Fury: Book One of the Cure (Omnibus Edition) (14 page)

The police have made a wall before the door, and they have their guns aimed straight at us. There are at least a dozen of them.

“Stop there,” Detective Webb orders coldly. Her gun is pointed at Luke’s head.

“We haven’t committed any crimes,” Luke says calmly.

“You got out of my office somehow. Explain.”

“Must not have locked it properly.” He shrugs.

“You reported a threat and then you escaped confinement,” Webb murmurs. “You then proceeded to attack and injure several of my officers. That’s assault. Put the weapon down.”

Luke holds up his bit of wood and looks confused. “This is a desk leg,” he points out slowly. I have a mad urge to laugh, probably caused by my complete terror.

“
Put it down
.”

“Of course,” Luke says softly, holding Webb’s eyes. “Whatever you wish, Detective.”

My heart picks up just as the atmosphere in the room changes. I can feel the energy freeze and then shift, quick as lightning, but not as fast as Luke is. He places the wood on the floor slowly, but instead of straightening, he twists down and in, moving with more speed than I’ve ever seen in a human. The policeman closest to him doesn’t stand a chance. Shots go off, but I don’t think they hit anything.

My eyes are locked on Luke. I thought I had at least a bit of a hold on who he is, but watching him now, I’m not so sure. His right fist moves up and into the cop’s chin, causing the man’s head and neck to snap back. His hold on the gun drops, and Luke is there to relieve him of his weapon, dropping to the ground and rolling back up behind me.

Before anyone has a clue what’s happened, my boyfriend is holding a gun to my head. “Nobody move,” he orders, and there’s death in his voice.

Every police officer in the room is a statue. Webb’s face is finally starting to show some concern. She’s watching Luke with that hawk gaze, and I think that maybe there’s even a bit of admiration in there somewhere. “Don’t do anything stupid,” she says.

Luke smiles; I can hear it in his voice. “I won’t if you won’t, sweetheart.”

“Put the gun down, Mr Bates.”

“My name’s not Mr Bates,” he informs her mildly. “Here’s what’s going to happen, Detective. You’re going to order your officers to stand down and let us leave, or I blow the pretty girl’s brains out.”

I feel cold all the way through. There’s something so terribly cruel in his voice. A hard edge of violence, a hint of the insanity brought on by his cure. I can’t tell if it’s real or not.

“You wouldn’t hurt your sister,” Webb says, but she doesn’t sound very sure.

“This isn’t my sister,” Luke says with a sneer. “I haven’t got a damn clue who this girl is. I’m quite happy for her to become collateral. Are you, Detective?”

I don’t have to fake the whimper of fear that escapes me. My knees wobble but Luke steadies me. “Careful,” he orders me, and it doesn’t sound like Luke at all. I feel a bit like I’m trapped in my worst nightmare—I have always been terrified that one day he would lose his rational thought and act like all the other drones do in situations of stress. I know Luke well, but I don’t know
drone
Luke—unpredictable Luke. The reality is that he could turn on a blink—he could be anyone and do anything.

Detective Webb is thinking quickly. Her eyes are darting between Luke and me. I force myself to meet her eyes and beg for her help. “Please,” I blubber.

She makes a soft noise of helplessness and then nods. “Stand down.” Her officers lower their weapons and Luke pulls me straight out the door.

“Run, and don’t slow down until I tell you to,” he orders crisply. So I run. I run as fast as I can, pushing and stretching my muscles until they scream, and then I run some more.

Luke leads me toward his car, but he takes a long and difficult route, hiding for long stretches and doubling back to avoid pursuit. He’s extremely thorough and patient, timing how long we have to wait in certain places, somehow knowing when feet are about to approach the mouth of an alley or turn a corner past where we’re hiding. Eventually we reach the car and hop in. He sets it to manual and drives us a few miles, then stops in a car park. He hops out of his car and promptly slides into another vehicle that’s just been sitting there waiting for his fingerprints to activate it. I compartmentalize all of this shock and confusion and follow him into the second car. He drives this one for a while in silence until we arrive at another seemingly normal car park, where we switch cars again.

