Circle of Arms (The Shades of Northwood 2)

by Wendy Maddocks

  Things had just got infinitely worse.

  It hadn’t seemed possible a few moments ago but barriers had broken and worse had flooded out.

  “And if you don’t find her… well, let’s hope it never gets that far.” And then Jaye was gone. No gradual misting away or cinematic puff of smoke. She just rose and walked off as if they’d just had a casual conversation.

  “I’ll make you a deal.” Katie called after her.

  You will?

  The words were out before she had thought them through. Making a deal with Jaye could seriously backfire on her but she was thinking positive. Mostly I’m positively screwed but at least there was no doubt there. “Just hear me out, okay. A trade.”

  She stopped, a black figure in the distance, too far away for human ears to hear. Still air must carry sound very well although it ripped from Katie’s throat like a desperate whisper. “A trade? How… cliché.”

  “I’m fresh out of originality Jaye. And you know you need to deal if you want your way.”

  Jaye turned and started to dawdle back up to the tree igloo. Treegloo? She was walking very slowly as if thinking about each step before taking it.

  “What are you thinkin’ of?” Jack hissed as they waited. “You can’t make a deal with her. You can’t trust her.”

  “Give me another choice then. Seriously, if you’ve got any better ideas… no? Look, making some kind of bargain is the only way to do this.” Katie shifted position and straightened her long legs out in front of her, leaning back on her elbows. She looked a lot cooler and calmer than she felt. “I’m not kidding myself here. A lot of those Shades up there probably need to be here. Most of them likely don’t have bodies to go back to any way but Dina does. And when we find her, we’ll find a way to get her back in it.”

  “We will?”

  “Yes. We will. I hate to remind you, Jack, but you put her here. You took energy when she was at her lowest and tipped her over this edge.”

  “I came for you! And she tried to commit suicide. She must have known this was a possibility.”

  “She didn’t try to kill herself so don’t tell me she wanted this! It was a cry for help!”

  “With blood and broken glass?”

  “No-one was listening!” Katie yelled. And the she couldn’t stop the tears that clogged her throat and turned her voice heavy and thick. No tears escaped her eyes even though Katie wished to God they would. Just so they weren’t inside any longer.

  “Ooh, the blame game. Can I play, or is this a private argument?”

  “It’s not an argument. Or a game.”

  Jaye stayed hunkered down between the broken branches.

  “You can’t find Dina on your own, right?”

  Jaye nodded. “That’s why you’re going to do it for me.”

  “No, that’s what I’m going to do for you. The why – we need to talk about that.” Katie took a deep breath and hoped she sounded like she knew what the hell she was doing. Not even her brain had decided what this deal should be and was starting to curse her for ever mentioning the word. “We’ll find her. And you can have her.”

  “Katie-“

  She waved Jack quiet. “You let us go home, unharmed, and take all the Shades that we can.”

  “One way in, one way out. Okay, I’ll let you go… if you can find it.”

  “You get Dina, you get all the ones I leave behind. And you get my promise not to fight when my time comes. In return, you also get out of Jaye’s body and let her come home too. We miss her.”

  “Bodies are easy to find. I’m not particularly attached to this one anyway. She was so vulnerable. Really, it was too easy to take this one.” Jaye slapped her thigh and rose to leave.

  “Do we have a deal? Jaye, do we have a deal?”

  “This is crazy. She’s never gonna keep to her word.”

  Jaye turned and grinned at Jack. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten. Getting a kid to fight your fights. Tut tut tut.”

  Katie resisted the urge to ask what was going on. There was no mistaking the sparks jumping between her two friends. Not the good kind either. Instead she put out her hand for Jaye to shake, braced for the dead temperatureless flesh. The girl paused, weighing up her options and then took it. Obviously, She had decided She was getting the better end of the deal.

  “What’s wrong with you? My girl is smart and strong and –“

  “I’m not your girl. I’m my girl. I’m your girlfriend and we need to make that official. Go on a date, misuse the backseat of a car. Find somewhere cars work.” She laughed and snuggled in close to Jack. This moment would be short and, she feared, not very sweet. “You’re losing your touch, cowboy.” She sensed more than saw him turn his face to her. “I remember stuff I didn’t know I knew. I forgot Mom was pregnant before Dan, that’s how young I was. Mom lost the babies and that was the first, maybe only, time I saw her cry. But here I remembered that. I think I knew it but I kind of blocked it out.”

  “It was a dead memory. It comes back to life here.”

  “I remember you.” Katie cupped his cheek in her palm and stroked his cheekbone with the pad of her thumb. “The first time we met, the first time we kissed. All of it. I thought you wiped everything but it’s come back.”

  Jack frowned, then brightened, drawing the same conclusion Katie had. “You’ll forget when you go back.”

  “Maybe. Probably. But, don’t you get it?”

  “We’re safe to be together here. I can kiss you and you’ll know who I am.”

  Katie scooted out of the half globe of the tree and rolled to her feet, stretching out the muscles and joints that had stiffened while they sat. Being able to kiss Jack and not have him mess with her memories, whether he meant to or not, sounded great on the surface but deeper than that..? She was remembering more than she wanted to. Things she had worked hard to block out of her mind. And now all those things were coming back. She wanted those memories, needed to know the things they had to show her, but they were frightening. Frightening because they were real; frightening because she wanted more and more; frightening because they were the most painful home movies. And they didn’t hurt a bit.

  She looked younger. Happier. A brown haired girl in grey cargo trousers, a tank top and pumps. All grey, uniform grey. She was running. Her rubber soles slap on the gravel, thud on the grass and she half-closes her eyes and slows her breathing to fit her steps. It’s so easy to get lost to this beat. Sometimes, the girl brings her MP3 player – the one her parents had given her for her birthday and had engraved with KATIE RUN WHERE YOU WANT BUT ALWAYS RUN HOME – but not tonight. Tonight, the only music Katie needs is her own body. It is not the only music she gets though. Another set of footsteps has joined hers. They are walking, too light and close together to be running. But they’re close. There is a chase, a struggle, and Katie suddenly finds herself pinned to the ground and staring up at a man looming over her. She takes a breath to scream and then never uses it. Something catches her eye but she can’t focus on it. Not just yet. There is a thick aura of hate, pure and bloody hate, that she must wade through first. It is thick as glue and as corrupting a battery acid. It is suffocating her. But, through the black and red fury, Katie sees something metal glinting in the late spring sun.

  The man on top of Katie growls something and she knows she must listen, must do everything he tells her to. So she is still and quiet as the pain begins; as his rough hands paw at her skin and rip at her clothes. The sun catching on metal gives her something to focus on and let this horror happen to some other Katie Cartwright. And then he is gone and the metallic gleam is gone and she lies curled there, tattered clothes and all, shivering and skirting the edges of shock until someone finds her and helps her to hospital.

  Oh, they ask. The police want a description, a blow by blow account of the attack, any details she might remember. So many more questions she couldn’t
begin to answer.

  Katie shook herself free of this memory, knowing it had shown her something important but also that she could figure out what it was later. She pulled Jack up with a lot more grace than he had shown and flung her arms around his neck. “Jack, I want you to take these memories away. I just want them to stop, okay?”

  “I wish I could. But you’re only remembering the things you need to know.”

  So why did she remember her mother having a miscarriage? It didn’t seem important.

  She hadn’t even formed the thoughts into any coherent sentences but Jack read them clearly. Maybe it was a sign of their deepening connection. Maybe it was just because this was pretty much his home turf. “You said it yourself – you were too young to un’erstand and I’m guessin’ it was never explained to you. But they were your family. You need to grieve for your brothers.”

  “Let’s just hope I’m not grieving for dead friends too at the end of the day.” Katie shielded her eyes with one hand and squinted out into the endless blue. “Right, objective one, find Dina. You go that way and I’ll go this.” She pointed him to her right and smiled. It felt good to have some kind of plan. Mostly because, even if it all went horribly wrong, there was a clearly defined statement of intent. A quick kiss for luck – man, she wasn’t getting tired of that – and they both turned in their opposite directions.

  Jack stopped but didn’t turn around. “You can’t trust her. She wont keep to her word.”

  “That’s why we’re going to double cross her first.”

  Chapter eleven