“You can’t tell anyone!”
Leo stared at the insane girl sitting opposite him, hearing her get crazier by the minute. But, Katie could see it in his face, that even if he didn’t want to believe her, he did. In some deep, dark place he probably didn’t know existed inside himself, he just did. And that was enough for now.
“I mean it, Leo. No-one!”
“So what exactly do you want me to do?”
Wow, that had been easy. Katie had expected the normal teenage boy apathy mixed with point blank refusal due to the act he didn’t like her very much. But no. it felt wrong that he was this ready to help although this was very much not the right time to be doubting help when it was offered. She saw him looking at her, impatiently, and realised she hadn’t answered yet. “Just keep me awake until I figure out a plan.”
“Some random bloke’s trying to kill you in your dreams and you haven’t come up with a plan yet?”
Katie blew her cheeks out and walked to the cooling coffee pot. There was probably another 12 hours in her tank before sleep blasted into her, though tiredness waa already knocking politely on her skull. “He’s not random.” She had already explained about Jack’s death by – flaying? Was that the right word? – and how his murderer was now after her too. “I wish it was. You know, something I can just close my eyes and wish it all away but it’s when I close my eyes that he comes. And then I wake up with scars.”
A door banged open above them and feet padded along the floor boards and another door ground shut. Jaye was out of the bathroom. All the hot water was probably gone. Lukewarm showers. Katie’s favourite. They didn’t remind her of school at all.
“Why did you tell me?”
That was the question Katie had been bracing for since she began her story. She had even prepared a long answer but found that she couldn’t remember a single word of it. What she came out with was fine anyway. “Because you’re the only one who hasn’t felt sorry for me this week.” Which was true. Lainy and Adam had felt sorry for her when she told them about her rape. Dina had felt bad about not being able to tell her why the town was so freaky. Jaye had pitied her for letting her get drugged. Even Uncle Billy had apologised for needing her to go to hospital with him. the weight of sympathy was getting to the crushing stage. “You didn’t realise that, did you?” She put a finger to her lips and headed for the bathroom. Katie didn’t think Leo needed the reminder to keep quiet; after all, he hadn’t mentioned a word about their little moment the other night. It just made her feel better to know there was one person definitely on her side.
Katie was in the middle of dragging her fingers through her tangled wet hair when she felt that familiar cold pressure on her stomach. “Why call it de-tangling conditioner if it- ow.” The fact that she was naked except for her smiley face flip flops was only mildly annoying. For all she knew Jack had seen her with no clothes a hundred times before. She reached out to the side a grabbed a towel from the rack and wrapped it around herself, determined to ignore him for as long as possible. Her resolve crumbled as soon as she felt her breath coming harder, shallower. She thrust her hands out in front of her, gripping onto the sides of the sink as though her life depended on it. In some twisted way it did. Not comforting.
Not at all.
Katie could feel a cool hand on the flat of her stomach and gasped. Now that she knew, really knew, what this feeling was, it was truly terrifying. No longer was it the blind pain of before. This was all-singing, all-dancing, surround sound pain. Knowing what was happening didn’t make it any easier to bear. This hurt like someone was emptying her from the inside out and yet…
She craved it. Just knowing Jack was on the other side of this divide, this whatever it was that kept them apart most of the time, made her want to go through this pain. It had to hurt deeper, longer. It had to hurt better. And it would. If you let it. Everything Katie wanted to say to him and ask of him, every second she wanted to spend looking into his ocean eyes, came pushing to the front of her mind and she felt herself cracking under the weight of it all. “No, I don’t want this.” The air in the room went very, very still. It would have certainly turned icy cold if it hadn’t been for all the steam and warm air in the room. The knot in her stomach loosened. And the hurt was gone, for the moment at least. Jack, invisible and not touching her right now, wrote in the steamy mirror – DIDN’T MEAN IT. It didn’t make any difference exactly what he didn’t mean – maybe everything – or whether his statement was true. She wanted him here right now. Not saying anything, not dong anything, just being there. As soon as the thought flashed through her mind, so fast Katie barely even registered words – the tightness in her stomach came back. With it came the feeling that her muscles were turning to jelly, her lungs were emptying of oxygen because she no longer had the energy in her to breathe in, and all she cared about was Jack. Not the oh-God-I-think-I’m-dying part she should be worrying about but the raw, jagged need ripping through her.
