Read Fury: Book One of the Cure (Omnibus Edition) Online

Authors: Charlotte McConaghy

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Fury: Book One of the Cure (Omnibus Edition) (5 page)

BOOK: Fury: Book One of the Cure (Omnibus Edition)
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*

My window faces west. West, where everybody died. I imagine what’s out there a lot. I dream about walking through scorched earth and running my fingers over the diseased trees. Sometimes I wonder if this would be better than the hell I am living now, in a prison of dull wretchedness. I think perhaps the living are dead, too.

I imagine Luke in the west. Walking, walking, impervious to his surrounds, walking until he reaches the sea, where he could be free. I imagine him entering the swelling ocean, clean of any poisons, and swimming out and out and out. I keep imagining this, because it makes my heart swell.

September 20th, 2063
Josephine

When he knocks on my door I am surprised by my reaction.

“You didn’t call!” he accuses the second he sees me.

I look him over. He’s wearing a black V-necked cardigan and faded black jeans. He looks a lot nicer, although his flip-flops kind of wreck the outfit. He also looks healthier, like maybe he finally got a good night’s sleep. His eyes are clear and his skin isn’t as pale. On the whole, I am slightly outraged by how gorgeous he is. I am also thoroughly amused at his words. I smile slowly and allow myself to savor the moment. “Did we, or did we not, have a conversation just yesterday about the fact that I don’t own a phone? How, therefore, do you propose I should have called you?”

Luke stares at me and starts to laugh. “You might have pointed that out last night.”

“The time you sat at home waiting for my call earned me a few extra hours of peace and quiet.”

He rolls his eyes. And damn if the bastard doesn’t do it as well as I do. “Diabolical,” he mutters, motioning for me to follow.

“Where are we going?” I ask, grabbing my old red jumper and pulling it on over my jeans. I can’t really criticize Luke for not putting effort into his appearance, since my own clothes are full of tears and holes and I still haven’t bothered to brush my hair.

“To my place.”

My feet falter. He sees this and grins. “
You’re
the murderer, remember?”

“Yeah, thanks,” I mutter. “And by all means, be flippant about the fact.”

He doesn’t answer, just waits.

“So this is actually happening?” I ask. “We’re forming a crime-stopping duo?”

“It sounds fun when you put it that way. Come on.”

I sigh, following him. “Okay then. On your head be it.”

His car is expensive. We strap in and Luke scans his thumbprint before pressing a button that presumably navigates the car to his place. He then turns to me. “How are you feeling today?”

“Effervescent.”

He shoots me a sideways look that seems to beg me not to be sarcastic twenty-four hours a day.

I take pity on him. “No delirium, you’ll be pleased to hear.”

“That does please me. Any fever?”

“No, Mom.”

“Well, I went home and did some thinking.”

“New for you?”

“I have a list of questions to ask you.”

My shoulders slump. This is not my idea of a pleasant outing. I do
not
want to think about any of my ‘episodes’, and I really don’t want to talk about any of it—especially with Luke—but I have to keep reminding myself that the more I face it now, the more likely it is that we’ll find an answer. I’m not going to hold my breath though—I’ve spent a lot of time looking for answers to my condition, but it’s hard to find anything that isn’t appallingly biased against any kind of aggression. There’s also the problem that I don’t know much about what it actually is that affects me.

The car pulls itself to a smooth stop and we climb out. We’re outside an enormous block of apartments; Luke is obviously a man with wealth. A
lot
of wealth. I start to feel nervous as he leads me inside, into an elevator and up to the top floor. Great. He lives in the penthouse.

The security is good—Luke not only has a fingerprint scanner, but a retinal scanner as well.

Inside, I freeze. I feel like I’ve just walked into a page from an interior design catalogue. The space is huge, the ceilings high. Everything is white, black and silver. He has beautiful, clean furniture, white floors and marble benchtops. There is artwork on the walls, but it’s minimal and stark. There are no possessions anywhere—no pieces of Luke lying about. I can’t see any shoes on the floor, or jumpers thrown off, I can see no junk or trash or clues to who he is. I have no more idea now than I did the first night I met him.

“Wow. How long have you lived here?”

“A few years. Why?”

“Do you have OCD? Or mysophobia?”

“What’s mysophobia?”

“Fear of germs.”

Luke smiles. “I’m not really home much. I don’t have time to mess up the place. I guess it is kind of sterile, isn’t it?”

“Like an eighty-year-old man.”

