On her way out of the medical centre, she stopped for some reason at the vending machine, hit with a craving for something very bad for her. It wasn’t often that chocolate or sweets won the battle over healthier snacks – much as she would love to give in to her sweet tooth more often, running demanded discipline which included diet as well as putting in the hours exercising.
Katie plugged coins into the machine and pressed buttons for a Twix. It was so simple. Just push a couple of buttons and something tasty came out the flap in the bottom. Everything should be that simple. Everything had been that simple the previous morning for just a few precious seconds. Spending time with Jack felt so natural and so… so singular. The rest of the world had faded into the background and she had been driven by lust and hormones. There was him and there was her and then they touched and there was something wonderful. Wonderful and somehow terrifying. What are we risking? And is it worth it? Why couldn’t every minute of every day be that easy? Could there be no death or hurting each other? A world without running from one fight to the next, without secrets, without knowing things and remembering things she wished she could bleach out of her head. The pressure of everything finally built to breaking point on Katie. She caved in and cried. Shamelessly, helplessly, hysterically. Just stood there, hands pressing sweaty prints on the glass front of the vending machine, wailing loudly and trying to squeeze all the hurt out through her eyes. There was so much to do before she could let herself rest. No reason why she shouldn’t cry. Katie was perfectly justified. But she didn’t do any of it. A single tear rolled down her pale cheek.
“It’s not your fault.”
She turned around and leaned back on the machine, blinking back tears that threatened to fall, and saw Mr Bayliss sitting on one of the low blue seats opposite with a polystyrene cup in his hands. He was idly picking at the edges, looking rumpled and exhausted but not in the least worried. It chilled Katie to the bone to see him so calm.
“Sorry?”
He jerked a thumb in the direction of Room 4. “I don’t mean this in a bad way but sitting in that room… it’s so boring.” Not in a bad way? How many ways were there to take it when you got bored of your only daughter? “I mean, she won’t wake up. That doctor – de Rossa, is it? He said there’s virtually no chance of that.”
Katie just stood there watching him and nibbling her chocolate bar. Was it disrespectful to be stuffing her face when having such a grave conversation? Probably but Katie reasoned that she was of next to no use charging to the rescue on an empty stomach. She also felt that she should say something but figured it was better all round if she kept her mouth shut. The wrong thing might come out. Things didn’t need to be any more complicated.
“I don’t really know why I stay there all the time.”
“Because she’s your daughter. Being there is what a dad does.”
“What about yours?”
“He’d come if I ever asked for him. I’m still his little girl, if he was two streets away or two hundred miles.” And that was true. Her family would always come for her and she realised for the first time in at least 24 hours that one day they would come for her funeral. Somewhere along the way, that knowledge had stopped hurting. Not good not good not good.
“I guess I think that every bleep of that heart monitor will be the last one I hear, that every bag the nurses change will be the final dose of nutrients she ever needs. And I’m tired of it.”
“You just need sleep. In a proper bed. With pillows and a mattress. You’ve been sleeping here, haven’t you?”
“It’s not too bad. The nurse lets me use the other bed in the room sometimes. I’m just scared to leave her, you know. Just in case.”
“I know.” And Katie did sympathise. It must be the one of the hardest things in the world to watch your own flesh and blood wasting away in a hospital bed and not even know the real reason why. It was because of Jack, she suddenly remembered and stamped down a horrible sick feeling that her boyfriend had almost killed her friend. Or housemate, even though they hadn’t really known each other well enough to be friends. Yes, but remember why he put Dina in intensive care in the first place. It was her. It was Katie. Jack had wanted to be near her and had drawn the necessary energy from the nearest source. And that made her feel sickly responsible Katie resisted the urge to pour all these thoughts out to Mr Bayliss. There wasn’t time. “Promise me you’ll get some proper food if nothing else.”
He held up three fingers in a mockery of the Boy Scout salute and dry washed her face, patting the seat next to him for Katie to sit down. She sat opposite, wanting to keep eye contact. “I know nothing can bring her back now and I just wish I could switch the life support off. Make it over. Because I think that where-ever her mind went to, it’s just getting more and more lost.”
“Sir,” Katie swallowed and covered his hand with hers. She was a child. How was she meant to comfort this man with about 30 years on her? “It hurts everybody.” And that was all she could think of to say without making things infinitely worse.
“Thank you, Katie. You’re wise beyond your years.”