“Stop this.”
The words NEED TO appeared in the mirror and, for a moment, Katie wondered if he really had to. It was a second later that the word EXPLAIN crammed itself under his other words. Katie gasped as something pulled at her insides. It felt familiar but she would never numb the pain she didn’t think. It was unnatural and yet the most beautiful agony imaginable. She thrust a hand out and wiped the words away from the mirror Jaye had left in here, leaving nothing but streaks and fingerprints. Wiping Jack away was not quite so simple. He was persistent, she’d give him that. And perhaps she wouldn’t be fighting this feeling so much if his words could fix everything. An icy fist drove through her abdomen –she didn’t remember it hurting this much last time – and the soap dish slid off the sink onto the tiny hand towel she had dried her hair with. Katie reached down to the pressure on her stomach, feeling a whisper of skin-but-not-really-skin and sank her fingers into the air, wondering but not caring all that much if she was grabbing Jacks wrist or tearing his phantom flesh with her nails. She pushed the invisible hand away from her but didn’t let go. For just a moment the emptiness hurt worse than the pulling at her insides.
And then the anger flooded that gap.
She dragged her fingers away from the heavy air and flung the door open. “I said no!” then she slammed the door shut between them and bolted down to her room, where she scrambled into her scruffiest but most comfortable clothes. Looking good, or even halfway presentable, was the least of her worries.
Katie sat on her bed, back against the headboard, and reached for her copy of Insomnia. Stephen King novels were usually so freaky, she devoured them in days. She’d been working on this one since before the move, and the book from yesterday had been spirited away by the tidy-up fairy – Lainy to her friends. She had to keep glancing at the door every few seconds, positive she would see some kind of dark mist pouring through the gap which would swirl and solidify into Jack. And then she would fall into his arms and his eyes and fall so very deeply that she wouldn’t even feel it when the bad man killed her. And then he would condemn another young girl stupid enough to believe in a hero.
A knock came at her door and Jaye poked her head around the door. “I’m gonna get some shut-eye and then I’ve got a ton of work to do. You need anything first?”
Katie shut her book, marking her page with a finger. “Shouldn’t I be the one asking that?”
Jaye grinned and her face lit up – she had one of those faces that were just made for smiling – and cocked her thumb towards the bathroom. “I heard.” A pause their would have been awkward. Full of questions and needless answers – they both knew what Katie knew and trying to sugar-coat it now brought the words horse, stable door and bolted to mind. “He’s still here you know. Somewhere.”
Without even realising what she was doing, Katie closed her eyes and let her mind wallow in the silence of the room – the only sound being their perfectly synchronised breath
s. Jaye was right. Jack was near. The dark power pulsed stronger in the house. “I know.” And then, right at the edge of her mind, she heard footsteps, footsteps breaking into a slow but determined run and then-
She was slammed by an invisible force, away from the tingle of red sparking hate and back into her waking world. Katie started screaming the instant before her eyes flew open. Everything suddenly seemed too bright. Closing her eyes again, sinking into a deep and dreamless sleep seemed so tempting. Only there would be dreams. And they wouldn’t stay just in her head.
“Getting early admission to college, proper training, leaving home two years early – that was supposed to be the adventure of my life.”
“Yeah, dying really screws up our plans.”
“I didn’t mean-“
“Yeah, you did. And you’re right. 16’s young to know all this. Hell, 19’s young to know it, let alone have to deal with it. Believe me, this isn’t the plan I had for my life either.”
