The next couple of days passed relatively smoothly. Katie and Leo tried to stay out of each others’ way as much as possible. Lainy and Adam tried to make it easy for her to talk to them, without saying as much, if she wanted. She didn’t. Jaye dragged Dina out of the house and down to the track on the pretext of watching Katie train – it later transpired that she had a deep crush on one of the coaches. She found the campus bookshop and bought the course texts she didn’t think she could afford to go without. Budgeting was going to be a bit of a challenge without a job. Katie also started jogging through the old town, never straying too far from the main road but always mindful of that lonely dirt track that seemed to go on for miles to Millford, just begging to be run on. She challenged her housemates to a Scrabble tournament but only Lainy and Leo could spare the time to join in and then it didn’t seem like that great an idea. The student medical centre registered Katie as their patient and filled out her prescription although it was a week into September – late enough in the year that she probably wouldn’t need it. She even threw open her window and door, set her stereo to somewhere around deafening and began to make her room feel more like her own. In fact, Katie did anything she could think of to avoid being alone with her thoughts. It was like trying to outrun a timebomb.
As Sunday night grew late and Katie felt her eyelids drooping, she thought once more about the race she was preparing for. She wanted to come in the first wave of racers but she had no idea what the pace would be like. A few miles back at her old school had always been easy, occasionally too easy, and she had often placed in the top three. Even running for herself or in other races, winning or finishing in the first ten – even against adults – had been an almost constant occurrence. But against new competitors, some of whom were professional athletes, she wasn’t so sure. Jaye had told her that scholarships were rare and she knew the scout must haveseen some kind of spark in her…
“Why are we watching this crap?” asked Jaye, cradling a textbook she was pretending to study from. She had a pen and paper handy to makes notes with but Katie had seen her do little more than doodle. “Anyone?”
Lainy tried not to smile at the girl, did a bad job.
“Please,” Jaye went on. “There has to be a reason.”
“Now you know Adam likes his medical dramas.” Lainy leaned out of his arms and stage whispered, “Thinks they’re educational.”
“Give me people dying of rare tropical diseases or explosive diarrhoea over a pulled hamstring or broken finger any day.”
“I was hoping you’d grown out of that.” Jaye slammed her book shut and opened her constant companion – cheese puffs. She offered them around but Katie had already grown sick of the smell of them. “I know, I know, everyone’s gotta die somehow but honestly..? It’s never that exciting.”
“You’re telling me dying of some Siberian mega worm that invades your lower intestine wouldn’t be a hell of a way to go?”
“Well, it’d definitely be interesting.”
Lainy turned away from the girls and snuggled up to her fiancé. “I’ll go back to the shops tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“Get you some worming tablets.”
“Nice to be appreciated.”
“Take your shirt off Ad, and I’ll show you appreciation.”
Katie laughed. “I’m agreeing with her.”
“You horny little things only want me for my body.”
“Duh!”
“Lose the six pack, the massive guns, the Superman tat right on the flex of your bicep, I could go on… but I won’t. The ego thing, you know.” Katie glanced over at her friend, suddenly sheepish, not knowing just why. “I’m shy with men, not blind.”
“You noticed? I thought you were so stressed over hurting your uncle that night that you never even noticed me,” Adam said, meaning the night he’d arrived in the kitchen half-dressed.
“It’s weird. I didn’t pay that much attention or anything but I keep remembering things. Just like flashes and stuff. I’m not real sure why.”
Lainy threw an arm out to Katie and waggled her fingers. After a second, she put her hand through hers and let Lainy hold it for a few seconds, squeezing it and rubbing a thumb over her knuckles almost as if holding hands would take her stress away. Katie, before she could stop herself – though she doubted she would have – got up and walked over to sit herself on the floor at the couples’ feet, nestled between two sets of legs. No-one seemed to think it a strange action, though anyone who didn’t know the things Katie had seen might wonder why a grown girl still needed a cuddle.
“I think there’s something wrong with me. I sort of know most stuff, I remember bits here and there but there’s something… I don’t know, missing. And then I try to think about that because I know it’ll come if I try hard enough. But it’s just not there.”
