Afire: Entire Blinded Series (21 page)

Lee dropped the napkin to the table, knife and fork poised midair in his other hand. His eyes widened a little, and his mouth gaped before he snapped it closed again. “Ryan, man...” He looked at Ryan with sympathy and understanding. “Stop it, will you? I'm not going anywhere if I can help it, you know that."

"Yeah, I know. I just needed... Just wanted... Fuck, you know.” Heat burned Ryan's cheeks. He felt like such a tosser now.

"Yeah, I know.” Lee jabbed his knife and fork toward Ryan's plate. “You ought to eat that cheese there before it curls up. Looks a bit rank, doesn't it?"

Ryan nodded. “Not the best sight I've seen today."

"Oh right. What's the best then?” Lee speared a slice of cucumber, smiling. When Ryan didn't answer, he said, “Come on. You obviously want this romance shite, so tell me, what's the best sight you've seen today?"

Ryan laughed, suddenly shy. This new side of Lee was hard to adjust to. It seemed their roles had reversed. “Your arse this morning."

"
Very
romantic. Yeah. You're doing well, mate."

Laughing, Ryan jabbed his fork into a tomato quarter. “Fuck you."

"Fuck you too, man.” Lee chuckled, fork hovering beside his mouth. “Good job I know what you really mean, right?"

"Yep.” Ryan popped the tomato in his mouth and chewed, swallowed. “This romance business. Isn't gonna work, is it?"

"Nope."

"Ah, fuck it."

"Yep, fuck it."

Lunch over, they walked along the beach, the part full of pebbles. Hard going on the soles of Ryan's feet, but now he'd cleared his mind, realised what was up with him, it was a small price to pay. He was with Lee, and that was all that mattered.

After they'd walked about half a mile and came to the sandy area, Lee turned to him and asked, “Fancy an ice cream?"

It was hardly the weather for it, what with the bracing wind and the sudden cold snap in the air, but yeah, he fancied an ice cream. Who didn't when on holiday? As far as Ryan was concerned, a holiday without an ice cream and good old-fashioned fish and chips wasn't a holiday at all.

A row of shops sat to their left, perched up there on the other side of the road that ran alongside the beach, old-fashioned ones that looked like they hadn't changed in a hundred years. Their roofs dipped in the centres, some slates hanging on for dear life, close to giving up the ghost. They must have been houses years ago, before they became shops, and from the look of the upper windows, Ryan reckoned people lived up there in flats. He loved places like this, relatively unchanged by time. Probably why he loved living in Biddingford. It was much the same as here.

Lee strode off towards the sea wall, grey rock maybe twenty foot high topped with an equally grey metal guardrail. Ryan watched him go. The wind whipped at Lee's hair, and Ryan told himself he had to let go sometime, had to let Lee go off on his own. He couldn't stick by his side forever, hoping to protect him from every little thing.

A burst of wind swirled around him, and he wished he'd put on his beanie hat. He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, balling them into fists to keep his fingertips warm. A small shiver rippled down his spine as Lee made it to the sloping path that led from the road to the beach. He climbed it then realised Ryan wasn't with him, and turned to stare in his direction.

"You coming?” Lee called, sand coiling around his shins from an angry gust of wind.

"Nah. I'll wait here."

"You all right?” Lee walked up the slope a bit, squinting at Ryan as though confused and trying to work out if he'd done something wrong.

"Yeah. Go on. I'll wait here."

Lee nodded slowly, perhaps digesting Ryan's smiling face and coming to the conclusion everything was fine. He walked up the rest of the slope and ambled across the road, disappearing inside a newsagents. The sign above the door swung in the wind and, on the wall of the shop beside it, a barber's candy cane-like tube spun quickly, the individual red-and-white stripes blurring to pink.

Ryan lowered his head and toed the sand while he waited, the wet clumps dampening his beige suede boots. The sea roared behind him, loud swishes that almost masked the sound of screeching gulls, and he faced the water, intent on keeping his mind occupied while Lee was gone. It wouldn't do for Ryan to worry about him, fretting for no reason. It wasn't like Lee would get hurt here. Crossing that road would hardly get him killed. No bastard drove along it.