“You seem to be dealing with it quite well though.”
“Mostly. I’m not saying it’s easy – nu-uh – but it’s not the end of the world. There are so many chances I have now that I’d never have got anywhere else.” Jaye shouldered the door open and came to sit on the bed, stifling a yawn. “You know what my plan was?”
Katie shook her head.
“Leave school, go to college and coach swimming for a few years for money then go to LA and get a multi million dollar modelling contract. Teenagers, huh.”
“It’s not a stupid dream.” No ambition could be silly, just unrealistic.
“It was. Those kinds of things never happen to real people but, half a dozen years ago, I honestly believe I was different. I was meant for great things. Mental, right?”
“It’s still-“
Jaye kept talking. “I was always a good swimmer and, after just a year training at the academy, I’m on my way to being great. And if I hadn’t decided to come here, I would have died in another town and I’d be rotting in some grave somewhere.”
Katie didn’t want to be a pile of ash in an urn or forgotten deep in the ground, but in the same breath she had no desire to be some kind of half-person half-ghost creation when she died. Considering death and what might happen after it when her own life had barely begun was just wrong. Katie shook the gloom away. “I knew I was going to be an athlete since my first PE lesson at nursery. Mom said I learnt to run before I could crawl.”
“Wow. Single-minded-girl-R-U.”
A breeze ruffled the net curtains and Katie reached over to pull it straight. The stretch was a little further than she had thought and, as her fingers gripped the lacy material, she felt something break apart along her arm. “Oww! Ow, oh shite.”
“Lang- hey, what the fuck?”
“It’s nothing.” Katie picked a handful of tissues out of the pack on her bedside table and pressed them to the slash on her arm. It had been beginning to scab over when she had peeled the bandage off before her shower and the movement had burst it open. There was a little blood but thankfully not much. Lainy had been thoughtful enough to leave a few dressings and white tape on her desk, probably knowing it would split when she moved or turned on it at night – some medical boffin stuff. “Hand me a new bandage.”
Jaye did it without a word, biting her bottom lip and looking freaked. Then she turned tail and ran out of her bedroom and backed up against the landing wall, sinking down to the floor, still watching her friend through the open door. “Did you do that to yourself?” she asked shakily. Was she going to watch another friend hurt herself, spill her own life blood, and not do anything about it? “’Cos we can talk about this.”
“Relax, girl.” More talking was the last thing she needed. “I just tripped over at the track. Always lace up trainers before moving. Consider my lesson learnt.”
“Promise?”
“Promise. It was just an accident. I’m not planning to slit my wrists any time soon. Ever,” she added, deciding the older girl still looked unconvinced.
“You screamed.”
“Jack’s doing my head in. Guess why.” Katie stretched the tape over the square of gauze, patted it flat, rolled her sleeve back down and plugged her hair straighteners in. Life-savers, they were. Best birthday present ever. Running the plates through her hair was a morning ritual but not the good kind – like breakfast. It was a nightmare and there were always a few frizzed up locks that managed to escape. “Any good with these?”
“Please. Straight, curly, corn rows, freakin’ pigtails…you name it, I can do it.” Jaye got up and took the straighteners off Katie, running a comb through her hair first. Her fingers worked fast and accurate as any hairdresser. “Don’t lie to me, Katie. You didn’t scream just ‘cos of Jack. Something’s up and I want to know what.”
“Nothing’s wrong.” She knew she had said the wrong thing as soon as she spoke and wished she could claw back the word wrong. Because denying something was wrong was pretty much the same as confessing all. She should just claim stress. Worry about the race. Anxiety over her new academy life. Anything.
That would have been the sensible thing to do.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said again, willing Jaye to believe it. “I’m fine. Really.”
Jaye put the straightening irons down on the red heat mat, took Katie’s chin between her thumb and forefinger and held it in front of the mirror until Katie had no choice but to look at herself. “Look at yourself, babe. You are not fine.”