“Well I’ve taken my annual leave,” he laughs. “So I’ll be home for the next month to get the place nice and filthy. You can help me, since I’ve witnessed how good you are at it.”

“Thanks, smartass.”

Luke potters in the kitchen while I explore. The living room has huge white leather couches, upon which you could probably fall into a coma from relaxation. A shiny screen covers one entire wall, and I wonder if it’s a hologram or just a normal TV. I snoop through a few drawers but find nothing of any interest. He has no books, but that’s not really a surprise.

I pad barefoot down the long hallway, peering into the rooms. There are at least two guest bedrooms that look like they belong in a hotel. Luke’s master bedroom has a double king—I’ve never seen a bed so big. I could lie lengthwise across it with my hands stretched high, and still I wouldn’t be able to reach the edges. His clothes are inside a massive walk-in wardrobe that lights up when I walk in. He has suits—at least fifty of them—on racks that spin. Fifty. I can’t picture him in a suit at all, but he must wear them for work. There are a lot of other clothes, all much nicer than the ratty shirts and jeans he’s been wearing for the last few days. And his shoes! Dozens of pairs—dress shoes, work shoes, sandals and
sneakers
, so many sneakers! I stand there in the brilliant false light, staring at the sea of footwear, and I begin to feel uncomfortable. It puts into perspective my own abysmal collection of attire. I own two pairs of shoes, and I’d thought it was excessive to buy the second pair because they’re black heeled boots and I can’t wear them during the day.

“Having a good snoop?” Luke asks from the doorway and I spin to face him. He must see something in my expression because his smile disappears and he looks just as uncomfortable as I feel. “It’s disgusting, I know,” he says softly. “Work pays for it. I don’t get much of a choice about any of this—they bought my apartment, furnished it and then paid for my wardrobe to be stocked.” Luke walks further into the closet, running his large hands along the fabrics. “Sometimes I want to burn the whole place down. I wouldn’t miss a single thing in it. Isn’t that stupid?”

I shrug. I have no idea what to say.

“Come on. I’m making breakfast.”

“I’ll be there in a minute. I want to snoop some more.”

He leaves me to it. I look at the wardrobe for another minute, then find my way to the bathroom. Along the way I realize that he has no photos. Nothing framed on desks or walls. It seems like an odd absence. I don’t have any photos either, but I’ve never had anything to take a picture of, nor have I ever owned a camera or a house like this, one that’s begging for a few memories and a bit of life.

The bathroom has a glorious tub set into the floor. It’s deep and wide and I can see spa nozzles. It’s right up against the window, and the view from up this high is dizzying. Lying in that bath you’d be able to see the sky. His cabinet holds toothpaste, aftershave, deodorant and—condoms. I feel a blush creep up my neck as I survey just how many he has. Like four whole boxes of the things! I shut the cabinet with distaste, feeling even more uncomfortable. What the hell am I doing in the apartment of a 26-year-old man who I don’t know from a bar of soap? A man who is an adult with a real job, lots of money and a raging sex life? It’s about as far from where I thought I’d be four days ago as I can imagine. I am an uneducated, inexperienced child who’s never even had a
friend
, let alone a boyfriend.

I walk out of the marble bathroom and into the marble kitchen. Luke is intent on his cooking, and he seems pretty good at it. He has the practiced air of someone who is at ease with food. Expensive implements are whirling, things are sizzling on the frying pan and the smell is so delectable that my mouth waters. I am intimately acquainted with hunger. Jobs at restaurants or cafés have been good because they usually come with free food. So sitting here and having him cook for me is a luxury without compare.

Sitting on a bench stool I say, “You have enough condoms to supply a nation of sex addicts.”

He stops chopping and looks into my eyes. Slowly he smiles. “Well at least you can’t say I’m irresponsible.”

I snort. “I don’t feel any less grossed out by you, that’s for sure.”

“Music,” he says, but not to me. “Blue and white.”

Music starts to play from speakers, something I’ve never heard that’s fun and lively. “Blue and White?” I ask, assuming this must be the name of the band.

“I’m synesthetic,” he explains. “Means I remember things in color and shape and texture. Blue and white music for me is upbeat, something with a lot of bass, stuff that makes you want to dance. I programmed my sound system to understand color cues.”

I feel thrilled by this insight. My eidetic memory is rare, but so is Luke’s synesthesia. The percentage of people who have true synesthesia is roughly 0.05.

