Light Up the Dark

by Suki Fleet

  Eventually Cai spoke. “I’m going to go to the police station tomorrow. I can’t run away like this. I didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not fair on Soph. She doesn’t deserve this. I was here when the fire started.” Cai turned, his expression uncertain. “If I tell them that… will you back me up?”

  With a wince, Nicky shoved himself upright. “Why didn’t you say all you needed was an alibi? Did you think I wouldn’t give you one?”

  “I don’t know. You don’t like talking to people. Sometimes you really don’t seem to like me. I think you probably wish you’d employed someone else. Especially after all this.” Cai flapped his hands around his head, before running them through his hair.

  “Of course I’d give you an alibi! Look, I don’t like anyone….” Nicky faltered, his stomach swooping as though he was falling from a great height. He couldn’t keep lying like this. He didn’t even want to. “I made you tea… I….” He didn’t know what to say. Writing that he was a selfish prick on a sticky note was so much easier than saying it to someone’s face. Pulling his blanket with him, he turned and lay back down facing the back of the chair. “You should try and get some sleep,” he mumbled, knowing sleep was probably a long way off for him. Not that he cared—it wasn’t often he felt safe like this. It was impossible, but he wished he could keep the feeling. “Stay,” he said softly, before he could think too much and talk himself out of it. “Stay here until you have somewhere to go.”

  He didn’t hear Cai’s response. But perhaps Cai hadn’t heard the words. Perhaps Nicky had only thought them.

  It was morning when Nicky woke. He squinted at the window. The sun was a little way up the sky, meaning it was at least seven or eight. Far, far later than he ever usually slept. Water was running somewhere, voices murmuring. Cautious of his arms, Nicky pulled the blanket around his shoulders like a shawl and sat up.

  He’d known the study was empty as soon as he’d woken, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He wanted to know where everyone was so there would be no surprises. He liked knowing where people were. He didn’t quite trust them.

  The door to the study was closed, and it looked a little less hanging by its hinges, but the lock was still very broken. There would be no fixing it.

  Gathering all the grit and determination he possessed (which wasn’t much to begin with and was now diminishing by the day), Nicky opened the door and peered into the corridor’s gloom. Had Cai left and gone to the police station? He padded along the corridor. No. From the doorway to the old dining room Nicky could see his van was still parked in front of the house.

  Outside the downstairs bathroom, Nicky listened to the quiet gasping and bitten-off shrieking. He’d never experienced the masochistic joy of a cold shower before the gas and electrics had been cut off. He was used to the icy water now. But that first time—he vividly remembered the gut-clenching discomfort of not being able to breathe properly; it was like diving into a cold sea unable to resurface.

  He went back into the study and filled the kettle with water from the jug. He left it to boil on the stove and, hugging the blanket, wandered towards the back door.

  Cai was in the middle of the lawn, facing the fields, swathed in morning mist. The knot of terror that usually filled Nicky’s chest when he contemplated leaving the house felt different. He still didn’t want to go outside, but his anxiety didn’t peak as he pushed open the door. Barefoot, he tiptoed across the cracked stone of the patio. The mist was cold where it hung over the long grass, and it soaked into his trousers as he waded through.

  Nicky liked being able to move as silently as possible. So it wasn’t surprising Cai didn’t hear him approach. What was surprising was that Cai wasn’t just standing there gazing out over the fields. No, Cai was having a quiet moment pissing into the long grass, a beatific look glazing his face while he did it.

  Nicky was speaking before he could stop himself. “Oh. Crap, I—” He shoved his hand over his mouth.

  Cai stumbled back in shock and nearly peed all over his boots.

  Nicky laughed. He couldn’t help it. It burst out of him, and he couldn’t seem to stop it. Flushed with surprise, Cai hurriedly stuffed himself back into his pants, and Nicky kept laughing and laughing so hard it hurt his stomach.

  “You wouldn’t find it so funny if I’d turned and pissed on your feet.” Cai was scowling but he wasn’t mad. His eyes were glittering like they did whenever he found the tea and biscuits Nicky left out for him. Like he was pleased.

