Fury: Book One of the Cure (Omnibus Edition) (10 page)

The woman still looks utterly spaced out. She hasn’t responded at all to my gentle, soothing babble. I’m not surprised. She’s blissed out on emptiness and confusion. The scientists behind the cure must be over the moon to see the more extreme results like this—it’s a classic case of a personality that didn’t take well to being messed with. Assholes.

“Do you think it would be all right if we took a little look around?” I press carefully, keeping my smile fixed in place. “We won’t bother you at all …”

“She used to live here?” the lady asks abruptly, her eyes squinting against the sun toward Josephine’s still profile. “When was that?”

“A long time ago.”

“Oh. That’s odd. We moved in only a year ago. The house had been abandoned long before that, I believe.”

“So you just found it empty?”

“Our realtor found it for us. The property had been given to the state because its occupants disappeared—every single one of them. Left no will.” She shrugs, but the story makes a lot of sense to me. I’m suddenly not too sure I want Josephine to remember anything about this place. By the sounds of it, a lot of bad stuff went down. An entire family …

I turn to suggest we leave, but Josephine is already approaching the barn.

“Don’t take too long,” the woman warns vaguely. “And don’t disrupt anything.”

There is patently nothing to disrupt, since the entire property looks to be dead grass, but I nod and thank her before following Josi to the barn. Behind me I hear the woman start to laugh in a low wheeze that makes the hairs on my neck stand on end. I glance back but she’s closing the door and her creepy, deranged laughter is cut off.

“Wait outside,” Josephine orders me coldly, and there’s something scary about her in this moment, so I do as I’m told.

After about thirty seconds she walks straight back out, strides past me and hops back in the car. I’m not sure what to say when I join her. She refuses to look at me, and there’s a hard line to her clenched jaw.

“Josi—”

“You can never ask me about that place. Not that one. Do you understand?”

I swallow and then I nod, because I do understand.

*

I pull up outside her apartment block. We sit quietly for a while. She still won’t look at me, so I follow suit and stare straight ahead too.

“I’m going to get really drunk tonight,” she announces suddenly. “Would you like to be involved?”

My head jerks around. “Uh … sure.” It’s quite possibly the best offer I’ve ever had in my life. Her smell has filled up the car and I feel kind of heady from it. Since she moved out I’ve been imagining really embarrassing things that I will never admit to. Shit like candlelit dinners and romantic baths, and long walks holding hands. And when I’m not imagining that stuff or doing my research I’m storming around the apartment in a rage. I smashed the best bottle of wine I owned last night. It was worth a fortune and I’d been saving it for a special occasion. I drew it from the rack and felt so resentful that I wasn’t allowed to admit to every one of my feelings that I took the bottle out onto my balcony and hurled it straight down onto the street.

“We’re going to a party,” Josi says.

“Whose?”

“Some guy I met at the bar.” She is clearly demanding a fight but I’m tired of pretending I don’t want her. I can barely remember my adolescence. Josephine is the same. So maybe it’s self-destructive, but maybe we both need to blow off some steam. Maybe all I want to do is enjoy her for five minutes without being reminded that she might be dead in a few months.

So instead of warning her about how dangerous it could be, or pointing out that young men have the least predictable responses to the cure and when mixed with alcohol they can be truly violent, I say, “Good. What time will I pick you up?”

She hesitates a second then shrugs. “Ten.”

I have no clothes that are suitable, and as I stare at my filthy home, my tiny suitcase and its meager contents, I have a moment of complete despair. I almost start crying, but I don’t, because that’s not what I do.

Instead I force myself to be proactive and I spread every item of clothing I own over the mattress. I have a pair of ratty old black jeans with holes in the knees; I decide to cut them into shorts. I have no scissors, so I have to rip them as well as I can, then I cuff them twice so that they’re quite short. My single pair of stockings have a ladder in them, so I rip them a couple more times, hoping it will look like they’re supposed to be like this. My scalp isn’t as sore as it was a month ago so I painstakingly brush my long black hair. I keep meaning to cut it short, but can’t quite bring myself to do it. I have no idea why—maybe it’s simply that I’ve always had long hair, and cutting it all off would seem a bit like losing the last part of me that was once innocent.

