“We’re playing Monopoly when Jaye’s dressed. Wouldn’t be the same without you.”
“You know I’m just going to buy Mayfair and Park Lane, build hotels and kick all your arses. But hey ho, don’t say I never warned you.”
Adam started to rummage around the games in the bottom of the bookcase and began to set up, whistling some non-tune. Meantime, Katie turned to Leo and opened her mouth. There was nothing she wanted to talk to him about, nothing she needed to ask him, but she felt as though she should say something. Before she could organise any words though, he ran a hand over his freshly buzzed head.
“I had to do something. It was driving me nuts, having to keep it tidy all the time.”
“Oh. Right. It looks … actually, it looks really wrong on you.”
He seemed pleased with it though. Or maybe pleased was too strong a word – he looked relieved to be rid of it. “And?” he challenged. Poking fun at him was obviously pushing the boundaries of their truce too far.
“Just saying.”
They fell quiet; him helping Adam sort out the fake money and her flicking through a magazine and not really looking at the pictures. She was, instead, watching the waking nightmare in her head. She was on her knees in a dark, wet place. A light flicked on behind her – the glare was artificial enough to be a street lamp. But it was too bright, too big, to be just a light. She turned around and squinted at a massive floodlight, trapping her in a rough circle of white light. It hurt to look right at it. Katie moved back to face forwards and squinted. The sudden light had made her surroundings seem even darker somehow, though a few blinks and her dream eyes started to adjust. Where was she? She put her hands on her thighs and rested back on her feet. It was beyond her ability to get to her feet – her legs were locked into the kneeling position and she felt like she had to stay like that. At least, for now. Something huge and blacker than everything else loomed up in front of her and she could make out the soaking grass she was kneeling on. The track. Somehow, her mind had taken her back to the track, her safe place, the place where nothing bad had happened to her.
That you know of.
The huge H in front of her was the high jump and the long dented pit fifty metres to her right was the long jump pit. The strange net cage she knew was behind her was the shot put circle. This was good. This was her home turf. She’d be okay to sleep here for a few minutes.
Closing her eyes was a very, very bad idea.
As soon as she did, the footsteps came. Up and down the asphalt they click-clacked.
“Scream for me, little girl. Beg me for mercy.”
The voice was familiar and full of a calm menace that didn’t quite ring true. “Beg me for mercy, for pity, and I’ll give you none.”
Katie tried to open her eyes – or rather, she knew she should try to but didn’t, couldn’t. Leaving them shut was so easy. And she had to wonder if fighting this urge was so bad really…
Yes. Yes, it was.
“Don’t ignore me, little girl. At least do me the honour of looking at me. If I can’t hear you then I wanna see you scream.”
A blind hate crept into that voice, subdued but virtually bubbling over with presence. She snapped her eyes open and saw a man striding up and down the sprint section of track. He had a whip dangling from one hand. He was trailing it along the ground and drumming out a steady boot heel beat.
“Little girls always cry. You gonna cry for me, little girl?”
“This little girl has a name,” Katie ground out.
“Oh, of course. Lady Katie, right? Yeah, he screams your name out every night.”
“Why do you keep hurting him?”
“Jack? Just ‘cos I can mostly.”
“You’re sick, you know that? He’s a good guy and you killed him. I have no clue why but I saw what you did. You whipped him to death and let him die in pain and bleeding and all I saw in your eyes when you looked at me was that you wanted to do exactly the same to me. Maybe anyone else who was handy.”
“Nah, it was definitely you.”
“Why? What did I ever do to you?”
“You seen it.”
“One time. How does that warrant these cuts?”
“You saw me. And now, you pay.”
She stilled herself, held her breath and bit down on her lip hard enough to draw blood. A scream filled her throat ut the trickle of blood sated it. Anything, anything, not to make a sound.
