Light Up the Dark

by Suki Fleet

  Nicky got out too, just to let Loz and Soph climb over his seat. It didn’t immediately occur to him that this might be the first time Nicky had been actually outside anywhere but the grounds of Thorn Hall in two years. Soph squeezed Cai’s arm as she clambered past. Her touch took a moment to register. He felt so numb.

  Nicky climbed back in and shut the door. It didn’t shut properly the first time, so he slammed it again. The van shook.

  Cai’s mouth opened and words tumbled out, quick and unplanned. His voice cracked. “It was just a place to sleep. Why does it feel like this?” But he knew why. He’d never had anywhere he could call home before. Anywhere that was his.

  Warmth enveloped his hands. He looked down and saw Nicky was gently prising his fingers off the steering wheel.

  Cai watched, perplexed, as Nicky reached down under his seat with a look of concentration on his face; then a lever clicked and Cai’s seat slid so far back he could barely reach the steering wheel. Feline and graceful, Nicky climbed across the gearstick and into Cai’s lap.

  Cai didn’t move as Nicky straddled his thighs and leaned forwards, slipping his arms around Cai’s back and resting his head lightly on Cai’s chest. It was the sort of tender awkward hug that came from a complete lack of personal experience, and a lot of self-conscious determination.

  And as Cai enfolded Nicky in his arms he knew nothing had ever felt so right.

  “This doesn’t mean anything,” Nicky murmured against his neck.

  “I know,” Cai whispered back.

  Meditation Sensation

  You played a pathetic game of “I’ll show you mine, you show me yours” and now you trust him, the little voice in Nicky’s head accused. You’re so fucking stupid.

  Dawn had been a faint white line of light on the horizon as they drove back to the house, the sky a swirling nebula of blues. Looking exhausted, Sophie and Loz had crawled back into bed as soon as they’d returned to the study. Cai had relit the fire and was currently lying on his side on his cushion bed on the floor, sneaking sleepy glances at Nicky. Nicky was pretending he hadn’t noticed.

  Mostly Nicky was trying not to think about the cellar. As soon as he’d seen the bolt was gone, he’d been utterly paralysed by fear. Whatever was down here couldn’t hurt him—deep down he knew that.

  It was just… Fox Mask’s words had shaken him more than having a gun pointed at his head. Bodies, she’d said. My brother’s body. And dread had bloomed dark and terrible inside him. What if what he’d once seen down there in the cellar had something to do with all this? What if he could have done something? Prevented something.

  It ate away at him.

  As soon as Cai had drifted off to sleep, Nicky got up off his chair and sat cross-legged on the floor on the other side of the room. He began counting his breaths. Sleep was a thousand miles away and he needed to stop thinking. This meditation thing, or whatever it was he was doing, was the only thing that seemed to promise a little peace.

  “Nicky?”

  He blinked. Sophie flopped down on the dusty floor in front of him. He arched his aching back, trying to keep hold of the deep sense of calm that had filled him. How long had he been sat there? It felt like aeons. He’d never managed more than a few minutes before.

  “Are you meditating?”

  He nodded.

  “Will you teach me? I can’t sleep.”

  It was no longer early morning. Their middle of the night excursion had taken its toll on Loz and Cai, and they slept on. Dark rings circled Sophie’s eyes, and every so often she yawned. Nicky expected she and Loz would have to leave for school in the not too distant future. But Nicky patiently took her through slowly counting her breaths. Told her it was okay if her mind wandered, but she needed to gently bring herself back when it did. And that, like everything, it would get easier with time, with practise. He’d never instructed anyone on anything in his life and he was shocked at how natural it felt. How much he wanted to share his knowledge with someone—that he had knowledge to share. Such a small thing, but it gave him hope.

  I need you/I don’t want to need you

  The autumn dawn sky glowed in pinks and purples, but that wasn’t what had woken Cai. Nicky sat near the fire hunched over the laptop watching the CCTV footage again. Every so often he’d click the mouse and the footage would rewind. Cai could only see the edge of the screen and he didn’t want to move and disturb Nicky, so it took him a while to figure out it wasn’t the footage of the Jag Nicky was watching over and over this time—it was the last few seconds. The ones showing the blurry guy the police thought was Cai. Tears were dripping down Nicky’s cheeks. But as much as Cai wanted to comfort him somehow, he sensed Nicky needed to be alone with whatever this was. So Cai watched and waited and hoped for any sign Nicky might need him.