Yeah, well, the madness she had walked into in Northwood was making her grow up real fast.
“If she won’t wake up for me, then maybe she’ll do it for you.”
That was the plan.
What could he have meant – Dina might wake for her? What about telling her nothing was her fault? Did he know more than she thought? Dina could have told him any number of things over the summer. And he might, just might, have believed them. He may have bought into this tale of Shades and darkness and energy so bright and silver it made your eyes water just to look at it. No, Katie yelled inside her head, suddenly angry and upset. She was reading way too much into his empty words of comfort. They were just things everyone said in that situation.
There was a bin at the edge of the carpark and she threw her empty wrapper in that rough direction. Not having the best aim in the world, or even in the grounds, she walked over and picked it up from where it had fallen. Not leaving her rubbish all over the floor was something Mom had drilled into her since birth and she felt her mind drifting back to her old hometown of Worth. What were her family up to and were they thinking about her? TV, homework, making dinner, playing on the computer. All so normal. All so used to be. Good memories. Moments so predictable and perfect and sepia-toned. She conveniently forgot about the rows and the tears and the miscarriage of her baby brothers. The hurt wasn’t worth remembering. Not that. Not the violation under the bushes in the park. The carefree way she had been bouncing over the grass on her evening run; the terror as some man she could barely see silhouetted against the sun grabbed her and pushed her to the ground; the desperate need to push him off her and run far, far away. But he was too strong, too heavy, his grip was too tight. There would be bruises. Her brain fast forwarded through the worst parts, having just enough mercy to know she didn’t need to see it again. But the screaming rang through. The high and panicked screams of pain and hate, the quiet whimpering when it was over. It sped through the moment when she glimpsed his face, when he lifted himself off her and turned to walk away as though nothing had happened and Katie blinked and he was gone. These were her memories, dammit, and she wanted them! There was something… Katie blinked and that was gone too. She was in a cold, white room feeling chilled and ashamed. A woman in green scrubs was fiddling with vials and tubes and swabs, putting them all into evidence bags and airtight tubs for the lab, while someone with a tiny digital camera for a face snapped images of her bruises and scratches. This felt somehow worse that the rape. The doctor pushed a sunshine yellow leaflet into her hand. VICTIM SUPPORT, it read. And the first line? IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT. Fast forward… crying, anger, hate, escape plans, pity, people trying to get into her head. This was worse again. A faceless man had raped her body, the police had raped her dignity and now saggy-faced
therapists were raping her mind. Her brain tape jumped back to her snapping off the hospital ID band, putting on her old school uniform and walking into her second GCSE exam. Then there was a shot of Katie hugging her family goodbye when she moved to Northwood, hoping vainly for a way out of the dark.
And then the memory was over and Katie was bent in front of the bin gasping for breath. There wasn’t enough oxygen in the world. She pushed the pain back and threw into the jumble everything that still haunted her from that stormy night, and slammed a mental door on them. Let all the bad things cook together. Maybe one would get antsy and kill another. A minimum of one less bad thing to deal with when she opened the door. She grabbed the top of the bin and pulled herself up to her full height. However tempting it was to curl in on yourself, cramming all her internal muscles in on themselves was never a good thing at this time of the month. The old school nurse had given the girls in her class a talk on the menstrual cycle once – and yes, it had been as embarrassing as it sounded – and the only thing Katie remembered was that she was meant to keep her body stretched as much as possible. Not even why. All she did know was that her womb felt stretched to its limits and that she felt she might just snap back in on herself like an elastic band. Crawling into her bed and closing her eyes for about the next day and a half sounded just great. No time for that either.
Katie closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm down and mentally prepare herself for what was coming next. It didn’t work and all she got was the stench of decay and mould sticking to the insides of her nostrils. Katie moved away and tried again but inner peace eluded her grasping fingers for how can a person ready themselves for what they were about to run into when they did not know what the hell was waiting for them? She just felt cold, burning, still, leaping dread. That filled her with confidence. Katie didn’t give herself time to wonder what she might see when she got… where-ever she was going in case she thought herself out of it (or into more trouble) and started cycling towards Shimma. A few streets away, she felt a sharp tug on her insides and nearly cried out. The first instinct was that Jack was trying to come with her. She so wanted it to be true. She knew it wasn’t. Jack’s pull was gentler, cooler, more of a question. This was just insistent. It had no feel to it; no texture or temperature.
Look and follow what you see. It’s right here.
