The City Series (Book 1): Mordacious Read online

  Mordacious

  The City Series, Book One

  Sarah Lyons Fleming

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Eric

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Thanks for reading!

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright © 2016 Sarah Lyons Fleming

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author, except as used in a book review. Please contact the author at [email protected].

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  For my brother, Ian, who would cross a broken bridge to save me,

  although he probably would’ve tossed me off when we were kids.

  Chapter 1

  Sylvie

  My mother is dying.

  I’ve waited years for this day, anticipating the relief I’d feel when she finally did herself in, but the day of reckoning has come and there’s nothing but a clinical detachment and an overall sense of unreality. When I arrived at the hospital last night, they said she had a few hours at most. But, being my mother, she’s hanging on to life in the face of all odds. And not in a good way—in a you’ll never be free of me way.

  Her breaths are so abrupt and ugly that I think each may be her last. Her teeth are rotted away, her flesh flabby and yet wasted. She was pretty once, with her deep brown eyes and glossy dark hair. That woman is long gone, replaced by a visage that could be a hundred years old instead of fifty-one. People used to say we looked alike, but I’ll be damned if I’ll ever resemble this wreck of a woman on the bed.

  All I’ve said is, “Hi, Mom. I’m here.” And that’s all I’m going to say. I’m not in the market for deathbed absolution. I’m here to make sure she’s gone for good, and then I’m getting on with my life.

  Her dragging, snore-like struggle for air is reminiscent of the years spent listening to her passed out, from the age of seven until I moved in with Grace’s family at seventeen. As a child, I prayed she’d live, that she’d make it through the night. Eventually, I prayed she’d choke to death in her sleep. Not very kind, I know, but it would have meant escape. I was a prisoner of war in my mother’s battle with herself, and the only liberator was death.

  After a soft rap on the door, Grace enters and then stops at the sight of my mom. Her eyes fill and she makes a sympathetic noise. “Oh, Sylvie…”

  “Don’t,” I say firmly, and stand to hug her.

  Grace lets out a gust of air, equal parts understanding and exasperation, but she doesn’t argue, only drops her bag on a chair and tightens her wavy blond ponytail. She wears her usual off-duty outfit of jeans and a blousy, hippie shirt, which matches her Earth Mother vibe. But looks can be deceiving, as the patients in her therapy practice often find. Grace will clear your chakras and then tell you to get your head out of your ass all in the course of one session. I like the disparity. It keeps her interesting. Interesting enough to be my only real friend—my only real family.

  “Thanks for coming,” I say. “You really didn’t have to cancel all your appointments.”

  Grace gives me the head-tilted, slightly disbelieving look I often invoke. “Of course I did, idiot. My mom sends her love. She wanted to come, but I told her no.”

  “Thanks. She called last night.”

  As much as I love Grace’s parents, the juxtaposition of her mother and my mother in the same room would only serve to reinforce the huge gap between their parenting styles. Mom is reminder enough. I draw a breath. Now that Grace is here to distract me from the incessant breathing, I can finally absorb some oxygen.

  She picks up my mother’s hand. Her touch is gentle, gentler than my mother deserves. “Hi, Ruth. It’s Grace.”

  She presses her lips together and glances my way for permission. I shrug. She has every right to say goodbye. I said goodbye years ago, but Grace always held out hope it wouldn’t end this way.

  “I’ll make sure Sylvie’s okay,” Grace says barely above a whisper. “I’m sorry you couldn’t.”

  It’s not that my mother couldn’t, it’s that she wouldn’t. I curl my fingernails into my palms and try not to regress seventeen years in the span of a second, into a ten-year-old holding back tears over the woman who doesn’t love her enough, or at all.

  I walk into the bathroom so I can’t hear more. Old snapshots of my mother stare back when I look in the mirror. Although, from what I remember of him before he took off, my Italian father is as responsible for my appearance as my mother. In any case, my eyes are only slightly pink. I won’t cry over Ruth Rossi ever again.

  When I reenter the room, Grace sits in a chair with her feet perched at the edge. She manages to make the most awkward positions look comfortable, and even when she’s moving she exudes a stillness and calm. Graceful, like her name. She doesn’t blunder through things the way I do.

  “Done?” I ask.

  Her head tilt returns. Grace wants me to be present. To deal with my emotions in a healthy way. But after almost fifteen years of friendship, she knows it’s unlikely.

  My mother moans. Grace’s feet drop to the floor, while I calmly press the button on Mom’s morphine pump. The hospital is short-staffed and leaving the button-pushing up to me. I know better than to skimp; I want my mother to be out of it just as much as she wants to be out of it. Maybe more.