Katie inspected her reflection, properly looked at herself for the first time in days. Her lightly tanned face was tight and tired looking. Her brown eyes were jittering as if on a truckload of pills, hyper alert and ready for anything. Fear for your life probably had that effect. She didn’t look too bad, though – nothing that couldn’t easily be put down to general stress. Though it really wasn’t the purpose of this little soul-searching exercise, Katie forced her gaze up to Jaye and kept it there for a few moments until Jaye copied and looked at herself too. There was a smile on her mouth but it didn’t quite reach the eyes which looked empty and… dead. The air in the room vibrated and Jaye forced her smile wider and brighter. A scream of her own filled the room although the girl hadn’t even opened her mouth. The house seemed to shake with it. A few books shook themselves off the shelf above the bed and her careful pile of fresh clothes tumbled into a huge mess on the floor. Katie gripped the edge of her dresser while Jaye shrieked out her inner tornado, wanting desperately to slide under it and hide from the storm but unable to tear her eyes from her friends’ smiling face. Rage blew the window shut and then shattered it. Papers blew across the room and an empty glass juddered across the chest of drawers, thudding onto the pile of clothes. Abruptly, the noise stopped and her room stopped being tossed around like salad. Jaye picked the straighteners up and restarted her work. Katie pushed her away and shot to her feet, whirling to face her.
To coin a phrase- “What the fuck?!”
“Earthquake?” Jaye squeaked, trying not to look her in the eye.
“When did- how did- I never knew you could do that.”
“Are you sure it was me?” The chance that it wasn’t was damn unlikely and they both knew it. It didn’t hurt to play the sowing the seeds of doubt card though..
“Hey, I’m not the one with the freaky dead person powers over here.”
“We don’t have any powers!”
So, how did Jack always know when she was scared and know when to hold her hand even if she couldn’t see him? How did he put thoughts in her head? Was it just some connection they had?
“You can’t be sure of that. Look at all this mess, Jaye. That’s pretty damn powerful!”
“It wasn’t me! I admit, I’m in meltdown right now, and going on a destructive rampage sounds good to me but I didn’t do this. I couldn’t.” Jaye put the hair tools back down and switched them off at the mains. “Leave
them to cool off.” She dropped to her hands and knees and tried to put some of her papers back together. Boring stuff mostly – photocopies of old textbooks from school (always useful to know the formula for photosynthesis or the name for the dots over an A in German) and scraps of paper with book titles she had yet to acquire.
When Jaye had crawled to the other side of the bed from Katie and unceremoniously dumped a handful of papers on the duvet, her spiky black head rested aganst the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Katie grabbed the stack of papers and shifted them to the end of the bed. Near the top was the letter from the police. She felt a sharp tug in the pit of her stomach as she really remembered, for the first time since she had opened it, what was inside. Sure, Lainy and Leo had mentioned it but Katie had somehow made it feel less important. She had somehow known that things were going to get a whole lot worse. And yet she was glad that Jaye had either not noticed it or been polite enough not to read it. Not that Katie couldn’t do with reliving the entire ordeal. We regret to inform you that due to a lack of evidence and an unsuccessful initial investigation, we are unable to pursue this case. Not the best news a girl had ever received but it could be worse.
A lot worse.
In – how long? – a letter could be creeping through the post, informing her parents of her untimely death.
Thinking that way wouldn’t get anyone anywhere. Katie took a deep breath of breezy air, fast becoming windy. She’d have to get Adam to board the window over before night fell if she didn’t want to freeze to death as she slept. A manic peal of laughter bubbled up her throat. Katie swallowed it back, hard enough to hurt. Sleep. Now there was something to aspire to. The papers slid back into chaos and the dolphin on the duvet leapt out of the water as Katie plunged in. She crossed her legs and doodled her fingers through Jaye’s hair. As it dried from her shower, the souks softened into short black waves, effortlessly sleek and shiny. “I wish I had hair like yours.”
