He shrugs and leaves. I keep punching. I know I don’t have the right technique, and that my punches are wildly unskilled, hurting my shoulders and wrists. But my stupid trainer isn’t training me.
A loud scream of frustration leaves me as I punch the bag as hard as I can and feel pain shoot through my elbow.
“Pretty sure he’s into you.”
I turn to find Pace this time. “Who? Shadow?”
She laughs. “You said he doesn’t love you. I’m not sure that’s true, given the torture we were just forced to endure.”
“He’s just feeling guilty,” I mutter, spinning to whack the bag ineffectively with my left fist. “And have I ever given you cause to believe I want to talk about my personal life?”
“That was the worst punch I’ve ever seen,” she observes.
“I know,” I reply through gritted teeth. “I don’t know how to do it better.”
“Use the weight from your center.”
“What does that mean?” I exclaim.
Pace gives me a wave. “You’re in a bitchy mood. I’m out.”
My shoulders slump and I stand alone on the mats.
I don’t know what I’m doing, or what I want. I wanted to find the resistance so I could do something about the world, but nobody here seems to be doing anything about it, and so I’m just … existing. I have only ever known a life of survival, of running and hiding and fighting the blood moon. I was a woman whose entire life revolved around one thing and now that thing is gone. So what do I do? Pretend I can throw a punch and pick some wheat.
I don’t know what the point of anything is. I’m not a good enough person to just exist. I’m not worth just existing.
So what do I do?
*
January 13th, 2066
Luke
I wait.
I try to wait. I feel wrung out and empty. The anger has waned somewhat but not completely. Now I’m hurting all the way through and I don’t know what’s going on.
Sitting up in my hospital bed, I peer through the darkness and see Ranya sleeping in the chair. As quietly as I can manage, I creep from the bed and pad for the door.
“You haven’t been discharged,” Ranya murmurs sleepily.
“Where’s Dual staying? I gotta ask her something about the city.”
She hesitates, then sighs. “Your old room.”
So I make my way through the quiet settlement, the moon bright above me and clear as cut glass. I feel a trembling in my spine, a kind of unsettled restlessness. My heart is racing ahead of me to find her before I do.
At the door I pause. It’s dark inside. I stalk quietly around to the back window. She’s in bed, not moving except for the soft rise and fall of her chest. I try to draw a breath but find that I barely exist. Am suddenly just … this boneless, fleshless thing, made of fear and yearning and guilt.
I tap on the window.
She wakes immediately; was sleeping only lightly. She spots me and this look of pain fills her. Warily she climbs out of bed, wearing a t-shirt and undies and looking like a creature leapt straight from my dreams. She’s healthier than I’ve ever seen her as she walks to the window, looks down at me. Places her hand on the glass. Moves her lips close. Our eyes meet, search.
I reach up to place my hand against hers.
“I love you,” I say softly, and she sees the shape of my words without hearing them. I wait, not knowing if she’ll let me in. After a long, terrible moment, she reaches down and slides the window open. I climb through.
“What are you doing?” she whispers.
“Following you. Forever.”
Josi sits on the edge of the bed and rests her head in her hands. “I told you – ”
“I know.” I sit beside her and we lie back on the mattress together, staring at the ceiling.
“What’s going on?” I ask her. “Why are we lying to them? And why do they all think your name is Dual?”
“Pace called me that and I just … let her. I don’t trust them.”
“Josi, they’re good people. I – ”
“Luke,” she says, and I know the voice. I know it very well. It’s her frightened voice; her brave one. “I told them I was a mistake. That you saved me by accident.”
“But why?”
She sits up. “You told them the girl you went back for was immune to the cure, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“They want me for something. Because of that. And I can’t let them have me.”
“I know them – ”
“You know them and you trust them. I get it. But listen to me.” She holds my gaze fiercely. “They don’t own me and I don’t owe them anything. They have their own agendas, and I don’t want to be studied or experimented on anymore. I just want to be left alone.”
Josi licks her lips in that way of hers. “I need you to trust me. Even if you don’t believe me, I just need you to help me.”
She doesn’t say you owe me. Which she could. And even though I have spent months with these people, and they’ve shown me a home and a cause that I never thought to hope for, gave me a place to belong, something to fight for … even then, I say, “Always.”
Because she is everything, and more than everything, and forever.
“Thank you,” she says, and then opens the window.
I climb halfway out before pausing to look at her. Josi averts her eyes from me. She’s really serious about this break-up and I can’t believe it, except that I can. The notion of her hating me was bad enough, but the reality of it is excruciating.
Extreme weariness overtakes me. I let my eyes drift shut and I rest my forehead on the side of the window. “I dreamt of you. The whole time, I think.”
There is a long silence. Then she murmurs, “Dream of something else now.”
I climb out and she closes the window behind me.
Chapter 7
January 17th, 2066
Josephine
We are at dinner. I am sitting with my friends, and the idiot comes over even though he is completely not invited. Which is exactly what I tell him.
