Watching him lose control, she couldn’t help but compare him to Tristan. He was his polar opposite in every way. His rage, his indignation. He’d been stupidly reckless with his life and now here he was, complaining about the consequences. He didn’t know what it was to truly suffer, like she and Tristan did. Going around and around, with no right to complain, no freedom to change. They hadn’t asked for the hand fate had dealt them, had done nothing to deserve it. Not like Jack, wandering stupidly down dangerous streets in the dark, picking fights. Tristan had been just as unhappy as Susanna, she was sure – she’d felt his pain and dissatisfaction – but did he lose it like this? Yell and throw things? Destroy everything in his grasp? No. He soldiered on, stoic and resolute.
God, she needed that sense of purpose, of calm, right now.
“No,” Jack finally spat at her. “I don’t accept it. You can take me back.” He advanced a step, then two. The caravan was a tiny space and one more step would put him within arm’s reach. Susanna would not cower and whimper, she would not, but she was frightened.
“What?”
“Take me back, whoever the hell you are. You took me out of there, you can take me back.”
“No, I—”
“Didn’t you hear what I said? Take. Me. Back.”
Susanna had heard those words spoken countless times by innumerable angry souls. She’d very rarely been frightened as she was now. And she’d never, ever responded as she did.
“I can try.”
Because what Jack was demanding – it was what she wanted, wasn’t it?
“What?” She’d surprised him. His eyes widened, then narrowed into suspicious slits. “Is this one of your little tricks? I know you’ve been messing with my head all this time. Do it one more time and I’ll bloody smash you in! You’re not Sammy – you aren’t even a real girl. I could pulverise you and not feel a thing.”
“You couldn’t,” Susanna told him, shaking her head earnestly. “You can’t kill me. I’m a ferryman, Jack, I’m an immortal being.”
“Oh come off it.”
“You want proof?” Susanna’s fear had turned to rage. She strode to the caravan door and flung it open. “Listen.”
The sun hadn’t yet risen, and the sudden movement from the caravan caused an instant rise in noise from the wraiths. Jack froze, and for the first time genuine concern crossed his pale face.
“Is…” Jack swallowed. “Is that what I’ve been hearing at night?”
Without answering, Susanna stepped onto the faded grass, tempting the hungriest, most frenzied of the nearby wraiths to swoop towards her. Writhing, screaming, twisting closer and closer. Before it reached her, Susanna took a calm step back into the caravan and shut the door. She’d never done anything so brazen, and the wraiths were furious. Their hisses and snarls filled the air outside.
“What the hell was that?” Jack croaked.
“Wraiths. People who don’t make it. Starved, crazed souls, and you’ll become one of them if they get you. It’s my job to protect you from them.”
“Take me back.” Jack’s voice was low. “I don’t want to be here.”
“I’ll try. But I can’t promise it, remember it’s only a chance – I’ve never attempted it before.”
Jack looked thoughtful for a moment, and Susanna hoped that her little show had impressed him enough to kerb his attitude. Then he advanced on her.
“Why not?” She could feel the distrust and hostility rolling off him in waves. “Am I supposed to think I’m special, that you would try this with me and no other soul ever? You’re lying!”
“I’m not,” she said quickly. “I’m not. I didn’t know it could be done until recently.”
“How?” The question was thick with suspicion.
“I saw someone else doing it, another ferryman. I watched him take his soul back across the line. But…” She licked her lips. Her heart was pounding with hope and fear. “But you’d have to take me with you. Otherwise it won’t work.”
She didn’t know if that was true or not, but that was the price for her help.
“And then what?” Jack’s abrupt, clipped question made her flinch a little. “I take you with me and then what?”
“Nothing,” she promised. “I give you back your life, you take me out of the wasteland. Then I’ll leave you alone. You’ll never have to see me again.” Straightening her shoulders, Susanna swallowed against the knot in her throat. She held out her hand. “Do we have a deal?”