  “I’m pretty good at sneaking up on you, no?” Nicky gasped, at last catching his breath. “You on the other hand couldn’t sneak up on a dead rabbit.”

  “A dead rabbit?”

  “They’re pretty easy to sneak up on.”

  Cai shook his head. “You have a sadistic sense of humour.”

  “Maybe I’m just sadistic full stop.”

  Cai raised an eyebrow. “I hadn’t finished, by the way. Do you mind?”

  “Nope.” Nicky grinned giddily, then turned away. His bladder was full and Cai peeing had only made it worse. “If you turn around before I’m done I’m definitely going to piss on your boots.”

  Cai snorted back a laugh.

  As they walked back across the lawn, Cai said, “I did a lot of thinking last night, and….” Nicky glanced at him sidelong. Even if Cai did have a way of making dead-on-your-feet look manageable and healthy, Cai’s eyes were dark with sleepless shadows. “If I go to the police they’re going to arrest me and… and I can’t do that to Soph. I didn’t start that fire. I need to find out who did. I need to know if it was just someone setting the place alight for the hell of it, or if someone is trying to set me up.”

  “How are you going to find out?”

  “I have no idea. At least I have that money you paid me, though. I thought I’d lost everything. In a bit, I’m going to take Soph and Loz to the bus stop near the garage, so they can go into town to buy some clothes and things. I’ll be gone twenty minutes at most. While they’re shopping, I’ll come back here and work.”

  They stopped by the doors to the patio. Nicky tugged at his blanket. “You don’t have to work today.” Cai had lost everything yesterday. “It’s the weekend.”

  “Honestly, I want to. It helps me to think.”

  “What I said last night….”

  Cai looked thoughtful for a moment. “About what?”

  “You staying.”

  “You didn’t.”

  He didn’t…. It had just been in his head, then. Great. He could have one-sided conversations overheard by gun-toting stalkers, but actually talking to someone sometimes happened entirely in his head. Nicky hated irony.

  Cai was staring at him as though hope was blooming in his chest like a big blowsy flower, and Nicky’s words almost died in his throat. Don’t do this. I’m not a good bet, Cai, he thought pleadingly and pulled the blanket closer around his shoulders. “A few days… if you need it….”

  “You don’t have to….”

  Nicky shrugged, awkward and at sea. Had he woken up in a parallel universe? Where the fuck was his sarcasm and aloofness and all the rest of his barriers this morning? He was so naked without them he felt like he’d been skinned. “I want… you to,” he said, stumbling over the words as though they were the shape of large stones and didn’t quite fit in his mouth. Honesty sucked.

  After last night, he should be feeling warier, a hundred times less safe. Not like this. Not like Cai’s crazy hope had transformed and grown into something far more excitable than a flower, something that would clamber all over him and slaver him with doe-eyed, puppyish excitement.

  “I don’t make cups of tea and leave notes for just anyone, you know.” Uhhh. Nicky wrinkled his nose, his skin heating. He was far better at snark.

  Except snark didn’t make Cai smile so big; it didn’t make the world glimmer a little brighter, as if this was a chance and all he had to do was take it.

  Keeping his blanket wrapped around his shoulders, Nicky turned awa
y and stalked into the house to check on the kettle.

  Beneath the surface

  The weekend passed in a blur. Before Cai dropped Soph and Loz near school on Monday, they worked a story out. Soph would say she was staying with Loz for a couple of days and that neither of them had been in touch with Cai since before the fire. Loz had sworn, hands on their heart, that no one at home would bother to refute it. After school, they would catch the bus to a bus stop near the garage and text Cai to pick them up or they’d walk across the fields.

  Cai gripped the steering wheel as he watched them cross the street and head towards the school. The whole situation was so wrong. Someone had started that fire, whether they’d been meaning to hurt them or not. It was so wrong and unfair and Cai needed to figure out how to fix it.

