CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Just like that, the hope I had discovered shatters, along with everything else in my world, and it’s suddenly extremely hard to breathe.

I’ve failed.

Sarah’s disease is finally catching up with her and I’ve failed.

My eyes look over at Caden, who seems to be taking things extremely well. There’s no shock anywhere on his face, only a deep sadness and something like regret.

My mouth works it out long before I do. “You knew.” It’s not a question.

Caden looks up at me, guilt flashing across his features, and suddenly I’m angry. I charge towards him, my feet pounding loudly against the wooden floor. “You knew she was dying and you didn’t tell me,” I say as I cross the distance between us, my tone accusatory and sharp. Even after all that’s happened this morning and last night, he’s still lying to me. 

Without thinking, I reach out and slap him across the face. There’s a sharp intake of breath off to my left and in the silence that follows, Caden presses a hand to his cheek, shocked.

“How could you?!” I say and my voices rises as pain finds its way into my heart. “How could you lie to me like this?”

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, looking back at me with pained eyes. I can almost see his heart breaking.

“Sorry isn’t good enough!” I’m vaguely aware that I’m shouting but I don’t care. The lid on the bottle within me has slipped off halfway and all the emotions contained within it are starting to pour out. “Sorry isn’t going to fix this! Sorry isn’t going to save Sarah.”

There are tears on my cheeks and I don’t know how they got there or when I started crying. I’m staring at Caden fiercely – or as fiercely is as possible with tear-blurred vision – as I wait for him to say something – to say anything.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, and I’ve had enough.

“You’re an asshole,” I whisper viciously, and then I’m storming away from them, my tears flowing in streams.

“Melissa,” Katherine says, but I’m not listening.

I find that I can’t move fast enough, my ragged breathing increasing with every second I spend inside the house. The walls feel like they’re closing in on me and I make a dash for the door, nearly collapsing as I burst outside. I get a few steps of the way down the path and then I do fall, my legs too weak to hold me up now that my emotions have made me a thousand tonnes.

When I hit the ground, I expect the bottle within me to shatter, but it doesn’t. It does the opposite and cap itself off, and in some ways, that’s worse. In a rush, all of my emotions are sucked into the bottle until I’m left with a few pathetic tears.

I sink into the snow, my body heavy with emotions I can’t reach, and let my tears roll of my skin and melt into the white. I want to scream and thrash and cry out, but I find I can’t, and it’s like someone’s wound up a spring within me and isn’t letting go – all this tension and pressure and it just sits there, unwilling to budge, even when at any moment it feels like it could all come loose. 

I lie there for ages – until time loses its meaning and everything is just one giant second. The snow is almost warm under my skin and I absently dig my fingers into the white, not expecting to feel anything.

I don’t.

I roll onto my back, staring up at the blanket of endless grey above me as the tears leak slowly down the side of my face. I feel heavy and exhausted and weak, and I feel myself slipping into the world of sleep, the sound of the wind in the trees acting as a lullaby.  

It’s not until much later, after my sobs have faded away and the tears have dried up, that I hear footsteps trudging through the snow towards me. The person kneels next to my ice-cold body and I look up at their face.

“How are you feeling?” my mother asks.

I shrug – or at least try to, seeing as I’m lying face-up in snow. “What took you so long?” It’s a harsh thing to say and I know it – she was probably aching to comfort me – but it comes out anyway.

A mixture of guilt and pain spreads out across her face. “I’m sorry. Rand said to give you time. I figured he was right.”

I close my eyes and breathe in deeply once before reopening them. “He should have been right, but it didn’t work out that way. Turns out I haven’t broken yet.”

“Broken?” she asks, cocking her head to one side.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say, shaking my head.

She frowns but lets it go, extending a gloved hand, and she pulls me up into a sitting position. Together, we sit in the snow.

A few minutes of silence later, interrupted only by the sound of the wind in the trees, she says, “Caden had a reason for keeping it from you, you know.”

I want to roll my eyes, but I don’t. “I know,” I say, and it comes out as a defeated sigh. “He always does.”

“Then why do you get so angry?”

“I–” I close my mouth and start again, feeling tired. “I guess it just hurts – being lied to. No matter the reason, it still feels like a betrayal. Like he’s not someone I can trust.”

She nods.

A minute later, I ask, “What was the reason?”

“Sarah told him – told all of us, actually – not to tell you. She said you already had enough to deal with and that you didn’t need the extra worry. And she wanted to be treated normally, like she wasn’t something fragile that has to be handled with care. I just think she didn’t realise it would progress this fast; she thought she still had time.”

“She-she’s still…alive, right?”

My mother nods. “She is, but at this rate, she may only have one day left to live.”

