That’s when I feel it. Someone watching me.
Whirling around, I see Josephine lunging at me and I manage to aim the hose just in time. A mighty rush of water hits her in the chest and knocks her backwards off her feet. She is washed toward the edge of the cliff and a strangled gasp leaves my mouth. Thankfully she crashes into the partition and stops in a rumpled heap. I drop the hose and approach slowly.
I can barely breathe. She isn’t moving, so I take another step closer. My teeth are clenched so firmly they feel as though they’ll shatter.
Josi makes a soft sound, causing me to jump in alarm. She rolls onto her back, but I remain cautious, watching closely.
Another muffled cry escapes her, and then I hear the word, “Luke?”
I am flooded with relief as I scramble toward her, skidding my knees on the hard earth at her side. “Josi?”
“What happened?” she asks woozily. Her eyes are still red, but there’s a person behind them now, someone kind and gentle, funny and clever.
“You started to change. It was only about ten minutes ago. I … does it normally happen like this? That you turn back so quickly?”
She shakes her head, wincing in pain. “I’ll change again when the moon is high. And when that happens it will last until sunrise. This was just …”
“A preview,” I breathe. Jesus, I feel nauseous.
“What happened?” she asks again. Her eyes narrow suddenly and she tries to sit up. I’m not sure what alerts her, but it’s clear that she knows something is wrong.
“Don’t look!” I order, moving in front of her. Josi stares at me, her breathing shallow. “You don’t need to see.”
She licks her lips. She’s dripping wet and shivering, but I think it’s more from shock than from cold. “Yes I do.”
I search her gaze, knowing that if she sees what’s behind me, she could very well throw herself straight over the cliff.
“They’re my crimes,” she whispers. “I have to own them, remember?”
Closing my eyes, I step aside.
Josephine looks at the nine dead men and she goes so pale that it looks as though there’s not a drop of blood left in her body. Her lips are like chalk.
I expect her to break down. To start crying or lose her mind. But she doesn’t. She stands up, and there’s iron around her spine, holding it in place. “I won’t forget this,” she whispers; not to me, but to the men, I think. “I will never forget again.”
Then she looks at me and says, “You need to get away from me, Luke.”
“Wait. Just wait.” My brain’s working a mile a minute, eyes scanning our surrounds to stop at the canyon. “I’ve got an idea.”
Josephine
Luke uses all the lengths of hose on the truck, tying them together at the ends, to lower me into the canyon. It’s not long enough, so I untie myself and drop the rest of the way. The impact hurts, but not as much as it should—the curse spends weeks ruining my body, both before and after, but for one day of the year I am nearly invincible.
The length of hose starts to disappear into the sky, and I know Luke will be dealing with the bodies up above. Once he has buried them somewhere, he will get in his car and drive as far away as he can. That’s what he promised me, anyway. I hope he does it, because I’m not sure if even the chasm will be enough to stop me.
I lie in the dirt, burrowing my hands and feet beneath it. In the sky there are clouds, but I’ve never been able to make them into shapes, even as a child. The moon is rising—I can feel it. Or maybe that’s just the beast inside me. Maybe all I can feel is her. Maybe I won’t change back this time. Maybe she’ll take over forever. It feels a bit like she could, if I let her.
And I’m so tired. The idea of trying to fight her is almost too much.
Down in this hole I am alone. I can’t fight her on my own. I can’t.
I start to shake badly, and I bite my tongue. My mouth is flooded with the steely taste of blood and it makes me want to retch in revulsion.
I’m always alone. No matter where I go or whom I meet, I will always be alone. Even before the curse I was alone, and now I can’t escape it. I start to panic. I can’t be down in this hole anymore. I need to get out. I can’t be alone down here.
There’s a strange noise surrounding me and I look around in fear before I realize that it’s my own breathing growing more and more hysterical. I can’t be down here. I have to get out right now. Right now right now right now. I’m going mad. I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t—
Something drops from the sky to land a few feet away from me. I blink, the sight freeing me from my head. I slither through the dirt like a creature until I can see what it is. A piece of paper, scrunched into a ball. With trembling hands I smooth it out and look at the words typed over it. My eyes are blurry, so it takes me a moment to understand.
It’s a page from one of my books. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. One of the pages I quoted to Luke when he didn’t believe I had a photographic memory. I stare at it, bewildered.
Another ball of paper falls down to land nearby, and I crawl over to unfurl it. It’s the next page in sequence, and my eyes scan the words I already know.
A few minutes later, another page falls. I don’t understand, until suddenly—I do.
He’s too far away for me to hear, so he’s sending me a message.
He’s not leaving me.
The pages fall for hours, and they’re the only things that keep me from going mad. They fall all afternoon until the sky darkens, and then they keep falling into the night. They are the last thing I see before everything goes black, and my body is no longer my own.
Chapter Fifteen
September 15th, 2065
Anthony
I am holding in my hands the formal request for a single room in which to lock Josephine. It feels like a triumph. I’m going to do it—I’m going to keep her from hurting herself or anyone else. I’m going to solve this problem and save Josephine.