  A fierce sense of purpose coursed through Cai’s veins as he drove back to Thorn Hall. A need to make something right, even if it wasn’t the thing that he really wanted to make right.

  Earlier, Cai had taken a heavy bolt off a door that seemed to lead to the cellar—given the broken stone staircase that fell away into the dark and the all-pervasive smell of damp—and he’d fixed it on the inside of the study door so Nicky could lock himself in. He didn’t tell Nicky where the bolt had come from. Something told him Nicky wouldn’t like leaving the cellar unlocked.

  After that, when he was sure Nicky was napping, Cai had gone for a quick wander down the corridor to the entrance hall and the big rooms at the front of the house. There’d been no sign of the woman from two nights ago—she’d probably taken off. Even so, Cai hadn’t wanted to leave Nicky on his own for too long. Anything could happen in an hour.

  As soon as the van had skidded to a halt, Cai rushed around to where he’d left the back doors unlocked. He didn’t even stop to peer in the study window. Out of breath, he knocked on the study door. “Nicky? Open up. It’s only me.”

  After a couple of seconds, the door opened. Nicky blinked at him and went back to the chair he’d probably been curled up in since Cai had left. If past lives were a thing, Nicky had definitely been a cat. A sleek ginger tom, poised and tense, ready to leap up and dart away at the slightest provocation. Outwardly, he appeared calm as he fiddled with his plait, but a muscle in his jaw was twitching, as though he was grinding his teeth.

  Cai asked, “How would you feel if I fixed some things? Like some things in the house?” As well as being helpful, it would give Cai another excuse to have a look around.

  Nicky didn’t look at him.

  Minutes passed and Nicky still didn’t respond, though he no longer looked so ready to run. Nicky seemed to veer between being present in the moment and being very far away. Seeing him like this was a stark contrast to the relaxed, laughing young man he’d briefly transformed into the other morning out on the lawn.

  “How are your arms today?” Cai said.

  Nicky gave them a little experimental shake and said in a tired voice, “Still attached. Though if they fall off I’ll be sure to let you know.”

  Cai snorted, almost missing Nicky’s next softly spoken words. “Stay close by in the house. I heard someone moving around.”

  Suddenly Nicky’s behaviour made sense. He was scared. It wasn’t obvious, but as Cai looked—really looked—he could see it in Nicky’s carefully schooled blank expression. In the way he held himself, too aware of his limbs.

  Cai said, “I’ll go take a look around.”

  “Don’t.” Nicky closed his eyes and bowed his head, his eyelashes feathered darkly against his cheek. “Please.”

  “Okay.” Cai looked around. Nicky needed a distraction. “I’ll go and fix the leak in the kitchen if you—”

  “There are guns in the east-wing library.”

  “What?” With a sick feeling in his stomach, Cai thought back to when the woman had pointed the gun at his head. It was still hidden away in his van. He had no idea what to do with it. He wished he knew how to destroy it.

  “You took Fox Mask’s gun, but she could have another.”

  “Fox Mask?”

  “She… it doesn’t matter. The guns are broken. Lance was always trying to fix them because broken guns are dangerous. Don’t you understand?”

  Cai walked across the room and knelt in front of Nicky’s chair. “Nicky?” Nicky opened his eyes. Up close they were the faded blue of wildflowers clinging to the side of cliffs that were impossible to climb, the grey of wintery skies, shot with the navy of evening rain. But more than anything they were the blue of secrets, and they were anything but calm. “No one is going to hurt you. I won’t let them.”

  “You’re too late,” Nicky whispered, smiling as though it hurt. “He was supposed to protect me and now he’s gone.”