There’s one top in the pile that I’ve never had occasion to wear. It’s a deep emerald green, buttoned down the front with no back. I consider what I could wear underneath it, then remember that I’m supposed to be cutting loose tonight and decide to wear nothing under it. My bruises have faded, but tonight I don’t really care if people can see them, and this way my tattoos are visible too. Lastly, I add my black leather wristband, a long earring made of a bird feather in one ear and, because I can’t find the other one, a black stud in the other. Impatiently I brush on some mascara and red lipstick.

I only have a small cracked mirror in the bathroom, so I take a look at myself in there. I look like a completely different person. I can’t find myself anywhere in my reflection, and I like it. I feel dangerous. And even though this is usually the last thing I would ever want to feel, tonight I want to be wild and difficult. And angry.

There’s a knock on my door. My stomach lurches but I ignore it. He let me leave, and he made me confused, and I don’t need that shit in my life. I told him that I
wanted
him, for god’s sake, and he just stood there and didn’t say anything! I’ve never been so humiliated.

There’s also the much more important fact that I can’t trust myself around him. If I let myself have feelings for him, I might hesitate when the time comes. And that isn’t an option—killing myself is a necessity.

Anyway. I only invited Luke tonight because I need a designated driver and because I’m fairly sure no one will talk to me if I don’t come with a good-looking friend.

I open the door and we stare at each other. Oh Lord, the man is trying to destroy me. The stupid bastard looks like he hasn’t made any effort at all, and yet somehow he looks hotter than he ever has. He’s wearing slim-fitting, charcoal-colored suit pants very low on his hips. A pair of suspenders hangs carelessly from the waistband. I can quite clearly see the outline of his muscular chest and arms through his white tee, and he hasn’t bothered to shave so there’s dark stubble over his square jaw. He leans against the doorframe, and he looks at me with an expression I have never seen him wear before. It’s like he’s just as dangerous as I am, just as deadly, and he’s had enough of the games.

Luke’s green eyes travel over my body and I feel flushed. He doesn’t smile, but I can see in his eyes that he’s pleased. “You look hot.”

I turn and grab my black boots, pulling them on. I glance at his feet and see an ancient pair of sneakers. The bottoms of his pants are scuffed. All those fancy new clothes in his wardrobe and he insists on wearing items from the Stone Age. Even so—he can’t help but exude lazy sexuality.

“Come on,” I mutter as I brush past him. “Did you get any alcohol?”

“Was I meant to, Your Highness?”

“We’re going to a party and I told you I want to get drunk so what do you think?” I’m enjoying being snarky. I want to ruffle him, make him angry. I want to push every single one of his buttons. In fact I want to make everyone angry, everyone in this whole damn world.

“You’ve got a fakey—you can get your own booze,” he comments.

We arrive at the warehouse and head inside. It’s full already, even this early. The lights are low and there are bodies everywhere, moving and pulsing to the music. Crates full of drink line the walls and we grab a beer each. I also spot a bottle of vodka and manage to pinch the whole thing. I stalk away from Luke, realizing I don’t need an escort—nobody cares who arrived with who. There’s a carelessness here. Every person in this warehouse has lost something or is missing something from their lives. I can see it in the way they’re desperate to forget.

I take a long gulp of the vodka and nearly vomit. It’s without a doubt the most disgusting thing I’ve ever consumed. I don’t drink much because drunk people tend to get emotional, and I can’t afford to do that. I soon find that if I chase the vodka with the beer it’s slightly more bearable. I want to talk to someone, someone who has no idea that I’m a freak.

Three people are standing close by, two guys and a girl. One of the boys is chatting with the girl and making her giggle, but the other guy is staring into the sea of dancing limbs. He looks carefree and quite handsome, with his blond hair and collared black shirt. I approach him and his eyes glance over me. They quickly take stock of me and then keep moving. My feet falter for a moment, but then I’m reminded of the barn and I don’t really care about the fact that he won’t look at me. I refuse to allow every person in this place to ignore me.

“Hi,” I say when I reach his side. This time he manages to hold my eyes for a few seconds before looking away again.

“Hey,” he says shortly.

“I’m Josi.”

