by Anna Day
‘I don’t think he’s in.’
‘Well, he’ll have to come home eventually.’
‘I’ve got some crisps in the car, we could have another stake-out,’ he suggests helpfully.
I nod, and then try the buzzer one more time, just for good luck.
At least I know it isn’t Timothy who’s been sending me those God-awful things. He may be writing a fanfic blog, but he’s not psycho-stalker material. So who could it be?
‘Don’t worry,’ Danny says, as we walk back to his Corsa. ‘If he doesn’t show, I’ll drive you to his office first thing tomorrow.’
‘Haven’t you got work?’
‘I’ll pull a sickie. I’ve never done that before, it’ll be fun.’
‘God, I’m such a bad influence,’ I say.
He shakes his head. ‘No you’re not. Now get some sleep, you look exhausted. I’ll keep watch.’
As I drift into sleep, I hatch a plan. I’ll make a deal with Timothy. The same one I was going to make with Russell. I’ll agree to write the third book so long as he stops writing his bloody blog. Then maybe my friends stand a chance of coming home before Nate’s life support is turned off.
The sound of my phone ringing wakes me. For a second, I forget where I am. I blink a few times. I’m outside Timothy’s flat, sat in Danny’s car . . . and my life is falling apart at the seams.
I pull the phone from my bag, the stark, electronic glare stinging my eyes. Could it be my stalker again? Surely they wouldn’t ring. Still, it’s a relief when I see that it’s Jane, Violet’s mum. But the relief is short-lived. Jane only has my number for when she can’t get in touch with Violet, and as Violet’s in a coma and it’s late, I’m guessing something’s very wrong.
I answer with a trembling voice, ‘Mrs Miller?’
Jane’s voice sounds like she’s speaking through a radio, all hisses and gasps, like she’s just been sick. ‘Oh, Alice, Alice . . . I just don’t know how to tell you this, sweetheart.’ She pauses to grab a breath and my entire body seems to go numb. But my brain feels like it’s burning, catching fire, throwing out all these endless, terrible scenarios.
‘Please, just tell me,’ I manage to croak.
Danny is looking at me, his dark eyes large with concern.
Jane seems to gulp for air. ‘I’m so sorry, Alice. I’m just so sorry. I have the most dreadful news.’
VIOLET
Thorn passes the canister to an Imp behind him.
‘Thorn, please,’ Nate says. ‘That canister—’
‘I don’t want to hear it,’ he shouts. The pistol in his hand gleams in the evening sun as he gestures us outside with it. The church door clicks shut, sealing us outside. I remember too late Ash’s holster, slung across the back of his chair.
Thorn points at Nate, his arm shaking, his beautiful face scrunched with rage. ‘It was you all along. You were the one who spoke to Howard Stoneback.’
‘Yes,’ Nate says, his voice hollow.
I step towards Thorn, the glint of his weapon catching in my peripheral vision and sending my stomach into spasm. ‘How did you know about the canister?’ I ask.
He bats me out of the way. ‘Let’s just say a little bird told me.’ He aims his gun at Nate’s head. There is less than a metre of air between my brother and a bullet. The world seems to slow around me. Every pore, every hair on Nate’s face comes into sharp focus. I swear I can see his pupils dilate with terror.
‘You let me burn three of my most trusted Rebels!’ Thorn shouts.
‘Oh, come on,’ Ash says. ‘You were looking for an excuse.’
I clutch at my face in desperation. ‘Please. Nate’s helping us now. If you shoot him . . .’ I want to tell him about the President, about the virus, about Nate taking us to the launch site, but the fury in Thorn’s lavender eyes tells me this is futile. He wants blood.
Well, if he wants blood, he can have mine.
I step between the gun and Nate. I stand as tall as I’m able, puff out my chest, trying to make myself bigger than the target behind me.
Thorn seems to lengthen his arm, the space between me and that bullet decreasing even further. ‘I only want the boy,’ he says. He swings the gun away and fires a warning shot into a nearby alley. The blast disturbs a group of pigeons. The birds scatter into the air, the beat of their feathers barely audible above the drumming in my ears. And that’s when I spot her, a slightly smaller bird, labouring under her own weight, struggling to rise from the ground. The feathers on her breast glisten with a wealth of tiny rubies. Thorn’s bullet nicked her wing.
