Once I’m bundled up in my duffel coat, bobble hat and scarf, I go into my parents’ bedroom, which looks out on to the street. I peer through the net curtains, careful not to shift them in case anybody outside is looking for me. I’m just starting to think that whatever Erica’s plan is, she’s done a fantastic job of turning me into a paranoid freak, when I see a motorbike turn into my road. There’s every chance that it’s not Jay, that it’s some other totally random person on a motorbike, but the heat in my ears and the pounding of my heart indicate that my paranoia was not misplaced. He’s here. I need to get away.
When I get downstairs I twitch at the dining-room nets, peering out once again to check what’s going on. He must have parked a little way down the road, as I can’t see his bike from here. I can’t hear it either. I can’t leave my house by the front door. I’d be walking right up to him. I’ll have to sneak out the back. I hurry into the kitchen and unlock the back door. Then just one more breath, and I’m gone.
Walking along the stepping stones set into our neat lawn, I’m acutely aware of the late November frost numbing my nose and the tips of my fingers, left bare by my fingerless mittens. At the bottom of the garden there’s a loose fence plank that Dad was meant to fix years ago. When I was a lot younger I used to ease my way through it during games of hide-and-seek with my cousins, but now that I’m fifteen I find it almost impossible, despite my diminutive size. I have to take off my coat. I push it through the gap ahead of me and just about manage to squeeze myself through, quickly putting it back on once I’m safe on the other side.
What’s Jay doing? Is he waiting at my front door after politely ringing the bell? Is he going to work out some way to break in, thinking that I’m enjoying a lazy Saturday morning in bed?
I’m stuck behind some thick shrubbery, which is probably a good thing as I don’t want my neighbours watching me hiding out in their garden while they eat their breakfast. I creep through the garden, edging slowly closer to the house. This whole time, I’m amazed at how measured and calm I’m acting. I’m putting it down to adrenaline. Something is pumping through me, keeping my breathing steady while my pulse races, getting me ready to run should I need to. It’s exhilarating and terrifying all at once. I wonder if this compares at all to what Erica feels when she’s doing her super-thing.
What I have to work out next is how to get myself out of this garden and onto the street. There’s a gate to one side, but I can see a big padlock fixing it shut. Either I find my way through more back gardens until an opportunity presents itself, or I break into this house and go out their front door. Considering the fact that it’s bright morning daylight, and the general niceness of people’s fences around here, crawling through gardens won’t be easy. But when I look towards the house along I notice a trellis with some dead plant climbing up it. It leads to their garage roof. Without thinking about what might happen next, I start to climb it like a ladder.
I’m actually on top of somebody’s garage. I keep myself low, petrified that Jay has somehow realised that I’ve eluded him, and slink towards the edge. It’s not that far a drop, not really. Only one storey. So why can’t I move? I have to take a few more steadying breaths before I let my feet dangle over the edge, and then I hum to myself as I turn over, easing myself down so that I’m properly dangling, my cold fingers clinging and my arms shaking. Then I let go. The drop is measly, I know this, but I feel like I’ve scaled a pyramid or something. All that adrenaline jumps in my veins, forcing me to grin as I dart down the drive of this stranger’s house and onto the street. I am basically a ninja.
Only once I’m certain nobody is following me do I dig out my phone and make the call. It’s the only safe place I can think of.
‘Hi, Toby – you home?’
‘Yes …’
‘Can I come over?’
‘Do you know my address?’
‘No. Can you give it to me?’
‘Why? What’s going on?’
‘Can I tell you once I come over?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Seriously, Tobes.’
‘It’s a Saturday morning. What could possibly be so serious on a Saturday morning?’
‘Toby!’ And I have to yell it, even though I know that yelling makes absolutely no sense when trying to maintain Ninja Stealth Mode. ‘I’m in trouble, OK? I’m freezing and I just had to ninja stealth my way out of my own house, so will you please just give me your address?’
The silence from his end makes me think he’s hung up on me, but it turns out he’s thinking. Finally he relents and gives me his address, plus directions. He says it’s a ten-minute walk, but I hurry and make it five.