“Chris.” He looks me up and down and sort of reconsiders his reluctance. I can see the thoughts crossing his mind as if they’re neon-lit signs. He doesn’t know why he didn’t want to talk to me. I seem perfectly normal. And he probably doesn’t get many girls going out of their way to talk to him. Chris swallows and tilts his body more in my direction.

“Having fun?” he asks.

“I only just got here, but yeah, I guess.”

“You’ve certainly got your drink sorted out,” he mutters, gesturing at my bottle.

“Do you want some?”

He takes the vodka and has a few gulps. I follow suit and then we look at each other awkwardly.

“So … are you, like, on something?” he asks. “Your eyes … They’re kind of … manic, or something.”

My eyebrows arch. Is he serious? What was I thinking, coming over here to talk to a stupid child? I let a slow smile curl my lips; it is closer to a sneer. “I’m sorry. I thought you might be interesting. My mistake.”

I walk away from him, even though he calls out for me to wait. What a fucking joke. I press into the dancers, but feeling their skin against mine makes me jerk in shock. This isn’t the right way to be touched. I push through them, trying to head for the door, trying to find Luke.

At last I make it to the other side of the massive warehouse. A couple moves to the side and I am finally faced with Luke. He’s standing beside a girl in a sparkly red dress with amazing breasts and curly blond hair. She’s leaning close to him and he’s telling her something that requires lazy hand gestures and a mildly interested smile. She laughs, tilting her head back and shaking her tits.

I want to sink into the floor and cease to exist. Instead of dying, couldn’t I just stop
being
? That would be really nice.

But that’s when Luke’s eyes move in a cursory glance about the room. They reach where I’m standing and he stops. His eyes stop, his hands stop, even his mouth stops mid-word. Very slowly he starts to smile.

I hate him and I hate that damn smile. It hits me in the guts and heats my skin to flames.

Luke doesn’t even look at the girl as he brushes past her. She says something and then looks devastated that she’s been ignored. I barely notice this because my eyes are locked on Luke as he crosses the floor and leans close. “You look really lonely, girl.”

I swallow. He’s taking up every inch of the world. His presence is always larger than anything else. “This place is full of stupid little boys.”

“I hate stupid little boys.” He grins, teeth absurdly white. “Am I a stupid little boy?”

“I haven’t decided what you are yet.”

Luke moves his hand to my cheek and strokes his thumb to the corner of my mouth. “Well you let me know when you do.”

I feel sort of breathless. I want to kiss him, but I won’t, because I saw things in the barn today, and they make me want to die.

“Are you drunk yet?”

“Sort of.”

“And has it made you feel better?” he asks gently.

“Not really.”

“Why are we here, Josi?”

“I don’t know.”

Something loud explodes and shocks me so much that I jump. Luke’s hands are already pressing me behind him. It takes my poor, throbbing ears a moment to understand that it was a gunshot. I can’t figure out what’s going on, but people are starting to scream. A girl shoves into me and nearly knocks me off my feet, but I manage to stay upright.

“Nobody move!” a voice screeches out over the crowd. Someone has stopped the music. I peer around Luke to see that there’s a young man—the one who was flirting with the girl, Chris’ friend. He’s holding the gun high and there’s a crazed look in his eyes. He smiles wolfishly, giving an odd trickle of laughter.

His arm is around the girl’s neck, a bit like how he might hold her if he wanted to be affectionate. Her eyes have that eerie vacant look about them. She doesn’t know what to feel—she looks like she barely knows what’s going on.

“Let’s play!” the boy announces. There are a few sniggers in the crowd. One man cheers. Someone wolf whistles. Someone is crying. A few girls keep screaming in a really weird, abrupt way. I hear a high voice softly singing a skipping rhyme.

“Come on! Who wants to play?” He fires the gun twice into the roof, causing another eruption of chaos. “Don’t you want to see me shoot her?” And with this, the guy lowers the gun and points it into the temple of the girl.

“Stay here,” Luke says. He squeezes my hand once, and then he moves toward the boy with the gun. I feel a moment of terror in my stomach. Luke slinks into the empty space around the shooter. I don’t know what he’s going to do, but the girl needs help too. Quickly I thread my way through the crowd, moving around toward the back of the couple. I keep my eyes on them and Luke.