He took the hand, grabbed it, and hauled her towards him. Dark, angry eyes glared down into hers. Whatever he was searching for, he seemed to see it.
“Deal.”
FIFTEEN
Dylan really hated the hospital. She, Tristan and Joan were there again, waiting to see the doctor, to check how her leg was healing. Her appointment time had come and gone twenty minutes ago, though the awkward silence made it feel more like an hour. Finally, a squat, grumpy-looking nurse appeared at the ward door and hollered Dylan’s name.
“You can wait out here,” Joan told Tristan when he rose with her.
Tristan opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it. He looked to Dylan.
“I want Tristan,” she said simply. “He helps keep me calm.”
That wasn’t a lie exactly.
“The doctor doesn’t need a crowd when he’s trying to look at your leg, Dylan.” Joan was using that deliberately reasonable voice that always set Dylan’s teeth on edge.
“You’re welcome to stay here then, Mum,” Dylan offered, saccharine sweet.
“Oh, for goodness sake.” Joan rolled her eyes and marched off in Nurse Grumpy’s direction.
Dr Hammond was seeing them again. He greeted Dylan warmly and offered Tristan a wary nod. He likely remembered the tension from before. He explained that he was going to be removing the cast today.
“Is it not too soon, doctor?” Joan asked, in her best nurse voice.
“Well, ordinarily it would be,” he agreed. “But I want to make sure that the bone is healing straight and that none of the wounds are becoming infected. Better to know now than later, when the bone can’t take her weight.”
Dylan only vaguely heard him, her attention was focussed on the tool in his hand which looked like…
“Is that a circular saw?” It came out as a panicked squeak.
“Well, yes. In essence, but it’s very safe.” Dr Hammond held it up for Dylan to see. “Don’t worry,” he joked, “I haven’t been making any garden furniture with it.” He grinned at her cheerfully, then hit the power button for the mini-saw with his free hand. He looked like a horror-movie psycho. Dylan watched the little spinning disc get closer and closer to her leg, but at the last minute she caved, turning her face away. She squished her eyes together and waited for the pain.
“It’ll be fine, Dylan.” Tristan was suddenly there, clasping her hand.
She felt the vibration and heard the change in noise as the saw began to slice its way through the plaster. It created a weird tingling itch down the front of her shin and she wanted to jerk her leg away. Only the images of blood spurting across the sterile white room stopped her.
Less than a minute later the buzzing stopped. Dylan eyed her limb through half-closed eyes. Her leg looked like a prop from a Frankenstein movie. There were long red lines where her skin had been sliced to insert the pins, and these were crosshatched with thick black threads. Most of her flesh was a mottled purple colour. Most embarrassingly, however, was the two weeks’ worth of leg hair that dappled her skin.
“Don’t look,” she ordered Tristan.
“Well,” the doctor was frowning down at her leg. “These look, these look…”
“Gosh.” Joan was peering over his shoulder.
“What?” Dylan’s stomach was a pit of dread.
“It looks remarkable,” the doctor admitted.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Joan echoed.
“Your leg is healing very quickly, Dylan – and cleanly too.�
�� He reached out and began to palpate Dylan’s knee and the muscle of her calf. “How does that feel?”
“Fine,” Dylan answered honestly.
“Hmmm. I think—” he stepped back. “I think we’ll do an X-ray, just to see what’s happening.”
It took less than an hour for Dylan to be wheeled round to the X-ray department, Tristan and Joan trotting behind her, and for the radiographer and her technician to get the shots they wanted of her leg. The longest part was hanging around in the waiting room for Dr Hammond to come back with the results.
He did appear at last and, though it was Dylan’s leg that was the one in question, it was Joan that Dr Hammond engaged in conversation, drawing her over to a PC in the corner. Tristan hovered behind them briefly, then returned to Dylan with a grim expression on his face.
“What is it?”
He didn’t answer at once.
“Tristan?”