A silence descended for a few minutes, total but for the inane chatter of some TV show no-one was watching any more. All the while, Katie kept a grip of Lainy, noting how she never let go either. Perhaps the older girl needed this contact just as much as she did. A good hand-holding session and a hug in silence did more good than words ever could. The police, the hospital, her parents – they had all thought talking would fix it all. They asked questions, she answered. They told her to externalise, to pour her heart out but how? Did she talk to trusted tutors at her old school – ‘hi, I’m Katie and I was raped. Wanna chat?’ No, of course not. They asked question, she answered. They begged, she didn’t speak. Nobody listened. They heard but never really understood. How could they? But somebody had. Not about the attack, not about that, but about the not talking. Some-one had held her and let her cry and never asked a thing. Katie remembered that. She just didn’t know who it was. Who-ever it was had found a way to chase those teardrops far away because she would surely still be crying in her room if they hadn’t.
Those thoughts were suddenly broken by a thin black coat flying across the room to land on Jaye’s lap. She picked it up and looked at it questioningly, as though it had flown towards her of its’ own volition. Katie covered her mouth with one hand to stifle a giggle. The idea was just absurd enough to take her away from her reality for a moment and into a flash of flying jacket fantasy.
Dina, silent until now, said one word. “Pub.”
“It’s late.”
“It’s not like you need the beauty sleep.” Dina reached out and started pulling on her friend’s pale arm. “Come on, I wanna go get drunk.”
“Guys?” Jaye let Dina drag her over to the door.
“You’re on your own, Little Miss Ego Bruiser,” Adam told her and waved cheerfully.
“Besides, we need to talk,” said Dina. To say there was a conversation behind those four words would have been an understatement. Some unspoken meaning hung heavy in the air for long minutes after the pair had bundled out. The two adults seemed as though they were in on this secret but Lainy covered it up almost too smoothly by ragging on Adam for his choice in shows. It was a mystery – one that Katie would shut away to think about another time. There were too many things that were more important at the moment.
The flickering TV had made her feel quite sleepy. “How can those two go out drinking at…” Katie glanced at her watch, “nearly ten o’clock.”
“This is normal operating hours for most students. You’ll get used to it.”
“Not me. This girl still has a bedtime.”
“This girl still has a teddy bear by her pillow.”
Adam nodded. “It’s true. I get so very lonely at night.”
“Am I meant to be feeling sorry for you?” Lainy asked him. “You know, Mr Tedward doesn’t rob the covers, snore or-“
“Make you breakfast in bed every birthday.”
“Oh, the romance of it all,” Lainy said without much sarcasm. Clearly, she thought it was a little bit sweet. By all accounts, remembering special dates was a cause
for celebration for most blokes. “Fine,” she sighed. “But Mr Tedward won’t thank you for kicking him out of bed. Just so’s you know.”
The couple fell into a comfortable stillness, interrupted by Lainy fidgeting and the Adam getting up to make tea. Katie refused one, suspecting that she wouldn’t be able to keep her eyes open long enough. “I’m going to love you and leave you.” She thought about Leo, in the room next to hers, shut away the way he spent almost every night, and decided she couldn’t be bothered to be scared of him – not when he had never done anything to her. She thought he was a freak in need of serious psychotherapy with dangerous fantasies, a man it was risky to know, but he personally was innocent. “I just know the type,” she whispered. His bedroom door was open and popcorn music from a video game was drifting out. In contrast, a bit further down the hall, her door was mostly closed. Hadn’t she left it open to air out after tidying it? Didn’t matter. The wind blowing through windows and doors had been blowing a riot through the old house today.
“You never said anything.” The voice that greeted Katie when she pushed open the door was harsh, rough, accusing. It took her a second to place it – Leo – her thoughts elsewhere. “At all.”
The edges of her vision showed his dark shape holding out the police letter. It was mostly her own fault for leaving the page out on top of her desk. She couldn’t even moan at him for creeping into her room when she had done the same to him a few days ago. “It’s not your problem.” Katie rubbed her hands over her face and went over to draw the curtains. The moon was a few nights away from full. It had been much cooler today, if still not cold, and a few wisps of cloud had dared to tarnish the sky, giving the moon a blurred look and obscuring any stars that might have twinkled. “It’s late and I’ve got another long day tomorrow, so…” She waved her hand at her back, giving Leo the chance to leave. When he didn’t, Katie looked out once more at the inky sky, wishing for some rescue from the hard conversation that was coming. “God, you really don’t like doing things the easy way, do you? I gave you the chance to leave in blissful ignorance.”