An invisible hand settled over her burning cheeks and stroked some of the heat away, cooling it a degree or two and pushing her headache down with it. The pain was still there, bubbling away under the surface and ready to pop back up as soon as she had time to sleep it off. It could stay there as long as it wanted. The hand travelled up to her head, traced the outline the ghost bullet should have blown in her head and, sensing Katie’s fear and confusion at being touched by alien hands, pressed down. Her eyes went black and her vision turned in on itself, viewing her insides. She heard her own scream echo around inside her head.
Because everything was black.
Not decaying or dying – just black.
Brain, heart, liver, all the important organs. They were all functioning perfectly but red blood and white lines of tissue were just… black. Transfixed, she watched her lungs expand and retract as the oxygen rushed in and out of them. She watched the pulse in her arteries as fresh blood began its journey around her body. Counted her ribs, one, two, three, twelve pairs of them all protecting her vital organs from any nick or bump that might break their surprisingly thin membranes. Watched as her vocal chords vibrated with every sound she made. It was completely fascinating and absolutely disgusting. It was easy to see how Lainy had begun a career with the human body after seeing how complex yet fluid the process was. Imagine how this would all looking covered in the right layer of gore. It was also simple to see how she had just turned her back on it because life was such a fragile thing. Supported by thin walls of tissue and translucent blood vessels – it was so…
…so…
… breakable.
Katie watched one heartbeat, then a second, and then she waited. Nothing happened. Dead.
She didn’t even have a moment to scream because, somewhere outside herself, she felt a seismic shift in the air. It just stopped moving.
Concentrating on restarting her heart, getting her lungs pumping again, Katie tried to keep her eyes closed and focused on the dark organs inside her. But they were wrong. Dark and lifeless and wrong – just functioning, passionless, and she had to open her eyes to keep from going crazy. A sinking feeling started in her head and travelled down her body. Katie was in a place she never wanted to be.
“Where am I?” But she knew. She was kneeling on even, green grass that was just a bit too perfect. Looking up, there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of patches of dark mist. They were still and silent to the world. They were almost watching her in their creepily human shapes. Beyond the first line of shadows Katie could not see and for that she was eternally thankful. What lay beyond… no. There was no sense in thinking about it. She was thinking about the smooth blades of grass and grains of soil that should be but weren’t imprinting themselves in her knees. Thinking that she was on the bottom of a cliff and staring at all the spirits who had been speaking to her. “How the fuck did I get here?”
The only way we knew how. Well, that was specific.
“I’m dead,” Katie muttered very calmly. It was only to be expected. After all, these Shades had only gotten to this God-forsaken place by dying before any master plan had meant them to; the same rules should apply to Katie. It was only fair that she should behave to come here by the same means that they had, and if that meant being temporarily dead then… wait, this was temporary, right? Uncertainty bubbled over. “You killed me! You fucking killed me!”
Did you think this would be easy? Just walk up to the wall, the very edges of our power, reach through and hold tight then just pull us back. You thought you wouldn’t have to work for this? There wouldn’t be some price to pay?
“I didn’t expect it to be my life!”
It won’t last. You might be dead but the world still turns, still thinks you are in it. This is confusing but trust us. Why is it that people who ask for your trust usually don’t deserve it? After these dark things had saved her last week, Katie felt obliged to put her confidence in them. Your body is still walking, talking, watching TV, but your mind is here with us.
“You’ve practically turned me into a zombie? Thanks ever so much.”
Not exactly disbelieving what they were telling her Katie reached down to her wrist and felt for a pulse. It was faint and far too fast to last. She was dying. Her heart was beating hundreds of times every minute and that speed could only lead to a massive, fatal crash.
We need to tell you things. No, stay down. You might fall. None of us belong here, Katie, but we have to stay until… that can come later. We stay here, and we have to know the edge is close. It used to be that we just stood there and waited and every so often, one of us would jump off and go to the Other Place. Then she came and the process is quicker. She points at you and you step back. Because she demands that the Other Place gets its fill.
“She? Does she have a name?”
Maybe it will be simpler if you think of her as Jaye.
Think of this shit-scary She as her friend? It was wrong on so many levels that she didn’t want to consider. “You said She was just wearing her.”
We’re so glad you’re here.