She won’t be able to think of me as a drone then. She’ll have to see me as a real person. And maybe once I tell her the truth about Luke, she’ll realize that she fell in love with the wrong man.
I stride purposefully into my office but stop dead, the door swinging shut behind me with a soft click. Facing the window is a man. He’s not wearing the staff uniform, and he’s not one of my patients. He’s tall—even bigger than that damn nurse who hurts Josephine. This man is leaner than Doyle, but he looks stronger. Even standing still like this, I can see the coiled lengths of his muscles and the way they are tense and ready.
The man turns around. There’s something about the way he moves that is almost animal. The room is dark, so I can’t see his face, but I know who he is. Instinctively, I know exactly who this man is.
I flick the light switch so the room is flooded with light, and there he stands. Luke Townsend.
He’s just as Josephine described him. I can see the confidence in his stature and the arrogance in his eyes that she laughed over. The lines of his face are harsh and unforgiving, and his eyes are a brighter shade than she could have ever explained.
“I understand you are Josephine Luquet’s doctor,” he says softly, his voice deep and rough. Everything about him, even before he’s done anything, makes me feel emasculated. I hate him. My fingers tingle with it. I feel small and weak.
Doesn’t she understand that loving a man because he’s big and strong and handsome will result in betrayal?
“I am.”
He folds his big arms over his chest. “In that case I’ll need you to help me.”
“Why would I help you?”
Luke’s incredibly sharp eyes move over my face. I have no idea what he sees, but after a moment he frowns. “She told you?”
“Of course she did.”
“And you believe her?”
I swallow, feeling myself flush. “Of course.”
The corner of Luke’s mouth twitches in dark humour, and I know he’s seen right thro
ugh me. “Then you’ll know I’m here to help her, Doc.”
I don’t like that he calls me Doc, like Josi does. It makes me uncomfortable. “I’ve arranged everything. You’re not needed, Mr Townsend.”
“What have you arranged?”
I consider calling security, but there’s something about his gaze that makes me want to tell him. “She’ll be moved into a single room. I’ll dose her with sedatives. If need be, we can cuff her to the bed.”
Luke stares at me and my skin prickles. He steps forward, looming over me. “And when she pulls the bed frame from the ground?”
“Mr Townsend,” I splutter, “the frames are made of metal and drilled into the ground. I assure you, no one could pull them out.”
“You don’t have any idea, Doc. Some of the things I’ve seen her do under the blood moon chill me to the bone, and I’m not a man who’s easily unsettled.”
On this I believe him. “Look, Luke—I’ve got it under control.”
“You’ve got no fucking clue,” he says coldly. “I need to get her out of here, or she’s going to tear the place down and kill everyone inside. On this you can trust me.”
My heart is doing funny things in my chest.
“All I need you to do,” he orders me, as if he’s in charge, “is bring Josephine to me here.”
“Why can’t you do it yourself?” I demand, baiting him to admit the truth.
“Because trying to get through any of the security doors with my prints will send an alarm to the Bloods.”
“Perhaps I’ll simply sound the alarm myself right now.”
Luke gives a sudden, wolfish grin. “I bet Josi likes you.”
My mouth opens but nothing comes out.
“Anthony,” he says firmly. “I’m here to get Josephine out. I’ll do it with or without your help, but if you help me I’ll have a better chance of hiding her from the other Bloods.”
I hesitate, looking at the form in my hand.
“Don’t be a dick,” he snaps. “Go and get her.”
I walk to the door and pause. “She’s going to hate you,” I warn him. “When you tell her.”
“That’s my problem.”
“You’re going to, right? Tell her?”
“Go, Anthony.”
November 27th, 2064
Luke
I’m waiting by the bed when he wakes up. The old man gives a cry of shock when he sees the hooded figure standing in the shadow of his room.
“Easy now,” I murmur softly.
“Who are you?” he gasps, sitting up unsteadily. “How did you get in?”
“I’m a Blood.”
The man—Ben Collingsworth—goes pale. He looks like he’s about seventy, with white wisps of hair and dull eyes.
I move to the bed and help him out of it gently, not wanting him to break a hip.
“What do you want? Have there been more threats?”
“No, I just want to ask you some questions, so I’d appreciate it if we could move into the living room.”
“It’s the middle of the night!”
“It is indeed.”
Ben sits down in what is presumably his favorite chair, since it has a footrest in precisely the right spot for his short legs.
“I’ll make some tea,” I offer. As I fumble around his kitchen, finding what I need, I keep one eye trained on Ben, just in case he gets any ideas about alerting anyone to my presence.
I carry a tray with two mugs and pot of tea to the coffee table. “Milk? Sugar?”
“A Blood who makes tea,” he says softly, shaking his head.
“My mother taught me the importance of a good pot of tea. It’s an art form, getting it just right.” I let my voice drop to a soothing level to make him more comfortable. If he doesn’t feel like he’s about to be murdered, he’s more likely to open up. If need be, I can resort to threats later.
Once we’ve each had a sip, I sit back in the chair opposite his and eye him. He’s sizing me up just as I am him. He’s probably had a lot of dealings with Bloods. They’ve spent the last ten years protecting him. Doesn’t mean he’s any less wary of me.
