Running Shoes (The Shades of Northwood)

by Wendy Maddocks

  When the two large pizzas they had shared were boxes and crusts, and Jaye had gone to relieve Lainy at the hospital with Adam as her gallant escort, Katie locked the door behind them and went to the kitchen to retrieve the six pack of Red Bull. Someone had already nicked one. She was going to have to start labelling her stuff. The remaining five cans went upstairs to her room with her and Katie popped one open on the way. Living on caffeine, sugar and additives for the rest of her life was starting to sound like a viable option.

  As she neared her room, Katie made up her mind to try something. Maybe she could call Jack and get him to hold and protect her whilst she slept, the way he said he did. Maybe that was another lie. Maybe the man did something to her and Jack just made her forget it all.

  “This?” Leo was cross legged on his bed and looked up as Katie walked past. “This is your answer?”

  Katie, stopped with the can halfway to her mouth, frowned and finally saw that Leo was holding an empty sixth can. “Got another one? No? Then I guess this is it.” She made a cheers motion with her can and twisted away.

  “You’re giving up!” he called after her. “I didn’t think you’d do that again.”

  Katie paused, one hand on her door and listened to him, trying not to breathe too loudly and give herself away.

  “You’re in charge of what happens around you, Katie. Nobody else.”

  She pushed open the door and crumpled onto her bed, too wired to sleep, too tired to cry, too stressed to even call out for Jack. Yes, she needed him, ached to her core for him, but threw the idea out of her head the moment it appeared. If he felt her need, he would come. And what good could that do?

  She screwed her headphones into her ears and set her MP3 player to play all her rock tracks at ear bleeding levels. She popped the top on a second can of Red Bull, set it in front of her desk with a few sheets of paper and pens – she might as well write that long overdue letter to Nan while she could – and sat down to work. She guessed she was singing at full blast because she always did unless she remembered not to and let her mind wander as she wrote the page of idle chitchat, nothing she needed to think about. She needed to think of a plan to get out of her cage without getting killed. Why had she trapped herself in there? As ideas went, it was good in theory but with the pleasant addition of a whip that could slice flesh like hot butter, using mesh as protection seemed less than brilliant. Damn, why were more problems springing out than solutions? She could let herself out and start running – she could outlast him, but she doubted she could outspeed him. She could cower in her circle until he got bored and wandered off – only the man with hate in his eyes was more than a barking dog.

  Maybe your green eyed cowboy can save you.

  Katie had not seriously just thought that. Had she? Jack had caused all this trouble. The hateful man had killed him, let Katie watch as he did it then rounded on her.

  “What the hell do you mean, again?” Katie shouted, ripping her earphones out and dropping them to the floor. A solid thump on the wall answered her. “Oh, come on. This is not the time to be getting all righteous over words. I’ve heard you say things you shouldn’t up here. Grow up, Leo.”

  “Saying stuff doesn’t make it acceptable.”

  “For God’s sake… yeah, okay, but we all say stuff without really thinking. You call me bitch, I don’t like it but it doesn’t upset me.” Much. “They’re only words.”

  “Only? Like your cuts are only blood. Like this place is only killing us. Like you were only raped.”

  “Yeah, like that.” Katie took a gulp of her drink and slid her chair across the carpet to draw the curtains across her partly-boarded up window. No-one would be able to see through that sheet of plywood and she couldn’t see out but it felt a bit more like normality to do something just because. “Can we get over that now? There are more important things.” Oh God, so many of tem.

  “But it’s not over. It’s happening all the time.” The voice didn’t seem far away now, like it was being muffled by walls and air and furniture. It sounded right behind Katie and sure enough, there Leo was, leaning with his arms folded against her open door. “Why won’t you talk about it?”

  “There are more important things,” she said again.

  “My theory? Jack needs to come into this world by drawing living energy from the closest body. He’s been doing that to you, not asking permission, not giving you a choice, just taking what you have for his own benefit. You can’t tell me that’s not rape.”

  “It’s not like that.” Leo waggled his fingers in a come on gesture. “He does what he has to do to be with me.”

  “Including making you suffer.”

  “What do you think you’re playing at? Trying to blame Jack for all this… that’s low, even for you.”

  He shrugged. “When did this all start?”

  “About the time –“ - Jack started showing up. “He took my memories away without asking. He didn’t even think my memories might be important. Oh, God.”

  “Huh, guess you deserve that one,” he grumbled.

  “He only did it to protect me.” Why was she defending Jack? It wasn’t as if this whole protection thing had gone to plan. “He cares about me and wants to help me.”

  “Uh-huh.” He shifted position but didn’t try to take a step into her room, casually but exactly hovering on the carpet line between hers and the one in the landing. Katie had to give him some credit for at least staying out of her space if not her business. “I don’t think you want the case dropped or just to forget it ever happened. I think you want to find whoever did this to you and make him feel a hurt as long as it lasts for you. And then a bit longer. Just because he deserves it.”

  “Revenge? That’s not very Christian of you.”

  “This is what you want, not me.”

  “And what makes you such an expert on my mind?”

  “I see you flinch every time one of us gets within touching distance wondering if he’s going to hurt you that way. People don’t do that when they’re over things.”

  “Fine, I haven’t let go of it.” And she wasn’t planning to. “I want some-one to pay for what they did but it has to wait.”

  “Don’t think it’s ever okay, Katie.” Leo looked away for a second, cleared his throat and kicked his heels against the edge of the door. It looked as though he was thinking about something. The boy thought. You learn something new every day. “You sort of floated away earlier. Explain.”