“Yes. We truly are.” Jaye strode across the too-green grass and whispered the words. They carried over the still, lifeless air and reached Katie’s ears as clear as a bell. She was wearing black combat trousers, muscle shirt and looking for all the world like a girl on a mission. Her tiny five feet one could easily have been six feet. No weapons, none of the usual make up, nothing but herself and a steel edge all around her and rippling out towards Katie. “We’ve been waiting ever so patiently.”
>
You will find a way. You must. See, you’re the one who listened. We called and you answered. But your sheriff came and everything changed. We don’t have to stay here any longer. All you have to do is get us out before She picks another one.
“Tick tock tick tock. What’s the time Mr Wolf?” said Jaye. Thinking of She as Jaye was heart-breaking because She was only using her friend’s body, but Katie was finding it a bit too difficult to keep the two separate. She looked like Jaye, She sounded like Jaye, that was good enough for now.
“My watch broke. Tell me.”
“Not yet, babe, not yet.”
“Huh. The big scary can’t even tell time. I’ll put that on your list of weaknesses.”
“Fight me with time?” Jaye laughed in a very fake way. A patronising sound. “Good luck with that. Beat me to death with the giant hands of a clock? Maybe empty a million egg timers over my head?”
Okay, bad situation quickly turning worse.
“Why are you killing them now, Jaye.” You never know. The sound of her own name might bring Jaye out of whatever corner of her own mind she had been shoved in. “Jaye, listen to them. They were fine just waiting here. You don’t have to change that.”
But She does. They sounded sad about that – sad and honest. And as she watched, she felt Jaye raise a finger and release a stream of absolute nothingness behind her and she saw the edge of one distant dark shape move back and then drop from view. Katie could understand how She made them do that. Even with this dead flow passing within inches of her right ear, it was making her want to lie down and curl into a foetal position, shivering and trembling and as frightened as a newborn. You don’t understand yet but She does. Nothing She does is beyond order.
“Where is he? I told you to send Jack.”
“I’m here now, and I’m the best you’re getting.”
“You can’t find her.”
Katie shrugged. “Watch me.”
Then Jaye started to walk over the grass towards her and Katie had the most sensible idea she thought she’d had in days, before the Shades, or future Shades, or whatever the hell these were, had the chance to roar it at her.
RUN!
Because that didn’t seem like a harmless grin, and those arms weren’t pumping for a hug.
Katie turned on the heel of one well-worn pump and sprinted off in the opposite direction. In every direction was smooth green grass and empty blue sky – everywhere to run and nowhere to hide. Fantastic. She could sense Jaye somewhere behind her, maybe miles back at the cliff, maybe right at her heels. She slowed a little, knowing that Jaye couldn’t be right at her back without transport – hoping but the word knowing made everything sound a bit more hopeful. She put her hands on her knees and bent to catch her breath. Sitting down and resting sounded good but Katie resisted for two reasons. First, she did not want to be out here on the open ground for longer than she needed to be. Second, she knew she would have to continue in a minute, so letting her muscles seize up wasn’t an option. Pumps weren’t the ideal running shoes but her trainers were in her locker. With the homework she still had to do tonight. Sorry, sir, I was dead last night. Would her tutors buy that excuse? Probably not. Not since other dead students managed it. She was turning herself in circles over the dilemma when she felt a thin breeze push the left side of her back and blew a few strands of her hair vaguely left. Katie didn’t even pause to wonder where the breeze had come from in this dead air; she just followed it on instinct and ran in a roughly north west direction. Sure enough, after about ten minutes of jogging, a thin line of trees sprang up. However sparse they were, they were big and droopy enough to provide cover for a while. Katie was so relieved to see them that she almost got down on her knees and wept. It wasn’t the running that had tired her out – she had been in longer races and still been full of beans after – or the knowledge that somewhere behind her were a thousand dark spirits just waiting to be sent to the Other Place. It was pretty much everything else. It was knowing she was dead in the real world and dying in this one, although no—one else knew apparently. It was feeling this air of absolute nothingness all around. It was knowing she was all alone out here. It was the thought that she might not be able to save the shapes up on the cliff.
It was the thought that that she might not be able to save herself.
“How the hell do I get out of this place anyway?” she asked the calm, unanswering sky. Not that Katie was expecting an answer.
Save us and we can show you.
She jumped. Having some ghostly voices talk back to you when you had just resigned yourself to being completely and utterly alone had that effect. Katie shook her head and fixed her gaze on the thin line of trees – willows, she reckoned, weeping willows. They were recognisable as the same types as the pair that had so often had FINISH banners tied to them in the old park. It made her nostalgic for her childhood, the simplicity of youth. Homesickness threatened to creep in but Katie breathed deep, held her head high and stalked over to the leafiest of the trees, determined not to give in to this wash of sadness. At least, not where anyone could see her.