We don’t go home. Luke drives us to the other side of the city and rents a room in a small motel. This seems stupid to me, since we’ll have to pay for the room with our prints, and these can be traced back to Luke’s override of the police station locks. I don’t say anything though, because Luke has shut down entirely, and I’m freaking out that he’s going to turn into the crazy guy with the gun at the warehouse party. If I had somewhere else to go, I might. But I might not. I might follow him anyway, even knowing how dangerous he could be, because he’s been doing the same for me all along.

It occurs to me that if he does suddenly snap and lose his mind, I’ll have no way of defending myself. I’ve just seen him take on an entire room full of armed police officers and come out on top. I don’t know the extent of what he’s capable of, but I know it’s frightening. And here’s me, five foot seven and bony, not a single ounce of muscle on me and no idea how to fight.

Luke locks the door behind us with his thumb, then flicks on the lights. I look at him, searching for the man I know. I just need a sign or a hint, anything to let me know that he’s still here with me.

He’s facing away, so I can only see his tall profile. He’s beautiful, his strong features even sharper from the side. Standing like this, still and strong, he makes me think of something ancient and powerful. I can’t find him. All I can see is how big he is, how overwhelming. At six foot four, he towers over me, and the thick cords of muscle in his arms and back have taken on new meaning for me after today. I’ve never been sure how he acquired the body that he has, or the scars on his knuckles. Now it seems obvious—he got it all from fighting. Who or why I don’t know.

I want to say something to bring him back, but I’m too scared that it won’t work. With the cure, even if Luke knows me, he could still hurt me. He might not even see it as wrong.

Moments stretch out, and then he turns to look at me. His eyes find mine, and they’re so green, as always. At last he speaks, and there’s something young and sweet in the rough tones of his voice. “You okay, baby?”

I feel all the sharp edges inside me melt away. My shoulders sag in sheer, gut-wrenching relief. He’s here again, my Luke, just as he’s always been. I cross the room and hug him as tightly as I can, pressing my lips against his cheek in an almost savage way.

“It’s okay,” he says softly against my hair, hands stroking calm circles against my back. “I’m sorry, Josi. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I had to get us out.”

I nod, and Christ—it’s so obvious now. Of course he was just pretending, doing whatever he had to, to keep us safe. I feel like an irrational fool for having jumped to such awful conclusions, and worse than that—I feel ashamed of how easily my mind betrayed him. “I know,” I tell him, kissing him a hundred times, a thousand, trying to make sure there’s no doubt.

Luke pulls back a few inches and cups my face in his hands. He looks into my eyes. “You were so afraid,” he says, almost like an accusation.

“Of the police.”

“No, of me.”

I move out of his reach, staring at him. “I thought—I was worried that maybe you’d … changed.”

“Like the other drones?”

I don’t reply. Does he really want to do this? Surely the answer should be obvious.

“Don’t you trust me?” Luke presses.

“Of course I trust you. I just don’t trust what’s been done to you.”

His hands drop to his sides as though he’s being confronted by something huge. “Josi … that was all me. It wasn’t the cure. You get that, right?”

I lick my lips. “You hit a woman with a piece of wood.”

He grimaces and I can see his teeth. “To get you free.”

“Is she … was she badly hurt?”

Luke cracks the knuckles in his fingers. “I hit her between the third and fourth ribs. She was winded, but she’ll be fine. I didn’t even break anything.”

“How did you know how to do that? How do you know so much about fighting?”

“What does it matter? She’s fine, and we’re fine.”

I swallow, moving back another step. “What if she’d been hurt?”

He spreads his hands. “Is there a question in there somewhere?”

“What if you’d killed her? What if you’d had to?”

Luke knows exactly what I’m saying—I can see it in his face. He watches me through hooded eyes, and then he says very clearly, “I would have killed her. I would have killed every person in there if it meant saving you. Even now, I could go back in there and destroy them all. You don’t understand what I could be, if it came down to it.”

My breath catches in my lungs.

“You’re scaring me,” I tell him. “I don’t know if you’re serious or not.”

“Yes you do.”

Didn’t I prepare myself to do what I had to? But what is the difference between fighting for freedom and committing wanton violence? When do we stop ‘doing what it takes’? When does it become too much? I guess in the scheme of things we haven’t really done much—not when I think about the men on the train.

“There’s a war raging inside you,” Luke tells me quietly. “She’s stronger than we are, which means we’ll have to fight a lot harder than she does. I’ll do whatever I must.”

My heart is like a drum being pounded again and again.

I tell him, “So will I.”

