Tristan grinned, reaching up to tuck a soggy lock of hair back behind her ear. “I know,” he said. “I love you, too.”
Then he kissed her, his mouth hot against hers as his arms wrapped around her in a tangle of soggy fabric. Dylan closed her eyes and allowed herself to melt into his embrace. The tragedy of the horse was just that, a tragedy, and she let it slide from her mind.
They were safe, and together. Nothing could change that.
CHAPTER 4
Tristan stared up at the ceiling. Beside him, Dylan was sleeping, each breath a warm puff of air against his shoulder. He shifted slightly, trying to get comfortable without turning over and waking her. He shut his eyes and concentrated on deepening his breathing, trying to match his rhythm to hers, hoping that would lull him to sleep.
It didn’t.
The same thoughts tumbled round his head and he couldn’t stop seeing the ripped and torn carcass of the horse. He imagined the animal as it had been: unblemished chestnut coat gleaming as it wandered aimlessly, cropping the grass. It would have been easy prey for a wraith.
But Dylan was right. It couldn’t be. There was no tear in the veil there, and what wraith would bypass a handful of people-filled towns just to snack on an animal? It didn’t make sense.
Yet the uncomfortable niggle deep in his chest wouldn’t leave him alone.
Giving up on the idea of sleep, he rolled off the bed, careful not to disturb Dylan, and tugged a T-shirt over his head before ghosting out into the hall. Dylan’s parents’ bedroom door was closed and he tiptoed past it into the living room. He grabbed the television remote from the coffee table before sitting down on the thick pile of blankets that was supposed to be his bed.
According to James, when they moved, Tristan would have a room of his own, but until then his official sleeping place was the sofa. Tristan was pretty sure James knew where he spent each night, but he hadn’t said anything so Tristan continued the ruse, waiting until all was quiet in the flat before sneaking in with Dylan.
He turned on the TV, dialling down the volume until the music on the advert was barely audible. Squinting against the sudden flare of light from the screen, he scrolled through the digital guide until he reached the 24-hour news channel. He turned it up a little, just enough to hear the cultured voice of the news anchor as he interviewed a guest – some author trying to pimp his latest novel. Tristan had to wait through a sports bulletin and then the weather forecast (more rain) before at last the presenter moved on to the headlines.
Nothing.
No murders, violent incidents or unexplained deaths in Central Scotland. In fact, there was no news from north of the border at all, the main stories about an earthquake in South America and a famous footballer who’d been arrested for drink driving.
Unable to rid himself of the feeling that something just wasn’t right, Tristan grabbed James’s tablet from where he’d left it, balanced haphazardly on the arm of the sofa. He trawled through news sites, even looking at smaller, local newspaper websites, thinking they might catch something not considered important enough news for the main news providers.
Still nothing that fit the pattern.
Tristan blew out a breath, releasing the tension that was keeping him on edge, keeping him from sleep. The relief was temporary, though. If it had been a wraith, or even a small group of them, who’d slaughtered the horse, it would be sated. Sluggish. It might not resurface to eat again for days.
He’d need to keep a close eye out, be ready to investigate anything that looked even the slightest bit suspicious. It was part of the bargain with the Inquisitor that allowed Tristan and Dylan to stay in the real world, together. The stakes were too high to fail. He knew if he ever saw the Inquisitor again, it would be for the last time.
He’d be lucky to be returned to the wasteland, returned to his duties.
And if that happened, Dylan would die.
“Can’t sleep?” The deep, slightly gruff voice was pitched low, designed not to startle, but Tristan jumped anyway. Turning on the sofa, he saw James in the doorway.
“No, I—” Tristan offered a small smile as he muted the TV. “Sorry, I didn’t think it would be loud enough to wake anybody.”
“It didn’t.” James waved away his apology. “I was just headed to the bathroom and saw the light.” A quick flash of teeth in the light from the screen. “En-suite in the new place, I reckon.”
“Right,” Tristan agreed.
