Vowed

by Liz de Jager

  Kyle picks up his phone, a soft sleek thing that looks as if it could do the dishes, the laundry and arrange for your house to be cleaned at the same time, and waves it at me. ‘You can always call him, you know. Keep him up to date with how things are going.’

  ‘When did he become my keeper?’ I counter. ‘He’s a friend, not a partner, or my minder.’

  ‘My dad didn’t want you to tackle this case by yourself, Kit. He said to keep Aiden close.’

  I push away from the table. ‘Look, I’m my own person, Kyle. I understand your dad’s worried about the Spook and the case, but I’m sure I can handle the rest of this. I don’t need Aiden to babysit me.’

  ‘You really have become such a brat,’ Kyle mutters as I stalk out of the kitchen. ‘You used to be my favourite!’ he calls after me as I climb the stairs to go and have a shower.

  The weather outside is one hundred per cent autumn, marching into winter. I choose a pair of skinny jeans, my modified calf-high Docs and various layers of long-sleeved T-shirts to keep me warm. With my leather jacket over this, I should be snug enough. I find a soft fabric scarf I’ve inherited from Megan and wrap that around my neck. I stuff my fingerless gloves into my pocket and slide my favourite knife into the sheath in my boot. I dither about the baton but decide that today I’m going to try not to get into any fights. I can barely move without wincing and I deserve a day of not being punched and stabbed. My knife will have to do. I suspect that Jamie would be a tiny bit disappointed in me but, you know, he’s not around so I’ll just have to cope.

  I take my time and put on a bit of foundation, sweep mascara over my lashes and some lippy too. I fiddle with the eyeliner a little and manage a thin line just above my lashes. I thank Megan silently for these lessons in girly things because today, after too little sleep and too much fretting, I need a pick-me-up.

  I stuff my notes and notebook into my messenger bag and head downstairs, just as Kyle opens the door to Dante.

  They both turn to look at me as I jump down the last few steps, momentarily forgetting about my bruised ribs. I wince and mutter under my breath and Kyle wordlessly hands me some ibuprofen from his back pocket.

  I take the blister pack from him and smile brightly at Dante, who is looking handsome and well put together in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and leather jacket. Going for the casual bad-boy look, complete with messy hair and stubble.

  ‘Hey, want to come in for a second? I just need to take some painkillers.’

  Dante nods and moves forward as Kyle dithers by the door. He spots the grocery bags Dante’s holding and frowns.

  ‘Looks like you brought groceries.’

  ‘I’m making you guys breakfast,’ he says. ‘Pancakes, bacon and maple syrup.’

  ‘Kyle’s already eaten,’ I point out spitefully, ignoring my surprise that he’s decided to make breakfast, rather than us going out somewhere to eat. ‘Cheerios.’

  There’s only a moment of hesitation from Kyle before he speaks. ‘Yeah, but Kit, the dude’s making pancakes. I mean, pancakes trump Cheerios any time of the day.’

  ‘True.’ I swallow two tablets and gesture to the clean kitchen. ‘This is where you can play,’ I tell Dante.

  ‘Cheers.’ He dumps his shopping on the counter and looks around. ‘I’ll need a mixing bowl, a sieve and two frying pans.’

  Kyle hands him the utensils and steps aside, his eyes huge.

  ‘Where did you learn to make pancakes?’ he asks.

  ‘My foster parents. They love baking and so it was the first thing they taught me: how to make pancakes and brew proper cowboy coffee. Really, I was forced into child labour so they could sleep in on Sundays.’

  ‘They sound nice,’ Kyle says, his tone wistful before he can catch himself. ‘Mostly our brownie, Mrs Evans, looked after us at the Manor.’

  ‘Kyle’s parents travel a lot,’ I put in. ‘They’ve been in New York most often lately.’

  Dante looks between us and smiles. ‘Look, I’m not here to pass judgement on your family. Or to ask questions about them – let’s be clear about that. I’m just here, as a friend, making you breakfast.’

  The doorbell rings again and Kyle pales slightly, shooting me a worried look. ‘I’ll just go and get that,’ he says weakly, practically running to answer the door.

  ‘Who?’ Dante asks me, nodding towards the empty passage.

  ‘I would guess it’s Aiden.’