  “Points for asking politely.” No-one said a word for a while. Leo just kept drumming his heels on the door. It was a horribly familiar beat. “Stop doing that.”

  “You mean this?” He brought his foot down harder, a louder rhythm.

  “I hate you so much.” For a young man nearing the end of his teens, Leo was surprisingly juvenile in some of his behaviour. Katie knew, though, that she would do exactly the same thing if she hit on something that annoyed the crap out of him. She just wouldn’t be so obvious. A grin crept onto her face – one of actual amusement and, even though it felt tiny and strange, it was something of an achievement. For a few seconds Katie felt as if she was relaxing.

  “You’re going running? Now?”

  Katie paused in the act of strapping her trainers on and reached under her desk for her rucksack with gym clothes in. “It’s only just gone eight. Still an hour of light.” Well, an hour of not-night anyway. “When I’m busy and active, I‘m fine. But the minute I sit down, I’ll fall asleep. We both know that’s a bad idea.”

  “You don’t have to sleep for him to find you. And you don’t have to bleed for him to hurt you.”

  “I’m only going to the track. I’ll be fine.” Pounding the streets sounded much better. She could vent her frustration much more easily and quickly on hard gravel than on a springy red circle. But the professional ground drew her to it, promising glory and passion and races she would never forg
et.

  Laces tied in rough but loose knots and a Velcro bar stuck over the topp, Katie shouldered her bag and walked up to him. Leo thrust an arm out, blocking her exit.

  “You don’t have to let him.”

  She stood on tiptoe to give herself the extra inch she needed to meet his gaze. “Forget I ever told you anything. I never asked for your help. Things were simpler when I didn’t like you and you didn’t like me. Don’t pretend you care.”

  “You’re right. I don’t care one way or the other. But if this can happen to you, then it can happen to me too.”

  “Ooh, let’s trade places… see if I really wanna stick around.”

  “You need to tell me what’s going on.”

  “Going out.” Katie batted his arm out of her way and shot him the middle finger.

  She had no idea what she was going to do once she got outside. No plan. Now she was getting to know her way around, Katie knew it wouldn’t take long to get to the deserted sports stadium in the north of the town. So she did a 180 and headed downtown instead.

  The streets weren’t as busy as in the daytime but couples wandered around on dates, teenagers loitered on corners, older people came out of random shops – no laws on opening time and no worries about conducting their business in the growing dark. So much life down here. So much life and so much energy. Not the pulsing mass she’d felt on the waste ground like a heavy storm cloud just waiting to burst but more like a million tiny purple-black threads. They were barely there on their own but together they were strong and unbreakable and untested. Katie spread her fingers by her shoulder straps, wanting to feel all that energy tickle her skin. Once or twice, an invisible strand touched her. They mostly missed her. It’s not meant for you. Not yet. Then she stopped walking, stopped trying to reach for dark threads, and stared up at the night sky. A gang of students - they looked a few years older than her – crossed the road to her right and filed down an unmarked street towards the buzz of conversation. A red-haired boy turned an assessing look her way a few yards down the road. It felt like she was being inspected for damaged parts. Well, there were certainly enough of those. Fumbling her new student ID card from her wallet, Katie flipped the lock on the door to her left the way Jaye had shown her and shut herself in the cavernous building. “Hello?” It echoed around. The place was as empty as when she, Jaye and Dina had staged their little break and enter last week. Only that wasn’t entirely true. Some-one had tidied up and filled the pool.

  Katie had really only come in to the college pool to get away from all the staring eyes. All those silent questions were burning her up. She breathed in deeply – the cool, slightly chlorinated air instantly making everything easier. It was dark. It was quiet. It was the closest thing to Paradise she had seen in a long while. The water was just there though. Just begging to be splashed in. mind made up, Katie headed for the lifeguards office to steal a t-shirt and a towel, stashing her clothes and bag in the corner. Swimming fully clothed was a stupid idea and skinny dipping, even alone, brought out the goose pimples.

  In this dark building, the water seemed as black as oil. It shone in slices where the moonlight caught it. No breeze shifted through the air but the water seemed anything but still. And, just for tonight, it was hers. The diving platforms looked inviting and, before she knew what she was doing, Katie clambered onto the five metre, bounced to the edge and-

  And then she was falling. Time slowed to a crawl but the water’ looking solid and sharp, rushed up at her forever.

  Falling, floating, flying, whatever people wanted to call this sensation of cutting a hole through the world, Katie didn’t want any more of it. Not tonight. She gulped in a last lungful of oxygen and crunched her eyes against the water inches from her face and crashed down.

  The pool sucked Katie down like wet cement. She blew her cheeks out and waited for the bottom so she could push herself back up. When her lungs were just starting to ache, she wondered vaguely why she hadn’t bothered to check how deep it was. The thought was funny in its now pointlessness and Katie began to giggle. Only the stinging in her throat as her lungs began to take on chemical water instead of oxygen stopped her. She commanded her left arm to reach up and try to break the surface. She floundered then gave up. Pain was exploding in her head, deadening her right arm, threatening to make her lungs collapse in on themselves. It was so much easier to let go of everything. No more warring instincts – one telling her she had to breathe, shrieking at her to keep her lungs inflated; the other shouting not to let any more of this foul liquid in. She had been lying in the water, eyes closed, muscles heavy, brain disconnected, for hours. Why had no-one come for her yet?

  Maybe this is how it’s meant to happen.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN