The Plague Box Set [Books 1-4]

by Jones, Isla

  I shrugged him off and grabbed for my crutch.

  Vicki snatched it for me and hooked her arm through mine.

  “Let’s not,” I hissed and barged past him.

  Cleo followed us, and so did every pair of eyes in that room.

  16.

  Vicki’s room was opposite mine, two doors down. Room Seven. It was a complete copy of mine, from the basket of toiletries (including everything period-related) and the women’s underwear in the cupboard.

  They must’ve had specific rooms prepared for guests or employees who worked nights. Before the end, at least.

  In the corner, Vicki scrubbed another wee-patch Cleo had left for her. I watched from the armchair. It wasn’t as though I could help. As I watched, I wondered if there might come a time that we could build a small garden for Cleo, with fake grass and plastic flowers.

  Somehow, that bud of an idea didn’t strike me as a priority to the others.

  “Have you met Dr Wong?” I asked, picking at the woollen blanket draped over my legs.

  Vicki stopped scrubbing the floor and threw the cloth into the warm tub of water. Some soap suds splashed back at her. “I had a check-up with her last night. She did an ultrasound.”

  My finger froze, hooked through a loose thread. “And?”

  “And she confirmed what the tests said.” Vicki threw a look at the nightstand beside her bed. “The pills are in the drawer. I’ll take them tonight after dinner.”

  I managed a casual nod and pressed my lips together. She was in for a hell of a night. It isn’t a pleasant experience, but neither is an unwanted pregnancy.

  Vick washed out the bowl in the bathroom, then laid out a towel for Cleo. For a while, she pointed at it and looked straight at the indifferent Chihuahua. “Wee-wees,” she said and patted the towel. “Toilet, here.”

  Amused, I watched this go on for a while, but I knew it wouldn’t make a difference. Cleo did what she wanted, wherever she wanted. After all, she was born a stray, raised herself, linked up with me—a fellow stray—and then in a blink of an eye, the rotters were upon us all. Toilet training hadn’t quite happened before the chaos.

  Still, Vicki didn’t give up. I liked that about her. I’m a quitter, she’s a tryer.

  Tedium didn’t settle over us for another hour or so. It was then that Vicki forced me back out of the dorms and through the corridors. I refused to go back to the dining hall, so she took me to the ‘communal room’ a few corridors away from our own. Vicki seemed to have a sketched map of some areas near the dorms in her mind.

  ֍

  I wandered in behind her. There were no cheesecakes in here. A small cabinet was tucked in the corner with a kettle, some ceramic mugs, and a sink. On the other side of the room, three couches and a television made a square—the piles of DVDs at the bottom of the TV unit were all open and strewn about the floor. I hated that. A nostalgic pet-peeve from the other days.

  Vicki strolled to a bookshelf behind the long, grey couch and picked out a book at random. On the bottom shelf, some board games and playing cards were piled neatly. They didn’t look too used.

  As I followed Cleo around (she was on carpet sniff patrol), I asked, “Did you get a tour or something while I was asleep?”

  “Sort of,” she said, her back to me. “We’re allowed anywhere in the residential wing. Mostly, it’s just the dining hall, the dorms, and here. There’s a gym too.”

  Neither of our expressions sparked much excitement for a gym.

  Vicki apparently wasn’t keen on the black-covered book she’d picked. She stuffed it back into the shelf and huffed. “All of these are action novels.”

  “I have a few in my bag—” I paused, my brows knitting together. “Well, when they give me back my stuff, you can read what I have.”

  The offer wasn’t a grand one. All that my collection of five books would do would be to fill up hours dotted around Vicki’s days until she’d finished them. Then what? My gaze shifted to the DVD boxes. Con Air, Mission Impossible, Day of the Dead.

  My face turned grim.

  “There’s a pool.” Vicki clicked her fingers as if remembering something super important. At my lit-up face, she deflated. “There’s something wrong with the pump, though. Someone is fixing it, but it could take a while. When it’s open, you should use it—swimming would be great for your physical therapy.”

