Fury: Book One of the Cure (Omnibus Edition) (3 page)

I stare at him for a long moment, and then I let a slow smile curl my lips. “If this is your idea of danger, Luke, then I feel sorry for you.”

There is a beat of silence, and then he grins wolfishly, leaning back in his chair and lighting up a cigarette.

“You can’t smoke inside,” I tell him.

“Watch me.”

I reach over and yank the cigarette out of his mouth. “I don’t know if you’re an arrogant prick, or if you’re just pretending to be one, but either way I’ve had enough.”

He looks at the cigarette in my hand, considering me. Then he slowly produces another one and lifts it to his lips, watching me the whole time.

I stand up and walk toward the door. He doesn’t stop me. I feel enraged, my heart beating like a timpani drum. I don’t need a bratty child in my life. I don’t need to spend time with an asshole drone.

Something smashes nearby, startling me. I turn to see that on the other side of the café there are two young men standing over the prone figure of a waitress. A pile of plates and food is smashed beneath her and she’s weeping, but the boys are smiling cruelly at her. The eyes of other patrons glance their way and then slide on, unmoved by the sight. I feel a wave of fury too deep to contain. I want to tear down the walls of this world we live in, I want to make people see that this is sick and wrong—nobody cares for each other anymore, nobody has any compassion, any sense of connection. I see things like this every day, but today I hate those boys like I’ve never hated anything, because within them is the kind of apathy that has destroyed the world.

I start moving, unsure what I will do. If I show anger, the Bloods will come, and I cannot risk getting captured and cured. But I’ve started moving beyond that thought, way beyond it. The waitress is sobbing and bleeding—I can see a shard of crockery protruding from her arm. One of the boys kicks the mess of food into her face and then crows with amusement. I know it isn’t his fault—this is something that has been done to him, stolen from him—and yet I want to hurt him badly. I want to force some perspective into him.

I have almost reached them when someone else moves first. It’s Luke. He appears behind the boys, taking them by the ears and wrenching them out the door of the café. Everyone watches silently as he dumps them on the ground. I don’t hear what he says to them, but it is spoken with quiet calm. The boys leave in a hurry, smiles gone from their faces. Luke returns, walking straight past me to the waitress. I watch, transfixed, as he helps the girl up and sits her down in a chair. He pulls the piece of plate out of her arm, wraps the wound in a dishcloth and then tells her to go to a hospital. Then he motions for one of the other waiters to clean up the mess, takes me by the elbow and calmly steers me back to my seat opposite him. All without even the hint of an expression on his face.

I stare at him, heart still thumping. My anger’s gone, replaced by a deep, curling thrill in my stomach. I have never, ever seen a drone help a stranger. I’ve never seen a drone admonish another drone. What is it about him that seems so different? I can’t put my finger on it, searching his face for a clue.

Nobody else in the café seems bothered by any of it. They’ve already gone back to their conversations.

“Why did you do that?” I ask softly.

He doesn’t look at me as he says, “So you wouldn’t.” And then, without an apology, he pulls out his packet of cigarettes and drops them into our jug of water. I watch the packet sink to the bottom.

I meet Luke’s eyes. “I don’t like to be tested.”

“I know that now. It’s why the smokes are wet.”

I hold his gaze for another moment, and then I pick up my menu.

*

We don’t talk for quite a while. We peruse the menus, and I don’t know what he’s thinking, but I can’t focus on a single item I read. Luke waves his hand like some English monarch and a waiter arrives at a run. “Bacon and eggs, chorizo, hash browns and spinach,” he says. “And mushrooms. And maybe some baked beans. And more coffee. Josi, what do you want?”

“If there’s any food left in the world after that I’ll just have an omelette,” I mutter, my mind miles away. Several screens on the wall depict a primary school fair and another shows a flower festival, both full of smiling, happy people and bright colors.

“You know they film that shit in their studios,” Luke says lightly, eyes moving between the screens. I nod. Everyone knows that. But nobody cares. The news programs show people things that make them feel safe and happy, so they accept without questioning. I watch the children in the image flying a kite and laughing. In a few years those children will have their innocence stolen, their freedom torn out of their brains, but nobody ever sees images of that. Nobody ever asks the children if they want to be cured, if they’d rather have passion than calm.

An advertisement for enhancement drugs comes on screen. “Dream like savages, live like humans.”

I turn my eyes away, feeling sick. Once someone has been cured they don’t dream anymore. New drugs are being developed to create artificial dreams—dreams that have been cleared for safety, dreams that aren’t too stimulating—but the fact is: brains have been dulled.

“Would you take those?” I ask Luke.

