Dearly, Beloved (43 page)

“No one.”

At first I thought I hadn’t heard right. “We have to tell someone. You got everything out of her.”

“No. We don’t. Not yet.” His expression was darkly meditative. As I watched, he rose, brushing his hands off on his trousers, adjusting his shirt—like he was preparing to drive to a girl’s house to court her. The motions were strange to behold. It was like he wasn’t sure what to do and was buying time.

No. No more of this.

“Sit down,” I said firmly.

Coalhouse snorted softly. “We don’t have time for this—”

I shoved him violently in the chest, sending him sprawling over the tree. He landed so heavily that he couldn’t immediately
recover, which gave me enough time to get to him, falling to my knees beside his jagged face.

“You will listen to me,” I told him, my voice not my own. “You will listen to me, and you will hear what I say—or so help me God, I will scream.”

Coalhouse stared at me. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t understand you,” I said, putting a hand on his chest. “One moment you act like a double agent, the next moment you act like a
fool
. Like you’re on their side. I don’t know what you’re lying about anymore!”

“Laur—”

“Do you even
have
a plan? What are you doing here?”

Coalhouse wriggled a bit. “Laura,
you’re
acting like a fool.”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know!” My cry, though hushed, seemed to contain ten thousand souls’ worth of anger. I knew one of those souls was Mártira’s.

Coalhouse looked into my eyes. “I got what I needed. I’ll go back to New London, figure out what to do. And you need to come with me, so you’ll be safe!”

I laughed. I actually laughed. “Like I believe you.”

“What are you talking about?” Coalhouse gestured in the direction Hagens had gone. “What, you think I’m really siding with her?”

“Then who are you going to tell? What are you going to do?”

“I’m not sure yet, but I’m going to take care of it myself!”

For the first time, I felt my plants. They were negative spaces, places where my body couldn’t respond to the rage now trying to burn its way through my dead nervous system. “ ‘Take care of it’?” I asked hoarsely. “She
murdered
my sisters! She’s lied to everybody!” I looked back to the camp. “And she’s going to get them killed!”

“And I’ll take care of that, too! Trust me!”

“How? You just told her where Smoke is! There are innocent
people on those boats!” I argued. “And you’re still trying to sneak around?”

Coalhouse grabbed me by the shoulders. “Shut up!” he said, almost helplessly. “I’m on your side. All I want is for everyone to be safe. But I am also going to prove a point.”

I looked into his single eye, trying to find compassion there, a shred of humanity, something. “Are you trying to use us for
glory
? Use my dead sisters to prove a
point
?”

After two seconds of staring, Coalhouse yanked me closer and kissed me, his lips cold and somehow sloppy—untrained, untalented, too eager.

Disgust flooded me, made the roots burrowing under my skin feel like they were trying to curl. Pulling away from him, I spat, though I had nothing to spit with. Upon my withdrawal, Coalhouse had looked almost hopeful; now his eye narrowed.

“You’re worthless.” I touched my mouth and shuddered. “I bet Hagens lied to you, too. I was stupid to trust you!”

The boy stood and roared down at me, “You’re not the first!” And with that he was gone, stomping toward his carriage.

I let him go. I’d never had him to begin with.

When I told Salvez I was being forced to move in, he stared at me wearily for a moment before stepping out from behind his workstation. “I’ll go get another gurney from upstairs.”

“You see what you have me doing?” I asked Bram as Salvez tottered away. “Sleeping on a gurney. Do I get a toe tag, too?”

“You’re here so you don’t get one,” he said. He’d driven me from the house in sullen silence, his silvery eyes troubled.

“Look,” I said, keeping my voice low. “I don’t want to act foolishly, but this is distracting us from the bigger picture. I don’t know what Mink’s gotten into her head, but—”

“We’ll ask her. Or Allister.” Bram finally looked at me. “Ren’s smart, Nora. And I think he’s right to be worried.”

