‘What are you doing?’ Toby asks, finding me attempting to reach under Erica’s arms and drag her, trying not to smack her too hard against the bathroom tiles.
‘The hairdryer won’t reach,’ I reply, before he comes over to help me.
I can tell that he’s not comfortable with touching Erica and doesn’t know where to place his hands, but otherwise I’m really surprised at how well he’s dealing with the situation. Who’d have suspected Toby would be good in an emergency?
‘I’m really sorry about all of this,’ I say as we carefully hobble a rigid Erica along inside the tub like a shop mannequin, then lean her back up against the wall.
‘Yeah … well …’ Toby says.
‘You’re not freaking out or anything.’
‘Oh, trust me, freaking out is going to happen. I’m just saving it all for later.’
‘You could go, you know,’ I say, pausing to rub my hands together to get rid of the biting cold from touching Erica. ‘You could get out of here right now and save yourself.’
‘And leave you here? Never going to happen.’
He looks at me, a look so determined and sincere that it makes my heart flutter. And then I have to tell myself off, because I’m pretty sure that it’s not at all appropriate to have heart flutters when you’re defrosting your frozen-solid best friend. I need to be focused, and I need to save Erica. Except, now that I’m looking at Toby under the harsh bathroom lighting, I think that he might be blushing. It could be because of his proximity to Flamegirl, or it could be because of me. It’s the not knowing which that makes my heart beat even faster.
‘You should go and check on the kettle,’ I say when things start to feel a little too awkward.
When he comes back we both just stand there for a minute, wondering how the hell we’re going to tackle this.
‘We should start with her head, right?’ I ask Toby.
‘I have absolutely no idea. I wouldn’t even know how to defrost a chicken.’
‘Well, we can’t burn her, that I do know. She’s impervious to that. But I don’t know if the cold might be harming her somehow. How long should it take to thaw a human being?’
‘Again, absolutely no idea.’
I decide that we should start with her hair, and then work downwards from her head to her toes. Toby handles the kettle and slowly lets it pour over Erica. I then run over her with a towel, making sure that the hot water has permeated the whole way through. When the kettle is empty, I send him out to boil it up again, while I use more towels to mop up. Even though we are apparently able to defrost her skin, I worry that the cold goes a lot deeper than that. After three runs of the kettle and constant checking of the hot tap, which is still running cold, she’s still too frigid to move, so I start to attack her with the hairdryer, searching her face for any sign that she might be conscious or able to hear us. Toby continues pouring boiling water over the back of her suit, using towels like flannels to dampen some of the harder to reach places, while I fire at her with the hairdryer like it’s a ray gun.
And then she blinks.
I think it’s a mirage at first, but when she does it again I know that it’s real. She’s alive!
‘Erica? Can you hear me?’ I ask, shaking her. She blinks frantically. ‘Toby! Quick! Help me lie her down!’
She’s now just about pliable enough to manoeuvre into the recovery position. We rest her down in the tub, which we’ve lined with more towels to make it soft and comfortable, and I angle the hairdryer, its cable stretched completely taut, so that I can keep on blasting her face with heat. Toby disappears to fill up the kettle once more, and I’m relieved to find that when I check the bath tap again, the water is beginning to run hot. I soak a towel and use it like a large flannel to apply hot pressure to her body. There’s definitely some life back in her face. Although her lips and around her eyes are still rather blue, the muscles around her mouth have thawed and there’s an expression there. One of pain and exhaustion.
‘Hey, Erica.’ I kneel and stare her straight in the eyes, talking over the blast of the hairdryer. She stares back with burning intensity. ‘You’ve got to do your heat thing, OK? We’re working really hard to thaw you out, but you’ve got to work too. Just think of all the amazing things, like flying and flame-throwing, and explosions and stuff. Can you do that?’
She just about manages a nod, then closes her eyes in concentration. I grip her hand, even though it’s uncomfortably cold for me, and will some of my own body heat into her. I try to feel it, try to feel that warmth I’m used to, but it’s not there. She’s still too cold.