“Dream stimulants? Fuck no.”

I search his face while he is distracted by the holograms. It comes to me with a jerking sensation. “You swear,” I exclaim. “Drones hardly ever swear. And you put sugar in your coffee. Drones don’t care about taste.”

“That’s a myth,” he replies mildly, still not looking at me. “An old one. Why would they put sugar on the table if no one wants it?”

Good point. “What about the swearing?”

Luke shrugs. “I must be a rebel.” Then he smiles and I can’t help laughing.

I try to stop, reminding myself I know nothing about this guy. Haven’t I longed for someone to talk to though? Haven’t I yearned for decent conversation? Wished for a friend?

Jesus, how pathetic am I? I can’t have friends if everyone in the world is a drone, because I can’t be friends with people I hate. I just need to keep reminding myself of that, or else Luke is going to continue with that smile and that gaze, and all the lonely, stupid pieces of me will respond with an eagerness that could get us both killed.

I finish my coffee and run my finger around the lip of the mug. I regret sitting in the corner—I feel trapped. There aren’t many places to look except at Luke. He’s not watching me, thankfully. He’s sitting back in his seat, long limbs lazily taking up all the space, reading a paper. A frown line appears on his forehead, right between his eyes. It’s quite possibly the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen. I hate him for it.

“Want a section?” he asks absently without looking up.

Get up. Just get up and leave. You know better than this.

But I don’t get up. I ask, “The crossword?”

He retrieves the back section and passes it to me. Then he grabs a waitress and pinches her pen in an extremely charming way that makes her melt into the floor. Passing me the pen, he promptly goes back to reading the sport section, apparently oblivious that he’s just made the girl fall a little in love with him.

We sit quietly until our food comes, both intent on our papers. As our plates arrive, Luke glances at my crossword and his eyes widen. “Holy shit. You’ve nearly finished it!”

I flash him a sly smile. “Not just a pretty face, pal.”

“I’m becoming aware of that. Oh, baby, I love chorizo.”

He inhales his food with a look of delight. I have no appetite, but try to eat anyway, because I can’t remember the last time someone bought me a meal. For some reason, despite still having no idea why we’re here together, I find myself simply appreciating the company. If I want to continue appreciating his company, however, I’m going to have to make sure he never finds out the truth. The fact that he knows I’m uncured is bad enough.

“How old are you?” I ask him.

“How old do I look?”

I shrug.

“Twenty-six. How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

He spits out his coffee. It’s extremely amusing. “
Eighteen
? Good god.”

My lips curl into a smile. “Why should that be a problem, Mr I’m Not Trying To Hit On You?”

“All right, clever girl,” he laughs, leaning forward. “I was twenty percent hitting on you, eighty percent worried about you.”

“And now?”

“You’re a teenager, Josi. You’re not ready to get hit on by me.”

I roll my eyes. “If you say so.” I’m somewhat relieved, somewhat confused. If he doesn’t want to hook up with me, then why is he here? What does he get out of this exchange? Because I haven’t been particularly nice, that’s for sure.

“So cynical,” he sighs.

“I am not!”

“Right now you’re sitting there wondering why I’m here, assuming that nobody does anything nice without wanting something in return.”

“Anything nice?” I repeat slowly. Suddenly I’m angry. I stand up. “I don’t know what you think of me, or what you’ve assumed, but I’m not a fucking charity case. You think you’re doing something nice, but you’re just making a fool of yourself.”

I storm out of the café, tripping over his long, sprawled out legs. He reaches for me but I snake around him and run.

I’m the stupidest man on the planet. I pay the bill and run after her, but she’s damn quick. She’s already locked the door behind her, but I bang on it and shout at her until my throat is hoarse. Finally I take my tools out of my pocket and pick the lock on her door.

I know.

But I’m losing my mind, standing out here in the disgusting hallway, imagining her behind the locked door. I can’t seem to do anything to stop my hands as they break into her home. The apartment block is so old that it doesn’t even have a touch lock modulated to her fingerprints, just an ancient metal tumble lock.

The door finally swings open and I stop dead. She’s curled up on her bed with the pillow over her head so she won’t hear me shout for her. The studio apartment is the tiniest, most revolting place I’ve ever seen. Although the term ‘studio apartment’ is a loose one. Her home could more aptly be described as a rat-infested, falling-to-pieces, unfurnished hovel. The walls are water marked, the carpet is filthy, her mattress doubles as a couch and the kitchen is more of a sink situation. She doesn’t seem to own anything except a suitcase stuffed full of clothes. My heart aches at the scene laid out before me. She looks so small, lying there like that.