I close my eyes, controlling the sickness working its way up my throat. Because Sarah’s death – as bad as it will be – will also be my death, and I don’t want to die. It’s my greatest fear, and also the one with the greatest chance of happening. And while I know it’s inevitable, I still want to delay it. Is it too much to ask for at least a solid fifty or so years?

“You want to come back in?” Katherine asks.

I nod. “May as well.” But I don’t tell her my plans for when I get inside. I don’t tell her that once I go back, I won’t be staying very long.

Because I don’t want to watch my friend’s life – and as a result, my own – drain away before my eyes. I don’t want to sit here and do nothing when my visions and dreams have provided me with enough knowledge to end this.

I want answers. I want revenge. And, most importantly, I want life.

I try to stay calm as I make my way back into the house, containing the raw energy already pulsing through my veins. My body itches to move – to run and jump and take action – but I reign it in, focusing instead on the ordinary task of putting one foot in front of the other.

I’m back in the living room and there is Sarah, a boiling hot, freezing cold mess. Her skin is coated in a cold fire and she frowns, moving every now and then in her state of unconsciousness. Her unnaturally pale skin is enough to make me feel sick, let alone the way her eyes pop open every few minutes to reveal unseeing eyes, the pupils dilated to the extreme.

“I’m going to the nameless group,” I say after a full five minutes of just standing there, watching Sarah’s – my – body slowly shut down.

I’m still staring at her as Caden responds. “You’re not serious, are you?”

I finally avert my gaze from the couch Sarah lies on and meet Caden’s gaze with hard, unblinking eyes. “Do I look serious?”

It’s a staring contest, and it only lasts a minute before Caden starts to shakes his head. He’s afraid – he doesn’t want to believe me, but he does.

“No way. It’s too dangerous.”

“Andthis is safe?” I refute. “How is sitting around waiting to die the better option?” The anger from earlier is coming back to me in a rush and I fight to keep it under control. I still haven’t completely forgiven him.

“It isn’t,” he says. “But we need time to think about our options and work out a plan before we rush into anything.”

“But we don’t have any time. Every second we delay is a second we’ve wasted – a second closer to two deaths: Sarah’s and mine.”

Caden’s bursting to say something back, but Rand beats him to the punch. “If you rush into this, Melissa, understand that you’ll only be rushing your own death. I understand that you want to do something, but sometimes the only way to do something is to sit and think. To plan. To prepare. Sometimes, things that seem like nothing, are actually much more.”

I let out a frustrated groan and flop onto a couch. Then I breathe: in and out, in and out. I feel my shoulders sink as my mind makes a decisions.

“Fine, I’ll stay,” I say, exhaustion creeping up on me again. “But if we haven’t got a plan by morning, I’m leaving and none of you are gonna stop me.”

It’s a deal, and Rand nods, agreeing.

I let my eye’s drift shut, aching for the embrace of sleep, and it doesn’t take long for it to find me. I let the world fade, the sounds and smells dissolving as I leave behind reality and enter a deep heavenly darkness.

-:-:-:-:-

Someone shakes my shoulder and I snap awake, my eyes on full alert. It’s Caden.

“We’re having dinner now,” he says, and I think about time and how it passes so fast when you’re oblivious to it. 

He goes to walk off but stops after a couple of steps, turning back. It’s dark in the lounge room, and the light from the dining area coats half his face, causing his brown hair to turn rich and golden. The other half of his body is drenched in the twilight darkness of the room, and I can imagine that he can barely see me.

“I really am sorry for lying to you,” Caden says into the quiet, the sounds of cutlery and plates in the kitchen seeming extremely far away.

I almost feel like I’m dreaming. Everything feels cosy and calm and normal and I can nearly forget that my best friend is lying only metres away, shivering in an invisible heat. I shake my head. “It’s fine. I get it – honestly, I do. Sarah didn’t want you to tell me and you can’t please everyone.” I shrug. “That’s life.”

He closes his eyes for a moment. “I should have told you anyway. She’s your friend too.” He pauses. “But it’s not just that. I’ve lied to you so many times and no matter how many excuses I throw at you, it’s still lying.”

“You’re right – it is.” He doesn’t look surprised that I agreed with him. “But that doesn’t make you an asshole. Every time you’ve done it, it’s been because you cared. You cared for Sarah by keeping her sickness a secret. You cared for me by not revealing your second ability. You even cared for me when we first met and you pretended to be my friend. You wouldn’t have lied if you hadn’t wanted to help me. And even though I hate it, I understand.”

He looks at me as if he’s unsure that this happening – as if he can’t believe I’m forgiving him after he nearly pushed me off the edge.

“And I’m sorry for hitting you,” I say as an afterthought. “That was unnecessary.”

He half-grins. “It’s okay – I deserved it.”

I feel a grin spread across my own face but it falters as I hear Sarah move on her couch. Caden notices and flicks a look into the darkness at our friend. I worry for her. What if the sickness progresses faster than Katherine predicts?