”Feel free to take it. It’s so short and fine, I can’t do anything with it. At least you can try different styles with yours.”
Katie rarely went beyond a scrunchie or headband by way of hair accessories. Her mind was more focused on practical styles that stayed out of her face when running. “This place is a dump,” she said, not really meaning it. Fallen books, clothes, shattered glass and her few cosmetics tipped over on the window sill were about it. It would take all of five minutes to tidy but she needed to say something to lighten the mood. “Has Dan the dirt devil come to visit?”
Jaye looked at her, confused. “Who?”
Jaye had arrived with Dina the day after her family had come to visit. She had no idea who Dan was. “My little sister,” Katie explained. “If you lose her in a china shop, just follow the broken pieces. We used to be at each others throats. I’m sure my parents found her in the jungle.”
“How old is she?”
“Twelve. No idea what that equates to on her planet though.”
Jaye giggled. Sharing a family name didn’t mean you had to be of the same species. “Twelve.”
“Family – so much more trouble than they’re worth,” Katie groaned, throwing her arm over her face. She dared not close her eyes but she could hide in this corner of darkness. “I miss them though.”
“Yeah. Me too,” Jaye said and heaved herself up onto the bed. She inched across until she was lying next to her friend. “Do me a favour?”
“Go for it.”
“Cherish them.”
Katie turned her face to Jaye.
“After a while… it gets hard to remember. The time you have left is precious. And I’m so sorry.” She put a hand up in front of her face, Katie laced her fingers with it, and tried to smile. “You should make some memories.”
There was a depth to her words – they were practically a warning – that seemed to press Katie’s heart into the mattress. And that was surprising. On some level she’d known she would not be going back to the city, that they might visit her but she would never go back with them. Hearing someone else say it just made it… more. More real? More difficult? The adjectives defied her. Just more.
And this girl, just a few years older than herself, speaking with tears in her eyes and a smile on her ace, had already been through it. It struck Katie how unfair this all was. “I have plenty already.”
“They won’t be enough. You like to think so but you always want more. Human nature.”
“No chance I just dreamed this whole week?”
Jaye rested her head on Katie’s shoulder and held their clasped hands to her burning cheek, staring at the ceiling. Lying sounded tempting. It also sounded too much like cheating for comfort. Just because Jaye couldn’t tell the younger girl anything did not mean she had to outright lie or deny anything. Besides, she couldn’t control what other people said. And there was no rule that said she couldn’t fade her flesh away to protect herself from being hit. In the face. It was a pretty automatic response to physical threat. Katie had seen it, and put her thoughts together, so none of this was really Jaye’s fault.
Not really.
After a minute of silence and stillness Katie figured that her friend had gone to sleep and slid off the bed. She turned to stare down at Jaye. Her cheeks were bright with worry and exhaustion but, sleeping, she looked peaceful for the first time in a chaotic 24 hours. With the innocent unconscious look of a child and the almost stillness that only showed in the truly tired, Katie found herself transfixed by the even rise and fall of her chest. The fact Jaye was technically dead and had no logical reason to breathe and yet she still did was weird. Jack did it too. Katie remembered his breath tickling her neck, whispering sweet words to her, and had to hold in a sob. Now was not the time to be getting lovesick. There had to be a way of working out the ghosts from the live people in town. How many were there and how many of them had she already met? Katie stepped into a pair of pumps, leant over and kissed Jaye on the top of the head and snuck out of the room. She closed the door behind her as quietly as she could and leaned the back of her head against it for a minute. She was listening for any sounds Jaye might be making as dreams turned to nightmares and nightmares turned to hell, but there were none. Tiptoeing away, her phone chimed. The display flashed up DAN. She clicked it to answer, hoping the sound – too loud for the full but strangely empty house – hadn’t woken anyone.
“Shouldn’t you be in school?” Ditching in the first week was definitely a detention offence. Mrs Blacke, still the head at her old secondary school, had no concept of going easy on the new kids.
