Page 52 of This Vicious Hunger

Chapter Thirty-One

O lea is not in the garden, but it seems nobody has been through the unlocked gate since I last left, and I’m grateful for past Thora’s carelessness.

I let myself in silently, brushing through the overgrown tumble of weeds, the leathery green leaves of hassock breaking through in the red-brown earth where no marshy plant should live.

In my right hand I grip the vial, now sealed with a stopper of black wax.

I daren’t put it in my pocket; it is far too precious to trust its safety to a piece of cloth, to risk a rip, a hole, the smash of glass against stone.

I feel frightened holding it, too, but the edge of my fear is dulled by the knowledge that this vial contains the future, and I have the power to create it again.

Olea’s tower is entirely dark except for the faintest flicker of yellow candlelight around its uppermost window.

I tread carefully, allowing my eyes to adjust to the lack of moonlight inside the walls.

With every step I marvel at my body, how strong and effortless my movements feel.

The air is so thick and hot it might as well be a wall, yet I am a hot knife through its butter, barely breaking a sweat.

The room at the top of the tower is tiny and cast in shadows, lit only by Olea’s solitary candle on the window ledge.

She sits on a narrow trundle bed with her back against the plain, dingy wall.

Her hair is loose, hanging in straw-like coils.

Her lips are dark as bruises, her eyes sunk into the sharpness of her cheekbones, a sheen of sweat on her forehead.

She glances up when I enter and there is a brief flash of surprise, followed by the same old resigned melancholy. She has given up.

“Why are you here?”

“I came to help you.”

“I don’t want your help.” She says the words with a sense of finality, as though she might have been repeating them in her mind ever since I left, but there is no force there.

“I’m sorry I left you,” I say, stepping tentatively into the room. I grip the antidote in my fist so tightly I can feel the blood draining from my fingers. “I didn’t know what to do… I suppose I was frightened.”

“You didn’t want to stay with me. I understand.”

“I didn’t want to be—”

“To be trapped?” Olea’s eyes snap to mine, alert but somehow still dull, like the glass eyes of a doll. “You don’t need to say it, Thora. I know how this story goes.”

“It’s not like that,” I reply, though I know she’s right. What did I say to Leo about Clara? “It’s not that I don’t want to stay with you. I couldn’t be trapped here .”

“ Here is my home. I tried to leave it—for you. Look what happened.”

“No, you didn’t.” This is Olea’s fear talking.

She is like a wounded animal lashing out, but instead of claws Olea only has lies.

She’ll make me feel guilty if I let her because it’s better than admitting the truth: she is frightened the antidote won’t work—and she’s frightened it will.

“ You wanted to leave. I know you were afraid, but you still wanted it as much as I did. Don’t blame me. ”

“I’m not trying to—”

“Olea, look.” I raise the vial between my thumb and forefinger. In the candlelight it looks like treacle, tiny bubbles suspended within. She stares at the liquid, her expression unchanging, and then she glances away.

“So what? Just another experiment,” she says. “Another failure. Always the fucking guinea pig.”

“This isn’t a failure,” I insist. “I tried it myself. I feel great! Look at me. Really look.”

I cross the room swiftly, crouching dangerously close so that my face is level with hers. She barely blinks. The illness that began its work in my bedroom may have slowed its attack, but her body is frail and her mind… She has the look of a convict, long resigned to a future inside four walls.

“Olea,” I say sharply. “I know you’re frightened, but please look at me.”

“Why. Nothing works.”

I’m no longer wearing my gloves, but the antidote has made me brave.

I smell the bitter perfume of the garden, but it does not feel as if it is invading my lungs.

I don’t have any proof, but somehow I know that touching her won’t hurt me.

I grab her shoulder, and when she doesn’t react I move my hand to her chin, lifting it so our eyes meet again.

“Olea,” I say very calmly. “If you do not drink this mixture I will wash my hands of you. Do you understand me? I don’t care if I’m being cruel; you’re acting like a child. I don’t care if you realise it or not, it’s true. And I need you to do this for me.”

“Why should I?” There it is, the spark of stubbornness I’ve always admired in her. Beneath the sadness, beneath her lonely, pitiable existence, there is a core of strength in this girl, like the roots of a tree delving deep into the heart of the world.