White bubbly crests frosted with dirty brown crashed onto the beach, the spume rushing across the sand, inching close to his boots but retreating as though it dared not touch them. Ryan smiled and recalled going on holiday as a kid, when the sky was bright blue with no clouds and the sun raged, its heat burning his shoulders and neck. He'd dug the sand with a red plastic spade and filled the matching bucket, one shaped like a castle. God, it seemed so long ago, yet at the same time so recent. Where had the time gone? He recalled that one year where he'd created a whole town out of sand, a moat running around it and all, and some bastard kid with pasty white skin and orange freckles across the bridge of his nose had come stomping by and trampled the damn lot.

He'd had fun back then, with Mum and Dad before their divorce, and all he'd wished for was that Lee could have been with them.

Loved him even as a kid.

Ryan smiled at the sound of footsteps slapping against the sand behind him and imagined Lee with an ice cream cone in each hand, maybe chopped nuts and strawberry sauce slathered on top. He swivelled, mouth curved in a bigger grin, hand outstretched to take a cone, then stopped abruptly.

Lee wasn't there.

Someone else was. Someone tall and wide, with a face as flat as the bottom of an iron. Someone who shouldn't have been on this empty beach, shouldn't have even known Ryan and Lee were here.

"What the fuck do
you
want?” Ryan asked, lowering his hand and bunching it into a fist, his heart stopping for a beat in shock.

Anger from his old self rose up inside him. If this guy had come to cause trouble—and why else would he be here? Too much of a coincidence that he was—then Ryan was ready for it.

[Back to Table of Contents]

"Trevor sent me.” He stared hard at Ryan, his light blue eyes bordering on white.

Damn freaky bastard
.

Wind from Ryan's right slammed into them, and Harry Burgent—yeah, that was his name, Ryan remembered now—shunted sideways, righting himself quickly. His black hair, a floppy style that he sometimes put back in a low ponytail, blew around his head and face, cheeks visible through the individual strands. He'd always looked so odd, like he'd literally been flattened at birth. One of Trevor's friends at school, Harry had gone down the same road as him and Greg. He'd been more of a bystander then, though, Ryan would give him that. Only a menacing threat when Trevor had been out of prison, but now, with Greg in the nick too after trying to off Lee...

Trevor had clearly recruited Harry to do his work on the outside.

What a fucking cock.

Once again, as he did when Greg had shown up in Biddingford the night of the shooting, Ryan shook his head and wondered what the fuck these blokes thought they were up to. It was still hard for him to think of them as anything but the people who he went to school with. He'd known them since they were all five, for God's sake. Seeing them like this, young blokes who acted like they were big-time gangsters, just made him want to laugh. But he couldn't laugh, not after what Greg had done. These bastards meant business, and Ryan ought to start taking them seriously, no matter how ludicrous the idea of them being dangerous was. They were, and Ryan needed to accept it or fall foul of their warped actions. And they were warped all right. Going around with guns and threatening people just for the hell of it.

For years, when Lee had still lived with his mum, even after they'd all left school, these fuckers taunted Lee when he went to the local shop on their housing estate. Lee's mum used to send him on pointless errands, just to see if he'd do as he was told once he'd grown, Ryan reckoned. Trevor and his gang knew that. Top that with the fact Lee was gay, and Lee became a prime target. Their taunts had never bothered Ryan. Not when they were directed at him anyhow, but he'd always burned inside when Lee told him what they'd said to him. Called him faggot, queer, any damn derogatory name they could think of. Made Lee's life hell. More hell to add to the life crap life he'd lived with his mum.

Ryan sighed. “What does Trevor want now? Lee dead again? Is he pissed off ‘cos Greg didn't do the job right?"

Harry took a step forward, slipping his hands into his dark green parka pocket.
Fuck.
Did he have a gun now? Was he grasping the handle, finger curling around the trigger? Or did he have a knife? Ryan didn't know, didn't give much of a shit so long as Harry didn't use them on him or Lee. He just wanted this bollocks to stop. For everything to just go the hell away so they could live in peace.

Harry never answered. He continued to stare, hair writhing every which way.

"Listen, Harry. Don't you reckon you're skating on thin ice here, mate? Trevor's in the nick, Greg too, yet you're here delivering a message to us. And fuck, d'you know what? You're so intent on doing what Trevor says...didn't you even question travelling all the way up here to find us?” Ryan sighed, Harry's blank face shrouded in hair pissing him the fuck off. “And I'm guessing you went to Biddingford. Found out somehow where we'd gone.” Ryan thought of Josh.
Shit.
“How
did
you find out where we'd gone?"