“And you’ll probably sleep better on a bed rather than that lumpy sofa.” James’s tone said he knew fine well that Tristan wasn’t fighting a nightly battle with the uneven cushions and rogue springs on the ageing piece of furniture. Well, not after the first half hour anyway.
Tristan nodded, trying to look innocent in the face of James’s knowing look. The older man’s face suddenly sobered and became watchful.
“Something on your mind, son?”
It was an opening, an opportunity for Tristan to share. But it was more than that – it was James offering him a chance to shift their relationship into something other than the father-and-slightly-troublesome-boyfriend dynamic they’d been warily dancing around.
For a heartbeat Tristan considered it. James knew some of what he and Dylan had been through, understood that there were things beyond the world they lived in. And it would be a relief, Tristan thought, to be able to pass the burden to someone. But almost as soon as the idea had taken root, he dismissed it. James’s knowledge was scant, and the reasons they’d kept the details from him when he first discovered the tie between Tristan and Dylan held just as true now. The more he knew, the more danger he was in from the Inquisitor.
This burden was Tristan’s to bear. If he shared it with anyone, it could only be Dylan.
“I’m fine,” Tristan said. “Just… thinking.”
“All right.” James looked disappointed, and Tristan could tell he didn’t believe him, but Dylan’s dad didn’t push any further. “Try to get some sleep, though, eh? You’ve got school in the morning.”
“Yes, sir.” Tristan replied. He switched off the television, made a pretence of lying back among the blankets. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Tristan.”
James disappeared down the hallway and a minute later Tristan heard the toilet flushing and the quiet sounds of doors opening and closing as James returned to the room he shared with Joan.
It was a long time before Tristan crept back to Dylan’s room, thoughts of wraiths still heavy on his mind.
CHAPTER 5
“Don’t look.”
“I’m not looking.”
“I know, just…” Susanna squeezed Jack’s hand. “Don’t look.”
Sweat was dripping down her forehead and her clothes were sticking to her skin. The heat was unrelenting; there wasn’t so much as a puff of wind to give them relief. Susanna knew that was a blessing, however. Earlier the wind had swirled and howled, snatching up the tiny grains of sand coating the floor of the wasteland and hurling them against Jack and Susanna, scraping their skin and getting in their eyes and mouths.
Though it had been easier to ignore the wraiths with their eyes scrunched shut.
It was midday, Susanna thought, judging by the height of the sun in the sky. She hoped this was as hot as it was going to get, but with the ground absorbing heat all morning, the afternoon had the potential to become even more stifling once the baking sand started radiating up at them.
There was no shade. Nothing but the dry and cracking ground, undulating just enough to obscure the road ahead, and jagged rocks and tumbled boulders that somehow cast no shadows. In the ‘normal’ wasteland that Susanna was used to, shadows were a danger, a place for wraiths to lurk. Here, the demonic red sun freed them – and denied any kind of shade that would give Jack and Susanna a chance to hide from its punishing rays.
“I need water,” Jack croaked beside her.
“You don’t,” Susanna reminded him. “You’re dead. Your soul doesn’t need things like fo
od or water any more.”
“All right then,” Jack griped back, “I want water. Is that better?” His breath came out in harsher, more ragged gasps as the hill they were ascending steepened, causing all the muscles in Susanna’s legs to cramp and pull. “Bloody hell,” he rasped. “I’ve never been this hot in my entire life.”
“Try to remember that it isn’t real,” Susanna advised.
“Huh?”
“It’s not real,” she repeated. “Your skin isn’t really burning, you’re not really thirsty. And no matter how much you feel like you’re overheating, the sun won’t kill you.” She barked out a breathless laugh. “Heatstroke doesn’t exist in the wasteland.”
“Well, it feels real,” Jack replied. “And I feel like I’m going to die.”
You can’t die if you’re already dead, Susanna thought, but she refrained from stating the obvious. “You won’t,” she said. “Just focus on that and keeping putting one foot in front of the other. And don’t look at the wraiths!”