“Why should I get that choice? You didn’t.”
“You read that.” Katie pointed at the paper he held and sat on her bed, preferring to look at her knees rather than him. Those dark blue eyes would be hard and brittle. “All the details in glorious Technicolour.” Katie pushed herself back until she was leaning against the headboard, half aware that she was also putting some distance between them. “You want to know how I got picked off while running in my local park? How I was absolutely terrified this guy would kill me if I didn’t let him take what he wanted? Maybe how the only people to hear me scream were the junkies in Heroin Heights and how I was eventually found by a blind man and his guide dog? But honestly? None of that matters. I wasn’t picked off, I was unlucky. He didn’t threaten to kill me, the man never even spoke. I wasn’t found by a blind man, it was just a guy to stoned to see. There’s no juicy story, no lifelong trauma-“
“But they’re dropping the case. You’ll never get justice,” protested Leo. Funny – he didn’t seem like the caring type.
“I don’t want justice, I want escape. I thought making a complaint might help but there were so many questions and stuff that it was as though the police were just trying to prove it was my own damn fault.”
“What if the same thing happens to another girl?”
“He knows who he is.”
Leo looked down at the letter again. Katie, against her better judgement, shuffled over to him a little. Since he seemed to be in a pleasant mood and, more importantly, hadn’t called her a bitch, she felt a bit silly about hunching into the far wall. “What’s the plan?”
Plan? “Get some sleep and then carry on.”
“I meant to catch this freak?”
“Leo Pointer – moral crusader. Look, I don’t want…” she let the sentence trail off. There were a thousand things she didn’t want in this world, but catching her attacker was not one of them. Katie wanted that very badly. Just not yet. Maybe not ever if it meant going through all that trouble with the police again. “I want it to be over, not to start again. I have a new life now and I’m gonna shop and run and study and be a girl for once this year. Not a victim.”
“Don’t take the help when it’s offered then. Saves me the effort,” he shrugged, definitely back to the grumpy Leo everyone knew and disliked. “Is that why you don’t really care about being spiked the other night?”
“Leo, I was actually raped not too long ago. Having some-one only get as far as drugging me and then chickening out…” Katie peeled off into fits of giggles and only laughed harder when she realised he was looking at her like a loon.
“What the hell?!” came a shriek from downstairs. Two sets of feet came thundering up the stairs and Lainy and Adam swung themselves into her room, hovering in the doorway. “Katie?”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she kept apologising, trying, and mostly failing, to stop up her mouth with her sheets. “I shouldn’t really laugh.”
“We thought something horrible was happening up here.”
“She’s gone mad,” Leo offered. “The bitch has flipped.” But he didn’t leave the room. They all noticed that. Maybe he was finally turning into a sociable human being.
“Oh God! We were talking about the first attack and then there was this drugged out hallucination and a chicken and- oh you had to be there.” Katie started laughing again. It was pointless trying to stop because then she had to think about why she was laughing in the first place and that just made everything seem funnier. “Oh man, my ribs actually hurt!”
Lainy, not knowing quite what to do, started folding then re-folding the pyjamas on the bed. She evidently had not been expecting this reaction from the girl who’d been so subdued all night. Adam put his hand on Leo’s shoulder and propelled him out of the room, knowing in that strange way some people had, that his presence really wasn’t wanted. “Come on mate. I think they need some girl time.”
The two girls were silent for a handful of seconds – seconds that seemed like days. Just when Katie was beginning to think her PJs might fall apart at the seemed after being stretched and creased so many times, Lainy broke the hush. “So you’re okay?”
“Uh-huh. More than okay, I’m… I’m happy.”
“Even though..?”
“Lainy, you remember that first day when I told you how everything got dark and sad? Well, I’m done with being sad. It’s a pointless emotion for me. It doesn’t get you anywhere.” She sat back and fiddled with the strap of her watch. Not for the first time, she wished for an analogue watch so she could turn back the hands until none of this had ever happened. But no. If none of the bad things had happened… “I’d still be in school with the airheads and the freaks, sitting through mindless lessons, running mindless races.
