The white ground rushed up to meet Susanna, so fast she could only shut her eyes and take one quick, stunned breath before she was thrust deep, deep into the snow. It frothed up past her until it was over her head, dropping down on top of her. Surrounding her. A prison of icy white.
It shifted like liquid when she tried to fight against it. Susanna raged for a moment, until she realised she was alone. The wraiths had abandoned her. Why?
Seconds later, she had her answer. Michael started screaming.
SIX
“I’ve been thinking,” Tristan said suddenly, looking up from the wildlife book he was reading, showing the jungles of South America – his favourite landscape to ferry souls across. They were in the library, taking a ‘free period’ instead of PE, which Dylan clearly couldn’t do.
“Yeah?”
“I reckon we should experiment.”
“Experiment?” Dylan stared at him, not following at all.
“We need to know just how far apart we can go before we start feeling, you know—”
“Like we’re dying?”
“Exactly.”
Dylan considered that. It was a sensible enough suggestion, but one worry drowned out all the other thoughts in her head.
“You want to get away from me?” She tried to make it a throwaway comment, a joke, but failed miserably. She’d slept awfully the night before, tossing and turning as much as she was capable of doing with her leg in plaster. It had ached the whole night and Tristan wouldn’t let her take any more than the recommended number of painkillers. The cold, uncomfortable sensation she now felt was clear in her voice. Tristan must have heard it too, because he was out of his seat like a shot, perching on the edge of Dylan’s desk.
“No,” he said, tugging on the tendrils of her ponytail a little harder than he normally would. “That’s not it. Why would you say that?” He waited, but all Dylan could do was offer an embarrassed shrug. She’d die before she’d admit what she was really thinking. He went on: “We need to know where we stand. Or,” an amused grin, “how far away we can stand. Think about it, do you want to have to come with me every time I need to go to the toilet if it’s more than a room away? Or into the boys’ changing room in PE?”
“Well,” Dylan said huskily, trying to swallow down her ugly feelings, “that one might not be so bad.”
She received a playful shove for her efforts before Tristan’s hand lifted to wrap warm around her nape.
“You’ll want some independence,” he said. “You won’t want me there every second. We need to know how far is safe. Yeah?”
He was right, she knew. She didn’t want to go through what had happened in maths class the day before – that sense of dying all over again – so long as she lived. Which, hopefully, would be quite a long time. “All right,” Dylan conceded.
“Do you have any walkie-talkies?” Tristan asked.
“What?”
“Walkie-talkies.”
“No.” Dylan raised a playful eyebrow at him. “I’m not ten. Or a boy. What do you want walkie-talkies for?”
“We can speak to each other then, monitor how we feel. As soon as you start to feel bad, we’ll stop.”
Oh. That made sense. “I think in this century mobile phones will do the trick,” Dylan laughed. “And we won’t look stupid.”
This time the tug on her ponytail was enough to make her squeak.
Tristan wheeled Dylan right to the back of the library, into the warren of tall bookcases holding the reference books that nobody ever used. It was the only way to keep the beady-eyed librarian from seeing them dig out their mobile phones. Dylan had a brand new smart phone – a present from Joan to replace the one she’d lost on the train; Tristan had a crappy old pay-as-you-go Dylan had unearthed from one of her drawers at home.
“Ring me,” Tristan said. “We’ll see how far we can go.”
“About five metres,” Dylan snapped. She took a deep breath, still trying to get a handle on her temper. Despite Tristan’s reassurances earlier, she was still feeling delicate, and wasn’t looking forward to the physical battering she was about to get from being apart from Tristan.
“Come on, angel,” Tristan said, hunkering down in front of her. He took her free hand between his, tickled the tips of his fingers across her palm.
And pathetic as it was, that was all it took.
“All right,” she drawled. “Let’s get it over with.”
He rewarded her with a quick kiss before tapping her phone and straightening up. “If you need me to stop, just say.” He started backing up, his gaze fixed on her face.
