Melancholy: Episode 3

by Charlotte McConaghy

I swallow. “137 doors, 272 windows, 188 weapons in the armory, 65 bows on the wall, 91 guns in the safe, 100 rows of wheat and 15,785 potatoes harvested.”

  Another silence, a deeper one this time. I risk a glance down at Blue. He looks livid.

  “It takes more than fighting ability to make a good agent,” Luke says. “The necessities and skills are many and varied. Dual has more of them than you do, Blue. Keep that in mind before you shoot your mouth off. As punishment you can do five laps around the perimeter. I’ll know if you take any shortcuts. Go.”

  Blue shakes his head furiously, but jogs off to get started on the five hours of running. He’ll never do it. Not without stopping. But I guess that’s a good way to learn a lesson. I am feeling immensely satisfied.

  Luke takes us into the armory and unlocks the safe, passing us each a handgun. “You all know how to use these.”

  Uh … wait. I don’t. I’ve cleaned the hell out of them, but I’ve only fired one, once, and it was a debacle.

  “But you’re nowhere near up to scratch. While Blue runs, you will disassemble, clean and reassemble your weapon. And you’ll keep doing it until you can do it in under a minute.”

  “Just for a change,” I mutter.

  “What was that?” Luke demands.

  “Nothing,” I assure him quickly.

  We sit down and get started. For the first time I have an advantage because I’ve already been part of one of Luke’s weaponry sweatshops. I watch Will’s movements beside mine and consider that I might have been doing it wrong to begin with –

  “Luquet,” Luke snaps. “Do you want to run laps too or do you want to get your hands out of your ass and start working?”

  I start working.

  My hands are clumsy as I pull my gun apart, copying Will’s actions. The weapon feels heavy and awkward in my hands. I’m the slowest in the class for a few goes, but then I decide to just use the method I came up with on the train, and pretty soon I look up to realize that I’m nailing it way faster than the others.

  When Blue returns we move on to shooting. This goes on and on until I have a pounding headache and blisters all over my hands. Luke finally dismisses us for bed – it’s well and truly past midnight – with a lesson.

  “Count your bullets and your shots, every time. If you fire your gun without a bullet, it will make a particular sound and the Bloods will know they have at least a ten-second window to kill you – which they will.”

  Ha! Something I already know, suckers.

  I sink into bed, utterly exhausted, and sleep finds me immediately.

  *

  May 31st, 2066

  Josephine

  On day two those of us in Luke’s team are woken with the task of standing still – all day – without a single movement. If we move, we accrue more time standing still. Luke places us in a line beneath the wall, the screams of the Furies fresh in our ears. It is so hot I can feel sweat pouring off me, and my skin burns to a painful crisp. I’m convinced it is torture, but it definitely instills within us the difficulty of being patient and still.

  On day three life gets worse. Luke blindfolds us and sends us into the wheat fields to fight each other with big sticks. I get whacked so many times I can’t count, and on top of the sunburn it feels like getting raw flesh grated off. I can only imagine that this lovely little activity is designed to get us to use senses other than sight, and I take comfort in the fact that everyone is finally as crappy at fighting as I am. Luke then makes us take turns shadowing each other. If we get spotted we’re punished. If we can’t spot our tail we’re punished.

  Day four is different again. Luke has us solving logic puzzles. He says we need to learn how to deduce facts. It’s about taking one piece of knowledge and using it to infer something else. If that, then that. Anytime we get one wrong, we are punished with more physical hell. He goes on to test our intuition, which he defines as knowledge plus experience, and then last come the lateral thinking tests, which are a bunch of really cool riddles. I have to say, I thoroughly enjoy day four. Day five is all about memory and observation. Needless to say, I am queen of these. We are put into pairs and have to question each other extensively, then be able to report all the information in perfect detail. There is stuff on observation, which Luke alluded to on day one. We have to take notice of everything surrounding us and be able to identify things like exits, possible dangers, weapons, allies and enemies, all in a matter of seconds.