“Here, I‘m just Katie Cartwright, the scholarship girl. And that’s the only person I’m gonna be.”
“You know we all love you no matter who you decide to be.”
Katie made a face. She’d had enough of sharing her feelings for one night – that last comment had just been too saccharine sweet though. There was no doubt that Lainy meant it. “I’m tired now.”
“Okay. I’ll let you get some rest.”
“Wait,” she said as the door started to swing shut. “I’m making dinner tomorrow. Any requests?”
“Use your imagination.”
And then the room was darkness. Katie slid out of her cargo trousers and vest and pulled on her pyjamas in the muted moonlight. Then she pulled the chair away from her desk, placed it by the window, slid one curtain open and straddled the chair to watch the moon journey across the night dodging and fighting with the breaths of cloud. Unconsciousness threatened to claim her more than once but she resisted the pull. Sleeping would be too easy. Sleep was a sure fire way to miss… miss what? She folded her arms on the back o
f the chair and leaned her face down. Her muscles were tight under cheek. Her shoulders and neck were hunched together and ached when she moved. It was stress. Truthfully, there was a lot to be anxious about again. A light pressure touched the small of her back, making her jump and bite her lip against the scream that wanted to follow. Suddenly, Katie became aware of every muscle in her body relaxing. The touch trailed up her back and tickled her neck before going down her crossed arms and into her left hand. She uncrossed her arms and held her left arm out, palm up. A weight that felt like no more than a feather rested on top. She curled her own around it, expecting it to crumble into ashes and dust beneath her finger, expecting it to turn into a hand of bone. As she looked around the room for some draft or door left ajar, something began to happen in her hand. The only description was a swirling, changing, moving, whirling sensation and even that many verbs would not be accurate. As she watched, the invisible hand in hers gained colour and shape and then she was holding a real hand with weight and skin and ridges of flesh and blood vessels. Then, from the wrist inwards, the shape of a boy started to appear. Katie was starting to feel light-headed. She was glad that she had remained standing by her chair. What was going on? She tried to form the question but the words just wouldn’t come, her mouth working uselessly.
“Shush. Everything’s okay now. You’re safe,” said this figure who was almost a young man in front of her. He had obviously thought that Katie was about to yell or scream that she was in danger. She didn’t feel threatened. Just confused and a little bit sick.
Katie grabbed onto the chair back with her free hand and tried to focus on the moon. It was fading and blurring and then jumping back into sharp focus for a moment before the cycle began again. Holding her hand and doggedly refusing to let go, the impossible boy eased her away from the chair and further towards the window, wrapping his arms around her waist. “Relax Lady Katie. I won’t take more than I need,” he murmured onto her ear, feeling her start to sag in his arms. “Forgive me for this. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have to.”
The voice, the touch, even the warm breath on her neck – it all seemed so familiar. But, in the next instant, as she vaguely decided to turn and see who had invaded her dreams – it had to be a dream, right?? Her real, rational thoughts seemed so very far away – the need to breathe came crashing in on her and Katie realised that part of the reason she could not speak, felt so dizzy, was lack of oxygen. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It didn’t make anything seem right or normal. Katie reached behind her and stretched out her fingers until they traced a face. She stared down at the hand in hers and brushed over the knuckles. “Something’s wrong,” she found enough of a voice to whisper and turned to face the boy she, all of a sudden, knew was waiting for her with green eyes and leather boots. “You’re wrong.”
“About what?”
No reply. What response could there truly be? Katie had absolutely no idea what was wrong, why things were wrong, who was wrong, anything. All she felt was something… out of place. Her world was – what was that word everyone used – fractured. And she chewed the inside of her lip, wondering if she should do anything. Don’t. The word pressed into her mind. Don’t do anything to spoil this moment. The advice crept through her consciousness and Katie listened to it, unsure whether they were her words or not. Katie gripped the hand in hers and pressed it to her stomach forcing her breath in and out underneath. There was a tugging sensation in her abdomen now, right underneath, but she thought that, without the contact, she might not have the energy to breathe at all.