  ‘Your not-boyfriend?’

  I grimace just as Kyle leads Aiden into the kitchen. Aiden’s dressed in his trademark black jeans and T-shirt and casual hoodie. I shiver from cold just looking at him but as usual he seems untouched by the weather. Behind him I see Kyle’s anxious expression and my heart softens towards him just a little bit. He knows he’s screwed up, inviting Aiden over without clearing it with me, and now we’re faced with two very large bristling males in our kitchen. The place isn’t small but it feels overcrowded with all of us there. Aiden’s doing that wolf-thing he does, when he looks taller than his six-foot-one and broader in the chest too. I’ve seen his dad do it in the past, dominating a room and everyone in it. When Aiden does it, it’s sexy and kinda cute, but when his dad does it, I just want to run and hide and pull a duvet over my head and wait for the growling and snarling to end.

  ‘Aiden, this is Dante Alexander. Dante, this is my friend Aiden.’ I stand between them and even as a bigger girl, as someone who can handle herself in a fight, I feel overwhelmed by the testosterone in the room.

  ‘I’m the not-boyfriend,’ Aiden says, his voice containing a definite growl.

  ‘I’m the partner,’ Dante answers not missing a beat, shaking Aiden’s offered hand briefly, as he openly assesses Aiden. ‘Are you staying for breakfast? I’m making pancakes.’

  A look of confusion crosses Aiden’s features and he looks at Kyle.

  ‘Sorry, he just showed up,’ Kyle says. ‘And he’s making pancakes. That’s pulling out the big guns, Aiden.’

  ‘He’s not lying. I really did force my way into the kitchen. Standard Spook protocol. Conquer those who doubt by cooking them a meal.’ Dante is so charming and looks so at home wearing the silly apron, which neither Kyle nor I ever wear, that I can’t help the chuckle that escapes me.

  ‘Aiden will stay, for sure. Pancakes are his favourite.’

  Aiden’s dark eyes meet mine and I plaster a smile on my face. ‘It’s fine, really. I’m fine, we’re fine. Everything’s okay.’

  ‘That’s not what Kyle said,’ he mutters, turning his back on Dante, effectively excluding him from the conversation and crowding into my personal space. ‘You got into a fight this morning, jogging?’

  ‘I did. But I’m okay.’

  Dante swears as he drops a spatula.

  ‘You were attacked this morning? What were you doing?’ His gaze meets mine over Aiden’s shoulder and I have the good grace to feel only slightly ashamed by the accusation I see on his face. ‘What happened? Are you hurt?’

  Three pairs of eyes regard me steadily. Dante’s expression looks annoyed and I try and shrug casually but it hurts me to do so I give half a shrug and most of a grimace.

  ‘The guy got a lucky shot at my ribs.’

  And then everyone gets to talk at once, except me. I look at their faces, hearing their voices raised at me and I consider just walking out of the door. Admittedly, a part of me likes the fuss, but another part feels angry at how much noise they are making over nothing. I’m fine; I took care of it. One of the attackers is now tucked away in a pookah larder, which isn’t the usual thing that happens to people who fight me. However, I’m not about to kick up a fuss and cry about it because it was me or him, and he had it coming.

  I watch all three of them trying to out-bellow the others and eventually it just gets tiring and I hold up my hands. Their voices peter out and Kyle looks as relieved as I feel, sagging against the fridge.

  ‘I will tell you what happened once I’ve got at least one pancake inside me, okay?’ When both Da
nte and Aiden open their mouths I hold up my hand. ‘No. Breakfast. Then I will tell you, then there will be no shouting because I dealt with it.’

  ‘Fine.’ Aiden turns his back on me and focuses on Dante, pursing his lips. His expression is so done with me. ‘So, Spook boy, do you need help?’

  Dante hands him the pack of bacon. ‘Fry that up, if you’d be so kind.’

  ‘Where’d you learn to cook?’

  ‘My foster parents.’

  ‘Huh, you’re adopted?’

  ‘Yeah. You?’

  ‘No, I’m the youngest of four brothers. You got siblings?’

  ‘A baby sister.’ There’s a beat. ‘But she died.’