“You know apparently everyone was once synesthetic?” I tell him. “Back when the various parts of our brains were all connected. Now our brains are essentially separate, so you’re really rare. It means your brain will have to work harder to make connections, but I imagine it must be beautiful in that head of yours.”

Luke smiles. He watches me, lost in thought.

“What color am I?” I ask. If he says red, I might die.

“Sort of … bluey greeny, with darker edges. Smooth and clear.”

I think about that and find that I like it. “What other things have color?”

“Everything. It’s how I remember names, places, streets … everything. Your color might change if my thoughts of you change, but I highly doubt they will.”

I’m not sure what this means. I decide not to ask, unsure if it would be worse if his thoughts about me were positive or negative. I peer around the kitchen and spot a spectacular collection of wine, rows and rows and rows. I jump off the stool and inspect it, running my fingers along the bottles. At the end of the Wall of Wine is the pantry. This is as big as his oversized wardrobe. I wander inside and am met by a wave of smell. Spices and herbs line an entire shelf. Bottles and jars and containers full of bright colors and various textured items. He has so much fresh food, and it is this, finally, that makes me understand how rich he must be. Even with the apartment, the car, the furniture—he still could have been a normal, middle-class citizen. It is the food that’s truly rare.

It’s different, too. It seems to me that where the clothes and the furnishings are decided for him, and endured because he doesn’t really know what he wants, the food is something that he is careful with, selective and precise. There is reverence, here in these shelves. And that is forgivable. I can allow him this gross excess in the face of all the starvation in the world, simply because I am a girl who loves it when people
love
.

I backtrack to the entrance of the pantry and lean against the doorway, watching him. He’s lost in the food and the music. I realize I want to play for him, and I have never wanted to play in front of anyone, not since I first started teaching myself. “What are you making?” I ask softly.

“Poison,” he replies. After a moment he smiles. “That’s what Mom always used to reply when we asked her what she was cooking.”

My nose crinkles but I am suddenly immersed in imagining his family. He has a lovely mother, I bet. Perfect. She scolds him and encourages him, and cooks him anything he wants. She doesn’t let him stay up too late, because he has school in the morning, and she helps him with his homework, and watches all of his sports games. He probably has a big family. Two brothers and a sister they all adore. His father is a strong man who works hard—maybe he was a prosecutor before Luke, perhaps it’s a family business. They sit down to dinner together every night and laugh over inside jokes.

“Tell me about them—about your family,” I implore.

And just like that he is cold and unreachable. “They’re not worth mentioning.”

I draw a breath, wishing I could go back to when he had a happy, perfect family. Now I know it can’t be true—not with an expression like that one. I watch him dish up the food and take it to the big glass dining table. He glances at me and gives a crooked smile. “Sorry, but really, they’re not. Come and eat.”

I sit down and dig in, and good god—it’s the best meal I’ve ever had. “Luke! Delicious poison!”

“Pesto baked eggs, prosciutto and asparagus, baked peaches with mint yoghurt and chocolate crepes to finish. Plus a really good cup of coffee.”

“I might have to move in if you cook like this every meal.”

“I intend on it.”

I look up, unsure if he’s serious. He’s looking at me calmly. “Luke …”

“Josi. I have two spare bedrooms. I have too much space to deal with. I have no one to cook for. All I want is a roommate, no strings attached.”

I get back to my breakfast so that I don’t have to reply. His words have made me yearn. And I have never known an element of yearning that has not ended in disappointment. I have to stop my mind from going to the place where I live a life with delicious food and deep baths and music that comes on when you say a color. That life is too absurd, too wonderful.

“So what are your questions?” I ask. Jeez, it must be bad if I seek out questions about the blood moon to avoid another topic.

Luke jumps up and jogs over to a bench. He presses a few buttons and then the contents of his tablet are flashed across a massive white wall. I am suddenly faced with a larger-than-life list of questions.

“Jesus. Did you have to write them all down? I feel like I’m being interrogated.”

“Sorry. I just didn’t want to forget. I don’t have to ask them if you don’t want.”

I sigh and gesture for him to go ahead.

“Have you tried any medications to stop the transformation?”

The word transformation makes me think of lycanthropy. That would be fun. I wish I were a werewolf. “Yep. Loads. Each year I try something different, usually a lot stronger. Never makes a difference. I can be knocked out and semi-comatose and I’ll still wake up and go on a rampage.”

BOOK: Fury: Book One of the Cure (Omnibus Edition)
5.91Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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