“I’m not saying he isn’t.” Curling my fingers into fists, I gave in. “Look. Mink just likes to torment people. When Papa forced me to go to St. Cyprian’s, she tried to make me her lackey and got nowhere fast. Pamela offends her by existing, because her family’s not rich. She’s had it out for us for years. That’s why this whole thing seems so outlandish to me.”

“I don’t disbelieve you.” This statement actually caused me to
decompress a touch. “I was there when she and Allister went after Isambard. She’s obviously not an angel.”

“I just refuse to let
her
keep me from the streets. We were finally getting somewhere.”

Bram nodded, his brows lowering. “Give me the weekend, Nora. I’ll call the others, and I’ll stay here with you.”

“No,” I said, my own disappointment audible—but I knew any other response would be too selfish for words. “If I have to be here, you should head out.”

Bram was quiet for a second before confessing, “I’m thinking of going after Coalhouse.” I crossed my arms, waiting for him to continue. “It’s not even a matter of him doing anything he shouldn’t—it’s a matter of him getting himself killed. The Changed are obviously a bad crowd.”

“We don’t even know if he’s with them, though.” I wasn’t attempting to sway him, only relating the truth. “Maybe he’s just hiding out somewhere, brooding.”

“He’s getting worse.” Bram noticed I was still holding my valise, and took it from me. “He’s getting more impulsive. He’s fresher than me, his brain’s less rotted, so that’s scary.”

“Maybe he thinks he’s making the right choice.”

“I know. I was thinking that yesterday.” Still, Bram sounded unconvinced.

Tense as I was, unhappy as I was, my first instinct was to comfort him. Pushing my nose into his waistcoat, I shut my eyes. “I’m sorry for being argumentative.”

“I like you argumentative.” Bram lowered his arms and held me by the head and the waist, my valise on his wrist. “I even kind of like it when you argue with the others sometimes. Just don’t tell them that.”

“Huh?”

“If you can argue with us, get angry at us—it means you don’t see us dropping dead anytime soon. You treat people you think
you’re going to lose like fine china.” Bram released me. “Let me put your stuff in your dad’s office and tell him what’s going on. Just that we’ve gotten some weird text messages. I won’t tell him who we think they came from.”

Humbled by his first statement, I let him go. “No. I’ll come with you. But honestly, we still have no idea what’s going on. What if that Braca fellow is right? I just don’t see why it has to be
Mink
that makes me hide.”

“Then tell yourself you’re hiding because of Allister,” Bram replied.

“Oh, that’s low.” I fell in behind him, glaring up at the back of his head. “If you weren’t so … 
you
 … I’d have to kill you for that one. That is freaking low.”

Deciding to come clean, I unloaded everything except the names Mink and Allister. I told Papa about Hagens, the Changed, the masks. He took the news badly, so I found myself engaging in the old “disobey, then be sweetness and light for a few days” trick. He insisted I stay at least overnight, and the gurney was set up in a large supply closet off the main lab—not in his office with Patient One, thankfully. For the first time in my life I was grateful to be shunted to the side.

Despite my protests, Bram stuck around for part of the evening. I ended up puttering about with him on the
Christine
, dressed in a white coat, watching as he, with Evola as his teacher, patched up wounds and administered zombie meds. Still, I found my attention wandering, even when Bram took a moment to smile encouragingly at me or Evola cracked a joke. Everything that was happening to us was so confusing.

I didn’t watch the clock. I was holing up on an ironclad based on a bunch of stupid bird costumes and an Aethernet threat, so bedtime be damned. But when I finally grew tired enough to lie
down, still fully dressed, Bram made a show of taking me back to the supply closet and tucking me in. Truth be told, I rather liked it when he fussed over me. It felt good to depend on someone else, just the littlest bit. Besides, it wasn’t as if he didn’t allow me perfect freedom to go along with it.