Toby opens his front door but doesn’t let me in straight away. I look round behind me, and fortunately there’s no sign of any motorbikes following. Apparently I did it, and I’m free, for now.
‘What’s going on, Louise?’ Toby asks while I’m freezing on his doorstep.
‘Just let me in, OK?’
‘You know you could just talk to me like a normal person, instead of being all dramatic.’
‘Look, it’s hard to explain, and I’m not entirely sure what I can tell you, but I needed somewhere safe to figure out what to do next.’
Toby makes a big gallant gesture of letting me in before leading me upstairs to his room. This gives me a few moments to ponder what exactly I’m going to tell him, and how I can get him to believe me. It’s not as if we’ve been on the greatest of terms over the last few weeks, and I don’t know what he must think of me for turning up like this. I realise that I could just make up something stupid like debt collectors arriving at my house when my parents are out, or that I’m having some sort of extreme panic attack over a piece of assessed work, but I don’t want to lie. Not when I really need some help.
I might never have been round to his house before but I recognise Toby’s room instantly. The door is entirely covered with fragments of posters and stickers, all linked to various levels of geekery. I recognise some gaming logos, bits of sci-fi jargon that’s been scribbled over the tops of posters in Tipp-ex, plus some pictures of truly random things, like a purple jellyfish, and a banana with a smiley face. This door is a collage of Toby, and I love it.
His bedroom, meanwhile, looks like it’s been struck by a Toby tornado. I can imagine his lanky arms flinging bits of clothing all over the place, so that a sock has ended up hanging over his desk lamp and instead of carpet or a rug, he has a pair of crinkled jeans strewn on the floor. Lined up under his bed, in an absurdly orderly fashion, is a collection of used glasses, mugs and plates, so many that I have to wonder what could possibly be left in the kitchen. Posters cover every plausible inch of wall space, and where a huge built-in cupboard takes over, the posters extend over that too. The ones that aren’t all black and sci-fi are pictures of Vigils (mostly the female ones). Two clothes baskets are overflowing. I should probably mention the odour too. I can’t quite pinpoint exactly what his room smells like, but it’s definitely organic. A mixture of sweat and dead teabags, apple cores and deodorant spray. But the part of his room that appals me the most, and I can’t help taking this quite personally, is the space reserved for his schoolbooks, which are littered all over the floor and the desk, all crumpled up and unloved. I heave a sigh of disappointment and fight the urge to put the books into a neat, organised pile.
‘If you’d have given me more notice, I would have tidied up a bit,’ Toby mumbles. I turn just in time to see him kick some underwear (dirty? Better not to know?) behind a chest of drawers. ‘It’s not usually this messy.’ I don’t believe him.
I see the shelf above his desk. Lined up perfectly straight, all facing forward, are these incredible Vigil models. They stand about fifteen centimetres high but vary in proportion with their real-life heights, so the Deep Blue figurine is slightly taller, the Red Rose one slightly shorter. They’ve each been expertly and perfectly painted. These aren’t the usual kind of action figures you see in the toy shops, these are real
collectibles, the types that I’ve seen advertised on Vigil fansites and are really expensive. And it appears that Toby has the full set. I can even imagine the Flamegirl – or is it Vega now? – figure standing right there between Quantum and Hayley Divine, and a wave of sadness, tinged with panic, washes through me.
How can I tell Toby what’s going on without revealing the truth? Right here, in full view of his complete UK Vigil set (plus a few of the more popular American and European Vigils, I notice), how am I meant to work out this elaborate lie?
So I give it my best.
‘You’re trying to tell me that Erica’s psycho boyfriend has kidnapped her – you think – and is now after you? And you’ve come round to my place to hide? You do realise how ridiculous you sound, right?’
I have to agree; it sounds like the most stupid thing ever.
‘Why exactly would he be after you?’ Toby asks.
‘I have no idea,’ I reply, throwing my hands up in front of me in frustration.
‘And what kind of person kidnaps their girlfriend? Louise, tell me the truth here, are you high?’