“Your leg,” he said, nodding down her naked limb in all its multihued glory. “It’s…”
“It’s what?” Dylan asked. She really wished she could cover it, hide the hairs that she swore were growing longer each time she looked at them.
“It’s healing too fast,” Tristan said. “Did you hear what the doctor said?”
“Well, isn’t that a good thing?” Dylan asked. “Maybe I can keep the stupid cast off and you won’t have to push me everywhere.”
“I like pushing you,” Tristan told her with a smile. “No, it’s… you’re healing like me.”
“What?”
“In the wasteland, when I was hurt, it didn’t take me long to recover. Do you remember?”
Did she remember? That memory was burned onto her brain. She’d thought Tristan had died. He’d been caught by a whole swarm of wraiths because she’d been too slow, too clod-footed. And when she saw the damage that the wraiths had done to him, she thought she’d die of shame.
Then, in the morning, she’d been shocked by the improvement. As if he’d spent a week healing rather than just a handful of hours.
“You think?” Dylan asked. She looked down at her leg. The purple bruising and angry red scars looked plenty bad to her.
“Dylan,” Tristan reminded her quietly, “Your fibula and tibia were like a jigsaw puzzle, they had to put in multiple pins. You don’t recover from that in a fortnight.”
“Let’s just see what the doctor says,” Dylan replied.
As if he’d been waiting for her cue, the doctor chose that moment to show her the X-ray picture on the screen, not that it made much sense to her. She could make out the harsh white lines of metal where they’d braced her bones together, and the slightly curved lines of the bones themselves, but she’d no idea if they looked good or bad.
“Well, I didn’t really believe what the radiographer said, but I have to say,” the doctor said, “this is remarkable. If it hadn’t been me who performed the surgery on you initially, Dylan, I’d have said the consultant exaggerated the extent of the damage.”
“Really?” Dylan asked. She ignored Tristan’s I told you so look.
“Really.” Dr Hammond smiled at her. “Your bones have fused and, though we don’t want you putting too much pressure on your leg, I think we can dispense with the cast. We’ll just strap it up to give it a bit of support.”
“I can get rid of the wheelchair?” Dylan asked, hardly daring to hope.
“You can get rid of the wheelchair,” the doctor confirmed. “Although, you’ll have to have crutches and you might find them hard going at first.” He nodded at her lower body. “Let’s have a look at the gashes on your left leg and lower back. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’d healed completely!”
***
The next day, Dylan and Tristan took a taxi to school. When it stopped outside the entrance, Dylan got out on her own two feet. She had to lean heavily against the side of the vehicle while Tristan dashed round with her crutches, but she was standing. It was enough to make her grin up at the three-storey concrete monstrosity of a building.
She could get about pretty well now, but Tristan still insisted she use the lift. Strangely, it seemed even more tight and cramped than it had before – possibly because she was much more aware of how it lurched and juddered as it hauled them to the top floor.
“I hate this thing! Every time we get in I think it’s going to break down and trap us. Or the cables will snap and send us plummeting to our death.”
“It’s only three floors,” Tristan said. “That’s hardly plummeting.”
“It’s far enough to die,” Dylan told him acidly.
“I tell you what,” Tristan said, moving closer in the cramped space. To Dylan’s surprise, he dropped both their bags and leaned in so that he was sandwiching her between his body and the wall. “I’ll distract you.”
Dylan opened her mouth to speak and Tristan took advantage, covering her lips with his. She let out a startled squeak – they were in the school lift! – but the threat of being caught wasn’t enough to make her put the brakes on.
Tristan hadn’t kissed her like this since they’d left the wasteland. Not a proper, no-holds-barred kiss. He’d said she was too delicate, that she was healing. It had frustrated her no end, but he was making up for it now and no power in the world was going to stop them. Except, perhaps, the need to breathe.
Gasping, Dylan broke away. Dropped her head back against the wall of the lift and tried to calm her racing heart.
“See,” Tristan whispered into her ear. “That sped things up a bit.”