“What are your questions, Blood?”
“My name’s Luke,” I tell him pointedly, lacing my fingers together.
“Are you a Red or a Blue?”
I meet his eyes. “I’m a Gray.”
Ben blanches, spilling some of his tea. He stares at me, awareness dawning in his milky eyes. “Good god,” he whispers. “What do you want with me?”
“Like I said, I just need some answers.”
“Of course.”
“Where’s your drive?”
He points to where his hologram projector is mounted on the wall and I slot my USB into it. Images appear in the middle of the room and I navigate through them until there is a girl standing between us. She has long dark hair, so long it reaches the end of her spine. Her clothes are ratty and careless, and there’s an unimpressed look in her two-colored eyes. She’s sitting on a kitchen bench, arms folded impatiently. I took this photo six months ago, just after I’d made fun of her poor cooking skills.
The sight of Josephine sitting there, so real and vibrant, makes my chest clench painfully. I haven’t seen her in over two months, the worst two months of my life. The image is so believable that I feel like I could reach out and touch her.
“Do you know this woman?” I ask Ben softly.
He’s gazing at her closely, his brow furrowed. “I don’t believe so. Her eyes …”
“Are familiar?” I press.
He nods slowly, still trying to work out where he’s seen such a distinctive gaze.
“How about this? Do you know this child?” I slide the image to the side, making room for another photo. This is a child protection file photo of Josephine when she was eight. If I’m right, this would be the year that she met Professor Ben Collingsworth. I watch the man’s face as it dawns on him. A breath of air leaves his lungs and he sags in his chair.
“Josephine,” he whispers.
In one word he has confirmed everything I’ve suspected. I’ve been staying with Harley for the last two months, laying low, helping him uncover as much as we possibly can about the first experiments of the cure. We figured it all out a while back, but we needed to hide any evidence of us being linked to the discovery of the information, and leave a kind of trail of our own, one that will make it easy for people to uncover the truth in future. People like the resistance.
What we haven’t been able to learn is the medical side of what’s been done to Josi. I know she was experimented on, and I know that the inventor of the cure, Ben Collingsworth, was responsible, but I don’t know what that means for her physically.
“What did you do to her?” I ask, my voice dropping.
“Show me the other one again,” he pleads quickly. I switch the photos back so that he’s looking at the current one. “When was this taken?”
“A few months ago.”
“Then she’s alive?”
“She is.” Barely.
Ben stares at nineteen-year-old Josephine, and to my shock, he drops his head into his hands and starts to cry. I watch as his elderly, weak shoulders shake faintly. When he looks up at her again, I watch the way his eyes fill with longing. “She’s so beautiful,” he whispers. “I never thought she would …”
“Survive?” I demand. “You thought she’d die and take your filthy secret with her?”
“No!” Ben exclaims, wiping his eyes.
“Tell me what happened. From the start.”
“We were developing a cure for clinical aggression,” he says wearily. “We needed subjects to test it on.”
“So you experimented on children?” I growl.
“We thought … we thought it would help them. But it had an adverse reaction.”
“So why didn’t you reverse it?”
“We didn’t know what it had done to them!” he protests. “Any symptoms formed gradually. At first there was simply minimal memory los
s, so we thought the drug hadn’t worked and we moved on to a different formula. It wasn’t until later that we realized that the test subjects were … changing.”
“And then? Why didn’t you do anything about it then?”
“We did! We found all the children involved in the case and we monitored them to make sure they were safe.”
My eyebrows arch in disbelief. “Is that really what you believe?”
Ben looks confused. “That’s what happened.”
“They were murdered, Ben,” I tell him flatly. “The Bloods found and killed every single one of them.”
“No,” he shakes his head quickly. “I almost wish it was so, because … Because the truth is worse.”
I stare at him, feeling the hairs on my arm stand on end. Something about his tone is frightening me.
“All of the children—except for Josephine—were brought into the labs and held. They exhibited all kinds of antisocial qualities. A kind of rabid violence that occurred every year on the day they were injected with the drug we called Zemetaphine.” Ben sits forward, his hands moving as he speaks. “Zemetaphine is a strand of durable virus. The brain has two main parts—the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for logic and reasoning, and the limbic system, responsible for our emotions. This second part of the brain is more primitive. When we feel angry, the limbic system is working, usually without the help of the cerebral cortex, which is why we become so irrational. We even have a small structure inside the limbic system called the amygdala. This houses our ‘fight or flight’ response, and when it activates, it can force us to behave entirely without regard for the consequences.”
“And Zemetaphine?”
“Zemetaphine attacks the limbic system—specifically, the lobe that houses our anger response. But instead of killing this response, it had the adverse effect of confusing it. Being a Blood, you will understand about the uses of adrenalin?”
I nod. “If you can tap into it, your physical attributes can be heightened.”
“Precisely. You have learned to activate your amygdala, flooding your body with the adrenalin of this ‘fight or flight’ phenomenon, but you use this in perfect synchronicity with your cerebral cortex, allowing you to act rationally. So you’re clear-headed, while also stronger and faster, correct?”