The footsteps stilled and Katie saw the man looking at her, although it was much too dark to really be sure of that. She just saw the shadow of his head pointing at her and felt the sizzling hate radiating from him. “I’m a-comin’ for you.” He took one tiny step in her direction and Katie fell flat on her back, trying to scramble away. Her brain yelled at her to get up, get away but her legs just weren’t co-operating. The drumming of his boots started up again, came closer then stopped right at the edge of the grass. “Not runnin’? Or maybe you want me to kill you the same way I killed your boyfriend.” He flicked the whip vaguely in her direction and the sonic boom it made sounded like lightning right next to her ears. It wasn’t long enough to reach Katie but she felt the ghost of the lash scrape across the side of her neck. It didn’t feel like it was bleeding, or that there was broken skin, so it was definitely all in her head. Only, somehow, the man with hate in his eyes was grinning like he had seen his action shock her.
And shock her it had. It had demanded her legs stretch out beneath her, push up and run for her life. It felt as though her legs as they lurched and locked underneath her body. “Run.”
“Yeah, run, little girl. I’ll never catch you.”
Ignore him. Focus on moving,, getting to safety.
Footsteps were squelching over damp grass now. Katie turned to face him, walking backwards and looking over her shoulder every few seconds to make sure she was on course.
“You think you can kill me? Do it.” God how she wished she was as confident in that challenge as she was making herself sound. “I mean, you know I’ll only come back don’t you? And I’ll find a way to stop you one day.”
“Big talk from a little girl. Better make sure you can follow up on those threats.”
“Trust me. You can scare me, you can kill me in my dreams but I have survived worse than you this year and you will not break me. You’re nothing!”
His approach faltered for a micro-second. Confusion flashed across his face but he pressed on. There was no way to beat him; he was stronger, bigger and he had weapons. Even trying to make him feel inadequate wasn’t working. Killers didn’t really embrace the full range of human emotions, did they? “And yet I still have this much power over you.”
“Yes. You have power over my life. My death. Is that what makes you tick? Feeling macho and strong because you have the weapons?” She backed up a couple more steps, out of the glow of the floodlight and into the inky, airless night. The blurry square of light was between them now. The bad man was fast approaching it and Katie did not want to be within reaching distance of that hateful whip. Memories of that strip of leather arcing across her tender flesh assaulted her nerves and she once more yelled at her numb feet.
Keep moving.
“See, what would make it so much sweeter would be if you came over here and finished this with your own two hands.”
He tightened his grip and growled. Honest to God growled. He flicked his wrist and the whip shot out once more. Too far away to carve another arc into her arm but the sound sent tiny lightning bolts through her head. Katie put her hands to her face thinking she could protect herself or something but instead lost her balance completely and fell forwards on to her knees. The man advanced on Katie. He was in the middle of the white square of light and Katie could see his tall, thin, tense shadow outlined in it. The contrast was too harsh to make out any of his features but Katie didn’t feel at all thankful.
Don’t be scared until you can see the wrinkles on his forehead, the yellowing of his teeth. The movies always made you believe tha
t; until you knew the face of your enemy, you didn’t know the face of fear. Katie begged to differ. Not seeing him clearly was way scarier. “Fine. You don’t want to get your hands dirty.” She shot over onto her backside and dragged her hands through the grass, trying to scramble and squirm her way backwards and keep a decent distance between them. She dug her hands into the mud and tried desperately to grip tufts of overgrown grass or weed to get so leverage and pull away faster. If the man could see the deep and undeniable terror Katie felt then he didn’t show it. “Whatever you did to Jack, you want to do it to me too. Maybe because you know you can still hurt him by getting to me. Maybe you’re just a sadistic old fuck up who enjoys hurting innocent people. But –“
“There ain’t no innocent people. Everyone’s guilty of somethin’!”
“And guilt needs to be punished. But not like this!” She felt a curved block of concrete rising a few inches up her spine and pulled herself over it. Another foot or so and she backed up against a wall of net around a round of concrete, a little damp but mostly dry enough to huddle in a ball and not get soaked through her jeans. Katie reached out and felt for the steel pole that marked the edge of the netting. God, she hoped this was the kind of throwing circle that had a door to the net. It kept kids and undesirables away from the store of heavy objects when in use. Sure enough, there was a chain link gate to it. Katie hooked her fingers through the steel wire and pulled – the hinges squealed and protested but slowly gave in and slammed into place. She wished she wasn’t alone out here.
You’re never alone. I can help you if you let me. The voice might have been Jacks but she was so panicked that it could have been anyones. Even the voice she was speaking to the bad man in was unrecognisable as her own.
And now she had locked herself in a cage of steel and string with a mad man outside, pacing with a whip in his hand and hate in his eyes.
“Your move.”
Katie blinked and was instantly back in the room with a Monopoly board at her feet. Adam was holding the dice out to her and she scooted down to the floor, rolled a double five and raced ahead to linger in jail. Jaye, black hair mussed into something the cat dragged in and threw at her head, scooped the dice up and held them out in a closed fist. “Kiss ‘em for me. Make ‘em lucky, babe,” she said to Adam. He did as instructed and continued scrutinising the takeaway menu in his hand. No-one seemed to want the bother of cooking tonight.
Jaye threw Katie an odd look as she counted spaces. It was somewhere between worried and thankful and Katie wasn’t eager to find out what it meant. It was just too tiring to be holding the complex conversation she anticipated.
“What just happened?” Leo muttered across the board.
Katie shrugged and put a finger to her lips. Jaye and Adam could not know about anything that was going on. They would only worry and want to help – which, she guessed, would only make things worse. “I just spaced for a while.” Her watch only read five in the evening, about fifteen minutes after getting home. I’m home. Where I should be. The waking nightmare that she had watched in her mind had felt like it had lasted hours not seconds.
“You okay?”
She shrugged again. “You care?”
Now it was Leo’s turn to shrug. He didn’t. Not really. He hadn’t suspected any of what Katie had told him earlier, had taken Adam and Lainy at their word when they said he imagined Jaye’s flesh melting beneath his hand, it was just lightning fast reflexes. He still desperately clung to the hope he’d just gotten housed with a crazy person but that was melting away fast too.
Adam got up and sauntered out the door, phone in hand. Dinner was roughly an hour away. Wednesdays seemed to be takeaway night.
The door hung open a few inches but Jaye gave it a swift kick then scooted over to sit next to Katie. She almost looked like the Jaye of a few days ago – happy, relaxed. If it wasn’t for the broken and chapped lips the picture might have been complete. “Thanks for earlier. I don’t think I would’ve slept without you.”
“No problem. I’m glad you rested up. You going back tonight?”
“When Lainy gets back after dinner.”
“You just have to ask,” she said and leant back against the chair. Her spine felt as though it was wound into a tight snake, too long for her body. No amount of stretching was helping. She thought for a moment of asking Adam to give her a half hour back massage. He could definitely work out her knots with those muscles and…
“Will you bring Jack?”
Oh. The fantasy folded in on itself and fluttered out the nearest window. Adam was the eye candy of the house, nothing else, it never did hurt anyone to look though. Jack was her –
“Did you guys make up or what?”
“He lied to me. He stole my memories. He’s made me scared to close my eyes. He-“
“He cares about you.” Jaye twisted to face her friend, cross-legged and looking like a pretty/messy Buddha. She reached out and stroked Katie’s cheek, looking into her soft brown eyes, deep enough that Katie shivered imagining that Kaye was also stroking the depths of her mind. Would she understand anything she saw there? Katie wasn’t sure. “I can see why. I know he told you more than he should and they’ll deal with that but right now…you just have to believe me. He never meant to hurt anyone.”
“Who’re they?”
“They’re the ones who decide whether we deserve it.”
Another thousand questions started sparking in her mind but Katie couldn’t seem to hold on to a single one of them. “Jaye, please don’t blame him.”
