The Abandoned Trilogy (Book 1): Twice Dead (Contagion) (31 page)

She sipped her drink and watched me from under her hooded eyes. I wasn’t sure what she wanted so I waited for her to speak.

“Do you ever think about your family?” Her question wasn’t what I expected her to ask, “Your real family.”

“They died when I was three.”

“I know,” she replied, “But do you remember them?”

“Not really,” I shrugged my shoulders, “Just images sometimes, a woman with blonde hair, a tall man with brown eyes, just that.”

“You stayed with one foster family for quite a while,” she said. I didn’t reply, I knew she was referring to Theresa. I was with them for three years. From the age of 13 to the age of 15.

“It was quite a big investigation,” she said, “You were never questioned by the police were you?”

“No,” I said, “Social Services said I wasn’t mentally competent enough to be questioned.”

“But you were,” Adag said, “Yes, you have a physical disability, but your mind is your own Lucia, I didn’t really see that, not until now.”

“If they had questioned me I would have told them the truth,” I would have but I was never questioned because I was seen as being a victim, the only one to survive what Theresa did.

I clenched my fist. I had tried to forget that time, I had pretty much succeeded, but now it was rearing its ugly head and I didn’t like how it made me feel.

“You will have to face it one day,” Adag was relentless. I didn’t reply. Silence worked well for me, mostly it did.

“My parents didn’t want me to marry Michael,” Adag’s changed the subject and I was relieved, “We don’t marry Gora’s they said.”

I knew what the word Gora meant, I had heard it used by Asian boys in one of the schools I had attended when I was well enough.

I wondered why she was talking to me so intimately. I didn’t mind as I had started to grow rather fond of Adag. I hadn’t liked her asking me about Theresa but I could understand why she wanted to know. A lot of people wanted to know. After all it was a tragedy in their eyes.

“Pia bought us back together, she was their only Grandchild.”

“Your parents,” I said awkwardly, “Where they…”

“Yes,” she interrupted me, “They live…lived in London, in Hampstead, Pia went to stay with them for the weekend, she had been coming to stay with me, but I persuaded her to go and see them instead,” my stomach turned with the horror of Adag’s words. I gripped my mug of tea tightly in my hands and stared numbly at her. To say I was sorry would mean nothing.

Adag took a mouthful of tea, “She had just got engaged, she said she wanted to be married before the baby came.”

Not just one loss. Her daughter had been pregnant. Adag looked at me directly.

“If you manage to survive,” she said, “And it’s a slim chance, but better than before, then you really need to think about having children, don’t be the last, don’t let the others be the last either.”

“What do you mean?” I told you I could be obtuse sometimes.

“I know Jasmine was having sex with one of the soldiers,” my mouth dropped open and she smiled, “And I know you put a stop to it, rightfully so, but I think it might be too late.”

“She might not be,” I managed to say.

“She might not be,” Adag agreed, “But from what I have heard, they were going at it like hammer and tongues, and no they didn’t use protection.”

I didn’t ask Adag how she knew all of this. I was too stunned actually to ask any questions.

“I am a great believer in fate,” she fingered the pendant around her neck, “Your real father, he was a Hindu; you know that, don’t you?”

I had known. Social Services in all fairness had told me about my real family. They had treacle covered it a bit when I was younger, but as I got older I learned the truth of how neither of my parent’s families wanted me so I was abandoned to the care of the local council. All of my records of course followed me to Thorncroft.

Adag smiled, “I was born here,” she said, “So were my parents, I am as Westernised as they come…but,” her voice trailed off and she fell silent for a moment, “But there are some things that are harder to let go of, even Pia, she was living with her boyfriend, but she wanted to walk around the fire, she wanted to wear red on her wedding day, we don’t let go that easily of where we come from and we want to pass it onto our children.”

Where did I come from? I knew very little about my real family, only what I had been told. I hadn’t asked many questions whilst growing up, and I asked even less now I was an adult. It was if a part of me didn’t really want to know. I knew the surface of it all, but I wasn’t willing or ready to go deeper, but now it didn’t matter. The world as we knew it had ended, the past was well and truly Twice Dead.

“There isn’t anyone I could have children with,” I made a face, “Anyway, I am not mummy material, not now, not ever.”

Adag stood up, “Think about it,” she said and she left taking our empty tea mugs with her.

I dreamt that night, I haven’t had dreams for a very long time, or if I have, I don’t remember any of them, but this night was different.

I was standing on the edge of a stone platform looking down into a quarry, staring into a stone pit filled with the Twice Dead, they were looking up at me, swaying, moaning, drooling, their hands stretched above their heads as if to reach out for me.

The earth then began to shake and I lost my footing, I fell forward, I tried to scream, but I couldn’t, my lungs seized up in my chest, my arms failed about, I was going to fall into the pit of the Twice Dead! I heard the wind rushing in my ears and the faces of people I had met throughout my life looked up at me from the quarry, their teeth bared and bloody waiting for me to land among them. Waiting to rip me apart and devour every part of me.

I woke with a jerk, my hairline damp with sweat. The room was dark and my heart was hammering so loud in my ears I thought it was going to explode.

I swung my legs out of the bed and reached for my dressing gown. My leg throbbed as I snapped my leg brace on. I needed a cold drink, something sweet and sugary.

The corridor was lit by low night-lights as I made my way to the kitchen. I got a drink of apple juice from the fridge and drank it down as I sat at the Butchers Block which was now the breakfast bar. I had my night eyes so I didn’t bother putting on the light in the kitchen. Eventually I headed back to my room.