  Nightmares

  Cai was in the garden. Nicky could see him from the study window attacking an ugly round bush with his garden shears. Despite Cai saying he needed to prove himself innocent, it had been almost a week since Sophie and Loz had brought back the CCTV footage. And although he knew Cai went for little nosy wanders around the downstairs corridors whenever he could—his curiosity about the house as insatiable as ever—Cai seemed as happy as Nicky to ignore the outside world. They probably weren’t very good for one another. But when had he ever wanted anything that was good for him? He’d been pretty hell-bent on self-destructing way before someone had tried to kill him and speed up the process. Funny that someone trying to take something from you could make you suddenly realise how much you wanted it after all.

  And he did want it. He wanted to live. For the first time in a long time the certainty of that burned inside him. He didn’t want to be scared any more. He wanted a chance. He’d been a secret locked in this house for too long. Like a genie in a long-forgotten bottle, he no longer remembered what it was like to have a life.

  Strengthened by Cai’s proximity and yet satisfied he was occupied for a while, Nicky tucked the lantern under his arm and left the study.

  Even before he put his foot on the cellar steps, panic fluttered in his chest. His heart started racing as it had in Cai’s van at the supermarket. Yet, he had to do this. If he didn’t, he would never forgive himself. It was the only way to pass the test he had set himself—doing this and dealing with it, facing it, was proof he wanted out of here. Taking one slow deep breath after another, and swinging the lantern about as though the darkness were smoke and he could dispel it, Nicky descended into the black.

  The air grew damper. At first he told himself the smell didn’t bother him. Then he wanted to retch. He covered his mouth and nose to stop the scent of decay that rose up from deep within the rotting guts of the house.

  Lance, what have you done?

  The thought came unbidden.

  Lance had protected him. Lance had promised. And Nicky had convinced himself that Lance would keep that promise, that it meant something, because otherwise the truth wasn’t bearable and he couldn’t make any sense of it.

  Suddenly his foot went cold. He looked down. Black icy water covered the steps. Nicky stepped back and swung the lantern in a wide arc. The first cavernous room of the cellar was flooded as far as the eye could see. Perhaps after all this time the house was finally sinking. He had no idea how deep the water around the edge was. Inches, feet?

  What he needed to see was beyond this room and the next. Water filled his shoes as he stepped down and down again until his ankles were submerged. A strange shape caught his eye. He swung the lantern’s light out wide. A lone trainer floated in a few metres away. Was it taped together? Like Fox Mask’s? Nicky wasn’t sure.

  There was a noise. A creak? A splash? It didn’t matter. Fear clawed at him, and for the longest moment, Nicky froze. Unable to move. Unable to breathe. The darkness seemed to expand, and the cellar became a cavern. Then more than that. It became the world. His world. His nightmare.

  A voice whispered in the darkness. Nicky, it whispered. NickyNickyNicky. The sound w
as on the edge of his hearing, barely louder than the softly lapping water. He desperately wanted to be imagining it. But he wasn’t. He knew he wasn’t. Just like he hadn’t been imagining the blood that filled the bathtub he’d found down here all those years ago. The stark little room he’d tried to forget. Bodies, Nicky.

  Nicky dropped the lantern and ran.

  Help me

  In the garden, Cai was battling with the overgrowth while trying to ignore the nagging feeling that he should be doing something else. One week after the fire and he still was no further in finding the why’s or the who’s of what had happened. The idea of leaving Nicky alone and unprotected here while he went off and investigated (whatever that entailed) left him sick with dread. But the longer he hid away, the guiltier he was going to seem to the rest of the world. He was beginning to regret not going to the police straight away and explaining there was no way he could have started the fire. He couldn’t hide away forever.