“Of course he’s invited,” Hal says quickly, flashing Luke an apologetic smile.
Luke sits down, shooting me a smug look.
“You’re right,” I admit. I take a purposeful bite of my sandwich, chew thirty times and then swallow. “We can learn a lot from Luke. Tell me. How did you get these three to like you?”
He frowns.
“Which tricks did it take? A Blood knows he can’t seduce anyone without his tricks and lies and performances. So which ones did you use?”
“What are you talking about?” Pace snaps.
I don’t look away from Luke; he says nothing. I let my voice drop. “Did you tell them about a dead family member? I’ve heard Bloods do that to gain empathy.”
He goes rigid. He told me once that his brother, Dave, killed himself after having been given the cure. But I don’t even know if that story was true. That was the same night I first played him the song I wrote for him. Remembering that song is brutal embarrassment.
I lean forward, holding Luke’s eyes. “Did you make them love you for all the pain you were in?”
“You’re so cold,” he tells me abruptly.
“Yes.”
“I was never cold with you.”
“You were worse.” I don’t care anymore if Hal and Will know about us. I’m sure Pace has told them anyway.
Luke’s mouth twists into a grimace.
“Get it together,” Pace suddenly orders, and I look up to see Raven coming this way.
I take a last look at Luke and see disappointment in his eyes, but I don’t care. I can’t live like this. Anger eats me from the inside.
Raven invites the two of us for drinks as though we are a couple. I hate it. It’s like listening to fingernails on a chalkboard. It takes everything I have not to tell her that I hate Luke Townsend and she can shove her fucking drinks up her ass.
*
Raven
I watch them. Now that he’s awake and my heart has remembered how to beat, I watch them. Some nights they eat together with the children. They don’t talk much, they mostly listen to Pace, Hal and Will chatting incessantly. Luke was always prone to bouts of reticence though, and I don’t know Dual well enough to know if her silence is unusual. She was in a mental asylum for most of her life, so I suppose it would be unusual for her to act too normally. Their eyes dart often to each other, though, and I want to know why, and what is in those looks. Is it simply fascination, after having gone through whatever they did together? Gratitude for having saved each other? Or something more?
Thick, heavy tar clogs my arteries when I think it might be this last.
Tonight I cross to their table. “Hello, you two.”
The conversation ceases and they all look up at me. “I’ll take a stab in the dark at which two you’re talking to,” Pace mutters and I ignore her.
“Raven,” Luke says with a smile. It doesn’t reach his eyes.
Dual goes back to her sandwich without saying anything.
“I wanted to invite you both for drinks tonight. After dinner. See you at my place.” I leave before they can answer. Quinn is hunting tonight, which is why I invited them. If he was home he’d make it too hard for me to really investigate them. Plus he’d be disappointed in my suspicion.
At home I pour wine for the three of us and plug my tablet into the ancient speakers. Luke, I remember, used to love cello music, so I had Hal steal me some tracks when he was last in the city. It’ll be a nice surprise. Once the low notes are plucking through the living room I sit down to wait.
They are very late. When I open the door it’s to find them both leaning lazily against either side of the doorframe, looking equally uninterested in each other and in being here. Actually they both look a bit like surly teenagers.
And as I take them in I know. They are in love.
It’s the effortless familiarity. The startling similarity. The bristling animosity that only comes from some serious feelings. If they are not in love then they know each other very well.
It causes a sharp pain inside me. “You’re late.”
“Did you specify a time?” Dual asks.
I stand aside and they traipse in. They both sit on cushions on the floor and reach for a glass of wine, not bothering to wait for me before drinking thirstily.
I sink onto the couch. “Cheers.”
“Sorry.” Luke grins, clinking his glass to mine. Dual does the same but doesn’t apologize. “Quinn hunting?”
I nod, meeting his eyes. “I thought it’d be a good chance for us to catch up.”
“Might be easier for you to catch up without me here,” Dual suggests.
“Stay,” I murmur. “I want us to be friends, Dual eyes.”
“How about we start by not calling me Dual eyes?”
“I like it,” Luke comments, and she rolls those dual eyes of hers. It grates at me that they are the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen.
“So why the turnaround?” she asks me mildly. “The last time you and I spoke you had a slightly different perspective on the matter.” And she smiles. It takes me aback – I’m the one who’s supposed to be relaxed and in control.
I shrug, matching her manner. “Quinn had words with me. I do tend to be on the suspicious side.”
Dual holds my eyes for a few seconds too long – I refuse to look away. “Ah,” she says eventually, nodding and taking another sip. She turns to Luke, who’s looking between us curiously.
“What’s your Inferno name?” she asks him.
He shrugs. “Didn’t get one. They used to just call me Blood.”
She doesn’t react at all. She knew already, then. “You two have been getting to know each other,” I point out.
Luke nods. “Over the last few dinners.” He scratches his arm absently; he hasn’t stopped moving since he sat down. He used to be deeply still.