That rhyme Yan told me, the message from Baba. This is the red-breasted bird.
See the red-breast bird take flight. Count to three and move to the right.
I catch Katie’s eye. At first, she frowns, like she’s making the exact same connection as me. I think she may even mouth, The robin.
One . . .
Thorn looks at me, his eyes narrowed. ‘Move.’
But I can’t move, I can’t. If I move, then Thorn will shoot Nate.
Ash and Katie say my name. Followed by another bark from Thorn, ‘Out of the way, girl.’
I continue to shelter Nate with my body, shaking my head like a woman possessed.
Two . . .
I feel Nate pulling on my shoulders, trying to shift me, trying to save me. But I won’t move or be moved – it’s like my feet are nailed to the ground. I clench my fists, tighten my knees and I stand completely still.
‘MOVE,’ Thorn shouts.
Three . . .
If we were in a film, everything would slow down right about now. The second between Thorn shouting and Thorn pulling the trigger would stretch into minutes. I would see Katie’s expression slip between one of determination and one of acceptance. I see her lunging towards me at half speed. And for the last time, I would take in every flour-dusted freckle on her face, the smile lines still fresh from our time back in the church, and every strand of her hair, swirling around her shoulders as she slowly tumbled towards me.
But we aren’t in a film. And that second is over in the thump of a heart.
Katie falls against me, a dead weight, causing my arms to unfold on their own accord, catching her and stopping her from smacking to the floor. Not that she would have felt it. Because she’s already dead, she died in that quick, relentless second. My legs give way and I sink to the ground, cradling her in my arms. Her pea-green eyes stare into space, and the bullet wound in the back of her head, the missing piece of skull, lets more blood escape on to my lap than I ever imagined a single body could hold.
‘Oh God,’ Thorn whispers. ‘What have I done?’
ALICE
‘What is it?’ I ask. My breath labours, unable to keep up with my body’s sudden need for air. Jane is weeping, she sounds like she may be gagging. Oh God, please don’t let it be Violet. ‘Please, Jane, just tell me,’ I beg.
‘It’s Katie,’ she manages to say. ‘Katie’s dead.’
My entire body trembles, my insides scream. Katie can’t be dead, she just can’t be. All that life, all that warmth, surely it can’t just . . . stop. I place my head between my knees, afraid my brain is about to shake itself to pieces. I can’t breathe, my lungs are hungry, burning, but my throat has closed. She can’t be dead. She can’t be. I begin to gasp, cry, and my stomach begins to heave. I’m about to vomit. I want to vomit. Maybe then I can get rid of this awful panicky feeling like nothing will ever be OK again.
Danny leans on to my back, hugging me into his body. His arms seem to go on for ever and I feel completely held. ‘Just breathe,’ he whispers into my hair. ‘Breathe, Al, breathe.’ I manage to snatch a fleeting breath, then another, then another, until I get into some sort of jerky rhythm and my lungs stop hurting quite so much.
‘Can you drive me?’ I manage to gasp.
‘Anything you need.’
Jane meets us in the foyer. She clutches me to her jumper and strokes my hair. ‘Oh, Alice, sweetheart, I’m so so so
rry.’
‘What happened?’ I ask.
Her words come out strangled. ‘They don’t know, some sort of brain haemorrhage.’
‘Where is she?’
‘She’s still in the ICU.’
‘Can I see her?’
She studies me with red, puffy eyes. ‘Her parents said that was fine, but do you think that’s a good idea?’
‘I need to see her . . . to . . . to . . .’ The panic is growing inside me again and I’m struggling to breathe.
Danny steps in. ‘To believe it’s real?’
I nod. And just before I tread the familiar path to the ICU, I can’t help asking Jane, ‘Are you still . . . you know . . . tomorrow?’ I’m talking about the plan to switch off Nate’s respirator, but can’t bring myself to say the words.
Jane holds my gaze, her face twitching with guilt. ‘Yes,’ she whispers. ‘Noon tomorrow.’
