Different

by Tony Butler

  He glanced at her in concern. “You laid them all out, Jay. Six of them and you’re just a sevenstone girl, and then there’s that light that came out of your hands. What the hell’s going on, Jay?”

  “I don’t really know, but let’s get away from here before the police find us and I’ll tell you about it. I need to talk to someone. Do you think I’ll be in real trouble for hurting those boys, David?”

  “I hope not. But those guys know who I am and they’ll tell the police for sure.”

  “Oh no! You’ll have to tell them who I am.” Jay could almost feel herself being cuffed and placed in the back of a police car.

  “No, I was on a blind date,” David said, and winked at her. “I’ve never seen you before in my life.” He pulled her into a doorway as a police car with its blue lights flashing sped past the passageway. “Let’s go,” he said. “They’ll be looking for us soon.”

  “Look, why don’t we just circle around and go to McDonalds like we planned? They’ll never think of looking for us in there and we can talk. Besides, I really need to wash my…” She broke off and stared at her right hand in shock. The knife wound was gone! She didn’t even have a scratch.

  “Your hand—it’s better!” David took her wrist and used the fingers from his free hand to run them lightly over her newly healed palm. “That’s a miracle!” He looked her in the eye. “I don’t know what’s happened to you, Jay, but you’re something special now. Come on, let’s get you out of here and you can tell me about it.” Still holding her hand, he led her quickly around the corner and toward the burger bar.

  But the powers had returned, stronger than ever. Jay now felt more isolated and different from everyone else than ever.

  Chapter Five

  Detective Inspector Rebecca Carlyle watched the town’s high street incident some two hours after the actual event on a recording taken from a town centre security camera.

  “Well, what do you lot make of it?” she asked the officers who were crammed into the small briefing room.

  “She’s moving so fast that it’s hard to get much of an idea of what she looks like,” DS

  Thompson said. “Even when she stopped and sent that blue light over the two men, we didn’t get too good a picture because she was in shadows. Mind you, it shouldn’t be too hard to find her, not with that knife wound in her hand. She’ll have to get it fixed up.”

  “No, I don’t think so. Not if she can heal herself like she did the two men,” Rebecca said. “Is the car still outside the Jones boy’s house?”

  “Yes. They’ll bring him in for questioning when he turns up.” Thompson shrugged. “But we haven’t got anything on him, have we?”

  Rebecca shook her head. “No, he was out of it, but he’ll be able to tell us the name of the girl.”

  She knew that everyone in the room was pre-occupied with thinking about what had happened. Whoever the girl was, she was different to anyone they’d ever come across before, and although she’d healed the boy who’d gone through the window, the girl could still prove dangerous if cornered. She rose to her feet and made her decision. “When we find out who she is, I’ll talk to her myself. I don’t think she really meant to hurt anyone. She was just trying to stop them hurting Jones. She even helped the boy who went through the window. So, I don’t want anyone approaching her except me. If she does turn violent, then you can take an appropriate course of action.”

  “What about the press, Guv?” Thompson asked. “When they get wind of this, they’re going to tie in tonight’s incident with the one on Friday.” He shrugged. “Well, you don’t get that many patients covered in light around here. We’re going to be inundated with reporters and TV crews again.”

  “Tell me about it,” she said. “Right you lot,” she said to the rest of her team. “I want statements from the witnesses to the car accident on Friday and try and find someone who may have witnessed tonight’s incident.”

  “Shaun.” She turned to DS Thompson. “You and I will go to the hospital and have a word with those boys.”

  “They’ll probably want to sue the girl,” Shaun said. “Are we going to charge her with GBH?”

  “After seeing the way they were beating up Jones and as they were carrying a knife, I think I can persuade them against making a complaint, don’t you?”

  Thompson grinned and held the door of the office open for her. “Perhaps we ought to sign her up,” he said.