“Remember me, Lady Katie,” the boy breathed into her ear, blowing strands of light brown hair this way and that.
“I do,” she replied, still uncertain whether she was lying or not. “I know you. At least, I think I do. I have this funny feeling in my stomach – a bit like but butterflies only bigger. Puppies.”
“Puppies?” he grinned. “We’re gettin’ a puppy?”
“Who needs puppies when they’ve got you?” Katie grabbed his wrist and put it to her lips, speaking against the flesh and kissing it as lightly as she could. “Nervous around you but –“
“Don’t do that or we’re gonna have problems.” Green eyes fluttered and the boy shivered.
Katie giggled. This feeling was familiar. She was in complete control of whatever happened tonight. The feeling was coming back to her and, man, it was good. The ability to choose for herself, to make others bend to her will for once, had been on a break for a while but now it had moved back in and she felt like… well, like Katie again. “I’m just playing. That’s what puppies do.”
“Katie, sit down a minute.”
Stop. Don’t stop. Do whatever you have to to keep this as play. Nothing more. It can’t be anything more. The thoughts rushed around the room, seeming so loud it should wake everyone else up only no-one appeared to even have stirred. Not through the noise of their midnight conversation. Not through the squeaks and creaks the floorboards must have made when this boy climbed the stairs. Funny how she didn’t remember hearing anything.
She threw his arm away from her face and stomach and rushed over to her door to check the latch. It was still twisted into its’ locked position. A hand slammed onto the door inches from her face and Katie turned around to face a young man with green eyes that flashed with emotion. It was hard to be scared of a man who was no taller than you in bare feet but Katie found that she could manage it. But that terror soon dissolved into confused curiosity when she realised that that the shine in those beautiful eyes was just sadness and his own confusion.
“Who are you? How did you get in here? What do you want from me? Why do I feel like I know you? I don’t even remember your name.”
“I’m Jack. You let me in. And now I have to take you on a little trip.”
“That’s only three answers. I asked four questions. How come I think I know you and yet I don’t remember a thing about you?” Katie repeated.
“I…” something dark zoomed across his whole body and he froze for just a fraction of a second, most would have ignored it but Katie noticed. It was a bit like some dark ice had slid right over him. I thought I was doing a better job than that. “We’ve been seeing each other for a while but you always forget me. I make you forget all about me.”
“How? Why?”
Jack reached out to her face and brushed her hair out of her face. “Forgive me, Lady Katie. I never meant this to happen.”
“Wh-“ was as far as she got before Jack cut her off with a kiss. It started by just brushing their lips together, hardly touching. Suddenly, her body tight with need, just needing to be close to some-one, the kiss turned deep and passionate. There is darkness so thick Katie can see nothing but more darkness. She is scared to even reach out or take a step forward because anything could be in front of her. Anything or nothing at all. There are voices all around her, whispering, rustling, moving. She holds her breath and tries to pick out one voice in the chaos. So hard is she concentrating that she almost forgets to look around her, already so used to this solid blackness. One voice whispering something, shouting some words in a language she does not know. Nonsense sounds. Her eyes must be adjusting to the dark, finding some light source to react to. Silvery glows roll along the thick, storm heavy skies. The still air of just a few moments ago had become the utter calm before a major storm. Katie looked around, trying to find the direction the voice was coming from but the others made it sound ethereal and everywhere. Instead, two green circles stare out at her. She starts to smile, pleased just to have found another person in this place. A sharp bolt of blood red lightning shoots through the sky, accompanied by the crack of a whip and then a scream. Oh God, the storm is starting. She snaps her jaw shut so she could scream no more but she can see that red laser knife down over and over and she can hear the screams each time. It’s not her voice. No. green eyes are flinching ha
lfway closed with each crack of the whip but she doesn’t want to believe that these shrieks, full of pain and blood and questions, are coming from those green eyes. Those aqua puddles that have not moved from her face. But Katie knows. She stretches out a hand, hoping she could touch some-one, something. If she can touch him, she can help. The half-formed thought was chased away from her mind by something nudging her back and then she is stumbling, tripping, falling through this dark world.