I sit down on Toby’s bed (it’s only half-made, so I sit on the made part) and I try not to think about the fact that I’m on Toby’s bed. My friend Toby, who I might possibly like more than I really want to admit and who would never fancy me back because I’m just a boring girl who looks the complete opposite of all the girls whose pictures he’s got on his walls. I wish I could be here under different circumstances, but the more I look around his room and at his Vigil figurines, the more I feel that I have absolutely no hope of getting him to see me as anything other than his library chum. And now a library chum who might also be sounding like a hysterical lunatic.
‘You know yesterday in the library? When I was really upset?’ I start, trying again to explain everything without revealing anything.
‘Yup …’
‘Well, I had just tried calling Erica, and Jay answered. And he was weird. Like, really weird. He told me that Erica couldn’t come to the phone, and that she didn’t want to talk to me. And just before that I saw Mr Stanley and Erica’s mum, and they’ve called the police about her going missing. I think something is seriously wrong, and at first I was all like Well, maybe I should just stay out of it, because we’ve been fighting, but then this morning Erica gets in touch by text, from an unknown number, and she tells me to run away and hide because Jay is coming after me.’
‘So what are you thinking? Isn’t Jay her boyfriend? I mean, sure it’s a little messed up if they’ve run away together, but why the hell would he be coming after you?’
‘I’m serious about this.’ I implore him with my eyes. I know that I’m still not making very much sense and that he’s getting irritated.
Toby comes and sits next to me. I suck in my breath. Toby, right here, so close to me, in jeans and a ratty T-shirt, on his bed. He hasn’t even sorted out his hair yet, and it sticks up at goofy angles that I just want to touch and tame. He nudges me with his shoulder, like he’s trying to topple me over.
‘I think you might be a little stressed out by exams. Do you think that you might be a little stressed out by exams?’ he asks.
‘Toby. I don’t know any other way to explain it to you. Something is seriously wrong and Erica is in trouble. And …’ I stop what I’m saying and think. ‘And I need to go into London.’
‘No. What you need to do is have a cup of tea, and then go home and get on with your revision,’ Toby corrects.
‘My plan was to go into town and get in touch with Jay’s …’ What do I call them? ‘Jay’s bosses. I know where he works, and if I could just get in touch with them, then maybe they can sort all of this out.’
‘Louise …’
‘You don’t have to come with me. I just need to get to the tube station without Jay seeing me, and then everything will be fine.’ Except that I don’t want to move from where I am right now, from where it’s safe and where Toby is.
‘Louise … you should stay here for a bit. We have the same assignment in maths, don’t we? We’ll work on homework together so that you don’t get stressed out, and then everything will be fine.’
I get up to peek out of the window. Toby’s tiny boxroom looks out on to the street below, and so far, no motorbikes in sight. Just a world starting to come to life on a Saturday morning: an old lady pushing a checked trolley on wheels out in front of her, and a couple of kids kicking a football against a garage wall.
‘I really have to go,’ I say, looking back around at a bewildered Toby.
‘At least stay for a cup of tea? You’ll feel better after that, I promise.’
I agree, but only because I feel that a cup of tea will be the perfect thing to brace me for going back outside. Plus I need to formulate the best route to the tube station, one that keeps me away from the main roads, where Jay might be prowling. While Toby makes the tea I roam his living room, dwelling on the collection of family photos on the mantelpiece. There’s a couple of him and his older brother who went to university last year, plus a bunch of pictures of people I presume to be his grandparents. Toby’s parents look nice. They’re both tall, like him, but it’s clear that Toby takes after his dad the most. They have the same dark hair and oversized features on lanky limbs, except that his dad has obviously grown into himself and looks strong and friendly.
‘Where’s your mum and dad?’ I call into the kitchen as my eyes fall on pictures of Toby from when he was younger. I can tell that it’s him because his brother is always significantly taller.
‘My dad was talking at some big symposium in Wales yesterday,’ he calls back. ‘And they decided to stay the weekend. Milk? Sugar?’
‘Yes and yes, please!’ I reply. ‘They let you stay home alone?’