  I stretched a tight look over my face—it was meant to be a smile, but it sure didn’t feel like one. With a sigh, I turned my back on her and leaned against the window (through the drawn curtains were wedges of clouds and trees. A painted backdrop).

  So this was it, I thought. The safe-house. The sanctuary. The end of the road. I’d been there all of five minutes and I was already bored.

  Dr Wong cornered sometime after dinner—a dinner I refused to attend. She found me in the communal room, nibbling on stale cookies.

  Someone had told her about my outburst in the dining hall. I suspected Castle once she recommended sleeping pills to help me “transition”. Her word, not mine.

  Transition.

  Maybe that was what I needed to do. Maybe it was a matter of shock and the pills would help me fight off my “phase of depression”, whatever that means. I took them. I took the dosage she told me to.

  Still, the numb anger in me didn’t dissolve, and the boredom stayed victorious.

  I slept.

  17.

  I drifted in and out sleep, unable to hold on for too long at a time. Before a dream could suck me in, I was yanked out of it by the loud quiet around me.

  No one snored or played with cards, there was no Castle opposite me, no Vicki to check my wounds. Cleo had been snatched from me for the night by Vicki, so I didn’t even have her to hold onto as my anchor. There was nothing.

  Just me, alone.

  There was something the matter with those pills Dr Wong gave me. They made me drowsy, a bit out of it, dazed. I’d expected them to sink me into a sleep so deep that, when I woke up, all would be right within me.

  I guess that’s not how it works, not in this world or the one before.

  Sometime during the night, there was a sound that creaked through the room and stirred me. I peered through the only eye I could manage to pry open. A shadow stretched up the wall opposite, then vanished with the light from the corridor.

  “Vicki?” I groaned. “Is that you?”

  Footsteps drew nearer, soft and hesitant.

  Then came her whisper of a voice; “It’s me.”

  My heart stopped. Just for a moment, it froze and dropped right into my gut. Squinting into the dark, I tried to push myself up but the pills dragged me back down.

  The shadow inched closer to the edge of the bed.

  Each step stirred the bubbling pit of emotion within me. Then, the moment she slipped into the blankets with me, my entire face twisted and the bubbling pit couldn’t be contained any longer.

  Summer guided me down beside her.

  Brown eyes, so unlike my dull ones, sparkled through the shadows at me. They glittered with unshed tears and awe, boring straight into my own.

  “Shhh,” she hushed me gently, and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Go back to sleep, Winner. I’m here.”

  Winner…

  “It’s really you,” I breathed, eyes drifting shut.

  Was it her, I wondered? Or was it the pills? The thought shot a surge of panic through me and my hands shot out for hers.

  “It’s me,” she said, fingers entwining with mine.

  Summer and Winter Miles. Connected, once more.

  With each stroke of my hair and hush from her lips, my eyes fought harder to stay open, to gaze into her shimmery ones.

  We didn’t talk. We just held hands and looked at each other. I managed to stave off the pills’ effects longer than I’d hoped. But it was inevitable.

  I lost my fight and sleep swallowed me whole.

  I dreamt of Summer.

  *

  I whined all year for tha
t gift, and it was worth all the tantrums and tears.

  I pranced around the living room, waving my glittery wand, wearing the costume that everyone at school talked about. The wings were lace and the white halo that stood on a spring attached to my headband was made of white feathers. Dad made the halo for me. Mum bought the rest from the toy store.

  I was an angel.

  At least, I was an angel until Summer snatched the halo from my head and snapped it in two.

  “There’s no fun in being an angel,” she told me. “You should want to be a winner.”

  Before I could cry and tell on her, Summer stuck two pieces of the halo on her head to make horns.

  “See?” She grinned and handed me one of the horns. “Now we can both be winners.”

  My tears were wiped away before they could even leak. Summer knew best. Summer was older, she was smarter, and she never dressed up as an angel for her birthday.

  I wanted to be a winner. She wanted to be a sinner.

  *

  A gasp tore through me.

  I jerked up in the bed, eyes swerving to my right.