‘Louise,’ Erica says through chattering teeth.
‘Erica! Please, please warm up!’
‘What are you doing here?’ I can only just about make out what she’s saying, her jaw is shivering so much.
‘Jay kidnapped us. Toby is here too; he’s helping. We managed to get free, and then we found you. Please hurry up and get warm so that we can get out of here, please.’
‘Toby?’ Erica stutters.
‘Er … hi, Erica,’ Toby says, bashful as he gently pours more boiling water over Erica’s legs. ‘Sorry about this. And in case you were conscious before, sorry about possibly touching your … you know. It was completely accidental.’
Erica laughs. It’s not an easy laugh, and it doesn’t look comfortable, but it shakes her shoulders and makes the shivering subside for a moment. She looks like she wants to cough as well, but I don’t think her chest is thawed enough for her to do that yet. I press a towel down on where her heart is, hoping that the wet warmth seeps deep into her.
‘Keep talking, make her laugh,’ Toby urges, before he leaves to fill up the kettle once more.
‘Erica,’ I start, ‘remember when we first realised you could fly?’
‘Hey! No cool stories before I get back in there!’ Toby calls out from the kitchen.
‘Don’t worry about Toby,’ I whisper to Erica, my face close to hers. ‘I was really worried about telling him, and I tried not to for as long as possible. But there comes a point when you’re both kidnapped and tied up by crazy people with superpowers where you just have to tell the truth. And he’s being really cool about it. I thought he’d go totally fanboy crazy or something, but to be honest, I think I’d be having a complete nervous breakdown if he wasn’t here with me. Plus I’d never have escaped by myself.’
‘It’s cool,’ Erica manages to mutter. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine, we’re both fine. We have that guy Dozer knocked out and tied up in the living room, and I guess that Jay will be back here pretty soon, but what we really need is for you to defrost and get your strength back so that we can get ourselves out of here.’
‘I’m sorry …’
‘Don’t be sorry.’ I think I might start crying. ‘We’ll talk about everything later. Right now, just get yourself warmed up.’
‘OK, I’m back!’ Toby reaches over the bath with the kettle and starts work on Erica’s legs. ‘Now tell me all your awesome superhero stories, please!’
I look from Toby’s face, eager and alert and desperate to help, down to Erica’s, with her eyes closed, lips still trembling from the cold. I’m worried that we’re not working quickly enough.
‘So you were staying over at my house,’ I start, praying that telling this story will coax some life and energy into her, ‘and I woke up sweating, with my pyjamas sticking to my skin. It was so hot you would have thought that it was the height of summer, but it wasn’t. It was February – last year – and it was freezing outside. It was two in the morning, and I knew that it must have been you causing the heat, but you hadn’t had a flush like that in ages. I was scared that you’d set fire to my bedroom. Mum had set up the camp bed and positioned it at the end of mine, but it was quite low so I shouldn’t have been able to see you. Nonetheless, there you were, lying down and fast asleep, right in my eye line. I rubbed my eyes. I thought I might still be asleep and dreaming, or that I had confused some
shadows because it was dark. But I went closer, and finally realised that you were levitating. I thought you were possessed, because you were obsessed with horror films at the time and had made me watch loads of them with you. I couldn’t believe it.’
‘You were flying in your sleep?’ Toby asks, eyes and mouth agog with wonder.
‘I had no idea I was doing it,’ Erica mumbles, clarifying.
‘I didn’t know whether I should wake you up,’ I continue. ‘I wanted to, but it might have caused you harm, like how you’re not meant to wake up sleepwalkers. Besides which, the closer I got, the more I was blasted by that heat. Finally I worked up the resolve to get close enough to touch you, but you were too hot. I could barely poke you without burning myself. So I found a knitting needle and poked you until you yelped and crashed back down on the bed. I told you that you’d been flying, and you didn’t believe me, even though you had been dreaming about it for ages. And then you wouldn’t go back to sleep because you were so desperate to try the flying out. You wanted to sneak out of my house and go down to the park right there and then, but I wouldn’t let you.’