At first, Dylan felt absolutely nothing – except for a bit stupid, sitting there all alone. Tristan kept going until he was right at the edge of the stacks.
“Well?”
She raised her voice as loud as she dared. “Nothing. You?”
“I feel fine.”
He backed up a little further, until his back touched the double doors leading out of the library. Dylan could only just see him, thanks to the tall bookcases, and she smiled as he raised his eyebrows questioningly at her.
She shrugged. She felt… OK. A little twinge of discomfort in her chest, perhaps, but that might just be apprehension.
Sure enough, a heartbeat later, when Tristan slipped quietly through the doors, she felt it. Panic. Nausea. The pain in her leg increased, the almost-healed gashes on her back beginning a slow burn. With trembling fingers, she scrolled quickly through her phone contacts and smacked her thumb down on Tristan’s name.
“I feel rubbish,” she told him as soon as he answered. “My chest is tight and I feel sick.”
“Your leg?”
“It’s… bearable.” Ish. She wanted to ask him to stop, but she held it in. They needed to test this, it was important. “Where are you?”
“I’m literally right outside the library door.”
“Oh.” Dylan chewed on her lip. “I thought you’d gone further than that.”
“Nope.” She could sense Tristan’s disappointment through the phone line.
“Try and go a little further,” she urged.
A pause, then, “You’re sure?”
“Yes.” No. “Do it.”
“I’ll just go to the end of the corridor,” he assured her. She listened to the sound of his black school shoes slapping against the hallway floor. He’s there, she told herself. You can hear him, you know where he is.
It didn’t help – the tightness in Dylan’s chest intensified, making her fight for every breath. Her head started to pound, her stomach rolled. But she could handle that. What she couldn’t handle was the feeling that every wound she’d experienced in the train crash was being made anew. The bones in her leg felt like they were bending and snapping, the skin of her hip and lower back felt like it was being peeled open to expose the flesh within. She felt faint, weak. Like her life was draining away with every footstep Tristan took.
“Too far,” she gasped. “Come back.”
“Dylan?” Tristan’s voice came through the receiver as a crackle. “Are you OK?” A pause. “I feel… I think this is far enough.” He swallowed tightly, the sound a sharp click in Dylan’s ear.
“Come back,” she repeated.
“I will,” he promised. “Just… hold on a few more seconds. Let’s see if it eases after a while.”
Dylan concentrated on breathing in and out. It’s not real, she told herself. It’s in your mind. It’s not real. But it was useless. Rather than ebbing, the pain just seemed to intensify. Dylan was alarmed when she found her head weaving and bobbing, her vision blurring.
“I can’t, Tristan.” She reached down and clawed at the cast that seemed like it was squeezing her leg in a vice. “God, it hurts.”
“A few seconds?” Tristan repeated.
“I think I’m going to black out,” she whispered down the phone line.
“Dylan? Angel?” Panic in Tristan’s voice. That, and pain. “I’m coming.”
The flat, heavy
sound of running jerked Dylan back to consciousness. Her whole arm felt numb, her head too heavy to lift. Unexpectedly, another voice echoed through the speaker.
“You – stop running!”
Thomson. Only the crotchety old Assistant Head had a bellow like that. But Dylan could still hear Tristan running. That was a very bad idea.
“I said stop!”
Thomson would put Tristan in detention, and she wouldn’t be able to come with him. That separation would last a lot longer than their little experiment.
“Stop, Tristan,” she whispered into the phone.
She heard the angry growl of Tristan as he skidded to a stop, and a muffled, “Sorry, sir.” He must’ve pocketed his phone.
“What’s the rush, boy?”
“I’ve left my cousin in the library and she’s in a wheelchair. She can’t really get around on her own.”
“Dylan McKenzie survived a train crash – what do you think is going to happen to her in the library?”
A heavy pause, and then, “Book avalanche?”
Despite the hideous combination of panic, nausea and pain still swimming around her body, Dylan barked out a laugh before she had the sense to clamp her hand over her mouth and smother it.
“Do you think you’re funny, boy?”
Dylan did. Unfortunately Thomson didn’t have a sense of humour.
“No, sir.” Smart answer.
More silence. One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand.
“Get out of my sight!”
Quieter footsteps, walking fast. The squeak and scrape of the library door pushing open.
Tristan was coming. Dylan sat back up and tried to get a handle on herself. She still felt off, but the pain was receding. Just a few more seconds and he’d be in sight… She blinked rapidly and tried to focus.
“Tristan!” A female voice, a horribly familiar female voice. From the muffled sound of it, Dylan suspected Tristan still had the phone in his pocket. She heard him mumble a quiet reply, then the female voice came again – much closer.
“Have you got a free period?” Cheryl’s sugary-sweet tones were probably meant to be seductive – to Dylan they sounded like nails on a chalkboard. “Steph, remember I told you all about Tristan?”
“Hi, Tristan.” Steph Clark. Famous for the things she did out back by the generator – and for being thicker than Cheryl McNally, which was quite a feat.
“You know,” Cheryl went on, “This is the first time I think I’ve seen you without your cousin.”
There was way too much emphasis on the word ‘cousin’ for Dylan’s liking. What a stupid idea that had been.
“We’re really close,” Tristan said, his voice low and defensive. That mollified Dylan somewhat.
“Plus, you know, she’s an invalid,” Cheryl added. “It must be so hard, having to look after her in that chair.”
“It’s fine,” Tristan replied shortly. “Look, I have to go—”
“Wait!”
Stuff that. Dylan was going to go over there. She’d show Cheryl how much of an invalid she was when she rammed into her. Ending her call – they were in earshot now anyway – she gripped the two large wheels and started shoving. The chair inched forward. Grunting, Dylan shifted her hand position and tried again.
“What are you doing after school, Tristan?”
“What? Why?”
Was she going to ask him out? Dylan pushed harder, getting the wheels to roll across the carpet at last, but her aim was off. The chair was coasting sideways on a collision course with a bookcase full of autobiographies.
She wrenched harder with her left hand, trying to alter her trajectory, but her stuck-out foot glanced off a hardback of Churchill: The Life. Agony rocketed up her leg. All she could do for several seconds was sit there and gasp, and listen to the girls chat Tristan up through the bookcases.
“But you don’t have to stay in, just because she does…”
“No, I don’t.” Tristan again. Was that anger in his voice? “I’m staying in because I want to.”
“Well, I’m having a party a week on Saturday,” Cheryl began. “Why don’t you come?”
No answer. Which meant he was thinking about it. If it wasn’t for her throbbing broken leg, she could march over there and punch Cheryl’s lights out. And maybe Steph’s too.
“I’ll see what Dylan thinks about it.”
The tight knot of anger in Dylan’s chest released, a little bit.
“Oh. Well. I mean—” Cheryl stuttering and spluttering. “What with her chair and everything, she probably won’t want to…” she came to a faltering stop and Dylan knew exactly how Tristan had made that happen. That look on his face had shut her up more than once in the wasteland.
“If Dylan doesn’t go, I don’t go,” Tristan replied coldly.
Seconds later Tristan appeared at the end of the row of bookcases. He looked annoyed, and worried.
“Are you OK?” He dropped to his knees beside her, reached out and cupped her face with both hands, forcing her to look at him. Dylan didn’t want to. Ugly, angry feelings were bubbling up inside her. She wanted to find Cheryl and Steph and make them hurt. And Tristan, too. She knew that wasn’t fair – but her heart wasn’t interested in being rational right now.
“I’m all right,” Dylan mumbled, trying to keep the resentment out of her voice. She forced herself to give Tristan a proper answer. “The pain was… it was manageable, then all of a sudden—”
“I know, I felt it too.” He rocked closer, pressing his lips to hers.