I was surprised to see a light was on in the Yellow Room and the door was partly open. I started to call out, thinking it was Adag in there when I saw a flash of combat green and blonde hair. My mouth snapped shut; I stepped back instinctively into the shadows of the deep alcove behind me. I now had a clear view into the Yellow Room.

Duke was at the shelf with the intravenous medication on it that Nat had given to Adag for Paul. He was fiddling with the boxes. I watched as he removed the thick glass phials filled with clear liquid from the top four boxes. These he put in his trouser pockets, replacing the empty boxes with four similar looking phials from another pocket.

He did this swiftly, making sure that the boxes were neatly stacked the way Adag had put them. He then switched off the light and stepped out of the room as he shut the door behind him After we had eaten our lunch, which surprisingly we both really enjoyed, Paul had asked Phoenix to come to his room with his lap-top. Strangely enough these two residents of Thorncroft rarely interacted, despite both of them having similar traits when it came to being obsessive and reclusive.

              Combining their brilliance hadn’t been my idea, it just happened and things became a lot clearer after. Too clear in fact.

I pressed myself hard into the alcove, not daring to breathe. He didn’t look to the side of him; he just walked away, his boots soft on the floor tiles. I stayed where I was for a good ten minutes. Not moving until I was sure, he was no longer in the building.

I went into the Yellow Room, keyed in the code to unlock it and then shutting the door behind me before switching on the light.

I reached for the four boxes I had seen Duke handling. I was careful when I took the phials out. I laid them on one of the empty shelves side by side and then looked at a box he had not touched.

They were almost identical. The only difference was the liquid in the exchanged ones was slightly darker and appeared a bit thicker in consistency.

What the hell was Duke doing? What was in these four phials? My mind was in a turmoil. I contemplated going to Wolf, showing him the phials and telling him everything, but whom would he believe? Me or one of his men?

Moreover, I didn’t know what was in the phials, though I doubted if it was anything good. I took the four changed phials and threw the empty boxes away. I was at loath to tell Adag about what Duke had done. She would probably go mad; confront Duke, and then what? It would all come out, what we knew, what we half knew, that couldn’t happen.

Grimly I set about making the room look as if it hadn’t been tampered with. I switched off the light and quietly left the Yellow Room, the four phials in my hand. In my room, I put them into my sock drawer, hiding them in an old pair of pop socks.

It was only when I got into bed that I realised that Duke knew the code for the Yellow Room door, the only people who knew that code were Adag, Mitch, me, and Seb, and of course Nat as he was a medical person.

Was Nat another Command Epsilon plant? No, if he was, then he could have doctored the phials himself, Duke probably asked Nat for the code and Nat would have thought nothing of it and given it him. After all, he was a fellow soldier.

I would have to speak to Adag tomorrow, and I would have to stop her from going off at a tangent. I closed my eyes. The day the military left Thorncroft would be the happiest day of my life, which is if we all lived to see it.

Adag was stunned when I told her what I had witnessed the night before. Stunned at first, and then so angry, I thought she was going to run out of her flat, find Duke and physically attack him.

              I barred the door and said urgently, “Forewarned is forearmed Adag! Think about it! If you accuse him, he will know we aren’t as dumb as we seem, think about it!”

              “What the hell is in those phials?” she hissed. She was shaking with rage and I felt the same way, but we both had to stay calm.

I had gone to sleep thinking about that and I had woken up with a horrible idea of what they could possibly contain.

              I told her. Her anger turned into horror.

              “The Twice Dead pathogen?” she whispered when she finally could speak, “You think they contain the contagion? Oh sweet Shiva!”

I nodded my head. She had to sit down. I in turn sagged against her front door.

              “But by infecting Paul now,” she said when she could finally speak, “Would make their quarantine here longer surely?”

              I hadn’t thought about that.

              “Maybe they are leaving sooner,” I said suddenly.

Adag slowly nodded her head. That made sense.

              “We’ll find out soon enough.”

We did find out. That same afternoon. Elise came to the kitchen where I was drying the lunch cutlery and putting it away. I was on my own.

She stood at the door and I smiled when I saw her, “Want some more proper coffee Elise?” I said.

She didn’t smile back, “We’re leaving,” she said abruptly, “Tomorrow morning.”

I slowly wiped the large serving spoon I had just picked up off of the draining board and I nodded my head.

“Epsilon Command need us elsewhere urgently,” Elise said.

“So much for your quarantine,” I responded as I put the spoon away and reached for another item to dry. A glass this time.

“Yes,” she said and she turned on her boot heels and I watched her walk away, heading for the office.

“The die is cast now,” I murmured, “Well and truly cast…”

We all watched the soldiers get ready to ‘bug out’” as they called it. They lined their trucks and jeeps up in front of the home, and started to pack up their equipment and gear.

              It didn’t take long for Cassidy, Eden, Stevie and Jasmine to get wind of what was happening. Eden was disappointed they were going because she wanted to do more listening, the boys were sadder about the loss of the big green trucks they had liked to look at each day. Jasmine though fled to her room in floods of tears.

              Gabe and Percy took the dogs for a walk, after being told, they showed no interest or emotion in the news.

              “Good riddance,” Gabe said and Percy pretty much said the same.

Mitch shrugged his shoulders, he no more cared, about the army leaving than Gabe and Percy did. He went back up on to the roof whilst Phoenix and Seb worked together at wiring up a box that was needed for the satellite dish.

Seb’s response to hearing about the soldiers leaving was equally as indifferent and Phoenix just said, “I’m thirsty, can I have a coke?”

              In a way the bugging out of Wolf’s unit meant that, no one took any notice of what we were doing, not even Duke and his female counterpart, Loretta. They were too busy getting ready to leave.