‘Well, obviously they’ve raised exactly the type of teenager who organises a massive rave the moment his parents are out of the picture,’ he jokes as he comes back into the living room holding two mugs of tea. ‘Oh, please don’t look at those!’
Once I have my cup, Toby reaches over and turns around the photos of him as a baby.
‘What? You were cute back then!’ I tease.
‘I had a fat face,’ Toby whines, blowing on his hot tea.
‘Every baby has a fat face,’ I reply, reaching over to turn the picture back round. Toby doesn’t stop me.
‘You seem a bit calmer now,’ he says when we sit down on the sofa. ‘Are you absolutely sure that you need to go into town to rescue Erica, or do you think that perhaps you should stay here for a bit, drink my exceptional tea and help me nail maths?’
I don’t want to keep going on about how serious I am, so I just give him a look and hope that it works.
That kind of puts a halt to the conversation, which is fine because it means I can enjoy the tea. When I start getting cold, I wonder how appropriate it would be to ask Toby if I could borrow one of his hoodies.
‘Are you shivering?’ he asks, looking at me weirdly.
‘It’s just suddenly got really cold in here, hasn’t it? Can’t you feel it?’
‘I suppose it has.’ Toby gets up and goes to check the nearest radiator. ‘That’s odd – it’s still on.’
I turn away and look out the window. Except that I can’t see out. The glass has completely clouded over, scattering the light and turning everything an eerie blue. The panes are marked by a flurry of patterns, like they’ve been turned to crystal. I can see my breath in front of me.
Toby stalks forward, treading softly like he’s scared the windows will break, and I don’t say anything at first because I’m fascinated as well. But then I realise that it hasn’t stopped getting colder. The temperature is descending so rapidly that my lips are sore and it hurts to blink.
‘Toby, wait,’ I warn as he reaches out a tentative finger to the glass. He pulls away instantly as though he’s been burned, and where his finger was, I notice a tiny white mark. The mark spreads out like a wondrous snowflake until the entire bay window is rippled wi
th white lines, each one sounding like snapping chocolate as it spreads.
And then everything shatters. Tiny glass shards fly out, shimmering like glitter. I cower, attempting to cover my face, but I’m breathing in frozen air, the cold settling and caking my lungs. I can just about hear Toby calling my name, but soon the sound of the ice blizzard drowns out everything else and my ears become blocked up with the cold. I can’t open my eyes, can’t move save to try and bundle up further. Everything happens so quickly there’s no time to register what is going on, to try to find a way out. I’m certain that I am dying. I’m going to be frozen solid, then I’ll shatter like the window, until there’s nothing left of me but a pile of silver dust floating on the blizzard wind.
It’s dark when I wake up, and I can’t move. My hands are behind my back. There’s a tightness in my chest that makes me want to gulp in the air. My right shoulder is desperately uncomfortable, twisted around at a bad angle, but I can’t really move it. All I can do is shift and squirm and wait for the familiar, painless click that will release it, allowing me to relax. It doesn’t come. As I attempt to wriggle my shoulders, I find that my hands are actually fastened, at another uncomfortable angle, with plastic bindings. The more I try to move them, the more the bindings dig into my wrists. As sensation awakens lower down, I attempt to shuffle my legs, but they’re under me and tied at the ankles. I cringe with pins and needles.
I can’t tell where I am. My eyes haven’t yet adjusted to the dark, and my panicked breathing stops me from concentrating. All my energy is focused on wriggling my fingers free or pulling at my legs, both apparently impossible.
Just shy of completely freaking out, I decide to slow myself down and attempt to regain some control. I close my eyes again, work at smoothing out my breathing, and try to relax my muscles so that the bindings at my ankles and wrists won’t be quite so painful. It works, but then I open my eyes back into the darkness and I start to panic again. It’s like sitting inside a black hole. I can feel my feet, and that I’m leaning against a wall and have been placed on something soft like a mattress, but there’s an empty chasm that stretches all the way around me. I feel hopeless, like I might have been buried alive and forgotten about.
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