  The moment my wild eyes found her peaceful face, I let out a harsh breath. Summer was there, asleep, beside me. It hadn’t been a dream.

  I smiled and dropped back to my pillow. My gaze fed on her face. I had to study every wrinkle—she had one, from the way her face smooshed against the pillow—and flaw. Who am I kidding? Summer was flawless.

  If alive, our dad would call her a ‘stunner’. He’d reserved that word for mum and gorgeous actresses like Michelle Pfeiffer and Sharon Stone. The beautiful blondes.

  Summer wore mum’s face. She wore her fine nose, bowed lips, high cheekbones. And her hair. Silky strands curtained her heart-shaped face, a blonde so ashy that it seemed silver against the porcelain gleam of her skin. The only tint of dad on Summer’s face were her eyes—the sparkly kind of brown with golden flecks.

  I got dad’s freckles and orangish hair. ‘Strawberry blonde’ mum used to call it. Summer was just blonde—she won the genetic jackpot in our generation. The looks, the brains, the courage.

  And, if I’m perfectly honest, there was only one part of that I envied to my core. Not her beauty or her bravery—I was most jealous of her brilliant mind.

  *

  I screamed her name over and over, but they kept tearing us apart.

  Mum and dad were dead. Grandmama couldn’t look after us, said the lady in the suit. Summer and me had to be ripped apart.

  I fought it.

  Every arm that caged me in and tried to drag me to the black car, I fought against. My legs kicked out, my screams tore down the street. Some of Grandmama’s neighbours watched, but no one helped me get to Summer. They were taking her to a blue car. We should’ve been in the same car.

  Summer broke free.

  She raced toward me, her satchel smacking against her leg. The mean suit-lady ran after her, but Summer was on the track team at school. She was fast. I know, because I used to watch her practice from the stands and cheer her on.

  I was her number one fan.

  Summer slammed into me. My hands grabbed for her, to hold on tight. She yanked something out of her satchel and shoved it into my hands. Then, she clutched onto my cheeks, forcing me to meet her gaze.

  “Listen to me,” she said hoarsely. “It’s ok. It’ll be ok, Winner. It’s not for long—think of it like a vacation. Remember that time I went to summer camp and you missed me? But I came home, didn’t I?”

  I couldn’t see her through the fog in my eyes. “But m—mum a—nd … da…ad didn’t—”

  “I’m not mum and dad!” she snapped. “I’m Summer, and I’ll come back. Trust me. You have to trust me.”

  She squeezed my hand. I looked down at what she gave me. A piece of the halo. Suit-lady tried to peel Summer away from me, but Summer stabbed her with a piece of her halo.

  Summer turned back to me. “These horns will keep us connected. Always. No matter how far apart we are, we’re together when we have these.”

  I nodded, but my face still twisted with sobs.

  Two of the suits pulled Summer away from me.

  “What are we?” she shouted. “Look at me—what are we?”

  I snivelled and sagged against the stranger holding onto me. “Winners and Sinners.”

  *

  Summer’s familiar voice woke me that morning. Her singing voice always brought tears to my eyes. I’m over emotional, I know—but when Summer sang, even our parents would cry sometimes. When they were alive.

  She sang mom’s song.

  I shifted closer to her and held on so tight that she probably couldn’t breathe. Still, I held on like she would float away any moment.

  When Summer stopped singing, we swam in our silence a while. Then, she spoke in a raspy voice that spoke of her own tears; “I’ve always underestimated you, Winner.”

  I smiled against her arm, caught up at an odd angle between us. “Everyone does.”

  Like mom used to do, she ran her fingertips up and down my arm. It almost lulled me back to sleep.

  “What did you do to get here?” Summer whispered the question, as if afraid to ask it or hear the answer—and Summer was never afraid. Each inflection of her words jumped from hoarse to light; taut, like violin strings.

  Summer asked me so much more than that one question. She was asking me who I betrayed, who I killed, how I really managed to scrape my way across the states and live to admit to my wrongdoings.

  “I broke my halo,” I said.

  18.

