Devoid [Bruno Mars]

Chapter twenty-eight

Chapter twenty-eight

At last, the moment Joseph waited so long for had come into his anticipating grasp. The fragile moment where I held the power to satisfy his hope's craving; end the suffering that wrenched him from sleep; add worth to all those endless days and nights he spent tracking me down.

He spoke only two words: “Forgive me.” 

His knuckles stroked my cheek. He didn't blink. He waited for what he asked to soak in, waited for my—expected to be rapid—response. Absently, I leaned into his touch, and his eyes flickered with a combination of surprise and eagerness. I placed my hand over his, ceasing his caressing and brought his hand down between the inch of space between us. I stepped away from him.

Fingers chaffing my eyes, I attempted to hold tears at bay. They were soon to drown me in turbulent, salty waves. Joseph's words made me want to fall to my knees and praise God, but there was glass on the floor and bloody knees didn't sound too pleasing at the moment.

“You thought I wanted to lay with you? Fetter you?” I could hear him taking steps, coming towards me. The glass shards crunched. “Your body is not mine. It's yours, all yours. Adrian. I need to know what I did pains you no longer. If you don't forgive me, even then I'll give you what you came here for.

“Why. . . Bruno and I are dying is called the AI. Animus incompletus. An incomplete soul.” He took my hand, placing both of his over and under mine in a sort of hand sand-which. Both of our skins were ice cold. “Do you remember the Incurses and how they were joined to the point where their speaking and movements corresponded? And how after I poisoned one, the other began dying?”

I nodded a little with wide eyes, getting out a quiet, “Yes.”

“Do you remember how Josephine and I were feuding?”

“To become the next Incurses?” I said with knitted brows, remembering. Joseph continued with a single, grave nod.

“There are three stages needed to become a complete Incurses. Stage one, the simplest of stages: binding the minds. Stage two sets up a preparation for the cells of a body to become joined with another's. Stage three is the most complex. It's where one body's cells connect with another's so intricately, they begin sending out the same brain and nerve signals. Hence the simultaneous speaking and movement.”

I felt a sense of alarm, my whole body stilling. “What are you saying?”

His gaze never wavered. “I wanted to connect with you. Josephine to Bruno. With only one Incurses alive, it was quite easy to access the stage one, two, and three injections. I injected you and myself, performed the procedure one night while you were in REM. Don't be startled, Adrian. You're not dying. You're in stage one. I'm in stage two. My cells are prepared to join with yours but since they aren't, they are incomplete without you, and so, they are dying. I am dying.”

I stared at him with a mixture of realization and horror. He returned my stare, seeing for my reaction. He told me before there was no cure, which I now realized was a lie. 

I was his cure.

“Adrian,” he said. “You are my cure,” he confirmed, enunciating every word very carefully, seeming to give them more depth. 

I could save him.

But what would happen if I was in stage two? How connected would Joseph and I be? Did I even want to save him? And what about Bruno? Who was going to save him?

“Josephine is Bruno's cure. But Josephine is—” I let the barely audible sentence linger in the air between us, unfinished. I snatched my hand away. There was a small window above the sink. I drew the curtain open, eliminating the dimness. I squinted against the bright natural light. It burned the wetness from my eyes. “This isn't fair.” My nails dug painfully into my palm. “This isn't fair.”