The Chemistry of Death

Chapter 52

Joe dragged the wheelchair around to face the door that led back to the house. Maybe he could find another way onto the roof, or at least get some clean air into his lungs so he could think. He pulled at the handle, but the door was locked. It was metal, a fire door installed to let the occupants flee to the rooftop.

He checked for hinges, thinking to remove the pins, but they were on the other side. He coughed again, holding himself upright against the wall. Whatever happened, he wasn’t going out that way. That only left the glass door.

He struggled to hold his breath. Breathing was death, and he had to save himself to save Celeste.

Desperate, he looked around the room again. His gaze fell on the EEG cap. It was mostly covered in sunlight, but the tip was still in shade. A small triangle of fabric was within his reach.

“It’s the persistence of memory,” Celeste said. “That’s what I mean.”

Joe walked toward it. The cap was only one step away.

“He’s getting so close, Zag,” said Leandro. “Do you think he’ll make those last few steps into the sunshine to save himself?”

He wouldn’t be able to make those steps. But he didn’t have to.

“He’s as rooted as one stark tree,” she said.

That didn’t make any more sense than her comment about the persistence of memory. His fingers closed on the cap. He snatched it back out of the sunshine and pulled the wheelchair to the back of the room. It was darker there. It felt safer, although he knew it was more deadly. The chlorine smell grew stronger with each step backward, his death pumping quietly out of the heating vent.

“What are you talking about?” Leandro asked Celeste. Apparently, it didn’t make sense to him either.

“Just something I saw once,” she said. “A tree in front of the sea.”

“At the summer house?” Leandro sounded uncertain.

Joe clutched the cap. He didn’t know how to work it. He’d had it designed to respond to thoughts in Celeste’s mind, and she would have set it up to control the wheelchair using her own images. He had no idea what those were.

“Joe knows what I mean,” she said.

He didn’t, but her words brought him up short. He replayed the last things she had said. A tree in front of the sea. One stark tree. The persistence of memory.

In a flash, he knew. She was telling him what he needed to know to make the cap work. It was from a conversation they’d had a long time ago. She was talking about Salvador Dali’s painting The Persistence of Memory, the one with the melting clocks. Clocks were the clue.

It was her code. She and Joe had seen the painting together, in the Museum of Modern Art. She’d talked about one stark tree in front of the sea.

The cap must work like a clock — twelve (cyan, blue) was probably forward, six (orange) backward, three (red) to the right, nine (scarlet) to the left.

“The sky is so bright today,” she said. “It’s more cyan than blue. It’s a good sky for a last day.”

Cyan and blue. The numbers one and two. Or the number twelve. The number at the top of the clock. She was making sure that he got it.

Celeste and Leandro were dark figures silhouetted against the bright sky. His eyes streamed and blurred. Any second he would be completely blinded. But he knew what he needed to do. He fitted the cap onto his head, hoping the wheelchair that it controlled was still within range of its wireless technology. He had to hurry, before Leandro caught on and stopped him.

He thought of the number twelve: One (cyan) and two (blue). The chair didn’t budge. Had he misinterpreted her code? Maybe she wasn’t trying to communicate with him after all. Maybe it was a code for Leandro. Or maybe she’d snapped under the stress.

Then he got it. Just the colors. Cyan, he thought. Blue.

Her wheelchair leaped forward like a horse leaving the gate. She had chosen life. She had chosen him. He smiled with grim determination. Cyan, blue.

The chair pulled free of Leandro. He lurched to the side, and for one hopeful second Joe thought that he would fall off the roof. But he regained his balance.

Celeste’s chair rolled down the board toward the door, picking up speed as it went. Cyan, blue, Joe thought again.

He’d get her inside, away from Leandro, and then he could protect her. If he could lure Leandro into the shadows at the back of the room, he could hold the bastard down and let him suffocate in his own gas. Hope rose up in him, and it took away the pain in his lungs. For an instant, he even stopped coughing.

He had to time this just right. He tightened both hands on his wheelchair. If he couldn’t get away from the damn thing, then he’d use it.

Behind her, Leandro leaped off the ledge and onto the roof. He sprinted after the runaway chair.

Celeste was closing in on the glass.

Joe lifted his wheelchair and swung it in a wide arc at the glass. He knew his body would panic when he hit the light, but he counted on the momentum of his movement to carry the wheelchair from darkness into light and through the glass.

The impact jolted up both arms.

Tempered glass crumbled into small chunks.

The light would kill him. He gasped and stumbled back against the inside wall.

Celeste’s chair zoomed across broken glass toward him.

Stop, he thought, but the chair didn’t slow. She would crash into the wall, and it might kill her. He positioned himself to catch her.

Zero, he thought. Black.

The chair stopped an inch away from his outstretched hands.

Sweet fresh air rushed in through the broken door. He drew it deep into his aching lungs.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you OK?” He swept off the blanket to see if she was hurt.

“Did Leandro fall off the roof?” she asked.

“Are you hurt?” She wasn’t bleeding. Nothing looked broken, but her body was thin and wasted, one shoulder frozen higher than the other and her head tilted permanently to the side. Garish red lipstick made her look like a badly painted doll. He brushed pieces of tempered glass out of her hair.

“Where’s Leandro?” She strained to look over her shoulder at the roof outside.