  * * * *

  Jay and David decided to go for curry instead of McDonald’s and, as it wasn’t yet nine-o-clock, the restaurant was quiet. They chose a corner table and as they waited for their order to be served, Jay told him almost everything. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him her mother had laid an egg, or of her secret and innermost dread that she may have actually hatched from one and so wasn’t really human. Instead, she told them that her parents had been kidnapped as infants and subjected to some kind of fiendish genetic experiments. Experiments that must be responsible for her newly acquired strength and healing powers.

  “Perhaps you ought to go the police,” David said. “Get them to search that place where your grandmother saw you.”

  “I can’t. I’d get them into trouble and besides, what if that American found out about me? He’d come after me or my grandparents for sure.”

  “Hmm, I suppose you’re right, but what are you going to do?”

  “Keep my head down and wait and see what happens when Granddad removes his hypnotic block tomorrow.”

  “You can spend the night at my place, if you like. My bedsit’s a bit small but I can always kip on the settee.”

  “Thanks, but no. I’d better go home and tell them what happened, before they find out from someone else.”

  * * * *

  Ben Nesbitt liked a drink and, like most streetwise journalists, he’d booked hotel rooms for himself and his cameraman rather than driving straight back to town, risking being stopped. He was nowhere near pissed, but then you didn’t have to be to fail a breathalyser test as a few of his colleagues had found out to their cost.

  He raised his glass in a silent toast to his colleague and cameraman, who was in fact a woman, and she responded in kind. Only a fool or someone with a death wish would, however, refer to Cassie Harper as a camerawoman. She’d fought her way up the ladder of national TV journalism and would be damned in hell before she let some politically correct non-entity rob her of her title. Cassie was a cameraman, full stop. She was also young, extremely attractive and way out of his league. It was perhaps because he’d been able to accept that he’d no chance with her that they’d become friends, good friends. Ben was content to settle for that.

  “Well, there doesn’t seem much point in hanging around here any longer,” he said, gesturing around the bar with his glass. “We’ll head back to the office in the morning.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” Cassie agreed. Her blonde hair was, as usual, tied back with a bandana. In her line of work she couldn’t risk losing a shot just because her hair had flopped over the lens of her camera. “At least the story we submitted made the front page and we’ve got enough material to do a follow up,” she said. “I have two or three shots of Doctor Newman, and he came across well.”

  Ben’s mobile rang and he pulled it from his pocket. “Hello, Ben Nesbit.”

  “It’s PC Brown, Mr Nesbit. We’ve got a lad covered in that blue light in hospital. It’s happened again!”

  “Thanks, Pete, we’re on our way. We’ll be about fifteen minutes or so. If you meet us on the car park, I’ll give you some cash for a drink.”

  “I think you should forget the hospital and meet me on the car park of the Green Man instead. What I’ve got for you is worth a couple of hundred at least.”

  Ben tensed expectantly and tried to keep his rising excitement out of his voice. An exclusive would be worth a bloody fortune. “That depends on what you’ve got, Pete.”

  “I know who the girl is.”

  “The girl?”

 
“Yes, the girl who healed them,” Pete said, as though he thought that Ben ought to know what girl he was talking about. “She put her hands on the boy who fell through the shop window and that blue light shot out of her hands and covered him. You can’t tell who she is from the security cameras, but I know. She goes to the same school as my boy. I know her. And I also know where she lives. The DI knows the name of the boy the girl’s with, but he hasn’t gone home yet, so you’d have a head start on everyone else.”

  “Okay, it’s a deal. How do we get to the pub?”

  The Green Man sat on the outskirts of the town and, when Ben and Cassie entered the bar, Ben spotted the policeman who was wearing an anorak over his uniform, sitting at a table in the corner. After ordering a non-alcoholic drink for them both, despite the fact that Cassie was driving, they joined Pete Brown at his table.

  “This is Cassie, my cameraman,” Ben said, and slid an envelope over the table towards Pete who took it and, without checking the contents, slipped it into his pocket.

  “There’s two hundred, like we agreed, Pete,” Ben said. “Now tell us about the girl.”