Luke crosses the room and kisses me fiercely, and he’s here, every part of him is here with me, like I know it will be until the day we’re robbed of everything—even our ability to love.

I don’t sleep anymore. I lie awake, waiting for her screams to start. This is my penance. The agony of listening to her fear is the price I pay for all the lies I’ve told her. I feel like a ghost, but I love her. I love her.

I won’t sleep for the rest of my life if that’s what it takes. I’ll wait through all the hours of night until she starts to thrash and cry and shriek with all the things hidden in her mind, and I’ll hold her as tightly as I can until there’s no strength left in my muscles.

I don’t know what else to do.

One day she will hate me; of this I am certain.

The sharp, tangy scent of rusted steel is in my nose. Bales of hay are bright yellow, like spun gold, shimmering in the light of the fire. And more yellow—long tendrils of hair that belong to a child. I can smell her, can smell her fear.

It makes me hungry.

It’s not rusted steel I smell after all—it’s blood.

*

I wake, gasping for air. There’s a deep, rough voice speaking to me, and even though mentally it takes me a moment to interpret it, instinctively I know it’s him, deep down in my bones.

“It’s okay, Josi,” Luke tells me.

I pull myself to a thorough halt. I’m still and calm. Under the spell of the moon it all seeps into my consciousness, but when I wake I push it all back to where I won’t find it. In my dreams my memories rebuild themselves, but vanish like fog between my fingertips when I try to hold onto them. Some part of me must be saying
no—these will ruin you. Leave them be
.

Luke’s warm body is big beside me, his large, square hands drumming a steady rhythm against my spine.

“Hey,” I sigh. “Did you sleep?”

“Yep.” He’s lying—I can see the exhaustion settled beneath his eyes. The hollows there are dark like bruises. I reach for his cheek and brush my hand over it gently.

“Poor darling,” I murmur sleepily.

“I’m fine,” he argues, sinking further down beside me. We rest our heads on the pillows and look at each other. His hand finds mine and threads its way through my fingers.

“I was scared yesterday,” I admit. “Of you.”

“I know.”

“Because of your cure. Because no matter how close we are or how well we know each other, there will always be the possibility that some switch in your head could flip.”

Luke nods as though he’s been thinking the same thing. “I can show you how to protect yourself.”

“What, like fighting?”

“Self-defense.”

“No
way
, Luke. I need to be making myself
less
dangerous, not more.”

“It’s a moot point because we’re going to stop your curse.”

“In less than two months?” I snort.

“We have the missing person reports now. They’ll help.” His tone is flat, but I can see an edge of desperation in his eyes. I realize that he’s more frightened of the blood moon than I am.

“Okay,” I agree gently. “Let’s go home and take a look.”

*

Luke’s standing with his face nearly pressed up against the screen on the wall. He’s reading down the list of names and dates.

“Luke, I’m telling you—you need glasses.”

“I’m fine,” he replies distractedly.

“Hey—how come you know how to fight? And hack computers?”

“Huh? Fighting is ’cause of Dad and my brother. They just loved it, I guess. And the computer stuff is all for work.” I can tell he’s too focused on the screen to pay my questions much attention. “What’s this one? There’s an entry on the 19th of September 2060, but there’s no name beside it.”

“Click on it.”

Luke presses the date, but it just takes us into a blank file.

“Weird,” I comment, moving a bit closer. “See if there are any more like it.”

He starts to scroll down through the missing persons, and we find several more dates without names, all between the 17th and 20th of September.

“It’s them!” I breathe excitedly. “It has to be! If we can just find out who these people are—”

“Josi, it doesn’t matter who they are,” Luke cuts in. “You’re looking at this the wrong way. What’s the question you should really be asking?”

I stare at him, and then my eyes shift to the dates on the wall. I feel like an idiot for not having thought of it—it’s so obvious now. Swallowing, I ask quietly, “Who deleted these from the police database? Who would have enough power, and why would they want to?”

Josi is seriously on edge, which means that I am too. She’s started grinding her teeth without realizing it, and she gets these awful headaches and sore muscles. She’s warned me about what will happen to her as we get closer to September, but she already seems worse than when I was watching her last year. It means the change is having more of an effect on her body. We have to make it stop. That’s the only answer.