Knees brought up to her chin and branches dropping low enough to the ground that no-one could what or who they were hiding unless lifted, Katie let herself relax just a tiny bit. Let tension trickle out of her, little by little. It wouldn’t do to let go of all that tension though. She could rest, not be on the alert for Jaye following her for a while, but she couldn’t forget that something small but so incredibly powerful was coming for her. “Why? Why is She after me?”
But that was pretty obvious. Jaye, or whatever had control of her, knew she could save those (not-quite) Shades and was gunning to stop her from doing that.
She put her hand up to her head and touched the place where the bullets had sank through her head. It still didn’t hurt, there was just the familiar cool pressure on the front of her skull. It was a strange sensation. Jaye hadn’t wanted to hurt her, just scare the bejesus out of her. And that meant she was still important. This was still possible.
Something made Katie peek out of the gaps between the branches – some sixth sense that danger was not too far away – but no-one was in sight. It didn’t necessarily follow that nobody was around, Katie thought. She knew, or suspected, that Shades could drift unseen through the mortal world, so maybe they could in this one too. Maybe she was just making this a whole lot more dangerous than it needed to be. This was the world of the Shades – or some seriously messed up part of it – so they couldn’t have superpowers in their own world. It just wasn’t sensible.
No. What Katie needed to do was very simple.
Work out how to save the spirits.
Work out how to get this She out of Jaye’s body.
Work out how to get out of the End Place. Go home and let everything get back to normal.
So simple and yet… it wasn’t going to be simple at all, was it?
“Why does it have to be me that fixes everything?”
Because you listened. What was wrong with a straight answer? Old fashioned, sure, but a lot easier. You know this, Katie. She knows you can save us. She knows how strong you can be. But if you take us away from here, then She has no-one to send over.
“And then She’s out of a job? Boo frikkin’ hoo.”
You know it’s not that simple. None of us are ready to go yet but She doesn’t care. It could be in five minutes or five months but we all go over. We need you to get us out of here before it’s anyone else’s turn.
So… she was on a schedule too.
And it might be mine. That was Dina’s voice. In all the stress, Katie had forgotten that she was the one she had primarily come here to save. That sounded awful, so cold-hearted, that a dead friend should just slip her mind but there it was. She wanted to cry but there just weren’t any tears left for her to find. Enough tears had been shed over Dina. Katie sat back and rested her head on her k
nees so she was staring at the grass, slightly darker and more uneven here due to the shadow of the trees. She had the feeling that she was quite a distance away from the dark shapes at the edge of the cliff but she could feel the power radiating from them as strongly as if they were right next to her. Obviously, getting a more safe hidey hole to use was a priority, but once Katie had caught her breath she felt ready to go outside again. She trusted that a new place to rest would show itself when it was good and ready.
Pushing the branches out of her way and scrambling to her feet, Katie scrunched her eyes up against the brilliant blue sky – even in such a short time her eyes had grown accustomed to the cool gloom under the trees – and discovered that she could see the edges of something dark and thready looking in the distance. Shades. Lining up to fall into the pit. Katie had not run as fast or as far as thought. Maybe it’s just getting closer. Whilst she was scanning that dark line, she hardly felt the cool, dead feeling creeping all over her.
“You can’t hide.”
“Shit! What..!?” When Katie turned, there was no-one in sight.
“You can run but sooner or later I will find you. And her. And it will be your turn.”
Jaye may not be saying these things but it didn’t make sense. “Can’t you even say her name? Dina’s your best friend, Jaye, your best friend. The least you can do is say the name of the girl you’re so eager to kill off. And you can tell me why this is so damn important.”
“Because the order changed. Some people were meant to die and they didn’t. So, if the Other Place can’t have a living soul…”
“Then it can have some dead ones,” Katie finished.
A slow handclap ghosted through the air. “Babe, you catch on fast.”
“Dina is still alive. You can’t have her.”
“Alive, yes. See what you can do about that.”