He then shut off the closet light and took a seat in the doorway, pulling his digidiary out of his pocket and opening it, the screen illuminating his face. He let it rest on his knee momentarily as he rolled the sleeves of his shirt up, revealing the scores of wicked-looking scars covering his muscular arms. “Sleep tight. Don’t let any other men bite.”

“Har de har har,” I murmured, even as my fingers slipped beneath the sleeve of my dress, lingering on my scar.

No. I never would.

Even though I was being kept in the same boat with a literal prisoner, even though the door to the main lab was left wide open and Salvez and my father were constantly going in and out, I actually slept soundly. When I awoke on Friday morning, Bram was gone. He’d left a note telling me he was headed back to the house and then to the streets.

With nothing else to do, I finally turned to my phone. Pam had sent me another barrage of texts. From the sounds of things, Renfield had fed her family something about my paranoid father wanting to keep me close at hand. She didn’t mention Mink. I responded, and Pam told me she’d come over when she got the chance. When she did arrive, I was flicking through the television channels, watching them on Papa’s giant pull-down screen.

“This city’s turning into a prison. The poor’re stuck here. If they ever bomb the city, set it on fire, we’ll go along with the dead. This is a plot by the aristocrats! I’d like to see numbers—how many aristocrats got bit?”

“I’m telling you, they took phones at the riot two weeks ago! Some men in suits took mine! I thought the government was going to disclose everything?”

“If you’re undead, don’t trust breathers. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Nora?”

Looking up, I found Pamela in her double-breasted gray raincoat, her tired face haunted by shadows. I stood up, giving her the chair. “How’d you get here?”

“I came with Dr. Chase. She had some work to do.” She bit her lip. “Mr. Merriweather told us that Dr. Dearly demanded you spend the night
here
? What is that all about?”

“It’s … a long story.” I knew I owed her the truth, and so I spilled, trying to remain as unemotional as possible. I even told her about Mink and Allister. Pam tensed as she listened, but for the most part she remained collected.

“Are you telling me you came here of your own free will, then?”

“Of course.” Pam gave me her usual “liar” look, and I gave in. “Bram brought me.”

“If it actually keeps you safe, then for once I’m glad you’re doing what he wants.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know.” Pamela sat, and untied the ribbon holding her best hat on. “You honestly think they’re pranking you?”

“That’s what it feels like.” I shrugged. “Did Papa get to the house?”

“I don’t think your father’s been back, no, or done what he said he would. My dad still didn’t mention anything about leaving this morning.”

Deciding that I’d have plenty of time to mull over her Bram comment later, I perched on my father’s desk. “Okay. I’ll figure out a way for us to talk to Lopez.”

“Don’t.” Pam tightened her hold on her hat ribbons. “Wait until this fresh new hell has passed first.”

Confused, I said, “But Pamma, your family …”

“Oh, Mr. Griswold, Miss Sweet, and Mr. Todd came in early this morning. I think they were out on the streets looking around last night.”

That thought didn’t cheer me up. At least they’d gone together.

With that, Pam and I lapsed into a semicomfortable silence, the screen absorbing our attention. It wasn’t until NVIC went to commercial that Pam looked down the room and said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but … don’t you find hanging out in here a little creepy? If you have to stay here, couldn’t we go walk about the ship?”

Glancing around her, I saw that Patient One was watching us. The two guards were staring straight ahead at nothing, about the only thing they could do. They didn’t want to look at the ugly zombie, and they couldn’t look at us without being accused of a variety of uncouth ideas. For them, I said, “No, I don’t find it creepy. The guards are very respectful. Of me and the patient.”

“I meant
him
.”

“Patient One? Of course I do, but—honestly? I’m starting to think he likes having people besides the guards in here. I’ve been awake since six, and in and out of here all morning. Every time I leave, he stands up to watch me go. Like a puppy.”

“Charming.” Pam looked at him again. “Does he ever say anything?”

“He talked once before. He hasn’t said anything since.”