"Ways and means,” Harry said, clearly trying to sound mysterious.

The holiday brochure and confirmation letter. They're on the coffee table in the cabin. Motherfucker must have broken in and found it.

Ryan wanted to laugh again. Whether it was fear or the ludicrousness of this situation, he didn't know, but fuck him sideways, he'd had enough of this. “Look, mate. Just tell me what you want, yeah?” From his peripheral vision, he saw Lee coming out of the newsagents and waiting for a car to pass before casually crossing the road. Ryan made sure not to focus his sights behind Harry. If the guy didn't know Lee was there...

"Trevor wants you to refuse to give evidence at the trial. You
and
your fag boyfriend.” Harry rolled his shoulders and sniffed as though he smelled dog's shit.

"Oh right. And how are we meant to do that, eh? Lee was
shot
. He's the damn victim. The police are pressing charges. Not Lee. Not me. We have no choice but to appear in court. It's out of our hands, you dumb prick."

Rein your mouth in, man.

Lee stood at the top of the slope, staring at them, ice cream cones held aloft, shock sending his face pale. Ryan hoped to God their special connection worked right now and that Lee would stay where he was. Keeping his main gaze on Harry, Ryan saw Lee drop the cones and reach inside his jacket. He brought out his mobile phone.

Please don't let Harry hear him talking
.

"Dumb prick?” Harry said, taking another step forward so only inches separated them. His creepy-as-hell eyes widened. “Who you calling a dumb prick?” He took his hands out of his pockets, gun in one of them, and lifted it, aiming at Ryan's face.

Ryan's mind worked quickly, and he got ready to duck, but his body gave signs of not being able to comply with his mind's wishes. His knees almost went from under him, and his guts rolled over. Arms and legs weakening through fear from staring at that damn black barrel, Ryan fought to remain upright.

"Look,” he said. “It's just a figure of speech, yeah?” He nodded at the gun, seeing Lee talking frantically into the phone. “No need for that, is there?” Pausing, he waited for some sign Harry was going to use the weapon. None came, so he ploughed on. “Think about it. Do you want to end up inside with Trevor and Greg?"

A miniscule sign of indecision flicked across Harry's face, but he continued to stare, those near-white eyes lacking emotion. His hair whipped across his face again, then lifted, pushed back by the harsh breeze, revealing a jagged scar on his long, wide forehead. Red and relatively new. Stitch marks a centimetre apart marching down its length. Jesus Christ, what the hell had Harry got himself into?

"I won't end up like them.” Harry glanced from side to side. “No one's here. This place is in the arse end of nowhere. No one's gonna see us. From the shops back there, it'll just look like two men talking. I know. I checked from all angles before I came down onto the beach. And your queer bloke'll be a while. There was a queue in the newsagents."

Fuck me. He's been watching us. Following us by the sounds of it.

"So, you want me to ask the police if we can back out, then, right?”
Stall him. Keep him talking.

Lee remained on the phone, glancing along the road as though watching for the police.

"That's the long and short of it, yeah. You reckon you can manage to do that without fucking up?” Harry flicked off the gun's safety catch. “Or do you need a little more persuading?"

This was nuts. Absolutely fucking nuts. Ryan wanted to shake his head at how surreal and weird this was, but refrained. Harry might think he was denying his request. How in the hell had their life come to this? How had a group of kids turned into a group of hard men? And their reasoning for hating Lee and Ryan was all due to them being gay. Why the hell did it matter to these guys
what
they were? What was their
problem
?

It's not like we want to fuck
their
arses.

"I don't need any persuasion,” Ryan said, the white blur of a cop car filling the road.

Two police officers got out and stared at Ryan from behind the guardrail, eyes wide upon seeing a gun trained on him. The poor bastards had probably never been in a situation like this in their whole career so far. Like Harry had said, this was the arse end of nowhere, and sod all went down in a place like this.

Ryan smiled at Harry, meeting his gaze dead on. Abruptly, he lifted his knee, sinking it into Harry's groin, then thumped the side of his aggressor's wrist as the bastard bent at the waist in pain. He landed an uppercut on Harry's cheek, and the guy went sprawling backward, the gun flying out of his hand to land on the beach. The officers raced down the slope, on Harry in seconds, flipping him onto his front and yanking his arms behind him.