28
VIOLET
I look at Thorn, and see my own shock, my own devastation reflected back at me in his face. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Katie wasn’t supposed to die. Somebody begins to scream, somebody begins to weep, somebody begins to shake my body over and over. I spin my head, confused, before realizing it’s me. I’m screaming and weeping and shaking. But my skin has thickened and I can’t feel the elements on my face or the convulsions pushing through me. I don’t own the screams bouncing back at me from the paving slabs. It’s like I no longer exist in this world.
The only thing that reaches me in my cocoon of shock is the monotonous drone of the flatline, echoing in some faraway land.
Thorn’s gun clatters on to the pavement beside me. Ash must have been holding me, because I notice when he moves to retrieve it.
I hear Thorn’s words as though they’re moving through something heavy and cold, a sheet of snow perhaps. No, not snow. Ice. ‘Ruth, my sweet Ruth,’ he murmurs. ‘What have I done?’
I want to grab that gun off Ash. I want to grab that hateful gun and shoot Thorn in his hateful face. But it’s like I’m trapped beneath that slab of ice, held tight in the freezing waters. Numb and statue-like, just watching the ghostly figures as they move above me.
Ash replies. ‘Her name isn’t Ruth. It’s Katie.’ The heat of his breath against my ear makes me notice a warmth gathering across my back, a reassuring pressure and the continuous thrum of two hearts. Ash and Nate are leaning into me, their arms wrapping around my sides and on to Katie, encasing us in something safe and protective. My skin thins and I begin to feel again, the drone fades in my ears, and I’m aware that I’m still sobbing, still shaking, tears and snot dripping from my chin.
My fingers hover over her face, and I wonder if they’re too afraid to touch her, afraid she may shatter from the softest of impacts. But suddenly, they move on their own accord, sweeping her hair from her face and gently pushing her lids closed. She doesn’t shatter. She doesn’t do anything.
Why did Katie move? Why did she sacrifice herself? Was the message meant for her all along? I want answers, desperately want to understand, but my brain simply won’t work.
‘I will help you bury her,’ Thorn says. ‘And then I will accept my sentence.’
And because I don’t care what happens to Thorn now, because I don’t care about anything except the fact Katie is dead, I find myself just replying with a simple, ‘OK.’
We bury Katie in the graveyard. A small patch of grass behind the church, overgrown and neglected. The repetitive chug of shovels against earth, the pain in my back and the sweat running down my face, are strangely soothing. With every shovel full of soil, I glance at the church and make a plea or a pact of some description: Please let me wake up and Katie still be alive. If she’s in a coma, I will come back for her, I promise. Please take me instead of her. Please.
The church doesn’t reply. God doesn’t reply. We lower her into the ground; she lies in the trench like a broken doll. I reach down, crossing her arms over her chest and arranging thistles around her head so she looks like a sleeping queen from a fairy tale. Then, gently, I release a handful of dirt over her body. A few specks of soil land on her cheeks, adding to her freckles. I expect her to open her eyes, to tell me I’m a cunkwumble and laugh her lovely laugh.
But she doesn’t.
I head into the church alone, leaving the others to finish the job. I wish I could stay and give Katie the beautiful ceremony she deserves, but it feels like my body is about to fold in on itself and just stop. I sit in the church at a random desk, and just stare at the stone walls.
I barely notice Daisy appearing before me. She kneels on the ground and looks into my face with her perfect, chestnut eyes. ‘I am so sorry, Violet.’
I think I nod.
‘Look after Ash,’ she says.
And then I guess I must apologize, because she laughs a sad little laugh, tells me it’s OK, and walks out of the church.
ALICE
Katie’s parents lean over her body, so still they could be made from stone. Her mum sees me and begins to cry. It kills me how much like Katie she looks, same red hair, same green eyes. She pulls me into an awkward hug, her face knocking against mine. ‘Thanks so much for coming, love. It would mean so much to our little girl.’ Her voice collapses and she falls back on to her daughter.
‘Of course,’ I manage to say.
All of the tubes and drips have been removed so that Katie looks like she’s asleep. But her chest isn’t rising, her eyelashes aren’t flickering. Her dainty, freckled face looks slack. But it’s her hands which really get me. Katie’s hands are never still, they’re always drumming, tapping on invisible cello strings only she can hear. I can’t help myself. I reach out and take a hand in my own.