She’s doing a pretty damn good job of pretending she’s fine though. As we drive, Josi sings along to the radio, her off-key alto voice kind of like screeching baboons. It makes me laugh and reminds me of all the things we still have.

“Where is this place?” she asks curiously, peering around at the chaos of the inner city. On every surface there are bright HD pictures or videos, advertisements of every kind, moving and flashing, attacking your senses. I hate the city for this very reason, and I can see that Josi does too. All the visuals probably can’t be doing much to help her headache. Everything is a button away—every thought, every action, every word or wish or want. I don’t know when we became so obsessed with easy. Everything in the world is designed to create ease.

Even the cure. The funny thing is that the cure has done the opposite. People are just too stupid to see.

“Not too much further,” I assure her. “He’s set up in a fairly dodgy area, for obvious reasons.”

Once I’ve parked we head toward the back alleys. For the last few days since the police station, Josi’s jumped at every sound and neither of us have been able to get any sleep. I’m still on alert. Honestly—the stunt at the station was pretty stupid, even for me. The whole charade of it was ridiculous. I could have used my security clearance to download the files, but I couldn’t let Jean know I had them, and I also needed to procure them without Josi questioning how. Hence involving her in the steal. I won’t make the same mistake again—with that little catastrophe I’ve given away a substantial clue about my skills, and I’m pretty sure she won’t buy the explanations I gave her for long.

When I think about this whole mess I realise what a complete web of lies I’ve created for myself. Lying to Jean about my continued and distant surveillance of my subject. Making her believe I’m still a loyal Blood agent ignorant of the truth about Josi. Lying to Josi about who I am, what I can feel, and taking her on this wild goose chase to help her discover the truth for herself, without giving away what I know about her in the process. It’s just lies upon lies and I can’t stand it.

Down some steps there’s a door with metal caging over it. I bang on it as loudly as I can, knowing Harley will no doubt be listening to his music full blast despite the fact that he knows I’m on my way. After about ten minutes of continuous pounding, he eventually opens the door, looking shell-shocked at any evidence of the sun.

“Luke, pal, how are you? You’re looking as pretty as ever.”

“Hey, man,” I grin. “Off with the fairies again?”

“I’ve never been off with the fairies in my life.” He winks and gestures me inside, but stops dead when he spots Josephine. “Well hello,” he says slowly. “Aren’t you lovely?”

Josephine’s eyebrows arch. She’s unimpressed and it makes my grin widen. Harley is an odd-looking guy. In his thirties, he has wild blond hair and a crooked nose. The glasses he wears for his work are magnifying lenses, and make his blue eyes look huge. He’s forgotten to take them off, as usual, so he’s probably trying to figure out why we look giant and disproportionate.

“Come on, let’s get off the street,” I suggest as I usher them both inside. The den is almost pitch black except for the eerie blue glow of several beautiful computer monitors. There’s an icon made of shimmering gold, flapping like gossamer wings through one screen and onto the next. Harley’s hacker ID is Wasp. He’s obsessed with them; at the back of the room there’s a large glass container full of wasps. Josephine moves closer to the glass, transfixed by the soft and graceful buzz of the creatures’ yellow, brown and black wings.

I let her disappear into her thoughts and turn to Harley. He’s staring at Josephine, just as enthralled with her as she is with the wasps.

“Is she …?” he asks softly. “She’s not, is she?”

I don’t reply. Although I’d trust Harley with my life, I’m not about to trust him with Josephine’s. The less people who know that she’s uncured, the better. He’s the only civilian apart from my parents who knows I’m a Blood.

“I have a job for you, man,” I tell him. He blinks and finally turns to look at me.

“Sure, Luke. Whatever you want.”

“It’ll be hard.”

“Don’t insult me.”

I smile and pull out my hard drive. He connects it to his monitors and the saved police data pops up. I’ve been staring at it for the last three days, but I need a new perspective.

Harley’s quick eyes glance over the information. He whistles slowly. “How did you get this, kid?”

“It’s amazing what people will do for a smile.”

“Maybe
your
smile,” he concedes. “So what do you need? The missing entries?”

I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s spotted them so quickly, but I am. “No—I want to know who erased them.”