“Sounds like Luke’s certainly had an adventurous life,” Dual offers with a wan smile.
“Unlike life in the asylum?”
She shakes her head, her smile widening slightly. “You know what life in the asylum is? Boring.” Then she gives a breath of laughter and meets my eyes and I believe her, I really, really believe her.
“Hanging around uncured people can’t have been that boring.”
“You’d be surprised at how much more insane people become after being given the cure. I was the only uncured in there most of the time.”
“Until Luke’s girlfriend, right?” I ask, watching for her reaction.
Dual nods, not missing a beat. “That’s right. She didn’t talk much though. And she was separated from most people.”
“But not you.”
She shrugs, smiling again. “Guess they thought we could do our worst to each other and it wouldn’t matter.”
“Why was she separated from the others, then?”
“They were cured and she was dangerous.”
I lean forward. “How so?”
Dual and Luke share a quick look. She turns back to me and shrugs.
“Was it the immunity to the cure you told Dodge about?”
They both nod. Dual finishes her wine and gets up to pour us some more.
“How was she killed?”
“Her last transformation killed her, as Ben told me it would,” Luke replies flatly.
“What a shame. We could have learned a lot from her blood.”
“Yeah, that was my main concern when she died,” he snaps, and I can see the anger kindling beneath his surface.
“Seems she wasn’t a survivor after all.” I can’t resist needling him.
He doesn’t look away from my face, his gaze hard. “You already know how she died,” he points out. “Dual told me you discussed it. So why are you bringing it up?”
I shrug, sitting back. “Curiosity.”
“Of course,” he laughs bitterly.
Dual puts Luke’s refilled glass in his hand. It does not escape my notice that she touches his fingers deliberately, and that he is promptly distracted from his anger as she must have intended.
“Interesting taste in music,” she says, changing the subject.
“Cello is Luke’s favorite.”
“Really? Why is that, Luke?” she asks.
His eyes dart to her as he shrugs.
“It’s a bit slow for me,” she admits. “I like stuff with a beat.”
You would. Cretin.
Luke smothers a laugh by taking a long gulp.
“Before we put the subject to bed, I will say one more thing on the matter of immunity to the cure.”
They look at me.
“I’m going to suggest a mission into the city to retrieve blood samples from the girl.”
Dual frowns. “She’s dead.”
“The Bloods will have her samples. From the first round of testing they did.”
“So you want someone to break into a Blood facility?” she clarifies. “That’s suicide.”
“Not for someone who knows what he’s doing,” I reply, looking at Luke.
“I’m not a Blood anymore. I don’t have any clearances.”
“If you’d managed to get her out then none of this would be a problem,” I say. There’s a long pause. “Didn’t you want to organize a mission to the city anyway? To stop the sadness cures? This is an opportunity to gain the blood that could immunize us against it.”
He frowns, searching my face. “You don’t want to inject yourself with whatever was in her blood,” he tells me finally. “Trust me.”
“But we can study it. Tweak it. Find a way to make the resistance members immune, so there’s never any threat of us being cured.”
“And find a way to return the cured in the city to normal,” Dual adds.
I shrug, swirling my wine.
“Right?” she presses.
“Something on that scale would be impossible.”
“We can try, at least.”
“W
hy?”
She stares at me. “Because they’re people.”
“They’re ruined. It’s too late for them.”
“No.” Dual shakes her head. “I thought that once. But I was wrong. They feel as much as we do. They’re still capable of love and grief.”
“Their brains are mush,” I say. “We would do better to wipe them all out and start afresh here, with a new civilization in which people are free.”
She stares at me, shocked. “Their neural pathways have been re-circuited and numbed, but it’s far from irreversible. And even if it was, there’s enough remaining in them that they’re worth saving. If there was only one emotion left, it would be worth saving.”
She stands and I can see she’s throbbing with indignation.
“If there were no emotions left,” Dual declares softly, “Not a single one, they would still be worth fighting for, because they are people, no matter what they’re capable of feeling.”
She walks to the door.
“Where are you going?” I demand. “I haven’t dismissed you.”
“Dismissed me?” Her look is so cutting it makes my cheeks flush. “Your ignorance is boring me,” the girl says and leaves.
I stare at the door, stunned.
Luke calmly finishes his wine.
“She’s a stupid child,” I manage. “A person without emotion is a soulless monster.”
“Why?”
I blink, looking at him. “They’re an empty shell.”
“So they deserve to die?” He stands up. “I think she’s right. The ones who deserve to die are the ones emptying the shells.” He pauses at the door too. “And she’s not a stupid child – she cottoned on to the truth before either one of us did.”
When he’s gone I feel embarrassed and small – and angry. It’s the way Luke Townsend makes me feel just about every time he and I are in the same room.
*
Josephine
A terrible, aching sadness fills me up and I run. I run and run until I reach the wall, and I climb the steps until I am standing atop it and gazing out at the violent forest of teeth and hands, and I let myself shatter into a thousand tiny pieces and sob and sob.