“Because if you don’t I will tell everybody about your dead friends,” I say, infusing each word with the rigidity of truth.

“They will come for you, and your plants, and your catalogue. They will take everything you have ever made your own. And when I am done I will walk away from you, and this garden, and everything else.”

Olea flinches, a deep hurt flashing behind her eyes.

It is a minor movement, involuntary, but I feel it in the touch of her skin.

I don’t need to see how she reacts to know I’ve gone too far.

Isn’t this exactly how Petaccia has kept Olea meek and captive all these years?

But how else am I supposed to get through to her?

She is about to argue, but even as she opens her mouth to tell me to go away, she can’t resist the pressure of my hand against her chin; she leans into the feeling, the caress of my palm, the smoothness of my skin against hers, and she softens.

I keep hold of her chin and I lean forward, guiding her face towards mine.

“Thora, don’t,” she breathes. “You’ll—”

Our lips are so close I can breathe the warmth of her breath, taste the bitter sweetness of her on the tip of my tongue.

A surge of desire rolls through me like thunder.

Despite everything, I need her. I want her hands in my hair, in my mouth; I want my fingers inside her, to watch her squirm with pleasure.

The antidote has made everything in me stronger—including this.

“Drink the goddamn antidote. It works.”

Olea’s breath hitches in her chest. I move my hand from her chin, down the soft slope of her throat, down until it rests flat right above her heart. I can feel the beat of it, wary like a bird. You are mine , I think. And you will do this for me.

“Get off me,” she snaps. In one swift movement she shoves me backwards and I stumble upright. “Don’t touch me. Are you insane? You think I want you now, after all you’ve done? You think I want the guilt of your touch, of your death? Fuck you, Thora.”

“After all I’ve done?” I scoff bitterly.

The anger that rises inside me is unexpected, but hot and bright.

Strong. Everything is so strong . “You are a liar! Since the moment I met you, all you’ve done is tell a story—and I’m sick of hearing it.

You’ve twisted me round your finger since the beginning.

“Everything I have done is because of you. When I came here all I wanted was freedom, my own life and my own future—and then I found you. You lured me in, you—”

“You can’t blame me for that either,” Olea snarls. “You were so eager to come into my garden you’d have eaten out of the palm of my hand when we first met if I’d let you. Don’t you recall the way you begged, night after night?”

“Because of you ,” I hiss. “You’re poison, Olea.

Addictive, yes, but deadly. You take and you take from people, and the worst thing is, I don’t even think you know you’re doing it.

What about your friends beyond the gate?

How many of them knew what they were signing up for when they tried to befriend you? ”

“I never meant to hurt any of them.” Olea’s voice is stone-cold, her eyes like liquid darkness.

“What about Clara?” I push. “You never meant to hurt her either? Even though she hurt you? Even though her death was an obvious punishment for what she stole from you?”

“She took everything from me!” Olea roars. “What should I have done? I have nothing. Nobody to help me, to look out for me. How else am I supposed to protect myself?”

“Protect yourself,” I spit. “And now you’re going to just die?

Tell me, Olea: What is your life worth? Is it worth Clara’s?

Is it worth mine? What about Leo, who’s still mourning his goddamn wife because of you?

How many more people have to sacrifice themselves to your cause before you realise that none of this is just going to go away?

It doesn’t matter how badly you want that. ”

Olea goes very, very still. “Do you think I wanted any of this?” she whispers.

“I told you I was a monster and you said I wasn’t.

Do you feel differently now, Thora?” Her voice grows, steel edging her words.

“Or are you too busy working with the woman who has kept me in this goddamn cage my entire life to see you’re just as bad as we are? ”

“You didn’t tell me about her,” I argue. “How was I supposed to know? I asked you if you needed my help—”

“What, I was just supposed to trust you?”

“You dragged me in!” I cry. “I never said you had to trust me, but you chose to be my friend. You chose to come to the wall, night after night. And now I’m trapped in this nightmare because of you, and all you do is lie.

And, yes, Olea, lying by omission is still lying.

You lied about Petaccia, you lied about Clara—and you’re a—a killer—”

Olea’s laughter is unhinged, throaty and so deep it sounds born out of hell itself. It echoes. She climbs to her feet, limbs gangly and gait uneven as she staggers towards me.