“I’m here, Zag,” Leandro called from the broken door. He was so brightly lit that Joe could barely look at him.

Joe dragged himself between Celeste and Leandro. His ankle throbbed.

“Joe,” Celeste said. “Let him take me. That’s all you need to do.”

Joe looked back at her. Her blue eyes pleaded with him. He’d always done what those eyes wanted. “He’s going to jump off the roof with you.”

“I know,” she said. “I want him to. Now that you’re safe, I want him to.”

Leandro took a step into the room. Glass crunched under his shoes.

“No.” Joe couldn’t believe her words. She was overwrought. She didn’t mean it. She didn’t want to die. She couldn’t.

“There’s nothing for either of us here,” she said. “They’ll lock Ziggy up for the rest of his life.”

“I’m not stopping him from jumping.” Joe looked back at Leandro.

“I’m worse than dead now,” she said. “Can’t you see that?”

He didn’t see that. He couldn’t let her die. He would save her from Leandro, save her from herself if he had to. “You don’t understand.”

“I understand everything,” she said. “But you don’t.”

“I know what it’s like to be a prisoner—” He broke off because Leandro had lunged for him.

Leandro was quicker than Joe had expected, but he managed to throw himself to the side. He came up hard against the wall and pivoted toward the wheelchair.

Leandro charged again, and Joe stepped aside, clipping him on the ear as he went by. Leandro spun to face him. Joe hit him square on the nose. It made a satisfying cracking sound, and blood gushed out.

“Don’t hurt him!” cried Celeste.

Then a tearing cough came from deep within her.

The chlorine gas. Even with the fresh air coming in, the gas was too much for her compromised lungs.

Orange (six), Joe thought, even as he dodged Leandro’s wild blow. The wheelchair backed across the glass toward the outside. Scarlet (nine) caused the wheelchair to jog to the right, away from Leandro. Black (zero). The chair stopped.

The air was fresher there, but she was in the sunlight, and he couldn’t go to her.

Leandro recognized Joe’s mistake and started for his sister. Cyan (one), blue (two) bumped the wheelchair away from Leandro and toward Joe.

“Let him take me,” she pleaded.

Leandro looked at his sister, then back at Joe. He reached behind his back and came out with a gun. “Let her make her choice.”

“I choose you, Ziggy,” she said. “Always you.”

Leandro’s eyes flicked toward her, and he smiled. Joe grabbed the wheelchair attached to his arm, lifted it high, and spun on his good leg. It increased his reach just enough. The chair knocked Leandro to the floor.

Joe fell more than jumped on him and pinned him down. Joe held his breath. Leandro coughed violently. His head was right against the floor, where the gas was thickest. Let him choke on it.

“Don’t hurt him!” Celeste gasped, retching.

Orange (six). Joe sent her wheelchair farther onto the roof. She would be safe there so long as he kept Leandro in here.

Leandro bucked under him, and Joe dropped his forearm across his neck, forcing his head sideways. Leandro’s face turned red. Tears slicked his cheeks.

Joe couldn’t hold his breath much longer. His lungs ached for air, and his eyes streamed. He pressed harder on Leandro’s neck. Leandro turned his neck sideways, trying to protect his windpipe.

“Let him up!” Celeste ordered.

Joe wouldn’t let him up, not while he had breath enough to hold him down. Hot rage ballooned in his chest. This man had killed over and over again. He’d taken Joe’s freedom. And he’d almost killed Celeste. Joe pushed harder against his neck. Leandro’s thrashing weakened.

Strong hands pulled Joe off Leandro. Joe gulped a lungful of gas and retched. His eyes streamed, and he could barely see. Someone set him up on his feet.

A giant figure in black rolled Leandro over and handcuffed him before yanking him upright. Leandro was still alive. Joe felt regret that he had not killed him, and then hot shame. He would have succeeded if he hadn’t been stopped. Anger made him as capable of murder as anyone else.

“Got him,” said a voice that he recognized as Parker’s. Refrigerator Man sounded hollow and far away.

“Hold still, sir,” ordered the person holding him up. Vivian, but her voice sounded odd, too.

She righted the wheelchair attached to Joe’s wrist. As soon as it was upright, she pivoted and eased him into the seat. It felt good to sit down, to be taken care of. Adrenalin still coursed through him, and he shook. Every tremor reminded him of what he had almost done, who he had almost become.

Vivian knelt to cut his wrist free from the armrest, her face close to his. She was behind glass, her face covered in black. For a second, he couldn’t understand what she, too, had become. Then it fell into place. She hadn’t changed. She was wearing a gas mask.

“Are you OK, sir?” Her brown eyes were worried.

“Fine.” He coughed so hard he couldn’t say another word.

She set a gas mask on his face and adjusted the strap behind his head, then nodded to tell him to breathe.

He took a deep breath that tasted like plastic. He would take plastic over bleach any time. He took another shuddering breath. He focused only on the feeling of air going into his damaged lungs. In, then out. Slowly, his lungs stopped their spasms, and his eyes cleared.

He looked out toward the roof. A woman in a blue uniform knelt next to Celeste’s wheelchair. Celeste was crying, but she was alive. He’d saved her. She wasn’t lying dead in the street, her body entwined with her brother’s.

The sun glinted off her golden hair, and she was beautiful.