“I don’t. But they do. He’s guilty of not knowing, not thinking.”
“It was an accident.”
“I know.”
“But I haven’t forgiven him yet. Not for any of this.”
Adam barged back through the door and flopped down on the floor. “Pizza’s 45 minutes away. Anyone moved while I was away?”
“These two had a moment. It was beautiful.” Leo wiped a pretend tear away from his eyes and set his face hard as stone again. “Screw this, I’m bored.” He knocked his piece off the board and stomped off to his room. No-one was sorry to see him go.
“And the moment’s gone.” Jaye scooted over to her side of the board and flattened out on her belly, waving her feet in the air. “We were talking about Jack.”
“What’s he done?”
Katie waved her hands before her. The immediate conclusion Adam had jumped to had shocked her but not quite as much as how quickly she had got there too. “Nothing like that!” she promised. Well, not that you remember anyway. She bit her lip, trying to bite the voice into silence. I’m in your head, genius. Good plan.
“Am I missing something here?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
When the two large pizzas they had shared were boxes and crusts, and Jaye had gone to relieve Lainy at the hospital with Adam as her gallant escort, Katie locked the door behind them and went to the kitchen to retrieve the six pack of Red Bull. Someone had already nicked one. She was going to have to start labelling her stuff. The remaining five cans went upstairs to her room with her and Katie popped one open on the way. Living on caffeine, sugar and additives for the rest of her life was starting to sound like a viable option.
As she neared her room, Katie made up her mind to try something. Maybe she could call Jack and get him to hold and protect her whilst she slept, the way he said he did. Maybe that was another lie. Maybe the man did something to her and Jack just made her forget it all.
“This?” Leo was cross legged on his bed and looked up as Katie walked past. “This is your answer?”
Katie, stopped with the can halfway to her mouth, frowned and finally saw that Leo was holding an empty sixth can. “Got another one? No? Then I guess this is it.” She made a cheers motion with her can and twisted away.
“You’re giving up!” he called after her. “I didn’t think you’d do that again.”
Katie paused, one hand on her door and listened to him, trying not to breathe too loudl
y and give herself away.
“You’re in charge of what happens around you, Katie. Nobody else.”
She pushed open the door and crumpled onto her bed, too wired to sleep, too tired to cry, too stressed to even call out for Jack. Yes, she needed him, ached to her core for him, but threw the idea out of her head the moment it appeared. If he felt her need, he would come. And what good could that do?
She screwed her headphones into her ears and set her MP3 player to play all her rock tracks at ear bleeding levels. She popped the top on a second can of Red Bull, set it in front of her desk with a few sheets of paper and pens – she might as well write that long overdue letter to Nan while she could – and sat down to work. She guessed she was singing at full blast because she always did unless she remembered not to and let her mind wander as she wrote the page of idle chitchat, nothing she needed to think about. She needed to think of a plan to get out of her cage without getting killed. Why had she trapped herself in there? As ideas went, it was good in theory but with the pleasant addition of a whip that could slice flesh like hot butter, using mesh as protection seemed less than brilliant. Damn, why were more problems springing out than solutions? She could let herself out and start running – she could outlast him, but she doubted she could outspeed him. She could cower in her circle until he got bored and wandered off – only the man with hate in his eyes was more than a barking dog.
Maybe your green eyed cowboy can save you.
Katie had not seriously just thought that. Had she? Jack had caused all this trouble. The hateful man had killed him, let Katie watch as he did it then rounded on her.
“What the hell do you mean, again?” Katie shouted, ripping her earphones out and dropping them to the floor. A solid thump on the wall answered her. “Oh, come on. This is not the time to be getting all righteous over words. I’ve heard you say things you shouldn’t up here. Grow up, Leo.”
“Saying stuff doesn’t make it acceptable.”
Running Shoes (The Shades of Northwood) Page 22