  It must’ve been well into the morning, but neither of us wanted to leave the bed. We shared short tales of the outbreak—me, caught in the chaos; her, in a lockdown at work. I told her about everyone I met along the way.

  Summer is sharp. She noticed how lightly I touched on two deltas in particular. I’d given her a list of traits I hated in Adam, waffled on about Mac’s gentlemanly ways, but all I said about Castle and Leo was that, together, their names made up Cleo.

  “Those soldiers have quite the fixation on you,” she said with a knowing smile. “Castle and Leonardo.”

  Leonardo.

  It didn’t sound right.

  “It’s just Leo,” I said.

  Summer’s brown eyes shimmered like honey. She didn’t have to ask, her eyes told me that she’d already strung together her own theories. Still, she asked again; “What did you do to get here?”

  My grin tilted my face, crooked and tired. “You mean who did I do.”

  Summer laughed and gave an indifferent shrug. “I’ll take that as confirmation.”

  I know she was teasing, not shaming. It was just her way.

  Her hand found mine again and her smile slipped away. “I don’t embellish when I say they are fixated.” Her finger traced circles over the back of my hand, but her eyes searched mine for all my secrets. “Jo informed me that Castle was rather insistent about your medical treatment.”

  At my confused look, she rested her hand over mine.

  “Jo Wong,” she explained. “I believe you’ve met.”

  I nodded and picked at the crust in the corner of my eye. “Yeah, she did a check-up when I got here.”

  “More than a check-up from what I have heard.” Summer fixed me with a studious look. “Castle happens to think you’re pregnant, Winter. He had Jo perform an ultrasound.”

  “Oh…” I grimaced and shifted my gaze to her chin. “That.”

  “I read your results before I came to see you. We both know you’re not pregnant, and Jo mentioned that throughout the whole assessment, you didn’t alert her to a possible pregnancy.” She reached out to pluck stray strands of hair from my pale cheek. “Your friend, Victoria, on the other hand tested positive and was eager to have certain pills returned to her.”

  I touched my gaze to hers.

  Warmth filled her eyes. “Do you want to tell me what exactly is happening?”

  “Castle and Leo caught me looting tests for Vicki. They just
assumed and … I don’t know why I didn’t tell them. Vicki wanted me to keep it between us, then I didn’t really get the chance to pretend to take a test.”

  I picked at my nails. Summer pinched her lips and pulled my hands apart to stop me. To her, nail-picking was as scattered DVD boxes were to me.

  “I figured it would be easier to just say it was a pregnancy scare,” I said, “than to get into the whole truth of it all, you know?”

  The seconds ticked by, and I held my breath, waiting—waiting for her gaze to turn disapproving, for her lips to purse or a tired sigh to come from her. Summer warmed me as she shook her head in a superior, amused way. “You have a knack for winding up in the middle of a drama, Winter. You always have. Even in these times, you have your little episodes that belong in some cheesy television show, like Days of our Lives.”

  I snorted. “Days of our Doom.”

  Summer’s face lit up with a brilliant, breath-stealing grin. “Days of our Doom,” she echoed and patted my hand.

  With a sigh, she peeled herself away from me and sat up on the bed.

  Suddenly, cold swept over me with a rush of panic. “Where are you going?”

  The look she gave me stirred with sorrow and pity. “I have an infected subject to meet, and I should take samples from Leonardo Perez before breakfast starts.”

  She checked her white-gold watch. I craned my neck to sneak a peek at it—it was minutes after six.

  “It might be the Days of our Doom, but some of us still have jobs to do.” Summer’s hand found mine and squeezed. “I will see you soon. For now, you need to rest. These walls—” She drew back and gestured around. “—mean safety. You aren’t out in those trenches anymore, Winter. Rest, join the others for breakfast, and let your wounds heal.”

  Summer brushed out some wrinkles from her fitted, knee-length skirt then stood. She smiled down at me, and the sight fluttered something in my chest. Realisation.

  My sister stands before me. My sister bosses me around.

  My sister is alive.

  “I love you, Winner.”

  My smile was lazy. “I love you, Sinner.”