  His arm ached from hacking at the bush in front of him. This war with the plants was beginning to feel like one he wouldn’t mind losing. He’d had enough of destruction. What would it be like to build instead of destroy? To create something beautiful like the fireworks he’d once made. He remembered the way the first ones had lit up the dark night sky like exploding stars, but he also remembered the way the last of them had shattered apart the factory, spilling fire and setting alight to everything that would burn.

  Tiredly he lifted his arm and wiped the sweat from his brow.

  The only good thing to have come out of this whole mess so far was his growing closeness to Nicky. Nicky with his mixed messages and sudden, startling shows of vulnerability. The longing Cai felt for him was like no longing he’d ever experienced before. He longed to be near him. His bones ached with it. When he wasn’t, the world didn’t spin right. The sky grew dimmer and duller. Nothing worked like it was supposed to. Inside he was chaos, his chest full of whirling, diving, buzzing things that messed with his concentration. And then he’d see Nicky and his chest would settle, and the buzz would become the thrum of a magnet that he had to resist with all his strength, lest he fuck up whatever tentative force was pulling them together.

  A sudden blur of movement rounded the corner of the house. Cai froze. Nicky. Sprinting down the side of the house towards him. Something was wrong.

  No one moved that fast unless they were being chased. Fear spiking his senses, Cai raced across the leaves and bracken to meet him. Over a hundred metres lay between them. Instinctively he gripped his shears more firmly in his hand and kept his eyes on the side of the house, waiting for the danger, ready for it. Too late Cai realised Nicky wasn’t looking where he was going, that he hadn’t seen the assortment of logs Cai had laid on the ground for chopping into firewood later.

  “Nicky!” he yelled, just as Nicky stumbled and tripped.

  Arms flung wide, Nicky twisted ungracefully through the air, before landing with a thump on his back on the leaves. For a moment he lay there unmoving, the wind knocked clean out of him.

  Cai skidded to his side, his awareness thrown out like a net around them, still searching for any immediate danger. Nicky blinked up at the sky, blue eyes blank and unseeing, shut down.

  Reaching forwards, Cai brushed back a loose strand of his autumn-coloured hair. “Breathe, baby,” he whispered.

  And Nicky did. Sucking in one shaky breath after another.

  “The cellar,” Nicky gasped, coming to life. “Something’s happened in the cellar.”

  After checking Nicky wasn’t hurt, and being mostly convinced that whatever danger there was it was not immediate, Cai helped him into the passenger seat of the van. Nicky’s fear seemed to have blown wide open and that was probably why he’d run.

  He handed Nicky his keys. “Can you drive?”

  Nicky looked at him blankly, hugging his knees and rocking slightly. His clothes and shoes were dirty and wet. His hair was full of leaves.

  “No? No. You’re not in any state to drive.” Cai shook his head—he needed to stop thinking aloud. “Okay. Lock the doors, then. I’ll be back in a minute or two.”

  “Don’t fucking leave me,” Nicky whispered, his gaze suddenly so intense Cai couldn’t look away.

  “I’m just… I was just going to take a look… to make sure we’re safe.”

  “If you make me beg, I will fucking hate you. I will never forgive you. Never. Don’t fucking play with me.”

  Cai’s eyes went wide. “I’m not. I….” He was at a loss. “I’d never want you to beg. I—”

  “I hate that I feel like this.” Nicky squeezed his eyes shut for a second. “Like I need anything from you. Like you have fucking power over me. I’m not your fucking anything. Okay?”

  Cai stepped back. Nicky’s words stung deeply. He’d never play with someone’s feelings. “I hate that you can hurt me too. But you can and you do. I’m not made of stone. I bleed. I fucking bleed, all right. I hate not knowing what’s going on here.” As soon as he’d said the words he wanted to take them back. His own bitterness surprised him and at the same time made him cringe. Honesty was freeing, but weaponising it was manipulative, and retaliating like this wasn’t at all what he wanted.

  Nicky curled in on himself even further—if that were possible—and looked away. Sharp chin resting on his knee, jaw twitching, his expression was equal parts anxious and resigned.