  Nicky didn’t seem to want to talk after that, so Cai had boiled the kettle and lit the fire. After a dutiful couple of sips of sweet tea, Nicky had placed the cup on the floor and curled on his side again. He was falling asleep, Cai realised with a jolt of surprise. Just like that. Cai sat on the desk and watched as the tension slowly seeped out of Nicky’s slender frame—even his mouth went slack—until he looked utterly boneless. In the deep quiet of the house he could hear the same squeaky breath sounds Nicky made as he slept at night. The sounds were much quieter than snoring but they were sleep sounds all the same. With a small smile, Cai wondered if anyone had ever told Nicky about them. But of course someone must have done—intimacy was not so uncommon, even if it seemed unreachable to Cai. He could have watched Nicky sleep all day. It surprised him that Nicky had drifted off like that, in his presence. Well, if Nicky was able to sleep, his pain couldn’t have been too bad, which was a good thing. The painkillers Cai had bought for him lay untouched on the desk.

  Nicky slept for hours. Cai resisted the urge to go and explore the house, and instead fed the fire and glanced through a few of the books on the shelves. But they were mostly old and written in what Cai thought of as difficult English. He made another cup of tea and fixed a few of the wobblier chair legs with the spare screws he had in his pocket from the cellar bolt. Cai was staring at the small amount of food Nicky had squirrelled under the desk, wondering how he could make two slices of bread, a jar of pickles, three digestives and half an avocado into something appetising to eat, when Nicky woke up.

  Cai smiled when he noticed Nicky watching him. It was pointless, he knew, but he liked Nicky watching him.

  “Feel better?”

  “I’ve not slept this much in so long….”

  “You’re injured. Your body needs rest to get better.”

  “You didn’t hear any noises?”

  “I didn’t hear any noises.”

  “I don’t want to be scared of my fucking shadow any more.”

  Cai didn’t know what to say. He wanted to hug Nicky but he suspected that might end in injury. These brief flashes of vulnerability that Nicky displayed were doing him in.

  “I want to help” was all Cai could think of to say. “Please let me help you. Whatever it is. I don’t plan on going anywhere.”

  Who’s the bloody detective?

  Wednesday. The lunchtime break bell blasted through the speakers in the classroom. Mrs Day held up her keys. She was leaving early today and locking the art room, so they’d all have to leave. Inwardly, Loz groaned. The corridors would be packed. Loz had a deep dislike of being packed in a corridor with so many other people. The window at the back of the art class was wide open, blowing freezing air into the room and sending piles of paper fluttering. The sky looked thunderous, but it wasn’t raining yet. When Mrs Day turned to talk to another student, Loz motioned to Soph and slipped through the window and onto the grass below, then held out a hand for Soph.

  “M’lady.”

  Hitching her bag over her shoulder, Soph leaned over the windowsill and smiled for the first time in three days. Getting Soph to smile was at all times The Goal. Since the fire Soph had seemed so lost. Loz took a deep breath of icy, green-scented air and looked around to make sure no one was watching them. For ma
ybe half a second everything felt reasonably okay in the off-kilter world.

  But half a second was exactly how long it took to spot Detective Michaels standing by the fence at the edge of the playfield looking altogether like the dodgy cop he seemed to be transforming into. There was a woman with him, also wearing a long grey coat. If she wasn’t police too, Loz would eat a handful of mud.

  Soph’s fingers tightened around Loz’s as she jumped to the ground. “What’s wrong?”

  Soph was far too wonderfully perceptive.

  Lying was the worst, and this would be a bad time to start.

  “You know that detective I went and spoke to yesterday?” Hooking a curl out of her eye, Soph nodded. How was Loz supposed to get her to smile after all this? “Well, that’s him over there.” Loz pointed. “And he’s either come to ask if we want to see some puppies, or he wants a quiet chat.”

  Soph looked horrified. “But if he asks who I am, he’ll put it together that you know Cai and that was why you were asking about the fire yesterday!”

  Loz said gently, “Soph, I’m sure he already knows that. They would have worked it out pretty quick. And I’m not about to start pretending I don’t know you.”

  “If they want to talk to you why didn’t they come in to school? Why are they hanging around over there?”

  “They probably want to chat off the record, no fuss.”

  “But you don’t have to talk to them.”

  “No, I don’t, but I don’t want them to talk to me on the record either. Listen, why don’t you wait for me in the library and I’ll meet you there in a minute.”