off the oh-so-annoying sound. She could feel her hair—unwashed for several days now, it was dirty and tangled and matted with blood on the bottom layer—tickling the back of her neck, but the sensation wasn’t at all pleasing. As she thought about that on top of everything else, the phone finally stopped ringing, and once more a sweet, extremely calm silence moved in to take its place. Oddly enough, the noise of the traffic was muffled in here . . . or maybe that wasn’t strange at all, given the extra-insulated dark curtains and the heavy-duty steel door installed. Rah-rah for the hotel management—clearly they were up on protecting their chosen clientele from unwanted visitors . . . or at least giving them time to hightail it out the tiny bathroom window. After all, the motel’s clientele was clearly important to them—who else but people who didn’t want to be found would stay in a place like this?
Her cell phone began ringing again and Violet sighed but still made no move to answer it. She thought about breaking the thing, then dismissed the idea—that would take energy, and will, and she had precious little of either. There was, perhaps, just enough left of each to do what she had to do, that one thing that was irreversible—provided Garth didn’t know where she was—and which would give her what she desired the most.
Ultraviolet Page 21