  “Her name’s Jay Williams. She’s seventeen and lives with her grandparents.” Pete reached over the table and pressed a piece of paper into Ben’s hand. “That’s their address and directions on how to get there. The girl was with a boy when a gang attacked them. They had her boyfriend on the ground and were giving him a good kicking when suddenly the girl’s there. She threw one through a shop window and then…”

  Ben and Cassie listened in stunned silence as Pete finished his account of the fight and the aftermath. Then, standing, he drained his pint. “I’d better get back to the nick before I’m missed.” He smiled at Cassie. “Perhaps I’ll see you around,” he said, hopefully. Cassie returned his smile. “You might, Pete. It’s been nice meeting you.”

  He hesitated as though about to ask her outright for a date but then thought better of it and turned on his heel and left.

  Cassie stared in the direction in which he’d gone and shook her head. “Bloody married men,”

  she said. “They’re all the same. Always after a bit on the side.”

  Ben, who’d started to unfold the piece of paper, stared at her in surprise. It wasn’t like her to be bitter. Normally, she’d have simply dismissed a man like Pete from her mind.

  “Are you alright?” he asked.

  Cassie turned to face him and sighed. “Graham and I have split up,” she said. “He wanted me to stop taking the pill and get pregnant. Said that I ought to get a job on a local rag and settle down. We’ve been arguing about it for ages on and off, but a couple of months ago he gave me an ultimatum, either I let him put a baby in my belly or he’d move out. When I phoned the flat last night to tell him we were staying over, he told me that he’d be gone by this morning. He’s moving in with his secretary. Apparently, she’s been consoling him recently while I’ve been away on our assignments, and now she’s six weeks pregnant by him.”

  Ben reached over and squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry, Cassie. You deserve better than that. Look, if you want to get back and sort things out—”

  “No,” she said firmly. “I love my job, more than anything. More than Graham, I suppose. Perhaps he sensed it. I don’t know. Anyway, talking of jobs, what’s the girl’s address?”

  “Fifteen Poplar Road,” Ben said, studying the piece of paper. “And according to this, it’s only a few minutes drive away.”

  Cassie drained her orange and was up on her feet. “I’ve got all my equipment in the car,” she said. “But if this story turns out to be as big as you think it is, we’ll need a full crew out here.”

  “Yes, but let’s go and talk to the grandparents before we make a decision. It’s nine-fifty now, so with a bit of luck, we might just have something for the eleven-o-clock news.”

  The man who answered the door to them looked to be in his late sixties and, when he saw Cassie standing behind Ben and holding her video camera, he started to shut the door in their faces. Ben shot out a hand stopping the door from closing. “Mr Williams,” he said urgently. “We know about Jay’s healing powers, and as soon as the police find out who she is, they’ll be here – alongside every national newspaper and TV journalist in the country. Talking to us might just prevent that, and I promise you that we won’t film or broadcast anything until we’ve edited it to your satisfaction.”

  “You’d better let them in, Tom.” The woman was about the same age as her husband and Ben thought she had a resigned look about her. Her next words confirmed it. “Someone was bound to find out about Jay sooner or later and perhaps it would be best to trust Mr Nesbit. I’ve seen you on television,” she explained. “Please, come on in.”

  Tom opened the door to admit them and then closed it. “We’ll go into the living room,” he said. The room was comfortably furnished and Mrs Williams gestured for them to take a seat. Ben sat on the sofa and Cassie, after carefully placing her camera on the floor, came and sat beside him. Tom stood next to his wife by the fire and she looked at them curiously.

  “Perhaps you’d best tell us why you’re here,” she said.

  Ben decided to be honest with them. “You’ll have heard about young Sophie Anderson who was involved in a road accident on Friday.”

  Tom nodded and then Ben saw the realisation in his eyes. “You think it was Jay who healed her and covered her in that blue light, or whatever it was?”

  “Yes. She did it again tonight,” Ben said, “and someone recognised her. His son goes to Jay’s school.”

  “I don’t understand,” Mrs Williams said. “Why would the police be interested in Jay healing people?”