It takes her a moment to realize I’ve gotten inside. She jumps up in alarm, and I can see the fear in her eyes as she faces me. She glances around for a weapon, but I hold up my hands quickly.

“Don’t—it’s all right. I’m sorry.”

“What the
fuck
?” she hisses. “How did you get in?”

“Picked the lock.”

“
What
? Who knows how to pick a lock, for Christ’s sake? You’re a psychopath!”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I did that. I just … I freaked out. For some reason I thought you were in here doing something to yourself …”

Her gaze sharpens. “Like what?”

I take a step forward and try to explain. “You’re just … You’re leaking with guilt and regret. I can feel tides of it pouring from your skin, and in your eyes there’s so much sorrow. It scares me. I want to understand and I want to fix it.”

“You can’t fix it,” she whispers. She’s so beautiful. I’ve known it all along, but it strikes me now, abruptly. Tall and slim and delicate. Her features are fine, her lips small and red. Her eyes are the loveliest thing about her; her very own sun and moon, light and dark. Her hair is an incredibly long mess of black.

“Can’t I at least try?” I ask. “I never try for anything anymore. I’ve let so much slip by me. So much is gone from our lives now. I couldn’t … look at a girl like you, with
life
in her face, and just walk away from that.”

Josephine Luquet crosses the room to stand before me, and then she does something that makes my heart stop. She reaches out and places her hands on either side of my face, and in her eyes there are tears, and in her voice there’s broken glass. “Listen to me. You can’t fix me. I kill people.”

“You told him? Just blurted it out like that?”

“Yep,” she smiles. “Just like that.”

“What did he say?”

She laughs softly, her fingers pulling at the edge of the window seat. “Nothing. For a really long time.”

“So what happened?” I can imagine this man in my mind—he’s already starting to get bigger and take up space. Not as much as she does—not nearly as much. He is her shadow, but he exists now, since she started speaking.

I think I truly believed he was imaginary. I suppose he still could be, but her story is so rich with shape and color that I find it hard to believe she could have made it up.

“Our time’s up, Doc,” she reminds me.

I jerk upright and look at the clock. Ten past five. Grabbing my empty briefcase, I stride for the door.

“Anthony?” she calls and I pause. “Will you call him?”

“You haven’t finished your story yet.”

“Time’s running out.”

I glance over my shoulder at her. She is painfully deluded. I leave quickly.

*

At home I run my hand over the lock and the light turns green before admitting me. I press the food button and wait for my meal to arrive. Every night I press the same button and eat the same thing—frozen and packaged food that has been rehydrated to look fresh. And every night I think about all that Josephine has told me about her life. About the squalor she grew up in, the kinds of places she has lived, all the moving and running and going hungry. We have all read about how it was in the past—several classes of wealth, most of which got by just fine. Now there are only two classes—the poor and the rich. The poor are desperately, heartbreakingly poor. The rich are obscenely rich.

I can order any meal I want and it will arrive within minutes. It won’t be real, fresh food—the drought and disease killed all the crops so that now fresh food is such a rarity that it’s practically black market—but I’ll get the best imitation that money can buy. I will never run out of funds. I have already accumulated enough credits to outlast four lifetimes. That’s what they think you deserve when you work with the criminally insane. I can’t share my wealth with anyone except my biological children. Only my fingerprints can activate it.

This is what I tell myself every night when I think about Josephine’s poverty. I
can’t
share my money with her. I’m not allowed to. I don’t know
why
I’m not allowed to, but I’m not. And I am not a man who questions. So I shouldn’t feel so guilty about what I have earned.

I eat at the kitchen table with my case files open on several tablets before me. I try to read, but my eyes keep glancing over the words without properly seeing them. After a while I just switch the damn things off. I look at the photos of Marley on the fridge. I don’t have many—just three. I look at them every night for ten minutes.

And then glumly I go to bed and dream of birds.

I have no idea what time it is or where I am when the crying wakes me. It takes me a second, and then I am up out of bed and crossing the small room. On her tiny bed Maria is sobbing violently, just as she does every night. I touch her warily—past experience has taught me to be careful of her thrashing limbs—and narrowly avoid getting whacked in the face.

“Maria,” I repeat until she wakes. Her crying changes as the nightmare stops and reality sets in. This crying is less frightened, but much sadder. I sink down onto the bed beside her and pull her into my arms, stroking her hair as I imagine a mother might do. Since I’ve been in the asylum I haven’t spent an entire night in my own bed. I don’t know what’s happened to Maria or why she’s so frightened all the time—too frightened to speak. But I know that it helps to have someone hold you when the night terrors come, so every night I sleep in her bed with her.