When Katie opened her eyes, a scream was on her lips but so was a boy with green eyes. She pushed him away and then buried her face in her hands, trying not to cry.
“I’m sorry.” He let his hand hover over her shoulder. Would Katie ever want him near her again? Jack struggled for an answer he was happy with. It was even less likely that she could want him now that he wasn’t finished.. and there was no time to give her a longer break. He guided her to the bed and put his face to hers once more, feeling her tense and fight the images rushing into her mind.
She lands on soft and squashy grass with a bump that almost hurts but not quite. On automatic, Katie curls into a ball and rolls to her feet. A flash of lightning lights up the sky and she sees herself glaring around at a desert she dreamed up once. A disembodied voice whispers “run” and she does, not seeing, not even caring where she is going. There is something dangerous out here and pretty soon, Katie can hear the violent strikes she had fallen away from. And she is running towards them! the next flash illuminates a small village, rickety and ancient. But she needs to get out of this storm before the rain starts cutting her. There is a wide door to a wooden building a little like stables and she heaves it open. It would be dry and warm inside and she can wait there until the rain stops and she can get help in the village. And then she hears a sound she dreaded – the crack of a whip, its’ sonic boom leaving a red slash in the air. A second later she registers a quiet scream, bubbling like liquid filling the mouth. A second crack cleaved through the night and through flesh. Another scream. Another crack. But no scream. Crack. Silence. Crack. Silence. And so it went on for what could have been minutes or more. Frozen to the spot, Katie listened to the whipping get more violent and then laughs started accompanying it. She follows the tail end of the red sparks and finds a glow coming from an old oil lamp around a dark corner. A sensible girl would have stopped and tried to be as quiet as possible but not Katie. Not tonight. The storm is already raging. She edges around the corners and sees just a flash of a man with a whip in one hand, a mean snarl on his lips and pure hate in his deep blue eyes. Then he locks gazes with her and advances on her.
“Fresh meat. Oh, you’re gonna SCREAM.”
She glared at him as he rushed towards her, daring him to do it. And then, just as he reached her, the rage-filled man was gone, leaving a crack of his whip in the air and a sting across her upper arm. She picked up the lamp, held it in front of her so she could see what or who the man had been attacking. There were a few horses around and, although she had a horrible feeling she knew who had been whipped into silence, Katie wished the man had been taking his anger out on one of them. But before her was the body of a boy with green eyes she knew he couldn’t see out of. He wore leather boots and a Stetson and these were the only perfect things that were left on a body decomposing much faster than it should have been. And then the body had become a skeleton. Skeletons didn’t walk or talk or kiss her but this one did and Katie let it. The bones crumbled beneath her fingers and she opened her eyes. Green eyes stared out from the remnants of his skull. Then they blinked out of existence, finally giving up.
And then she is alone. She sits on the bale of straw the boy had been propped against. There is something warm and wet all around her. The lamp light shows it is blood, soaked in but still fresh. At least the sweet, ripe scent of blood and death is mostly hidden by the dry polleny smell of hay and straw although it is now the only thing Katie can smell. The thought has been planted. The oil lamp swings from her arm and she pushes open the door and glances behind her. Nobody else was in the barn but the feeling of being watched will not leave. A rain-battered village stands before her and,, hurrying from one building towards her is a young man with a man chasing him, a whip in his hand and hate on his face, shouting something in a language she does not recognise. The whip arks down and catches the boy across his back. This is how it all started. The angry man is closing the gap and a second crack of the whip sends the boy to his knees, caught somewhere between crying and screaming. Katie wants to run to him, help him up and bundle into the stables, shutting the heavy door behind them. But she doesn’t. Can’t? Won’t? But the boy, Katie knows him – Jack - the name seems to fit even though she has no idea if it is correct, tries to crawl towards her, towards safety. He is not moving fast enough.
“Hurry, Jack! Be quicker!” she calls out
And then the whip cracks down once more, leaving a thin slash of blood across the back of his checked shirt. Jack stares up, seeing Katie even though she isn’t sure she is real, and fixes his eyes on her brown ones, shadows taking up residence behind them. The angry man catches up to them and picks him up, kicking and shoving the boy towards the dry barn. Katie follows and watches an unconscious young man being beaten until the pain forces him back to consciousness and pulls tired screams from him, resigned to taking the assault, no fight left in him.