  Ben explained about the fight and how Jay had helped both her boyfriend and the lad with the cuts from the glass. “It’s unlikely, in my opinion, but the police might want to press charges against her for GBH or assault.”

  “You can’t report any of this,” Tom said. He became agitated and started to pace around the room. Finally, he came over and gripped Ben’s arm. “Don’t you understand? If any of this gets out she’s going to become hounded by people wanting her to heal them or their loved ones. She’ll be presented as some kind of freak. It might make good television or newspaper headlines, but what will it do to her?”

  Ben looked the older man in the eye. “Cassie and I reached the same conclusion, but we’re reporters and it’s our job to report the news.” He held up a hand to stem Tom’s reply. “However, we’re as concerned about the affect of the story on Jay as you are, and this is what I think we should do. We do an anonymous interview with both of you and Jay in such a way that there’s no way anyone can identify your family. That way the story’s out in the open and if necessary we can take out a court injunction to stop any other news agency from identifying or harassing you or Jay.”

  “Can you do really do that?” There was a glimmer of hope in Tom’s eyes. It was Cassie who answered. “Once the story has been published, the other reporters can’t claim that releasing your details is in the public interest. The courts don’t take kindly to young girls being harassed. As for the fight, I think we could make a good case for self-defence, especially as one of them had a knife.”

  “But it has to be your decision,” Ben said. “Will you trust me and Cassie, or not?”

  Tom released Ben’s arms and turned to his wife. “I think we should, Anna. What about you?”

  Before she could answer, the door opened and a girl, who Ben guessed was Jay, walked in. She looked apprehensively at him and Cassie. “Who are you and what do you want?” she asked. Jay listened apprehensively as Ben explained why he and Cassie were there and when he’d finished, he turned to Tom.

  “Tom, you and Mrs Williams were about to make a decision whether or not to trust us. Now, we have to ask Jay the same question and we may not have much time. The other reporters will be tracing and talking to the eyewitnesses of both Friday’s and tonight’s incidents in an attempt to identify Jay, and identify her they wi
ll, eventually.”

  Ben’s mobile and the house phone both rang simultaneously. Tom picked up the house phone and Ben answered his mobile. Tom slammed down his phone and Ben spoke curtly into his and then got to his feet.

  “That was the press, wasn’t it, Tom? I’ve just had a call from the studio. Someone has tipped them off about Jay.”

  “They’ll be on their way,” Cassie said, grabbing her equipment. “I suggest that the three of you come with me and Ben. We’ll get out of town and book into a hotel while you decide what it is that you want to do.”

  Tom hesitated but his wife snatched up her handbag. “Come on, Tom,” she said. “Let’s go before they get here. It’s for the best, Jay.”

  “Don’t worry about not having time to pack anything,” Cassie said. “We’ll stop at an all night superstore and pick up anything you need.”

  Jay looked bewildered and upset but didn’t argue. “What’s going to happen to me?” she asked, as they all piled into Cassie’s car. “Why can’t I just be like everybody else?”

  Ben gently squeezed her arm in a reassuring gesture. “Why can’t you be like everyone else? My wife’s been asking me that for years.”

  His quip was greeted by laughter which broke the tension and Cassie sped away from the house.

  * * * *

  There was only one of the gang still detained in the hospital and all of the others had said that they didn’t want to make a complaint. The boy in the hospital denied that he’d been thrown through the shop window.

  “I tripped and fell,” he said, “and you can’t prove that I didn’t. I’ve never seen that girl before.”

  Rebecca could have told him about the film from the security camera but she didn’t. If he wanted to pretend it was an accident, that was fine by her. It would help to keep the crime figures down, and besides, for some reason—reasons she couldn’t quite understand—all her instincts were screaming at her to protect the girl.

  On the way back to their car Rebecca paused. “Hmm, I’ve been thinking, perhaps she had some kind of adrenalin rush. You know, like those women you hear about who’ve actually lifted up cars to free their kids.”