Harley’s eyebrows pull together as he stares at me. “Well I can tell you right now that it would take an extremely high classification. Even higher than your—”

I hold up my hand quickly and he stops mid-sentence. I gesture to Josephine, who’s too distracted to have heard, but Harley gets my meaning, eyes widening and nodding quickly. “Sorry. Anyway, once information has been entered into these programs, it can’t be removed—it can only get reclassified. If a case is solved, it’ll be filed, but it won’t disappear. These names haven’t been erased—they’ve just been moved.”

“So can you find them?”

“Don’t you know me at all?”

“You’re right. But can you find the people who moved them?”

Harley rubs his chin and starts tapping things on his screens. He’s coding and recoding and breaking patterns quicker than anyone else could. His cyber crimes are too long and too complicated to list. If he wanted to, he could make the stock market crash and take us into another recession. Or he could steal every cent from all the biggest banks and smash the economy. I can’t think of anything he couldn’t do, but after a few minutes he turns back to me and frowns.

“Luke, this shit is heavy. Whoever we’re looking for is dangerous. The levels of security and firewalls in place would take a long time to crack, and I’d have to do it without getting traced myself.” He leans closer and whispers, “You could get this information through work, man. Why do you need me?”

“This is off the books. Work can’t know I’m interested.”

He leans back and rubs his eyes. “I can try, but—”

“I can pay you, Harls,” I say softly. “Whatever you ask for.”

“Luke, that’s not it,” he replies, sounding wounded. “I don’t give a shit about money. I’m just making sure you know what you’re getting yourself involved in.”

“I know.”

“Right then. I’m in.” He claps his hands together excitedly. “What a wonderful age to live in.”

My eyebrows arch and he grins sheepishly. “Well, technology wise, anyway. Does your girl there know about any of this?”

“The girl knows,” Josephine replies, moving to stand beside me. She’s watching Harley closely, as if she hasn’t decided whether or not to trust him.

I’ve known Harley my whole life. I knew he was a hacker before I became a Blood, and had to make him a vow never to tell a soul at work about him. It’s a vow I’d protect with my life. Friends aren’t easy to come by in this world. Especially ones who’ve managed to retain a fair amount of their personality, even after having been given the cure.

Harley grins at Josephine. “I like you. You’re feisty and you’ve got great eyes.”

Her expression doesn’t change one bit. I try not to smile.

“How long will this take?” she asks bluntly.

Harley rubs his chin again. “Not sure. Could be six months, could be a year. Or several. I won’t know until I start.”

“A year,” she repeats.

“Man, we need it in a month,” I say.

Harley chokes on his own laugh. “Christ, Luke—I’m flattered by the assumption, but you’ve got no idea what you’re asking for here.”

“I know exactly what I’m asking.”

Harley sighs and presses his palms into his eyes. “Look, all I can say is that I’ll try, but don’t hold your breath.”

I nod and clap him on the shoulder. “Thanks, Harls. You’re a life saver. Literally.”

I walk to the door only to find that Josephine is staring at the wasps again. Harley approaches and stands beside her, and I watch them for a moment in the dim blue light. In the corner of my eye, the golden wasp has resumed its exploration of the six monitors.

“Are you with them?” Harley asks her.

“With who?”

“The resistance.”

Josephine looks at him slowly. “Resistance?”

Harley shakes his head quickly. “Did I say resistance? I meant something else entirely.”

Josi rolls her eyes in her most cutting manner. “You’re an idiot.”

Harley chuckles. “That I am.”

I’m about to call out for her when she asks abruptly, “Why wasps?”

Harley folds his arms and smiles. “They don’t die when they sting.”

*

It’s silent in the car as I wait for her to say it. I know her too well to expect her not to bring it up.

“You heard him too, right?”

“Yeah, I heard him.”

“A resistance.” She sounds wistful and delighted and disbelieving all at the same time. 
“I
told
you that’s who the men on the train were.”

“Could just be a rumor,” I warn her. “Harley’s a bit of a wacko.”

“How do you know him?”

“He’s an old uni friend.”

“Who also happens to be a world class computer hacker.”

“Right.”

She sits back in her seat and I can see her brain starting to whirl. She’s piecing it all together—I can see it. Something in my own heart ratchets up—something like fear but also like excitement.

A resistance. I wished for it, and assumed it must exist, but I didn’t know until now. I feel like crying with an insane hope I can barely contain. The idea of other uncured people gives everything a new sense of meaning, of possibility. The world doesn’t seem so cold or so lonely anymore.