She added the last bit because she could see, out of the corner of her eye, Jack’s right hand clenching into a tighter and tighter fist. He wanted to grab or slap down one of the wraiths that were diving and swooping round their heads.
“I’m… trying…” Jack ground out. “But it’s instinct. They’re like wasps. I just want to grab a newspaper and batter them to death!”
“You can’t,” Susanna said. “React, acknowledge them, look at them – and they’ll get you. If you can keep ignoring them, then they’re just like your wasps. Harmless.”
“You’ve obviously never been stung by one,” Jack muttered quietly, needing to have the last word as always.
But Susanna was just as hot as he was, and cross with it. She was in no mood to let him have it.
“Well, maybe not,” she snapped, “but I have been attacked by wraiths, more times than I can remember, and it’s not pleasant. So ignore them.”
Silence from Jack. Then, so quietly it might have been a figment of her imagination, he murmured, “Sorry.”
Susanna reached out and took his hand, giving his fingers a quick squeeze before letting go. She understood.
Long minutes later, they reached the crest of the hill. The slope dropped away, steeper on this side, and Susanna winced as she saw the scree that littered the sheer descent. They were going to slip and slide and skid all the way down. Terrific.
A wraith lower down the hill suddenly started making a beeline for them and Susanna slammed her eyes closed, not trusting herself not to follow its progress. She felt the air stir gently – along with a sharp but shallow slice across her cheek – as the wraith passed by. It would likely join the small cloud of its kin that had followed them all morning.
Why not, Susanna thought wryly. Join the party.
“Is that how you survive it?” Jack asked, the question surprising Susanna enough that she turned to look at him, found his grey eyes searching hers. Was that sympathy she saw there?
“What do you mean?”
“When the wraiths are hurting you, is that how you survive? By telling yourself that it isn’t real?”
A wraith darted between the two of them, daring one of them to acknowledge its presence, but Susanna couldn’t tear her gaze away from Jack’s and he was watching her intently, waiting for an answer.
“Yes,” she said, seeing no reason to hide it from him. “It hurts, but I won’t die. And it’ll end eventually; I just need to keep breathing.” She looked back to the drop before them, finding it hard to hold his gaze. “That’s what I tell myself. Over and over.”
“Does it help?”
Susanna smiled grimly. Jack was very, very good at asking questions that got right to the heart of things.
“No,” she said. “It doesn’t help.”
She waited for him to say something caustic about her advice – now that she’d admitted it was bad advice – but he didn’t. Instead he sighed.
“That’s going to be a bitch to climb down, isn’t it?”
Susanna wanted to laugh – Jack had hit the nail bang on the head – but it wasn’t at all funny. It was going to be a bitch.
“Yeah,” she agreed.
Jack let out another sigh. “OK then. Let’s go.”
That was his way. Push on, push back. Keep fighting. But she knew he was just as exhausted as she was, mentally and physically. And that was a sure-fire way to make mistakes.
Mistakes here would see him dead.
“Wait.” She reached out, pulled him to a stop. “Let’s take a break.”
“A break?” Jack laughed harshly. “Did you bring a picnic basket?”
“No,” Susanna said with exaggerated patience. “But let’s just have five minutes of not concentrating every second. I think it’ll help. Here.” Using her grip on his arm, she manoeuvred him to his knees and then knelt directly facing him. Leaning in, she rested her face on his shoulder, eyes closed. It took a moment, but eventually Jack relented, mimicking her posture.
“There,” she said quietly. “Now, even if you open your eyes, you can’t see anything. You can relax, just for a minute. They’ll still swipe at us, but they won’t do anything more than that.”
She consciously relaxed her muscles, stretching her shoulders to try and loosen the tension there. It wasn’t comfortable, kneeling on the hard-packed earth with tiny stones digging into her shins, but not having to constantly police her gaze loosened the vice gripping her skull and that was blissful.
“How did Dylan do this alone?” Jack asked after a long, quiet minute.