“It’s only half ten. You know, break time for normies. What’s wrong with you?”
“Sorry. Time just got away from me.”
“Mom told me to ring anyway. This is strictly a business call.”
“Love you too, sis.”
Dan grumbled down the phone and a far away voice yelled at her to get out of the way. Luckily, she didn’t have the guts to swear at the lads yet otherwise Katie thought she would have gone down to Arthur Claymore High and washed Dan’s mouth out herself. “Whatever.”
“There’s my girl. What did she want?”
“She wants to know if you want us to come down for your race or not.”
“Erm…uh…” she stuttered, stalling for time. The prospect of her family coming to town threw up problems Katie hadn’t even thought of yet. “Hang on, let me go downstairs where people aren’t sleeping.”
“Seriously, I know Northwood’s hours away but it’s not in a different timezone.”
It felt like it. “Why couldn’t she ask me herself?”
“You know Mom doesn’t do the tech thing. Probably thinks the phone’ll blow up if she pushes the red button or something, I don’t know. Look, it wasn’t supposed to be a trick question. But I will warn you now, if I have to spend four hours trapped in a car with the olds, I want a present.”
“Some-one’s hit puberty
like a ten ton truck.”
“And you better win.”
“The competition here’s really tough. I mean, I haven’t timed myself against them yet but these guys… they’re verging on professional.”
“Katie.” There were more half-mumbled words. Words which sounded suspiciously like a vote of confidence though Dan would rather go to school in footie pyjamas than admit she was proud of her big sister. “Come on, the bell’s gonna go in a minute and I’ve got art.”
“You in the Tate Modern yet?”
“Ha frikking ha! Do you want us to come down or not?”
The choices were absolutely heartbreaking. “I really don’t have time to think right now. I’ll give you a shout when I decide.”
“What’s there to decide? It’s a yes or no thing.”
“I’m sorry.” What was she apologising for? What wasn’t she saying sorry for? “One of my friends is in the hospital and I really haven’t thought about much else.” Which wasn’t completely a lie. Everything Katie had thought about lately had somehow related to what was going on in the hospital.
“Oh. Major downer.”
“You got it. But I will think when I get chance.” If I get chance.
A shrill bell rang out three times and the background noise increased as a thousand stampeding hormone bombs rushed indoors. The claustrophobic crush of that wave caught Katie off guard and she felt like she was back in school once more. Jaye had told her that whilst there were still class bells at the academy, students never rushed to get anywhere. “Gotta go.”
The call ended so fast that Katie was left with her mouth open, no time to say goodbye. She slid her phone shut and pushed it deep into the pocket of her baggy, faded and frayed jeans. On her way past the hall table she grabbed her baseball cap and jammed it on her head, hoping to restrain the curls Jaye hadn’t had chance to work on. She passed the kitchen door as she headed out, having worked out that cutting through the back garden would cut five minutes off her journey. Leo was still sitting at the table. He looked as if he hadn’t moved in hours and Katie honestly didn’t think he had. He stared down at the table and only raised his head when she spoke.
“If Jaye wakes up, tell her I’ve gone to the hospital.”
He looked so shocked, so sad and so hollow that Katie felt her heart break for him a little. Katie toyed with the spaghetti straps of her mini backpack, watching Leo open and close his mouth before finally speaking. “Dumb bitch.” The words should have been filled with contempt and venom but they just weren’t. Somehow it hurt more that way.
Katie shrugged. “If anything happens, I’ll be in the right place.”
Sinking back into his former position staring at dust floating through the air and blindly running his fingers up and down his arms, Leo started humming. Katie recognised the tune with a jolt, remembered his arms holding her tight and safe, and wanted to reach out to him. To tell him that she would keep him as safe as he had kept her. But neither of them needed to hear that this morning.
So she scurried out the back door.
And wondered if he would forgive the lie she had just told.
And if it mattered.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN