by Paul Kane
Rachael thought about telling her what Tom had said, that they were in danger—but it would only have made things worse. “He says it’s important,” she told her mother, who just sighed.
“I’ll come with you, then!”
“No, Mum.” Rachael had placed a hand on the silver-haired woman’s shoulder and looked her in the eye. It was still a constant battle with her, but she’d won more than she’d lost over the years—and her mother knew from experience when not to push it. “I’ll see what he’s got to say and be back before you know it.”
In the end, she’d had to let her daughter go. What choice did she have, save keep her prisoner in that flat and guard the door?
So she’d got dressed, leggings and a jumper this time along with her coat and scarf—doing as her mother instructed, wrapping up warm—and then, as she was leaving, Rachael made her mum promise to keep the door locked and not open up to anyone but her. She looked puzzled and Rachael thought she was going to ask why, but then the woman nodded; no doubt thinking that the warnings about the city, the world, were being taken notice of. If only Rachael didn’t have to go out.
Just for a little while, though, then she’d be back—she promised. If nothing else, she wanted to know what Tom was talking about. In danger? How? Why? Actually, that wasn’t strictly true—she wanted to know, but she didn’t. Could wait a lifetime to find out, really. But still she’d met him. Wanted to see him again, anyway, in spite of what he might have to say. Had felt ... what, bereft? at the thought that morning she might never see him again.
So her heart was beating faster than it ever had in her life when she entered that place. Rachael looked around for him, saw him sitting sideways on—wearing a combination of previous outfits, denim jeans and leather jacket. That actually worked, she thought to herself, heart fluttering now as she approached. He was staring not at the door, waiting for her to appear, but at the mirror opposite him—and he smiled when he caught her reflection in it, stood and turned towards her.
“Rachael,” he said, in that smooth voice of his, as smooth as the coffee he already had waiting for her. “How are you feeling?”
She gave a tip of the head. “Better, thanks. And thanks for getting me home ... I’m really sorry I ...” Rachael didn’t know quite what to say.
Tom shook his head. “Forget about it.” He offered her a seat across the table from him, and she turned her back on the mirror.
Rachael thanked him, and then thanked him a final time for the drink—which she took a sip of straight away as she sat down. She’d only been up a couple of hours, but was starting to flag again. Bones cracking, getting tired so quickly ... Rachael was beginning to wonder just what the hell was wrong with her these days.
“Rachael, I’m sorry if I scared you this morning. But, well, you should be scared.”
“Tom, look ... I can’t be long. My mother—”
He held up a hand, cutting her off. “You need to get out of town. Both you and your mother. The sooner the better, actually. I wasn’t kidding when I said you were in terrible danger.”
She hadn’t thought that he was; why would anyone kid about something like that?
“Every second longer that you spend here ... Even sitting here with me ...” He sighed. “You heard about what happened last night, I’m guessing. At that club?”
“Who hasn’t?” she replied, looking him in the eye and taking a gulp of the coffee; relishing the caffeine hit it was giving her.
“Right. Well, a couple of my people—my team—were there.”
“God,” said Rachael. Then: “You have a team?”
Tom nodded. “One of them was injured. Hurt real bad, Rachael.”
She put a hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry ... But I don’t understand. What’s this got to do with me, with my mother?”
“You’ve met the ... person,” that word seemed like a hair on Tom’s tongue he was trying to spit out, “who was responsible, Rachael.”
“I’ve met ...”
“It was Will, Rachael,” he told her flatly. “The guy from last Friday night. The one who got into the scuffle with Mike, your ex.”
“What?”
“I know this all sounds a bit weird, but trust me he—”
“So that’s why you were there, you were tailing the guy?”
“Something like that,” Tom told her.
“But how could he have been ...”
“Rachael,” he said again, holding his hand up once more. “I think he might have developed some kind of fixation on you. They ... he does that.”
They? What was Tom talking about? There were more than one of these guys? “Fixation?” she repeated.
“Doesn’t usually hang around if there’s any trouble, but it ... he is doing this time. There must be a reason for that. It’s why you need to get away. Why I need to get you and your mum to safety, out of this city.”
Her turn to shake her head. She couldn’t just leave—although her mother would probably be quite happy about that. The chance to get her back home, to take her back and keep her there. It was what she’d wanted for a long, long time.
“‘Any trouble’, you just said. You mean last night?”
Tom leaned forward, fixing her with his gaze. “What really happened last Saturday night, Rachael? With that gang, with Miss Brindle? With you?”
Her eyes were growing so heavy. Rachael greedily gulped down more of the coffee, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “I ... I told you, I don’t remember.”
“You mentioned a dog to the authorities. A big dog.”
Rachael was staring at Tom, staring right through him. Was hearing him, but not really taking it in.
“There was a ... big dog there last night as well, Rachael. Tell me what happened, I need to know.”
Now everything was in slow motion, Tom’s words slowing down and being repeated, the smoothness of his voice being stretched out with each word:
“I...neeeeed....ttttoooooo....kknnnoooowwww....”
Rachael stood, feeling woozy again, just as she had last night in the restaurant—whatever food poisoning had got her was returning with a vengeance. She thought she was going to throw up there and then on the table, but instead she hung on to it. She was aware of Tom rising, trying to help her, but she was knocking his hands away, staggering through the coffee shop, banging into another table and upturning it.
“Hey!” she heard one of the women at the table cry, Tom mumbling something to try and placate her.
Then Rachael was stumbling forward out of the place itself, holding on to the door jamb. Out on the street, her vision tunnelling, funnelling. Eyelids drooping but she knew she had to flee.
Get away, get away Red!
Rachael began to run, through the streets (through the forest). She heard her name being called out behind her, but couldn’t stop. She had to get away, get to safety. She wasn’t ready to confront the thing (the creature that was chasing her), not yet.
Things were catching up.
Had to get away, hide. Get to the cottage ...
“Rachael ... Rachael!”
“Red! RED!”
A voice from behind her that she had to ignore, a voice that should have made her feel safe (that she owed), but she needed to get away from. Someone who was trying to make her confront something she didn’t want to.
She was running, legs pumping regardless of how she felt—how tired, how totally fucked—taking her through the streets, concrete passing by, buildings, alleyways (trees, greenery).
Rachael skidded sideways, entering one of the alleys. Her bones were cracking again with the wear and tear, her body felt ... strange. Like it wasn’t hers.
What really happened?
Tell me!
Tell me about when you were eaten ...
Everything going red, then maroon.
Then terrifyingly black.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Fuck!”
Zoë threw the screwdriver across the office, banging her fist on the desk, tears blurring her vision. Damn thing, she’d almost had it that time. It just wasn’t fair! She was aware of a figure off to one side, and she blinked the tears away to see Duncan had returned from attending to Craddock. He was standing there with an awkward smile on his face, screwdriver in his hand. Zoë paused the track she’d been listening to on her phone, pulling out her earphones and pushing the mobile away.
“I think you dropped this,” he said.
“Thanks,” she replied, lifting up her spare pair of glasses and wiping away the wetness.
“Look, why don’t you take a break?” Duncan suggested. “It’s been a long night. A long day.”
She shook her head. If she stopped what she was doing now, she really would fall to pieces. Would start to think about the aftermath of the club, finding the body out back ... bodies, really. One of them, Craddock—who’d had a chunk taken out of his neck and his belly slashed open. She’d gone to fetch the jeep and bundled him inside as fast as she could, got him back to base to try and stabilise him, or at least give him something for the pain. And all the time he’d been mumbling about some girl, asking whether he’d bought her enough time to get away, asking whether she was all right.
Zoë had said nothing. It was pretty obvious that the person he was talking about was the corpse she’d mistaken for Craddock when she first saw it—poor wretch.
Craddock himself had been more or less out of it ever since: hooked up to an IV out there in the warehouse. Probably for the best that he didn’t really know what was going on, because she wasn’t entirely sure he was going to make it. She’d done her best, Hunter and Duncan had both told her what a good job she’d done, but she had only a rudimentary knowledge of first aid and medicine. Craddock, ironically, had been the one who’d always fixed up any injuries—had been trained by the military to work on wounds under fire. Of course, she also knew that part of his knowledge of anatomy was because it made him a more effective killer, but that was by the by. In any event, only time would tell now whether he came back to them—and what state he would be in if he did, mentally and physically.
She knew some of what he’d been through abroad, especially after he’d been taken captive by the enemy (sometimes he’d wake up screaming in the night, though to be fair that might just have been to do with the kind of work he did now—enough to give anyone nightmares!), but this was different. They all knew the sort of damage those things could do to you, on the outside and the inside.
It was then that she’d turned her attentions to her broken detector, something she did know about. Something she could, in theory at least, fix. But even that was beyond her apparently, not that it had worked all that great out in the field to begin with. She took the screwdriver from Duncan now, turning back to the piece of equipment in front of her.
“How about I make you a drink then? Tea, coffee?”
She shook her head. “I’m fine thanks. I just need to ...” The hand holding the screwdriver was shaking. She closed her eyes again, squeezing more tears out. By the time she’d opened them again, Duncan’s hand was on hers, steadying it.
Okay, she thought. This is new.
Maybe that’s all he was doing, steadying her grip, trying to help her with this last little bit. It was pretty much there, she’d been working on it for hours now and—
He was looking at her, bending down. “Zoë?” She opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out, so she just nodded instead. Duncan looked just as uncomfortable, glancing over his shoulder first, looking around as if expecting someone to come in—Hunter, back from warning that Rachael girl about how much trouble she was in, perhaps?
Waiting for Hunter to come in and save him, probably, before he made a fool of himself.
No, Duncan, she said to herself, you won’t be making a fool of yourself at all!
He focussed on her again now, gaze flitting around her face like a butterfly that was frightened to settle. “When ...” He coughed, mouth clearly dry.
“Yes?” she asked, finding her voice again, anxious to know what he was about to say.
“When I heard about what had happened last night. How close you came to ... And, when I saw what had happened to Craddock ...”
“Yes?” she repeated, realising that her hand was shaking again—but only because Duncan’s was.
“I started to think about ...” Duncan’s turn to close his eyes, shaking his head. “I don’t even like thinking about it now.” They were open again, looking straight at her. “I’m not sure what I’d do without you, y’know? If you were—”
“Sshh,” she said, turning towards him, reducing the gap between them. Making it easier for him to ...
Then it was happening. Duncan was bending, leaning in, planting a tender kiss: soft and shy. He was just as much a novice at this kind of thing as her, but that was one of the things she ... go on, say it ... one of the things she loved about him.
And she knew he felt it too, knew how he felt about her. That was the stupidest thing, all this time they’d spent together, on the road, staying in crappy hotels, and they’d never even—
Sometimes she thought she was going mad. Even the other guys could see it, made jokes about it.
Craddock. Don’t think about that now, don’t let anything spoil this moment. It’s what you’ve been waiting for such a long time. Since he reached down his hand to you, in fact. Your knight in shining armour, your prince.
Stop thinking. You shouldn’t be thinking, you should be enjoying this. Should be ...
Zoë rose, their lips still pressed together, her glasses steaming up and going sideways on her face, but she didn’t care. Now that he’d given her permission, now that he’d got over his insecurities, she had her arms around his neck. The kiss ended quite naturally and they both smiled.
“All I can say is, it’s about time.” Zoë regretted her words immediately, especially when she saw his smile fade. He didn’t need reminding about how it had taken him so long to pluck up the courage to finally admit his feelings, to finally kiss her. What on Earth was she thinking? “I’m sorry,” she added. “I didn’t mean to—”
Duncan shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. You’re right. I should have done that ages ago, I was just ... I didn’t know how to ... But when you think you might lose someone, everything becomes clear.”
Zoë nodded. “Yeah,” she said, then kissed him again.
This time their mouths parted, tongues slipping inside cautiously to begin with, before darting around excitedly. Then more urgently, like they were making up for lost time. His arms were around her waist now, as if they were dancing. She could feel his hands on her lower back, his fingertips there through the thin material of her T-shirt, moving higher and higher. Up to her shoulder blades, where he cupped the bone, holding her ever so gently, exactly how she’d imagined he would. Next his arms enfolded her as their kiss became more passionate, losing themselves in the moment.
Suddenly he was moving them both backwards, until the tops of her thighs brushed against the desk she’d been sitting at. Zoë barely noticed, not until Duncan’s hands moved to her sides and he was lifting her up onto it. She was set down on top of some screws and she broke off the kiss to let out an involuntary “Oww”, but Duncan didn’t appear to notice—carried away as he was with this new adventure. Zoë shifted herself sideways, so she was more comfortable, and then he was kissing her again, tongue thrusting into her mouth. It was as if, after all this time, he couldn’t
now wait. But Zoë didn’t want to rush this; it wasn’t something that should be rushed, even with the threat of death hanging over you.
She pushed herself back, breaking off the kiss once more. “Duncan, wait,” she said.
He frowned. “What for?”
“For one thing Hunter might come back at any moment.”
Duncan shook his head. “He’ll be gone for a good while yet.” He seemed so sure, so certain. Then he leaned in again, mouth pressed hard against hers. But there was more—his hands had moved to the front of her T-shirt, and were now grabbing at her breasts. She knew, could tell Duncan was inexperienced even before his fumbling—had probably never had many girlfriends, if any, because of his shyness—but his explorations were starting to make her feel uncomfortable. It was like he was using her for practice or something, learning on the job. He squeezed her breasts, hard, and she would have let out a breath if her mouth hadn’t been sealed over by his; Duncan’s guttural grunting and the sound his nose was making only added to the awkwardness. This wasn’t romantic, wasn’t even sexy. Zoë tried to break away, tried to say something, but it just came out in mumbles.
Then came the tearing sound, as Duncan was ripping into her T-shirt—like a kid at Christmas intent on reaching his presents as quickly as possible, shredding the wrapping paper. It was over in seconds and his hands were on her again, kneading her breasts roughly through the material of her bra. Zoë was batting at his shoulders to stop, she didn’t want this. As long as she’d waited, however much she’d imagined this, she now didn’t want it at all.
But Duncan just continued, reaching down to undo the button on her jeans, tugging at the zip, desperate to get to her. To have her. Zoë had no choice, she bit his lip so that he’d break off the kiss, managed to get her arms in front of her and push him backwards. At first she didn’t think he’d move, but then he relented and gave her a bit of breathing space.
“Jesus!” Duncan exclaimed, wiping his lip with the back of his hand. “What the hell! I thought you wanted it?”