“I honestly don’t know,” Susanna said. “I guess…” She thought about what she’d seen between Tristan and Dylan, the bond that held them together, the love they shared. “I guess her motivation was strong enough.”
“Well, I’m pretty motivated not to die, so I reckon maybe there’s hope after all.”
Susanna didn’t correct him. She knew what he meant. Becoming a wraith would be a death of his self, not just his body.
Guilt wracked her for, oh, maybe the millionth time. Crossing Jack’s original wasteland would have been a piece of cake compared with this.
“Jack—”
“If you’re going to apologise again, save it.”
Susanna yanked in a shocked breath. Hurt punched her low in the belly, solid enough to feel like a wraith trying to batter through her. Forgetting herself, she stupidly made to draw back, but Jack held her there, his hand firm but gentle on the back of her neck.
“I agreed to it,” he said, his voice still as harsh, as gruff. “It’s my fault as well as yours, so stop beating yourself up about it. Just…” He broke off and squeezed her, turning the grip into a hug. “Just promise me you’ll get me out of here.”
She couldn’t promise that. Not here, in the burning desert with the wraiths so free to torment them. With days and days of this still ahead. She could not promise that. But she did anyway.
“I promise, Jack. I’ll get you through this. I swear it.”
They stayed there longer than they should have. Susanna knew it, but she couldn’t seem to make herself move, and Jack didn’t complain. They’d fought all morning, each step, each moment requiring them to keep laser focus: their eyes on the ground or dead ahead, staring into the distance and avoiding glancing, even for a heartbeat, at the wraiths doing everything to catch their attention.
Susanna didn’t understand how it worked, why the wraiths wouldn’t attack them unless they looked at them – she was only grateful for the chance, however small, to get Jack through this in one piece.
One morning had utterly exhausted them, physically and mentally. She didn’t understand how they were supposed to survive the afternoon, never mind days of this. Especially when she couldn’t even muster the energy to lift her head. Jack’s breath was warm against her shoulder, his hold strong and comforting. Susanna couldn’t bear to tear away from him. Just another minute, she promised herself. One more.
At last, reluctance lost the battle
against the instinctive panic of still being out in the open when darkness fell. “All right, let’s go.” She took a deep breath. “Are you ready?”
“No,” Jack mumbled into her shoulder. “But let’s do it anyway.”
They clambered to their feet awkwardly, still facing each other. Susanna didn’t know about Jack, but she kept her eyes shut. Anything to buy another few precious seconds of not controlling her gaze, her every blink.
“Susanna,” Jack said at last. She opened her eyes and Jack’s face was directly in front of hers, close enough that a wraith couldn’t squeeze its away in between them and draw their attention.
She found his eyes and drew strength from them. Slate grey, they were slightly narrowed and ready for battle. As his ferryman, she had Jack’s memories in her head, knew he’d fought pretty much every day of his adolescence, and he was ready to fight this, too. He just needed her to lead the way.
“Right then,” she said, feeling her own determination rise to meet his. “Let’s do this.”
The slope was as awful as Susanna had predicted. She found it easier to relax her eyes and focus on nothing, so she couldn’t see the bigger stones ready to trip her, the rivers of loose pebbles ready to give way beneath her feet and send her sliding. Each time she lost her footing – and the twice she ended up on her backside – it was a struggle not to sharpen her gaze, to look about and get her bearings, search for something to help her back on her feet or steady her balance. At these times, she just closed her eyes and waited for a hand to reach out and help her. And one did.
And when the roles were reversed she did the same for Jack. Because that was the only way they were going to get through this – together.
CHAPTER 6
“Steven! Steven, please, I can’t go any faster!”
The soul was scared. The ferryman knew that, but he couldn’t do anything about it. He was concentrating all his efforts on dragging her along. Her legs, limbs she’d cursed her whole life, he knew, because they couldn’t run, or jump or dance, worked just fine here in the wasteland. The problem was in her mind. She hadn’t had enough time to adjust.
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