  ‘Fuck. That sucks. Sorry to hear that.’ Aiden cuts open the packet, finds the tongs in the drawer (who even knew we had tongs?) before turning back to the pan. ‘My mum’s always said she wanted girls but that just never happened for my parents.’

  ‘Are you guys close?’

  ‘My dad and I are very close. My other brothers are all out of the house, working or studying at uni.’

  I roll my eyes at Kyle and he looks miserable. Who would have thought it? His plan had backfired badly. Instead of sworn enemies, Aiden and Dante are bonding over making us pancakes. Kyle holds his hand out to me and I grab it and we tiptoe out of the kitchen, back to the dining room.

  ‘That’s just weird,’ he says. ‘I thought Aiden would be like, you know, on our side or something.’

  ‘Your side,’ I point out to him. ‘Crappy move, by the way, bringing the wolf in. What would have happened if they’d really taken a dislike to one another? Aiden is fond of doing some very stupid stuff.’ Like getting into fights in nightclubs and then having to run from the cops.

  ‘How did I know you’d let the Spook come here to cook for you? Geez, it’s like you guys are dating or something.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘You shut up.’

  ‘I hate you.’

  ‘I hate you more.’

  We scowl at one another over the computer screens. Kyle ducks his head and starts tapping his keyboard loudly and angrily. ‘I’ve been looking at other disappearances, of kids going missing.’

  ‘Did you find anything?’

  ‘Ask a stupid question,’ he sighs. ‘There have been disappearances going back twenty years at least.’

  ‘At that estate?’

  ‘No, in the south of England. There are other disappearances too, obviously, but none quite like what we’ve seen reported recently.’

  Something that’s been nagging me, at the back of my mind, leaps forward.

  ‘Dammit, I forgot about Diane’s auntie’s scrapbooks.’

  ‘Who?’ Kyle asks me distractedly as he looks up from his screen.

  ‘Dante, do you have the scrapbooks with you?’ I yell out to be heard over the clatter in the kitchen.

  ‘Yes, in the boot. The keys.’ He steps around the corner and tosses them to me. I quickly run out to the car parked a few doors down. The boot’s a mess, I’ll be honest, but as I dig through the shirts and the large (and well-equipped) first-aid kit I spot the scrapbooks. When I lift them up I notice a batch of files beneath them. They’re all held together with a ribbon.

  My curiosity piqued, I lift them up and a sick feeling lodges in my stomach. There’s a memo clipped to the topmost file with the Spooks’ logo header. The issue date of the internal memo is five days ago. The subject is BLACKHART FAMILY – CURRENT INVESTIGATIONS. They are individual files on my family. All the files look well thumbed, with tabs sticking out of the side. Mine is on top and is the thinnest of them all. I double check the names on them. They are of my immediate family: Uncle Andrew, Aunt Jennifer, Megan, Marc, Kyle, Aunt Letitia and a few of the younger cousins that I don’t really know as they’re living abroad. There are also ones bearing my parents’ names: Samantha Blackhart and David Hoffman-Blackhart. These files are thick, at least an inch each, maybe more. My dad’s is the larger of the two, and I recall Jamie’s words, that he was a Spook before he met my mum. That they worked together and that’s how they fell in love.

  I consider stealing the files but there’s no way I can smuggle them into the house with everyone there, plus it would be super obvious that I’m the one who took them. I shiver in the cold, grab the scrapbooks and walk back to the flat, wondering how easy it would be to break into the back of Dante’s car.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Breakfast with a Spook, a wolf and two Blackharts turns out to be a noisy affair. As promised, I tell them what happened during my jog and Aiden and Dante posture for a bit about who will accompany me on my other jogs. Kyle looks super amused and I want to throw bacon at him but bacon is sacred so I stuff it in my mouth instead.

  ‘The pancakes are really good,’ Aiden grudgingly admits to Dante after a third large stack and gives him a hearty slap on the shoulder. ‘You may visit again. But no dating Kit.’

  Dante almost chokes on his food and laughingly holds up his hand.

  ‘No, it’s okay. I won’t be dating Kit, trust me.’ When he sees my look of hurt horror he clears his throat. ‘I mean, she’s too fierce for me.’

  ‘And young.’ Aiden glances my way as he says this and I feel murder in my heart.