&n
bsp; “You know she’s loving this, right?” I say, hooking my thumb at the machine.

  “God, Sylvie,” Grace says, but she laughs.

  When my mother’s breathing gets to be too much, I put on the TV. Bornavirus LX is the hot topic of every news channel. It’s been around for a week—a virus spread through bodily fluids. It started somewhere in Asia, moved to the western U.S. and now, the newscaster says, it’s here in New York City. She tells us that a few cases have been identified throughout the five boroughs, including our borough of Brooklyn, and that air travel from the west was suspended last night. She runs through the whole spiel again: The virus leads to aggression in the infected, who attack their caregivers and spread it further. But the city is safe, she assures us with a vehement nod that doesn’t produce a single twitch in her blond helmet of hair.

  “Did you see Facebook?” Grace asks.

  I raise an eyebrow. She pulls out her phone with a dramatic sigh. “Sorry, I forgot Facebook is the beginning of the downfall of civilization.”

  It feels good to joke. My mother’s presence has chipped away at my sense of humor.

  “Weird, it’s not updating.” Grace’s fingers move on her phone before she gives up and hands it over. “But you can see the older stuff.”

  The hours-old posts promise videos of infected people, but the links don’t transport me anywhere. The word zombie is bandied about in one. People love zombies. Every sneeze that spreads past ten feet means the zombie apocalypse has arrived. Another post says the rogue virus is a product of the U.S. government, which I find a little easier to believe.

  On TV, a balding man yells about California and Oregon and an epidemic. A different balding man talks over him, saying all is well. Everything is blown out of proportion, every story rehashed with such fervor by newscasters that they all blend into one gargantuan never-ending crisis that never happens. One day we’ll all be blindsided, since the news is the equivalent of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

  I switch to a home-buying show. The hours go by, in which we watch inane afternoon television while listening to my mother’s respiration. I pick listlessly through my bags of chips and candy, and then I force Grace to eat the sandwich I bought for her earlier—whole grain bread, of course.

  I hold up a Snickers. “You want?”

  “I’m trying not to eat processed sugar.”

  I peel the wrapper down slowly, a chocolate bar striptease. Grace watches, green eyes narrowed. I take a big whiff. “Mm…chocolate.”

  “I hate you,” she says, hand extended.

  I drop it in victoriously. Why she tries to deprive herself of delicious things is beyond me. Something about living longer. But I don’t want to live to be a hundred if it means a hundred years of healthy eating.

  “I got my period two days ago,” Grace says. She chews a bite of Snickers and keeps her eyes glued to the TV like it’s no big deal.

  “Shit, I’m sorry.”

  Grace and her husband Logan have been trying for a baby for the past year. Every month she spends far too much money on pregnancy tests, obsesses about every symptom, and cries when her period shows up like clockwork.

  “I think we’re going to a specialist. They say to give it a year first. I’m going to call next week.”

  I pat her shoulder from my chair. “Good. Who knows, maybe it’s something minor they can fix. And then, boom, you’re knocked up.”

  She sniffs and nods. I don’t know what else to say about the lack of a baby. I do know, based on my entire life’s experience, that I’ll probably say the wrong thing.

  “Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to make it all about me. I’m a jerk for bringing it up now.”

  “No, you’re not. What else are we going to do, discuss my feelings?”

  Grace kicks me with her Earth Shoe. On TV, two house-buyers decide whether the wall color of a house’s living room is a valid reason to not buy said house. Grace sighs. “Dumbasses. Because you can’t repaint.”

  I put a finger to my chin as I pretend to check out a house. “It’s just perfect! Shit, except for that light fixture. Oh well, we’ll keep looking.”

  Her smile falls and her face works to stay neutral. Or doesn’t work—I can read Grace’s every emotion.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  “I have to stop torturing myself. Logan’s getting tired of me jumping him for ten days straight every month.”

  “Somehow I don’t think Logan is going to get tired of sex. Your butt has a dent in it from all his manhandling.”

  Grace lets out a small laugh followed by a big shrug. “Whatever’s supposed to happen will happen, right?”

  I want her to get her baby, not wait for the universe to provide her with one. Once started, Grace can wax on about how the world is beautiful if one only stops to look. How we get out of the universe what we put into it. I’ll admit it over my dead body, but I sometimes like to hear it even though it’s a load of crap. Lives end in horrible, unjust ways every day. Sometimes life just sucks and then you die.

  “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t call the specialist,” I say. “Maybe don’t depend entirely on your naked full moon fertility rite.”

  Grace shifts her eyes my way with a crooked half-smile. “You know I have one.”

  “You do, don’t you?” I shake my head and shut off the TV. “Seriously…”

  “Syls, I’ll call. I’m not—”

  My mother snorts. We jump. I watch her chest until it moves and, when it does, I hate the relief I feel. I do want our tenuous connection cut. I imagine a heavenly pair of shears snipping the thread that keeps me bent toward my mother. Once severed, I’ll stand upright. I don’t need a session with Grace to break the news that I’m behind in my evolution toward Healthy Adult Human.

  We sit as the evening comes and the spaces between my mother’s breaths lengthen. They’ve told me to watch for this—it could mean the end. After a particularly long breath, I wait for the next one. Thirty seconds pass. One minute. Two. I clutch the arm of my chair. Grace stands when I do, but I wave her back down.

  At three minutes, I force myself to the bed. Her eyelids are slightly parted, cracked lips agape, chest sunken. She looks vacant and ruined, which isn’t a huge departure from her usual appearance. It’s an unkind thought to have when your mother is dying—is dead—but it runs through my mind at four minutes. The five minute mark passes with Grace’s sniffles the only sound. At six, I’m sure she’s gone.

  Grace’s hand settles on my shoulder. “I’ll give you a minute,” she says quietly.

  I don’t want the minute, but I hear Grace’s unspoken warning. It says I’ll regret not saying goodbye once my anger has cooled. And I might have regrets; I often do. I rest a finger on the back of my mom’s hand. The loose skin bunches under my touch. It isn’t as cold as I expected.

  “Bye,” I whisper.

  Where there was life, there was the opportunity for something—an apology, sobriety, a declaration of love. I thought I hadn’t held out hope, but the heavy feeling in my chest suggests that isn’t true. It’s over, and it ended the same way it’s gone for the past two decades. My mother will never make amends, will never be held accountable. She’s died just as selfishly as she lived.

  I contemplate kicking the bed. I go as far as lifting my foot but then imagine the rabbit hole of anger I’ll fall into if I give in to my wild urge. I won’t let my mother get to me. Not now, not as the very last thing she does in her miserable life.

  Eleven minutes. There’s no long, plaintive beep that would alert the hospital to her death. I have to find a nurse and find out what comes next. They’ll know what’s in store for her body, if not for me.

  I step inside the bathroom. Grace looks up from where she washes her hands, eyes bloodshot. “I guess that’s that,” I say, and lean against the wall with my fists clenched behind my back.

  “I’m so sorry, Syl—”

  “Should I press the call button, do you think?”

  Grace dries her h
ands on her jeans and wraps her arms around me. I give her a perfunctory pat and pull away. “It’s okay to be sad,” she says. “It doesn’t mean you forgive her.”

  Damn right I don’t forgive her. “Right now I just want to find out what we need to do and leave, okay?”

  I stow the leftover food in my messenger bag without looking Mom’s way, then throw in my phone and coat, not-so-secretly happy to be escaping this room and my childhood. Grace glances at my mother’s still form, but I don’t look back.

  Chapter 2

  The corridor is empty and the nurses’ station unmanned. A patient groans softly from behind a partially open door. Grace and I wait for five minutes, hands clasped on the counter. It feels unreal. I’m not standing in a hospital corridor less than thirty minutes after my mother has died. Her body is not on a bed down the hall. I should be feeling something other than this nothingness and an overwhelming desire to run.

  I wonder what would happen if I cut out. Would they hunt me down and force me to take her body, or would they bury her in a potter’s field? I won’t do it—I’m not heartless. I have money saved, enough for a nice funeral, but I’m not spending it on a fancy box for my mother. That money is so that I can quit my copywriting job, and Ruth Rossi is not taking that away from me the way she took countless other things. Cremation is my plan, although I don’t want the ashes, and the only places I can think to scatter them are a liquor store or her favorite flophouse.

  Five more minutes pass. Still no nurse—only quiet, tiled corridors with fluorescent lights above. I tap my fingers on the counter and stare at a large dark stain on the beige floor tile down the hall. Someone should really clean that up.

  That patient groans again, like he’s dying. I guess he is dying, since he’s on this part of the floor.

  “Let’s go downstairs,” I say. “Maybe we can ask someone at the information desk.” Grace nods.

  We continue toward the elevators. I hear a rustle from inside a room and peek in the open door. The bed curtains are drawn and the lights are off but for a dim light over the bed. Bright pink Croc-clad feet show in the gap between curtain and floor. Crocs mean nurse. Socked feet stand beside them. A patient. The feet don’t move. They’re up to something, though—I see shadowy movement. It smells like shit and something rotten. I do not envy the nurse’s current endeavor.