“I’m not killing anyone for you. You’re not hurting anyone I care about.” But She was gone. Katie felt the still air settle into an absolute peace, and Jaye drift away as casually as if she was just bored with the conversation. Katie walked around to the other side of the tree and looked straight ahead. The willow she had used for shelter was on the edge of, not thick woodland, but a kind of forest a dozen trees deep and stretching out in circular clumps as far to the left and right as she could see. Every slow step she took through the undergrowth was taking her further away from the people she needed to help and that hurt. Made her so sad. She couldn’t resist a look back when she got almost to the edge of the circle of trees. They were so far away now. So far. She couldn’t even see them anymore. Blocking her vision were trees, distance and… she had to get there. Had to be near them. Had to save them, no matter the cost. There was only her. Nobody else knew what she knew, could see what she saw and oh God it was so beautiful.
Katie was barely aware that she had folded to her knees and was on her way to kissing mud until she felt strong solid arms grabbing her waist and holding her upright.
Christ, I didn’t know this would happen.
Before Katie even knew what she was doing, she latched on to that edge of panic in that thought and pulled herself out of this well of nightmares and silent threats she was drowning in. but she could see pictures, remember every detail but it was as if her mind was on mute, her nerves turned to numb. And then one sentence penetrated her mind and screams came out of her mouth like they were going out of style.
“Shush, Lady Katie. Everythin’s okay now, I’m here. Hush now Lady Katie.” It took another few minutes of Jack holding her and trying to whisper the ache away before she was calm enough for him to stop worrying some-one would hear them.
“Jack?”
“The very same.”
“You shouldn’t be here.” It was wrong. There was just something about Jack that shouted how uneasy he was at being here. It was more than that. There was a solidness to Jack that had never been there before, his touch had human weight, his eyes had true fear in them, true and human and very real.
“No.” That was all there was to say on the subject. Or, at least, all he was prepared to say for the moment.
He stood up and dragged Katie up with him. “And they chivalry is dead.”
“Sorry. Should I let you get up yourself and get concussion on the way back down?”
“Wow. The cowboy comes back shooting.”
“You’re impossible.”
“One of my finer qualities.”
“What I mean is, you’re gonna get yourself killed one day.”
“One day. Not today.”
“You seem confident ‘bout that.”
Katie stopped her run across the next stretch of grass, quite surprised that Jack had been able to keep pace with her, and hugged him hard. She never wanted to forget what he felt like as a solid person. “I’m like Dina, the way I figure it. I flirt with fate, dance with death, all that poetic crap but the world will find a way to keep me alive until it’s time for me to go.”
“And how can you be sure that won’t be tonight?”
“Call it a feeling.”
They went back to running, joining hands somewhere along the way, not knowing exactly where they were going. Without speaking, they both knew what they were running from though. It felt as though they had covered miles and miles of this untouched beauty dotted with only the occasional weeping willow searching for water below ground level, but it was probably less than one mile.
“Stop. Katie, stop.” Jack dug his feet in to the ground and touched her right arm, bringing his girlfriend to a reluctant halt. “Where are we going?”
Katie didn’t know. Not a clue. All that she knew was she needed to get far away – far away meant safety, far away meant civilisation. But she turned and pulled her arm away from Jack. Even here, his touch sent an icy fire through her, tickled every nerve ending, made her want to cuddle into his embrace and never move again, and that was a distraction Katie clearly didn’t need. No matter how much she actually wanted it. “How do we get out of here?”
“Find a thin place between your world and this one. Break through that wall.”
“Break through? Just what – punch a hole in it? And how will I know when we find it?”
“You’ll know. It shimmers.”
“Helpful.” As in, not at all. “Why are you here? How did you get here?”
He took her face in his hands and tilted her down until she was locked into his ocean deep eyes. What he was about to say would hurt less this way. “I couldn’t find Jaye in my world and I called for you to tell you. But there was nothing there. Not just too little for me to hold on to but just nothing. And there’s only ever one reason for that. I’m sorry, Lady Katie… you’re dead.”
Her jaw worked for a few seconds and a hundred emotions flitted through her mind from anger to confusion to fear to a vague sense of oh. Finally she settled on a response she though was highly inappropriate but so irresistible it was the only one which made sense. She laughed. Really let out her amusement at the complete absurdity of it all. She fell down to the ground and let rip. Jack stared down at her, not understanding how a person could be so blasé about their own death. But her giggles were infectious and within minutes he was stretched out beside her and laughing too. Katie had a flash memory – her running, falling, Jack chasing, so scared he might hurt her, laughing in his face, him laughing with her, calling her beautiful – and dropped flat on her back. She shouldn’t be remembering that. Over the last couple of days she had been remembering a lot of things that she hadn’t even known were in her head.
“Jaye’s here. Well, some-one wearing her body. That’s why you couldn’t find her.”
“She’s here?”
“Yeah, and I think we need to save her too.”
“You did hear me? You’re dead, Lady Katie.”
“I know.” She shrugged. What could she do about it now? “But no-one knows except us. So….”<
br />
“I don’t know how you can be so calm about this.”
“If you knew the shitstorm raging in my head at the moment – being dead is kind of a relief.” However melodramatic that sounded, it was true. “I know I have a job to do but here… it’s easier. I know I should be stressing and everything but I just don’t feel anything.”
“Nothing?”
“Nuh-uh. Nada.”
Oh.
Jack wriggled closer and stretched an arm over the grass to hers and laid his fingers over hers, entwining her fingers with his. It made him nearly smile when she responded, her fingers grasping without conscious thought. “You’re sure about that?”
“Jack,” she muttered, breath catching just at his touch.
“Yes Katie?” He turned his head on his side to face her. God, she was pretty. Not in the model way or airbrushed to death way but by looking so ordinary, so average and yet not average at all. Her brown eyes held shadows that had no right to haunt a girl so young; her skin which should be marked and bloody was unblemished; her smile was bright and real where others might never have smiled again.
“No fair.”
He was well aware that he brought something out in her, something she once told him she feared she would never feel again. She trusted him.
“You know you make me feel things, Jack. Whether they’re good or bad, you make me think my nerves are on fire and that my skin will peel away where you touch me. This thing between us… I don’t know what it is but part of me died a bit after the attack. I hated getting close to people in case they hurt me, I couldn’t talk to anyone because they were my problems, I was ready to run from anybody I didn’t know, I ran from you… and you let me. And I fell a little bit in love with you for that.” The hand that wasn’t tangled in Jack’s shirt dug into the ground, grinding fine soil beneath her nails. It felt wrong after the clots of dirt the academy grounds offered. She reminded herself that it was wrong. Not one single thing in this place was-
The thought never even got finished. As if time had jumped a scene or two, Jack was suddenly on top of Katie, one knee on either side of her stomach and stroking his hands down the lines of her neck and shoulder blades. Then he thumped his closed fists above her head and growled. A low animal sound of barely contained lust.
Go with it.
It’s okay.
Katie lifted her head to him and frowned a question. Not that she was entirely unhappy with the current state of events but an explanation of some kind would be handy. Just a summary. None was forthcoming, though Jack put one hand over his mouth and put a finger to his lips with the other. Obviously he could hear something she could not.
“Trust me?”
Katie stared up at him, wishing he would tell her what he was hearing. Instead she nodded against his hand. What happened next was just a mish mash of earthy colours, greens and browns and sandy gold all running into each other and morphing into a deep green igloo structure. She recognised it as the shelter of a willow tree but not the one she had used earlier. Jack frowned as if his feeling had gotten stronger, not faded now he was hiding. The tension running through him was seeping into Katie and making her breathe hard and fast. Not hyperventilating. She had hyperventilated before, the day she had moved to Northwood, and feeling as though there wasn’t enough oxygen in the world was nothing like this. This was trying and failing to regulate her breathing.
“Relax, Lady Katie. We’re fine. Just relax.”
Easier said than done. “Why the trees?” she asked to distract herself.
“Everywhere needs hiding places.” He curled his fingers up and traced her lips, leaning closer and closer until he was just a twitch away from kissing her. “And we’re gonna need hidin’ places.”
Why?
Don’t get me into any more danger. Don’t take my memories. Don’t tell me everything’s going to be okay. I know things are screwed up in so many ways, I know you’re scared to be here. Tell me what I can do to make this better. Tell me how I can fix this so our friends come back. Most of all tell me why. Jack didn’t do any of that though the old shadows in his green eyes told her he had heard her silent pleas. They were deeper, purer. He kissed her. Just one chaste brushing of their lips but Jack thought it might be enough. Too much. His body was screaming for more but he refused to give in again. It cost too much.
Katie pulled away an inch or two, licked her lips and raced through the last few days. Was the hurt still there? Did she remember what she was here to do? For the moment, she didn’t care. Katie put her hand on Jack’s chest, wrapped her hand in his t-shirt, pulled him in and lost herself in his kiss. There was one alarming second when Jack was the one who didn’t respond but it did not take long for him to yield to her, close his eyes and pretend he was seventeen and still alive in America. Back then, falling in love had no strings, no price to pay. He didn’t exactly have bundles of practice with women but with Katie… it was so easy. They were breaking rules and making more up. He frisbeed his hat to the floor and ignored every single rational thought in his head that screamed how dangerous this was.
Together, the pair didn’t really notice the ripples going through the air. The first thing Katie saw was a Dark shape falling across the leaves, only her brain did not register it as anything important enough to worry about. So she forgot about it. And then the sagging branches were either pulled back, pushed aside or plain broken off. A dark figure crouched down in the gap. It was dark inside and light out and therefore impossible to see any features, but there was only one person it could be.
“It’ll never work,” said Jaye.
Katie and Jack pulled apart, trying not to stare at each other but not doing a very good job. It was so easy to get lost in his sea green eyes. But there were more important things than their (strange) relationship. She turned to face her friend.
“Whatever you’re thinking of… it won’t work. You can’t save everyone, babe.”
“I’ll die trying.”
Jack grabbed her hand and knew in one touch that she meant it. Whole-heartedly and fundamentally, Katie would give her life to save her friends, even the shapes on the cliff. She didn’t know them, couldn’t know them but she knew their fear and their desires for freedom. And whatever Katie thought about those who had hurt her, she would never see an innocent get hurt. He let go of her and slid a few inches away, looking between her and Jaye. Who smiled, snorted and shook her head at the floor.
“No, you won’t.”
Katie put her knees to one side and rested on the balls of her feet, hands clasped n her lap. Her brain was… tingly. Could a brain be described as tingly? Sparks were jumping, connecting, coming to life and then dying and she could feel it all. Like she could feel her heart beat fluttering like a panicked bat, or blood rushing through her veins as though her veins were fast flowing streams. No longer was she just academically aware of her body functioning in a heightened state. No more did she just know she was dying – now she could feel it. She could feel everything. And everything was not good.
Jaye raised her head and fixed her gaze in the curve of branches behind them. “Sooner or later, you’ll have to choose. Make it a good choice. But then, I have every confidence in you.”
“Tell me something.”
“Say please.”
“Please. All of this. Why? Why did it ever come to this?”
“Hmm. I guess I could tell you. I won’t. But I could.”
“Thanks for the help. You were my friend, Jaye.”
“Yeah. She’s not coming back, none of them are, you might as well give up.”
“Dina’s my friend too. You know that won’t happen.”
“Uh-huh, thought so but you can’t blame a girl for trying. Besides,” Jaye duck-walked further into their shelter and reached out. Katie scrabbled back, not wanting those fingers anywhere near her face, but Jack sent her a look. I won’t let her hurt y
ou. I’ll kill her before she even thinks it. That, coupled with the overwhelming aura of peace that radiated from those grasping, gasping, somehow grieving (for what?) digits made Katie hold still and let whatever was about to happen, happen. They stopped short of actually touching her though. “I’m hardly your only problem, am I?”
“What? If Jaye is anywhere in there, she wouldn’t hurt me.”
“She’s a fighter,” Jaye grinned. That was Jaye’s smile; that was her sparkle. This thing in Jaye’s body had simply squashed itself in and pushed Jaye to one side. She was still there. But the intensity of power Katie could feel from the girl made her wonder how much longer her friend would be able to hold on. “I was all for real bullets but no, she said that was dangerous. Said it might hurt you and really, it wouldn’t do me any favours to kill you just yet.”
Katie let her mind flash through a hundred different realisations. The most important two were the knowledge that Jaye was still strong enough to have some control over what She did. The second was that She needed Katie alive for some reason.
“Why? You need me. What for?”
“It won’t do you any good but I’ll humour you. There are a thousand Shades on that cliff. All lined up like lemmings. Aww. Where one jumps, the others follow. They’re all going over. How quickly that happens is neither here nor there really.”
“As long as the Other Place gets their souls eventually.”
“You do catch on quick, girlie. One spirit who shouldn’t be here, one soul who should have fallen, somewhere in that mess. And you can – and will - find it.” Jaye paused. Katie watched her carefully, painfully aware suddenly that this snake who had taken her friend over was capable of pretty much anything if she took her eyes off you. “And, believe me, I’ll be watching.”
Chapter ten
Circle of Arms (The Shades of Northwood 2) Page 9