  ‘What are you doing, Aiden?’ I hiss in annoyance. It’s hard to keep my voice level and I have to breathe deeply to keep my anger from lighting up the room. ‘Why are you being a pest? Are you trying to prove something to someone?’

  Aiden watches me from unreadable wolf’s eyes and I feel a twinge of fear crawl up my spine. I don’t like the way he’s gone very quiet, like I’ve seen him do just before a fight.

  ‘Prove? Nothing. I’m just making sure you look after yourself.’

  ‘By goading me? Insulting me?’ I lean forward. ‘I am not three years old. I’m not a giggly helpless girl either. I know how to look after myself.’

  ‘You know Andrew’s asked me to keep an eye on you, make sure that you don’t get into trouble.’

  I feel stung by his words and I take a deep breath.

  ‘You’re only a little bit older than me,’ I point out. ‘Why would he ask you to “keep an eye” on me? Is it because poor pathetic little Kit can’t do anything for herself?’

  Kyle and Dante look as if they want to run a mile, but, you know what? Having them there just makes me angrier still. Had they both just played by the rules and not interfered, this wouldn’t even be happening – the fight that I’m pretty sure I’m about to have with my best friend.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe Andrew thinks you’re prone to walking face-first into fights without thinking about your safety? That maybe you need back-up now and again, like a normal person does?’

  ‘No.’ I suck in a breath. ‘I don’t see anyone running after Marc or Jamie “making sure they’re okay”. I wonder if anyone’s keeping an eye on Megan whilst she’s in New York. No? Didn’t think so. What makes me the special case, then?’ I throw up my hands and stand. ‘You know, I think I’ll just phone Andrew and ask him what’s going on. Because really, with you being a such a complete di— . . .’ I growl in frustration. ‘Idiot, you’ve completely damaged my calm. I really don’t need this crap in my life.’

  ‘Kit!’

  Aiden’s standing and he looks almost contrite, but not quite. The way he hesitates sets all my alarm bells ringing.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My dad called me into a meeting this morning. You must know that Andrew’s passed the Glow case to the wolves. My dad’s having me and Shaun investigate it. The little girl in the coma? She died last night.’

  I draw in a shocked breath, taking it in. ‘That was . . . is . . . my case,’ I say. ‘That poor girl. Andrew gave you the case? So you guys are now working with us on this?’

  Aiden shakes his head. ‘No. Just us, no Blackharts this time.’ He doesn’t say, ‘no you this time’, but his meaning is clear. ‘We’re hitting the clubs tonight to see if we can get any further leads.’

 
I nod, feeling numb. With a last fake smile at them I leave the room, grabbing my jacket. I pull it on, followed by my fingerless gloves, then slam the front door shut behind me – hard enough for the windows to rattle.

  A startled crow caws at me and takes off as I stomp past where it sat chilling out on a fence post. I narrow my eyes against the light and watch it fly away, winging south, towards the City. The street isn’t busy, with the majority of office workers already on their way to work by Tube or bus. I wonder what day it is, then check my phone. Tomorrow our tutor, Lan, will be coming around for a few hours of hard grafting and I’ve not even finished the homework she set me the week before. I can’t remember anything about the treaties signed between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts during the Frontier’s War of the Roses.

  I sigh, unable to feel remotely interested in history, treaties or anything. Instead I’m just feeling wiped out, miserable and annoyed at Uncle Andrew for handing the Garretts the Glow case. I mull this over, pulling my collar up and shoving my hands into my pockets, because guess who stormed out without her scarf? I feel awful for the little girl, Emma, who’s died. Her poor family must feel utterly devastated after what they’ve been through. She’s been in a coma for a month and her older sister was a wreck when they realized the Glow had come from the leftover ampoules in her purse.

  I keep on walking until I no longer see bright spots in front of my eyes, my anger and mixed-up feelings of betrayal dissipating in the cold air. Then I’m ready to pull out my phone and call Uncle Andrew. And I really don’t care that it’s the middle of the night in New York.

  The phone rings twice before he answers.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asks without preamble. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Do you think I’m incapable of looking after myself?’

  There’s a moment of shocked silence before he sighs. ‘You’ve spoken to Aiden, I take it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And he’s told you . . . ?’

  ‘That the Garretts have now taken control of the Glow thing. I thought you were going to pass it on to someone else in the family.’