*

Doyle is rougher than usual with me today. His hands around my arms are so tight that I can feel the pain of it long after he dumps me in the doc’s office.

I stumble slightly as he lets go of me. This must be enough to get Anthony’s attention because he jumps up from his desk with a bewildered look on his face. “You mustn’t hurt her,” he says with an odd confusion.

Doyle looks at him impatiently.

“You mustn’t hurt her,” Anthony repeats, like it’s a rule he’s memorised. “It’s not right.”

“So?” Doyle asks with a slight lisp. “She’s an animal.”

“I could have you fired,” Anthony says quietly. He’s not angry, but he seems to know what he should say, which is more than can be said for most drones.

“No you couldn’t,” Doyle says with such certainty that we both stare at him. He smirks and leaves.

I open the window and curl up on the window seat. “This rain has been going on forever,” I comment.

“Does he always hurt you like that?”

I wonder what will happen if I tell him the truth. That my body’s covered in bruises from Doyle. Probably nothing. “It’s fine,” I say calmly.

Anthony moves slowly to sit behind his desk. He doesn’t bother with his outdated pen and paper. He just places his hands in his lap and looks at me expectantly.

I sigh and put my head on a cushion. “Luke and I started working together to—”

“Wait, what happened after you told him you’d killed people?” he interrupts.

“We don’t have time—”

“I want every detail, remember. I only call Luke if you talk. And if you’re really stressed about time we can go for longer than the hour today.”

I blink. He’s never let us go for more than two seconds over the hour, except for last night when he lost track of time. This is totally bizarre to me. Anthony feels like a completely different person, like he’s actually engaging with me for the first time, and really listening to what I’m saying. It’s good, but I wish he’d listen to my other words, my
warnings
. If he can help me get Luke here at least I’d know someone would take me seriously. Make sure I’m locked up before the blood moon comes.

“Why do you care so much about this?” I ask.

“How else am I supposed to figure you out, Josephine?” he says. “You’re a vault. We haven’t made a single breakthrough in all this time, because I can’t work out what you care about, aside from anarchism.”

I snort at that, but he adds, “Now I know. The moment you started speaking yesterday, I realized—you care about Luke.”

We stand utterly still for a painfully long time. His eyes have searched every inch of my face and probed deep into my gaze. He is trying to understand. Trying to work out if he believes me, trying to figure out if there’s anything else I could possibly mean when I say “I kill people.”

“Luke?” I ask eventually. “You okay?”

“Huh?”

“You kinda look like you might have gone into shock.”

“I’m not in shock,” he replies too quickly. “I just don’t … understand.”

I never meant to tell Luke this. It erupted out of me like a volcano. And now he’s going to think I’m crazy, and then he’ll be gone, and I’ll be … well, the same as I’ve always been, probably. Absolutely, completely fine.

“Can I sit?” he asks abruptly.

“Sure. I don’t have any chairs, but go for it.”

He sinks onto my mattress, his back to the wall. It seems overly intimate that he’s on my bed. “Okay, Miss Luquet. Explain.”

I sigh. “Honestly, Luke. It’s probably best if you just go home and forget you ever met me. This next part is the part where I look like a lunatic.”

“You’re too pretty to be crazy,” he says. It’s so absurd that I laugh, loudly and wildly. The sound shocks him and he stares at me until I fall quiet.

“Fine,” I say eventually. I start to pace, not looking at him, searching for words that could make this sound believable. “As far as I can tell, I seem to be fairly normal for most of the year. I mean, you know—relatively speaking. But for one day, on the 16th of September—”

“The night of the blood moon.”

“—yes, the night of the blood moon, I become someone else. I disappear and she comes out to hunt.” I lick my lips, starting to feel sick. “When I wake up the next day, I remember nothing. I’m naked and freezing and some place really weird. My body hurts like I’m no longer human and there’s dread in my gut. Slowly, over the next year, the truth starts to come back in little pieces, little whispers of violence and death. I’ve tried to find proof, but there’s none. And if I hand myself in they’ll cure me. That’s not something I can… I just can’t.”

“If there’s no proof …” Luke trails off apologetically.

“I know,” I forestall. “I thought I was crazy for years. I thought they were dreams. But over time it started to get worse. Much worse. I’d wake up covered in blood not my own. I knew the visions were memories. I can feel the truth of them, Luke, the truth of all the people I’ve hurt. I know what I’ve done. I know what I’ll do again. And I have no way to stop myself.”

Luke draws in a long breath, then he bends over and rests his head in his hands. “Jesus,” he mutters. “So this was only a couple of nights ago? Was that why when we met you were …” He searches for a word and ends up with, “Lost?”