At some point during the barrage of images Katie had fainted. Jack desperately wanted to lay her back on the bed and let the girl rest as soon as he felt her go limp in his arms. Wanted to but didn’t. Couldn’t. iI he stopped now, Jack knew, he would never again have the courage to show Katie these pictures. These raw, hateful, hurtful memories that he had to think about every day. Because he liked the girl, kept coming back to see her although he shouldn’t, and he needed her to know about him before he fell any further. He grinned down at Katie as she lay in his arms, caught between unconsciousness and a nightmare. Sleep now, Lady Katie. The nightmare’s over. She must have heard the command beneath thick layers of fitful sleep because her breathing became deep and regular, and she lay still in his arms, one hand tightly finger laced with his.
And then Jack began worrying. Was she meant to calm this quickly? What if she was not strong enough to handle all the things he had buried in her mind? What if something rose to the surface? He needn’t have worried.
Katie squirmed around and blinked up at him, lazily. “Sorry. I don’t usually sleep on guys I don’t know.” Then she frowned. “But I do know you.”
“Yes, we’ve met before.”
“Really? Where?”
“Katie, you have to sleep. I’ll explain everything in the morning.”
She shuffled up the bed and curled up. Jack put an arm across her waist and did not move until late the next morning, content to sleep, or the closest thing he had, right next to her.
It was nearly noon the next day when Katie rolled over and stared into the green digital display on her alarm clock. The late hour panicked her – when had she last gotten up so late? – but not quite so much as seeing the clock at all. For some reason, she was expecting to wake up next to some-one. Not wanting to get out of her cosy bed and shake off the warm glow of a wonderful dream, Katie rolled onto her side and closed her eyes. But the bliss only lasted a fraction of a second as pain lanced through her right upper arm. Katie let out a scream of pain before she could stop herself and shot out of bed, stopping just before she barrelled into the mirror standing on her desk by the door. She sat down and rubbed her face tiredly. She remembered being up late, talking a good portion of the night away. She was beginning to wonder – she couldn’t remember a name – when she saw something smeared over the mirror in her pale peach lipstick. It was to faint to read. An old trick they had used to share answers in her exams that spring had been to write answers on the bathroom mirrors in pale lipstick then spray over them with hairspray so it stood out against the mist. There
was a can around here somewhere. Mom had made her pack some “just in case”. Just in case what, God only knew. As the spray settled on the shiny surface, Katie rolled up the sleeve of her loose pyjama top and twisted her arm until she could see it. A large area of her upper arm was red and angry-looking. A thin line of blood ran through the middle and broken ribbons of flesh decorated it.
“Honey? Roy phoned.” Lainy knocked and pushed the door open just a crack. When she saw that Katie was decent she came a bit further into the room, a sound halfway out of her mouth when she saw the slash on the girl’s arm. “What happened?” She glanced up at the mirror and the curiosity in her eyes turned to anger – Katie saw that tiny shadow shoot behind them.
“I wish I could tell you,” Katie answered.
Lainy bent down and poked just hard enough to make her flinch, not hard enough to hurt. “Looks like a whip stroke. Kinky.”
“I’m wondering how you know that.”
“I’ve seen all sorts. I also know that, if it draws blood, you’re doing it wrong.”
“A lot of things feel wrong right now.” Katie tried to look at the mirror without being too obvious but it just wasn’t happening.. She could make out ACK and the top line of a letter that was probably a T. And what the hell did tack mean when it was at home? One more thing to add to the weird list. “You wanted something?”
“Yeah. Roy phoned earlier. I didn’t want to wake you so I tool a message. Kinda wish I hadn’t now…” She shook herself and went on. “They said you can’t have a job at the academy. It sucks, right?”
“Great. Now, what do I do for cash?”
“Well, the scholarship gives you a bit of freedom with fees. We’ll have a think about it later, okay.”
Katie brushed her hair back with her sweaty palms and grabbed some clothes. “Right, I’m off for a shower and then I’ve gotta buy dinner stuff.”
“But-“
“My problems will still be here when I get back.”
CHAPTER NINE