“Tristan,” Dylan whispered warningly. “If anyone sees…”
“I don’t care,” Tristan whispered back. “I’m so sorry, Dylan. I shouldn’t have suggested the experiment. Never again, all right?” Another kiss. “I promise.”
Though it was the last thing she wanted to do, Dylan forced herself to tug her face out of Tristan’s grasp. If anyone saw, it would not go down well for Dylan to be caught kissing her cousin.
“We had to test it,” Dylan reminded him. Then she offered a lopsided grin. “Once.”
Tristan flashed a quick smile in response, but his face was thoughtful. “Out of sight.”
“What?”
“As soon as we were out of sight of each other, that’s when it amplified.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” Dylan shook her head. “I knew where you were. Don’t you think we just reached some sort of barrier?”
“Maybe.” Tristan’s face was sceptical. “But it got so much worse, so much more quickly.”
Dylan tried to see where he was going with this. “So you’re saying it’s psychological?”
“In part.”
“But we’ve been out of each other’s sight before. Every time we go to the bathroom, for goodness sake!”
“It’s your flat though,” Tristan reminded her. “It’s your space, it’s familiar. You know I’m definitely coming back to you.”
“You think I’m scared you’re going to run away from me?” Dylan didn’t even try to keep the outrage from her voice.
“No,” Tristan denied it quickly. “It affects me too, remember?”
“Well, what then?”
“I think we’ve created a connection with each other in order to both be in this physical world. If we try and separate that bond, well, reality reasserts itself.”
“Reality where I’ve died.” Dylan nodded. The way her leg seemed to re-break, the way her wounds seemed to slice open…
“If we can see each other, or if we’re in a safe space,” he dropped his hands to her knees, squeezed. “Then we know we’re OK. Out of sight, the connection tries to force us together again.”
There was silence as Dylan considered Tristan’s words. “But, you’re just guessing at this, right?” she said at last. “You don’t know.”
“No, I don’t know,” he agreed. “It’s not like this has ever been done before.”
“So,” Dylan huffed a laugh she didn’t feel. “You really are st
uck with me. For ever.”
A joke, but she watched Tristan’s reaction like a hawk. If he grimaced, if she saw even a flicker of aversion in his eyes, well she didn’t know what she’d do. She couldn’t bear the thought that he might be bound to her by compulsion rather than need, desire. Love.
He smiled, though, the expression lighting up his eyes. He leaned forward to plant one more kiss.
“That’s the best news I’ve ever had, Dylan.”
SEVEN
Michael was dead. Susanna supposed she should feel bad about that. She searched her feelings, hunting for a hint of grief, but all she felt was tired. Cold, and bone-tired.
It was his own fault, anyway. She’d done everything she could to protect him. She’d urged him to be faster, but he couldn’t do it. He’d been sick, his body couldn’t take the sudden physical activity. He needed to rest. Just for a minute. And then a minute again.
Well, he’d rested too long. He should have listened to her, believed what she was saying. He wasn’t sick and his body didn’t need to rest any more. It was all just his mind, clinging on to the form it knew.
They hadn’t even made it to the valley. Perhaps that was something to be grateful for. Susanna couldn’t imagine trying to brave it in a blizzard. He’d never have made it the length of that death trap – and if, by some miracle, he had, the lake would have finished him off. Still, it rankled Susanna’s pride a bit that they hadn’t even got past the ‘easy levels’.
That’s how a boy had described it to her once: like the stages of a video game. Beginners started off easy, with simple terrain and manageable ‘baddies’. Then, when they had learned the basics, they moved up to intermediate. That was where things got more challenging – testing the mettle of the player. Survive that and you graduated to ‘expert’. The final levels, where the ‘big baddie’ lurked and had to be defeated in order to complete the game.
Susanna had to admit that his analogy fit neatly into the trials of the wasteland crossing, but still it made her uncomfortable. Because it wasn’t a game. Winning was the difference between life and death. Well, survival and extinction. If you died in the wasteland, you couldn’t go back to the beginning and start again. You were just… gone.
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