‘So when did you actually figure out how to make the flying work?’ Toby asks.
‘You weren’t there for that,’ Erica tells me. I try to get her to hush, but it’s obvious that she wants to tell the rest of the story herself. ‘Every time we tried to make the flying happen, it wouldn’t. Like the more we tried, the more impossible it seemed. And then one day, like a completely shallow doofus, I tripped while checking my reflection in a shop window.’
‘You admit you were looking now?’ I turn to Toby. ‘She used to swear that she wasn’t being vain!’
‘Whatever. I’m over it. I tripped and was about to land flat on my face, when I just stopped. And I could feel it in my tummy, this pressure that was holding me just inches from the ground, and I knew I could do it.’
‘But then she had to actually let herself fall, so nobody would know that anything strange or unusual was going on,’ I finish.
We laugh, the three of us, and for a moment it feels easy, like this is totally how things are meant to be and Toby was involved all along.
‘So how long have you guys been looking after each other? With all the superpower stuff, I mean?’ Toby asks. He sees us exchange a look and quickly adds, ‘You don’t have to tell me. You really don’t. I mean, you must have been keeping the secret for ages and I don’t expect to be automatically included, even though I basically am now, but still.’
‘It’s OK,’ Erica says, her voice clearer now that her breathing is easier. ‘I mean, I’ll kill you with my bare flaming hands if you tell anyone, but it’s OK, really.’
‘How about we fill you in on everything later?’ I say to Toby. He nods in agreement before I turn back to Erica. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘I can feel my feet and wiggle my toes,’ she replies.
‘Do you think you could get out of the bath? I think moving around would really help,’ Toby suggests. I feel this strange gush of pride that he’s my friend and he’s being so cool with all of this.
Each of us taking one of her freshly thawed hands, we ease Erica out of the tub. She doesn’t seem to quite be able to support her own weight, so Toby and I each wrap an arm around her and help her to Jay’s bedroom. We wrap her up in his duvet and then sit with her, waiting for her to let us know when she’s ready to move. I hope it’s soon. I just want to get out of this place as quickly as possible.
‘How are you feeling now?’ I ask her.
‘Better. Just … so cold. I can’t remember the last time I felt cold,’ Erica admits. ‘It’s Blizz. Short for Blizzard. She’s basically a snow queen. Also, she hates me. God, I can’t believe she actually froze me. She froze me!’
‘Couldn’t you stop her?’ Toby asks.
‘It was a surprise. I wasn’t expecting it. One minute I was arguing with Jay – about Louise actually – and then the next minute she’d come up behind me and had her hand on my shoulder and then everything went cold and dark. Oh my God – Jay. Where is he? What’s he doing?’
‘He went out with Blizz,’ I explain. ‘Erica, what the hell is going on with him?’
‘He’s a total psycho.’ Erica sighs. Then she turns directly to me and clasps my hands in hers. ‘I’m so, so sorry about him. I honestly had no idea. He’s meant to be one of them, except what I think was happening was that he was just grooming me for his master plan.’
‘And what is that exactly?’ I ask.
‘He wants a revolution. He wants the Vigils to forsake money and fame and glory-hunting and return everything to how it was years ago. Which sounds OK, except that he also hates everything about them. He’s really angry, and I think he wanted to use me like a bomb or something.’
‘A bomb?’ I think about what Erica told me before, about Jay calling her his little bombshell.
‘He thought he could convince me to go into the Strand and use my powers to blow the place up. Literally destroy everything there with my powers so that the London team would have to start all over again. When I went away last week I was so angry, and he seemed to be the only person who was listening to me, so I went along with his ideas. But then he started getting really weird, and I realised that instead of just talking about his crazy plan, that he was actually going to go through with it. I played along for a bit because I had no idea what else I was meant to do – he was starting to get scary – but then yesterday, when you called and he wouldn’t let me speak to you, it got even weirder. This morning, when I texted you, that’s what we were arguing about. He’d been trying to convince me to join his little gang, and then he went crazy when I finally stood up to him and said no. I can’t believe Blizz froze me solid to keep me here!’