‘Oh sweet Jesus,’ I whisper. How can someone so warm feel so cold?
Did I kill her? Did something I wrote result in her death?
My knees buckle at this thought, and Danny seems to appear from nowhere, placing an arm around my waist and holding me upright.
‘I’ve got you,’ he says, pulling my head on to his shoulder.
‘Katie today, Nate tomorrow,’ I whisper into his neck. ‘Everyone I love is dying.’
Danny helps me up the path and unlocks my front door. It’s still really early, and nobody’s up, so he calls up to my parents.
‘Mr and Mrs Childs. It’s Danny, I’ve got Alice with me . . . something terrible has happened.’
My parents stumble downstairs, blurred with sleep.
I fall on to my mum, weeping.
She holds me close and stokes my hair. ‘Alice, whatever’s happened?’
I can’t answer.
‘It’s Katie,’ Danny says. ‘She died last night.’
Mum tightens her grip on me. Then Dad joins in. They’re both squeezing me so tight I can barely breathe. ‘Oh Alice, I’m so sorry,’ Mum whispers.
Dad is crying too, I can hear it in his voice. ‘Her poor parents.’
I lie on the sofa with my head on Mum’s lap like I’m three and Dad fetches us all a cup of tea. Nobody drinks it. Danny sits beside me and Mum, and I think he’s stroking my hair too. Nobody speaks, there’s no sound except for me, weeping and weeping until, eventually, I can’t cry any more and the sun has lit up the sky.
The clock strikes seven. Katie died last night. Nate dies today. The grief gathers into a hard, little stone in my chest. I need to find Timothy, and I need to make him stop. I need to make him pay. I look at Danny. He has bags under his eyes, which turn his skin a bluish-purple colour, and his hair looks even messier than usual. ‘We need to go,’ I tell him.
Mum looks a little alarmed. ‘Surely you should stay at home today. You’ve had such a shock.’
But I’m already beginning to stand, my legs weak and my body sore, that little stone knocking against my ribs. ‘I need to find Timothy. I need to go to his office.’
Danny nods. ‘I’ll drive.’
‘No,’ I reply. ‘It’s too central, it’ll be easier to take the tube.’
&nb
sp; I hadn’t realized Dad was standing in the doorway, mug of cold tea still clasped in his hands. ‘Alice, we can take you to the hospital if you feel you need to do something. But visiting your editor, catching the tube . . . your mum’s right, you’re in shock.’
‘I’m fine,’ I say, walking towards the door, grabbing my handbag en route. ‘I just need to find Timothy.’ Obviously, I’m not fine, one of my best friends died yesterday. And she died doing the exact thing I should have been doing . . . helping Violet, saving Nate. But that stone clanking in my chest reminds me that I need to stay strong. I won’t lose anyone else because of that bloody man.
‘Well, we’ll come too,’ Mum says, dashing after me. Dad follows, and it hits me that they’re actually going to leave the house without styling their hair and brushing their teeth.
This makes me smile, but I still shake my head. ‘It’s OK. Danny will come.’
And I realize he’s already beside me.
Timothy’s secretary scowls when she sees me. The bitch never liked me. She never likes anyone.
‘Alice,’ she says. ‘Timothy isn’t expecting you today.’
‘I know. But I need to see him, it’s urgent.’
She looks at her computer screen, and then back at me, and then back at her screen. ‘Have you heard from him this week?’ she finally says.
‘Not since Comic-Con.’
‘I was so sorry to hear about your friends, Alice. I heard it on the news.’ There’s no feeling in her words – the sentiment is empty. It’s the verbal equivalent of a ‘thoughts and prayers’ post online.
I ignore her. How do I tell her one of them died? How do I say it without dropping my little stone and allowing the grief to take control. ‘Can I see Timothy?’ I ask, simply.
‘He hasn’t been into the office. He emailed to say he was taking a week off to manage a personal crisis.’
Anger flares inside me. Personal crisis. He’s holed up in his flat destroying Violet and Nate’s chances of coming home. I take a deep breath and try to stop my voice from quaking. ‘Have you been able to ring him?’