  Day six is set in Dodge’s lab, which he does not appreciate, and consists of Luke teaching us – on the only three computers – coding, firewalls, digital security, cracking passwords and a whole lot of other nerdy stuff. This leads into a discussion of codes and cyphers, which is a world of complexity that Luke promises we will come to understand like learning a new language. Will is hands down the best at this kind of technical stuff – he’s even better than Luke.

  And now, finally, on day seven of our ‘week of enlightenment’, as Luke has taken to calling it, he’s throwing us into a bunch of dangerous training situations designed to test our ability to make difficult, quick decisions and analyze risks. Stuff like ‘if you’re faced with two paths, and you can see that one of them is dangerous, but you’re blind to the other and know it could be either dangerous or completely safe, which path do you take?’ This last part he calls the ‘Gambler’s Edge’ and he says it’s one of the most important skills an agent can have.

  Everyone chooses to take the unknown path, weighing up the risk factor as fifty/fifty, given there’s a chance it could be safe. But I take the first path.

  “Why?” Luke demands when we’re through the makeshift course. Everyone’s watching me as though I’m a dumbass for having made the wrong decision.

  I shrug. “The known is always less of a risk than the unknown. I’d prefer to face the danger I can prepare myself for.”

  Luke watches me for a moment, then nods once before throwing another scenario at us. I think it’s his way of praising my explanation, but who the hell knows? It goes on like this for the whole day. He gives us scenarios and makes us choose courses of action, and at one point I decide I’m not happy with either of the paths he's offering us, so I make my own path, decide on a completely different option. Luke doesn’t say anything when I start doing this, so I don’t know if I’m in trouble or not. Every time we take a risk Luke blows a whistle. I get three times the amount of whistles as the others, and by the time we’ve finished, Luke says I would have been dead at least half a dozen times. Which isn’t particularly encouraging. Blue sniggers at this point. But then Luke says that I also would have completed more than double the amount of missions of anyone else, so I shoot Blue a really mature smirk.

  *

  When it’s over we line up, exhausted, battered, mentally fried, waiting to be handed whatever punishment comes next. We’ve all had enough. Luke is doing his pacing-up-and-down-the-line thing that he does to look all serious and impressive. Or maybe he just is serious and impressive. There’s one thing I’m sure about after this week: despite the cruel and unusual punishment that has made me sort of hate him, I am also more in love with him than ever.

  I can’t even imagine what he has been through in order to do or know the things he does. It occurs to me that I am glad, for the first time, that Luke is a Blood. I want to know this side of him, all the ins and outs of his time as the highest-ranking agent in the country.

  For the first time this week, Luke’s face breaks into a grin. “You guys killed it.”

  We give a wild cheer of relief. I hug Shadow, who went through this hell alongside those he’s spent the last years training. He’s older than all of us, higher in rank and skill, but he did it with humility and without a single complaint.

  “I’m so fucking proud,” Luke goes on. “As a reward you get tomorrow off. Go get drunk, get rowdy, spend tomorrow sleeping and then get your asses back here on Monday.”

  We stare at him, the excitement dying.

  “Monday?” Blue asks wit
h a wince.

  Luke looks at us. His smile this time is very slow, very knowing. “You didn’t think this was over?”

  He cracks up, and the laugh is definitively evil. “It takes years of this kind of training to be a passable Blood. The twelve of you aren’t even close. Which means you’re mine for the foreseeable future, so you better get used to it. Go on, piss off.”

  *

  I have had two glasses of whisky by the time I head to bed. I’ve never been so bone-weary. But the instant I hear the knock on my window I am alive with humming energy and excitement.

  Luke climbs in with a grace I am newly appreciative of. He opens his mouth to say something but I lunge at him, kissing him hungrily.

  “Josi, wait – ”

  “No, enough. I’m not waiting anymore.”

  “But – ”

  “I want to make love to my boyfriend. Now. Is that going to be a problem?”

  Luke breathes out, his pupils dilating. “Fuck no.”

  He lifts me and shoves me against the wall. I feel the impact and find his lips breathlessly. Our hands are trembling as he makes love to me, fast and hard and wild. I am barely breathing as it all builds and explodes inside me, and he has to hold his hand over my mouth as we come together, so hard my mind goes black for a few seconds.

  We breathe raggedly and slump against each other.

  “Holy shit,” he breathes. His shaking hands thread through my hair and he looks at me, at my face, my swollen lips, my dazed eyes. “You were so good this week,” he says.

  I kiss him again, more slowly. There is so much heat in it I think we are about to be lost again. I can’t contain the heart in my chest; it is beating so hard and with so much.

  “Take me to the bed,” I tell him and he does, and I realize I just don’t give a shit about the rules anymore. I undress him and straddle his lap, removing my own clothing so he can watch, and then we make love a second time, slow and gentle and aching and we don’t stop looking at each other the whole time and I think I will die when this ends and I can’t stand the thought of losing him or not having him or any world at all in which there are people who tell us that we can’t do this whenever we want.

  Each time I think the love between us cannot grow bigger or deeper, I am wrong. It does, again and again, and I am scared that I can’t possibly be big enough or strong enough to bear it, can’t possibly be good enough to be worthy of so much. But I try to remind myself that if I am not enough, then I have only to grow, and become enough.

  Afterwards we lie for a few minutes, letting our pulses return to normal.

  “That was different,” Luke says.

  Different?

  “You were different,” he amends.

  Oh my god. Isn’t different code for bad? “Different how?” I ask warily.

  He scratches the stubble on his chin as he thinks about it. “Much, much better.”

  “Jeez, how bad was I before?”

  He gives a breath of laughter. “That’s not what I meant. Thing is … You were never quite … with me, before. I never felt like you were completely present. Which sometimes made it a bit … lonely.”

  I swallow, mortified. I can’t believe I did that to him without even realizing it. And why didn’t he tell me he felt that way?

  He rolls over and cups my face. “You’re really here with me now. And damn it feels good. Without implying that I had anything to do with it, I want you to know that I’m proud of you.”

  I smile as our lips touch. Truth is I wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it even if he had said something. I was way too messed up back then, way too abhorrent of my body. It’s no surprise I was crap in bed, really. What matters, I guess, is that I got from then to now, made it from those moments to this one, and I refuse to look back.

  We are getting dressed when I find myself gazing at him as he pulls his jeans and shirt back on. “I’m proud of you, to,” I tell him without warning, because in this moment it is a bursting, undeniable thing. “So proud. You’re the best person I’ve ever met.”

  Luke’s hands fall to his sides and he looks at me. “You haven’t met many people,” he says with a faint blush.

  “Don’t do that,” I say firmly. “I made you feel ashamed of the man you are, of the job you did and the choices you made, and I’ll always be sorry for that, because you should be proud of yourself and what you can do. You were fifteen years old. Getting recruited meant money and stability, and it meant not being cured. I would have done the exact same thing had I been given the choice. So don’t regret it anymore. Be proud of the person you are, because he’s an incredible man.”

  We cross to each other and hug for a long while.

  “Even though you’re a total jerk when you’re training people,” I add.

  “We’re not gonna become one of those gross mushy couples who just compliment each other all the time now, are we?” he asks.

  “Ew, no way.” My nose crinkles in distaste.

  “Okay then. You’re so bad at brushing your hair that you often look like the bride of Frankenstein,” he tells me.

  “You have the most disgusting layer of dirt under your toenails that the thought of them touching me makes me want to gag.”

  “Ah, that feels better,” he sighs in relief.

  We both crack up. “I think we’re the only people who find each other funny,” I point out, making us laugh even more. I think we’re overtired.

  “Okay, okay,” he says. “So before you seduced me I came to give you the inside track.”

  “Naughty,” I grin. “What about the others?”

  “Who cares about them?”

  “Oh, nice leadership. Okay, let me have it.”

  “Ten rules of being an agent,” he says as we sit on the end of the bed. “Be offensive. Be observant. Honor your skills. Own the streets. Do your research. Don’t be parochial. Use logic, not emotion. Stand your ground. Know when to get out. And don’t ever give up.”

  I feel the rules lodge eternally in my brain. “Are you going to tell the others this?”

  “When they’re ready for it.”

  “So why am I ready for it?”

  Luke smiles. “Do you know what lateral thinking really means? Seeing infinite choices. You made your own paths instead of choosing from the ones you were presented with.”

  I flush, lips curling.

  “And if I’m not around – ”

  “Luke – ”

  “If I’m not around, I need to trust that my team has someone with great instincts to follow.”

  Chapter 24

  July 15th, 2066

  Luke

  Beneath my feet is a wall made of stone. Below me, down in the dusty, dead earth, stands a sea of monsters. And above, littering the sky like a thousand flower petals on a current of wind, are birds.

  As I watch them I see that they are not only ravens, but hawks and eagles and finches and parrots and magpies and owls and swallows … Swirling around each other in one perfectly choreographed dance of feathers.

  The sight is too glorious to believe, too magnificent.

  A sound of astonishment leaves me; I feel absurdly close to tears.

  “Luke?” Shadow stands beside me, staring at my face. I blink, dazed. “What are you looking at?”

  “The birds,” I say, as if he’s an idiot.

  Shadow follows my gesture and peers into the sky. And as I see his confusion, I realize.

  There are no birds in the sky.

  But I continue to watch them anyhow.

  *

  Josephine

  My back aches from planting vegetables all afternoon, and cracks like an old woman’s as I straighten. Luke’s waiting at the edge of the garden for me, and I give him a wave. His skin is brown from having spent so much time in the sun lately, and as the evening light turns golden I see him tilt his face to enjoy the sky.

  As I draw nearer, however, I realize he’s not enjoying anything. He’s staring too hard and his jaw is cl
enched as though in pain.

  “You okay?”

  He looks at me and there’s something weird in his eyes. Something … distant. Without a word he turns for the Den, and I follow. His hands are trembling, I see, and there is blood beneath his fingernails.

  In the Den we head for our usual table at the back, but something’s not right. A disturbance is unfolding. Several men are grouped around our table, where Claire and Tobias sit quietly. One of the guys – it’s Blue, I now see – is pouring ale on Tobias’ head, trickling it slowly down his neck and laughing as he does so.

  “Doesn’t this annoy you?” Blue asks him. “Doesn’t it make you even a little bit shitty?”

  “Fucking freak,” someone else mutters.

  “How about you?” Blue asks Claire. “Doesn’t it piss you off to see me humiliate your man this way?”

  Claire and Tobias are both miserably trying to ignore the men.

  Blue leans close to Claire’s face, making it impossible for her to look anywhere else. “Where’s your fire, love?”

  I realize too slowly, way too slowly, that Luke is no longer at my side. I start forward in a rush, but he’s much quicker than me. He is through the crowd, bowling people over, and he has Blue by the throat. He lifts the large man off the ground until his feet dangle helplessly. His strength is ludicrous – no one is that strong.

  Everyone around us scatters back, startled and excited. People fight all the time, every night, but not Luke. Luke never fights. And at the very idea a kind of hush falls over the Den.

  “You want fire?” Luke asks Blue softly, while the man chokes. “You want rage?”

  Luke slams the man down heavily – it’s a serious body blow from such a height. Crouching over him to make sure his whole body is pinned, Luke punches Blue in the face. Over and over again. Blood spills and I see teeth fly.

  I run and slide, shoving myself as far between them as I can and forcing Luke to stop. He meets my eyes, milliseconds away from hitting me by mistake. His gaze is an eruption of cold, brutal fury.