‘It’s OK, we’ve got you now,’ I reassure her. ‘We’ll get out of here and we’ll go find the real Vigils and they’ll stop Jay. He hasn’t got a plan if he hasn’t got you.’
‘Do you think you’re ready to walk yet?’ Toby asks.
‘Maybe.’ Erica holds up one of her hands in front of her face, blotchy red with chilblains. She rubs her thumb and forefinger together, and I wait for the flame to come. It doesn’t. ‘Damn it,’ she curses.
‘It’ll come back. You just need to warm up some more,’ I say.
We hear a noise, and at first I presume it’s just the sound of the pipes after our epic hot-water session, but Erica looks concerned.
‘Is that Dozer?’ she asks.
‘We tied him up; he can’t go anywhere,’ Toby says. ‘But I’ll just go and check …’
‘God, I just feel so stupid about everything. Louise, I’m so sorry about the things I said. So, so sorry,’ Erica says once Toby has left.
‘Relax, it’s OK. We’ve been worried about you, and your mum is really worried, but we’ve found you now, and we’ll get you home and then the Vigils can sort this whole mess out. It’ll all be fine, don’t worry.’
‘I totally fell for it,’ Erica admits. ‘I thought he really liked me. When I think about how he managed to manipulate me, I’m just so embarrassed.’
At first I don’t notice that Toby hasn’t come back into the room. I’m so concerned with Erica, with keeping her warm (I’m rubbing her body over the duvet she has wrapped around her in an effort to get her blood pumping), that for the moment it’s pretty easy to forget about him. She repeats how sorry she is, and I keep telling her that it’s fine, until I realise how quiet the flat is.
‘Where’s Toby?’ Erica asks, picking her head up when she notices I’ve tensed up.
‘Shhh …’ I hiss, nervous. When I don’t hear anything, I call out his name. He doesn’t reply.
‘Could Dozer have got him?’ Erica whispers to me.
Then I hear it: the tentative creak of a floorboard, and no Toby appears. Footsteps, approaching slowly down the landing, and another set coming up the stairs.
‘Oh no,’ Erica murmurs as Jay appears in the doorway.
I was expecting Jay to
be angry. The fact that he’s not only makes the situation more fraught. He glides into his bedroom, hands behind his back, almost smiling. I wonder if this serene state is just masking a volcano of emotions bubbling under the surface. Will he erupt? And what’s going to set him off?
‘Please, let us go. I’m not going to help you with your plan. If you just let us go now and forget about everything, then I won’t tell anyone what’s been going on. Things can just go back to normal, like nothing has happened,’ Erica reasons.
‘You think it’s that easy to shut everything down? Things are in motion. Cogs are turning. The world is changing, and if you think I can just stop it, you are sorely mistaken,’ Jay replies.
‘Where’s Toby?’ I ask.
Jay indicates that we’re to follow him into the other room. Erica shucks off the duvet that’s wrapped around her and takes my hand in hers. I’m startled by the coolness of it.
Back in the living room, Dozer is positioned exactly as he was before: on the sofa, with his legs sprawled out in front of him, chuckling into his phone and using slang words I don’t recognise. His eyes are hidden behind his wraparound sunglasses, which is a relief, but also kind of unnerving because I can’t tell what he’s looking at. Toby is slumped at his feet, completely out of it, a gentle snore the only indication that he’s alive.
‘Hey, boss, check it!’ Dozer calls out, tilting his head towards Jay to indicate who he’s talking to. ‘It’s all working out!’
He grabs the remote control next to him, and while apparently still holding his conversation on the phone, turns the volume of the television up.
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