Dylan let out a strangled laugh that settled into a happy little sigh. Tristan gave her a chaste final peck on the cheek then collected her crutches from the floor – she didn’t even remember dropping them – and handed them to her. Then he stepped out into the heaving corridor, cool and nonchalant. The only hint he gave that he was as affected as she was, was a happy little wink before he turned to clear a path for her through the crowd.
Not even the thought of two periods in the freezing portacabin with Miserable Monkton after registration could dampen her mood.
When they got to the hut that served as Monkton’s teaching lab, the teacher was nowhere in sight. That wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was the excited buzz in the air. Dylan halted on the threshold, taking in the animated faces with no small amount of confusion.
“What’s going on?” she asked Marie Cummings, who was the only person not involved in the small huddles dotted around the room. Another social outcast like herself, Marie had been Dylan’s seating partner in several classes before Tristan’s arrival. That was probably the reason behind the slightly miffed look Marie gave her, but apparently the gossip was too good not to share, because she couldn’t hold on to her snit.
“A murder!” she said, eyes flashing behind heavily framed glasses.
“Is it somebody famous?” Dylan asked. OK, a murder was a terrible thing, but it didn’t usually have everybody up in arms. The pupils of Kaithshall were not particularly known for their social conscience.
“No, it was a construction worker,” Marie said with relish.
Dylan’s thoughts immediately went to the tunnel. “So why is everyone…?” she gestured at the room.
“There’s footage!”
“Of the murder?”
“No, the victim. The person who found the body videoed it and posted it online. You can see everything! He was, like, eaten or something.”
Dylan looked at Tristan, who had turned whiter than her during this conversation. Not wanting to hear any more, she shuffled past on her crutches, negotiating the tables until she and Tristan could hide away at the back of the classroom.
“Can you believe that?” she asked him as they sat back down. “D’you think it’s another worker from the tunnel?”
Dylan could see the mobile screen in the centre of each group. Her eyes rested briefly on Dove MacMillan, who was grinning broadly and acting out a dramatic reconstruction of the poor man’s death.
Tristan’s whisper in her ear m
ade her jump. “Have you got your phone?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I want to watch that video.”
“What! Why?”
Monkton chose that moment to wander into the classroom, so Dylan had to wait while he handed out some worksheets and told them their task for the day. She grabbed the chemicals they were supposed to be mixing, and as soon as Monkton was occupied elsewhere, she elbowed Tristan in the ribs.
“Well?” she hissed. “Why the hell do you want to watch that grotesque video?”
“Because,” he gave her a look that told her he thought she was being extremely thick, “your friend said it looked like he was eaten.”
As he spoke, he ran his thumb over the screen of her smart phone, loading up the video. In the pit of her stomach, Dylan knew what was coming.
“You think… you think it’s related to the deaths of those four workers?”
“I think it is one of them.”
“What?”
“Well, one of the paramedics on the scene said something similar about the bodies in the train tunnel. I think maybe it’s his footage of one of those guys.”
Dylan tilted her head and just stared at him for several long seconds. Then she couldn’t hold it in any longer. “What?!”
Tristan squirmed, looking distinctly uncomfortable. It wasn’t a look she was accustomed to seeing on him. She didn’t like it.
“When you were meeting your dad,” he began, “I did some searching on the internet and found a blog—”
“That was almost a week ago!”
“Miss McKenzie!” Monkton hollered across the classroom at her.
“Is there a problem?”
“No, sir,” Dylan ground out, forcing her furious gaze away from Tristan. “Sorry, sir.”
He humphed, which Dylan took as an acceptance of her apology. Teacher appeased, she went back to glowering at Tristan.
“Why didn’t you tell me what you found out?” she muttered furiously under her breath. Glancing at the worksheet, aware Monkton was still watching her, she snatched up a hazardous-looking bottle of liquid. Pouring a healthy glug into her dish of white powder, she watched it all turn molten green. How exciting. “Well?”
Trespassers Page 10