“She’ll be okay,” Caden says, reading my thoughts. “We all will.”

I look up at him, my heart pounding. This moment feels too intimate. I don’t like it.

“You think so?” I ask tentatively. The hope I felt earlier today has all but vanished, and in its place lies a crude voice, repeating over and over again that this can’t be done. That this is impossible.

“I know so,” he replies, and as much as I appreciate the optimism, it doesn’t help settle the worry tearing at the corners of my heart.

“Come on, let’s go,” he says, gesturing with his head to the kitchen. I notice his hand twitch, as if he was about to offer it to me, but of course, he knows better. I stand unaided.

“What’s for dinner?” I ask, stepping out of the dark and into the lighted hallway.

“Some sort of soup I think.”

I nod, and we join the others in the dining room.

After dinner, we sit at the table and discuss our options, formulating plans and strategies. I don’t take part in the conversation, choosing instead to just listen and watch. Getting support from other members of the council is mentioned more than a few times and it seems to be the only thing anyone can agree on.

We need help but we shouldn’t go to the building. We need help and we should go to the building. We need help and we shouldn’t do either. There’s so many different arguments that they all start to blend together in my head until they don’t make sense. None of them sound like good ideas, and I start to grow tired again. Katherine said earlier that we would be staying here for the night and I imagine the airbed we helped inflate after dinner lying in the lounge room, just waiting for me to collapse onto it.

“I think I’m gonna go to bed,” I say, yawning. “It’s getting late and I’m really tired.”

Rand checks the clock up on the wall. “So it is.”

My mother hums in agreement. “Get some rest. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”

I only nod and stand, walking away from the room, all my movements lethargic and slow. I don’t have anything with me – no change of clothes, no toothbrush – and so I head straight for the airbed, feeling as though an invisible force is draining more and more of my remaining energy with every step I take.

I crash land, the airbed groaning and squealing under the sudden weight, and slip under the blanket draped across it. It takes me a minute to get comfortable, and when I do, I sink further into the air-mattress, allowing the dark and the quiet to pile on top of me like an extra sheet.

I can still here the faint sounds of whispered conversation in the dining room, but the voices don’t disturb me, instead having the opposite effect and helping my muscles to loosen and my body to relax. Sarah moves every now and then on her couch but is otherwise soundless, and I quickly find myself slipping into unconsciousness.

Just before I fall asleep, my ears pick out the sounds of chairs scraping against floorboards and light footsteps slowly approaching, but I can’t hold sleep at bay anymore. Just as someone steps into the room, I step into the sleeping world and am gone.

-:-:-:-:-

I wake to darkness.

It pulses and swirls in the air above and around my head, but it isn’t thick enough to block all sight, and I can still see as I sit up, wide awake and sick of sleep.

Caden lies on an airbed near the window overlooking the street, and the moonlight seeps in through the thin curtains and falls onto the spot where he sleeps. I can’t see his face, but I can see his outline – can watch the rise and fall of his chest – and I know he is sleeping deeply. So is Sarah, which is surprising since she’s already been asleep for ages and because her earlier sleep was full of movement. Now she just lies still, and I can’t tell if that’s better or worse.

The familiar itch in my muscles which aches for me to take action returns then, and I come to a decision fast, my mind made up in a fraction of a second. Silently, I scoot out from under the blanket and get to my feet.

Because I’m getting out of here, and I know exactly where I’m going.

It’s time I paid Patrick a visit.

I sweep my gaze across the room. Somewhere, deep inside of me, is the fear that I’ll never see any of them again – Caden, Sarah, my mother, Rand – and it sits like a rock in my chest, weighing me down as I take my first steps towards the front of the house. When I near the door, I’m tempted to turn back, knowing how easy it would be to just turn around and slip back under the covers of the airbed like I’d never even gotten up.

But that would be wasteful and cowardly. That would be taking the safe option – an option that doesn’t exist for me anymore. There’s only one way to go and that’s forward. Towards the squat office block drenched in blackness a couple suburbs away. Towards danger and revenge and, hopefully, life.

The door swinging open on silent hinges. The first step out into the icy night. The wind gently pushing me along. I’m outside, the door closed behind me, before I realise it’s even happened. While my mind plays catch-up, I walk forward, creeping down the short pathway to the road-side footpath.

My heart’s beating franticly in my chest, a mixture of fear, nerves and adrenaline all pulsing in unison. There’s a buzzing in my chest and ears as I step out onto the street and an aching in my legs to move faster, walk quicker – all these things like a melody sitting above a strong and continuous base note of deep determination to continue breathing – to live.

From somewhere in my mind, I remember the location of a bus stop that’s only a couple of streets down, and although I wish there were another way, taking the bus seems like the best option. I could try walking, but it would take me at least an hour and I don’t know how much longer I have until sunrise. I inwardly curse for forgetting to check a clock.