I nod.

“It had happened again?”

Another nod.

We’re silent for a long while. I wait for him to leave; to look at me with disgust or pity or fear. But when he looks up, his eyes hold something else entirely. “We have to find a way to make it stop.”

I’m completely lost for words. 

“We’ve got to figure out what’s making you do this, and make it stop.”

I turn and walk the two steps it takes to get into the ‘kitchen’. I pour myself a glass of water and drink the whole thing, then have another glass, stalling for time. Finally I look at him. “There’s no ‘we’.”

He rolls his eyes. “Don’t start.”

“Why would there be a ‘we’?” I demand.

“I want to help.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you can’t. There’s no way to stop it, and I’m not dragging you into this.”

“I can’t think of any place I’d rather be dragged.”

I stare at him. “Do you have mental problems? I just told you I’m a dangerous murderer, and you want to hang around?” Why is he doing this? Is he an adrenalin junkie? Does he think I’m some kind of experiment? A problem he can solve? A poor soul in need of saving? I don’t like any of the reasons I can come up with.

Luke stands. “Tell you what. How about I hang around every day except the 16th. Would that make you feel better?”

He’s trying to make light of it. I shake my head. “I don’t need you.”

“Well then what?” he asks suddenly. “You want to keep dealing with this on your own? Want to live in tiny shitholes for the rest of your life, going from crap job to crap job and feeling like death every damn day? Do you
want
to be completely alone without a single friend to talk to about all of this? Because that’s where you’re headed with this ‘I don’t need anyone’ bullshit.”

I can feel a headache coming on, a slow pounding in the back of my skull.

“Or,” Luke goes on more softly, “we could face this together.”

And it occurs to me suddenly. The real reason beneath his words. He’s just as lonely as I am.

I swallow. “I don’t know who you are.”

“I’ll teach you. That’s the fun bit.”

My eyes are hurting, and my teeth. The glare of the room is too bright and I squint against it. I can barely make Luke out anymore, just his silhouette, swaying eerily before me. “Whatever,” I mutter. “I just … need to have a rest.”

I make my way to the bed, the blood rushing in my ears. As I sink down onto the mattress, the contact hurts my skin and my muscles and my bones. I feel a thousand years old, like a skeleton that has long since decayed. I try not to make a sound but I’m not sure if I’ve managed.

“Josi?” His voice is loud and makes me wince.

“I’ll just sleep a while,” I tell him. I think I tell him. I’m not sure if I’ve opened my mouth. My jaw is aching and I can taste blood. I can always taste blood. It never goes away, never leaves me for one second. I’m so tired.

It comes over her so fast. She sort of sways on her feet, and then all the color drains from her face. She makes it to the bed, but only barely. I touch her shoulder and she flinches; I speak her name and it seems to hurt her.

I stand and stare at her as she drifts to sleep. I don’t know what to do. I can only imagine that this is some aftereffect of the episodes she has. I will call them ‘episodes’ because that makes it sound like she has no control, and I have to believe she has no control. My brain wars with words and ideas and possibilities as I watch her sleep uncomfortably. Despite what I told her, I have seen a lot of bad things. A lot of violence, a lot of death. It’s not much of a shock to me anymore. Perhaps this is why I’m not freaking out. Why I’m not running. I can’t think of any other reason—I
should
be running. Josephine is the last person I should be spending time with.

But I can’t leave. Not now, while she’s passed out and clearly in so much pain. I can’t just leave her alone in this awful place after she’s told me such a terrible thing. The idea of it seems simply too cruel.

Carefully I pull a blanket over her, but then I take it straight back off as I feel how hot she is. Shit, it must be a fever. I look around the apartment for anything I can use to cool her off. Eventually I grab one of the t-shirts out of her suitcase and wet it under the faucet. She makes a sound, like a soft whimper, as I place the cold cloth against her burning forehead. She’s grinding her teeth badly—the sound makes me shudder.

In her bathroom I search for something to give her—paracetamol breaks fevers, doesn’t it? She’s got a shitload of prescription pills. I read some of the labels and have no idea what any of them mean. I finally find a packet of strong pain medication.

Getting her to take the tablets is no easy feat. I stroke her hair for a minute, trying to wake her up enough for her to swallow, but she just moans. I climb behind her, lifting her as gently as I can until she’s propped up against me. She’s so fucking hot it scares me. Her skin against mine is like a flame. I pry open her mouth—her jaw is locked—and put the pills right into her throat. Then I stroke her throat like you do with an animal—I have no idea if this is right, but it’s the only thing I can think of. She eventually swallows the pills and I sigh with relief.