  Behind them, tall trees brushed branches against one another and the dead leaves swirled. Cai shivered as the icy wind bit into him and drew his arms across his chest. It felt cold enough to snow. He’d left Lance’s jacket on the ground by the bush, too warm to wear it as he’d worked, but right then he felt like he needed a little protection. But that wasn’t going to help Nicky. Cai uncrossed his arms. There had been a psychology class in the YOI and he’d learned all about body language and what it meant. He didn’t want to be defensive—he wanted to be open. He wanted Nicky to know he’d never make him beg for anything, ever—he’d never do that to anyone—he wanted Nicky to know all of him. To really know him. Then he would realise Cai would never hurt him. Not knowingly.

  Still shivering, he knelt down on the gravel in front of Nicky’s seat. Nicky tensed. If he’d had a tail it would have been flicking warningly back and forth. When cats were scared they were all claws and teeth and hissing. But cats themselves weren’t scary—they were just defensive because they could be easily wounded, like that vicious tabby Soph had insisted on feeding behind the bookies. She seemed to think someone had tried to hurt it and that it just needed to learn to trust her. After it had bitten her a few times, Cai wondered where she found the patience to keep trying. Now he knew.

  “Nicky, I’m not going to leave you.” Nicky refused to look at him so Cai said it again, then he added, “But I need to know what’s going on. We can’t ignore this. What exactly did you see?”

  How someone’s body language could scream leave me the fuck alone and at the same time hit every protective nerve Cai’s possessed, he didn’t know.

  “It’s my fault,” Nicky whispered.

  Tentatively, Cai knocked his knuckles gently against Nicky’s leg. “I doubt it.”

  “Don’t.” Nicky snapped, his eyes flaring. “You should hate me. You will hate me. There’s… there’s likely a body in the cellar because of me. Your flat burned down because of me. All of it’s my fault.” Nicky held his gaze, not angry, not defensive, just one man looking openly at another as his world crumbled. Cai felt lost. When Nicky spoke again his voice was barely there. “Lance isn’t dead. I don’t know how, because I fucking saw him wheeled out of here in a bag, but he’s the guy on the CCTV. He’s the one the police think is you.” Nicky looked away, swallowing audibly. “There’s money hidden in the walls. Take what you want or what you need or whatever.” He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I need… I need to get out of here. But I don’t know if I can. I need to try.”

  All Cai heard was the plea behind Nicky’s words: Help me.


  And Cai would. Always. If it was the last thing he did.

  The Swimming Pool Library

  “Lance was dead and now he’s not? And he was the one who started the fire? If that’s true how is any of that your fault? How did you have anything to do with it when you didn’t even know about it? It’s ludicrous. And as for you having something to do with a body, trust me to listen while you explain, maybe? I’m not going to hate you, Nicky.”

  They were sitting in the van. They had been sitting in silence until Cai no longer seemed to be able to contain his thoughts in his head and decided sharing them would be just awesome.

  “And how can you tell it was him from the CCTV? You can’t see his face, the quality is rubbish, it’s too far away.”

  “For God’s sake! I’m not having a fucking pity party here. I don’t need you to believe me for it to be true. It’s complicated. Too complicated to explain!” Nicky clamped his jaw shut so hard it felt like he’d chipped a tooth—he probably would if this went on. Ugh, Cai was infuriating.

  Keeping his eyes on the windscreen, Cai blew air out of his nose, then tensely unfolded his arms and clasped his hands in his lap. Again. “You don’t have to tell me any of it. That’s fine. But say that. Don’t make out I won’t understand. I might not be Sherlock fucking Holmes but I’m not completely incapable.”

  Sherlock. The unexpected use of the name stole Nicky’s breath. With his fingers digging painfully into his thighs, he rode out the shock and pushed the memory deeper, trying with every last little bit of resolve not to merge his memories of Lance with the monster that haunted him.

  Rain swept across the drive in waves, hitting the van with erratic shushy splatters. The rust bucket of a vehicle rocked and shuddered under the onslaught. Slowly and silently, Nicky got his breathing back under control.

  Luckily, Cai hadn’t noticed him react at all. He was still channelling his sea of infinite calm and blowing air out of his blowhole, though the way he kept folding and unfolding his arms was beginning to seem like some sort of nervous tick. It seemed Nicky had unwittingly hit a nerve.