When I reach the bus stop, I settle in on the bench beside the yellow bus stop sign and wait. I can’t imagine the buses come often at this time of night – or morning – and so, after quickly checking the bus schedule, I prepare myself for a long wait, already feeling strange. I’ve never caught a bus before – mostly because I can’t handle the stares and the feeling of the metal walls slowly inching closer – and I’m not sure I know how. But the gold coins jangling in my front pocket – the ones that have been in there for eons – help me relax; at least I have some loose change to pay for the bus fare.

It’s been twenty minutes when the bus I need to catch rounds the corner at the end of the street and speeds towards me. I awkwardly stick my arm out and wait, mimicking actions I’ve seen countless others do but never had the opportunity to do myself. The bus slows to a stop, its mechanical doors opening with a rusty squeal, and I step on, offering up my coins to the driver. He doesn’t see my face at first, but when he does, all his movements turn jerky and hesitant. I can imagine he saw me in the newspaper or on television when I first came here.

I tip the coins into his hand and he delicately passes me my change. Strangely, I feel like rolling my eyes. It seems I’ve reached a point – a point where the fear adorning the faces of strangers no longer pains me but annoys me. I have bigger things to worry about than a bus driver scared to give me my change.

When I turn to face the rest of the bus – which is practically deserted – I find much of the same thing. Two people stare blatantly while one individual quickly looks away the moment I make contact with their eyes. The only other person on the bus – a young woman with heavy eye make-up and dark, short-cut hair – doesn’t seem fazed, but I can chalk that up to her not knowing who I am.

With a sigh, I take my seat near the back door, and pretend not to notice the eyes watching my every move.

The ride only takes fifteen minutes, but it feels much longer. With every second, the walls seem to press closer, the looming night outside turning the windows into black abysses. I wish the bus driver would just turn off the lights and let us sink into darkness, that way I wouldn’t feel like I’m being watched from two angles – one from within the bus and one from the outside. I don’t like how I can’t see out but others can see in – not that there is really anyone around this time of night.

The bus reaches my stop and relief courses through me as I step off only to be trampled by the site I’m presented with. In the darkness, everything is unfamiliar and dangerous. For a moment I just stand there, suddenly struck by the enormity of what I’m trying to do.

Then I start to notice the subtle distinguishing features in the landscape and I realise that I’m standing at a bus-stop situated 100 meters down the street from the place I saw in my vision. Nerves start to bounce around in my stomach and I suddenly feel the need to throw up. As I much as I want to go inside, I really don’t want to go inside.

I head forward, passing a small park and a number of quiet suburban houses. There’s no traffic on the street and no people on the footpath, and everything seems uncannily still, like its waiting. I take my time crossing the road, my heart thrumming in my chest. Every step I take brings me closer and closer to a place I may very well have been in before, and my dream from a week back flashes in front of my eyes, as if on cue: a darkened room; a man silhouetted in the light from an open door; a cold object pressed to my chest; pain. The device that swapped me. The device that will swap me back.

There’s a check list in my mind: one – get inside; two – locate the device; three – find Patrick. At four, everything starts to fall apart. My emotions keep leading me down different avenues, some more disturbing than others. Do I want to punch him a few times, maybe draw some blood? Do I want to ask the painful question of what they did with Lauren? Or do I want to ask why? Why are you doing this? Why am I so important? Who are you? A broken part of me wants to see him lying in a pool of his own blood, growing paler and paler with each passing second until he’s whiter than I am – than Sarah lying on a faraway couch as her body slowly shuts down.

I stop before the front door, my hands and legs and body shaking. I’ve watched enough action movies to know that the front door is very rarely a smart way to enter the bad guy’s HQ, but my vision led me here and I have to believe that it chose this spot for a reason.

I raise a twitching hand to the keypad, feeling an overwhelming sense of déjà vu, and type in the code, just as I remember it: 2 3 7 1 6 6. There’s a tiny beep and then a dull, mechanical voice seeps out of the small speaker in the wall.

“When?” it asks. I recall the man in my vision and the word that rolled off his tongue: tomorrow. It’s a code and it fits perfectly. I open my mouth.

And close it.

Because the ‘what ifs’ are creeping into my mind. What if they’ve changed the password? What if I say the wrong answer? What then? It’s a fight with my thoughts and I’m unwilling to let any of them win. A line of sweat breaks out at my hairline – and with good reason. A single misstep could mean an early death for me and a definite death for Sarah. There’s no messing this up.

I swallow the questions. Here goes nothing.

“Tomorrow,” I say clearly into the wall, my voice scarily loud in the quiet.  I hold my breath, a millennia passing in the blink of an eye.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Then:

Click.