beats per minute (35 page)

Salty wetness tickled her lips as the tears cascaded down.
She recognised the sandy beach setting and even the red collar of her mother’s
dress. It had been a daytrip to Brighton, or was it Blackpool? She wasn’t sure.
But she had seen other photos like this; photos of a little red-headed toddler,
wandering chubbily with her mum through the waves, picking up rocks, building
sandcastles. These pictures had been taken by her father just a few weeks
before his death. The proximity of this happy day to that awful one was the
main reason so many of these particular photos had survived: they were still
waiting at the chemists to be picked up for a month after he died. They had
escaped the fire.

But she had never seen this picture before; had never seen
the picture where two little faces crowded into the frame from their mother’s
lap, where two fat fists clutched onto her larger hands. Wonderingly, she traced
their cheeks. They all looked so happy.

‘I miss her so much,’ she said quietly.

Declan didn’t answer.

‘Declan?’

Her own
voice echoed back at her.
Turning as far as possible, she thought she could see the outline of his head,
flopping sideways. It was ominously motionless. Suddenly, all doubts and
questions flew out of her mind; there would be time for talking later. She
scrabbled for the ropes binding her feet.  Like in Declan’s room when she
had seen the knife, instinct – stronger than uncertainty, thicker than blood –
adrenalized her into action.

Finally, lying on her side like a fish, she managed to
squeeze out of the body-bind. Gasping for breath, she crawled on her hands and
knees round to Declan. The wetness had seeped through his shirt; even in the
darkness she could see the black patch that had spread all across his middle.
He had lost so much blood. He was also clearly unconscious.

She pressed her lips together tightly to keep from crying
out. Think, Raegan, think. She tried to dredge up the crumbs of first aid she’d
learnt at school.
First, the airways.
Leaning over him
gently, barely breathing, she listened; at the same time, she grasped for his
wrist. She nearly collapsed with relief when the warm air tickled her face and
a pulse jumped under her finger. Both were faint, but were undeniably there.

Next, to stem the blood flow.
Her
hands were shaking so much that it was difficult to slip out of her shirt, let
alone tear it down the centre. Eventually she managed it; pulling on the arms,
she wrapped it tightly around Declan’s wound, under his own top. She tried to
avoid looking at the stab mark but couldn’t help noticing the darkly glimmering
blood, slowed to
an ooze
now.

As she tightened the makeshift bandage, he stirred. ‘Hey.’

‘Did I hurt you?’ She scrambled up until she could see his
face.

‘No,’ he said faintly. ‘I didn’t feel anything.
Must’ve dozed off.’

She tried to keep her voice steady. ‘Declan, we need to get
out of here. You’ve lost a lot of blood and I think you might be going into some
kind of shock.’

Declan tried to sit up and failed. His dark hair was
plastered to his forehead in sweat-drenched tendrils. ‘I can’t,’ he gasped. ‘I
can’t move. You have to leave me.’

‘No!’ Raegan started to work at the knots by his feet.

‘He could come back any minute. You have to run... before
it’s too late...’

His voice was growing weaker and weaker. She sat up,
grabbing him by the shoulders and staring into his half-closed eyes. ‘Don’t
give up! Stay awake!’

‘I’m trying.’

‘Well – try harder!’ She was close to tears again. ‘Don’t
make me do all the work!’

‘You don’t need to feel bad. You wouldn’t be abandoning me.
If you left.
You could get help.’

His eyes were almost completely closed; hers softened at the
sight. ‘I’m not leaving. I’ll carry you if I have to.’

The cold sting on her bare right arm was the first sign that
they were not alone. At first, Raegan thought it was an insect; a mosquito,
maybe, or a gnat. Then she heard Sam’s voice.

‘How touching.’

She couldn’t turn. Try as she might, she could not turn her
head to look at him; couldn’t leap in front of Declan, or do any of the other
things her brain was screaming to. She could only stare at her brother in
horror as the paralysis spread through her body.

She barely felt the damp rubber touch of his shoe but the
impact sent her crashing facedown to the ground. Trapped in her prison of flesh
and bone, her terrified eyes remained resolutely open, boring frantically into
the earth.

‘Dolvorex,’ Sam said casually. There was a tapping sound;
the syringe against his belt, she guessed. ‘The infirmary staff should really
be more careful. If I’d known poisons were going to be so easy to steal, I
wouldn’t have bothered picking rhubarb leaves. No matter; they did the trick
perfectly.’

‘What have you done? You haven’t given her more of that junk
from earlier?’ Raegan could hear the horror in Declan’s voice, muffled and weak
as it was.

‘No, I learnt from my mistake. This is a new party trick: an
excellent form of neuro-muscular blocker. She’ll be paralysed but fully
conscious for quite some time. She should manage to keep breathing – for now.’
There was a grunt, and then a barely concealed yelp of pain. The shout of rage
was forming in her throat as instinctively as breath before she realised that
nothing was coming out. Nothing was forming at all; she had to lie here,
useless, as her brother was tortured.

Sam obviously liked the sound of his own voice. Gloating,
smug, it burned into her like hot pokers. ‘Quite a nasty wound you’ve got there
mate, haven’t you? I’ve almost a mind to bandage it properly; don’t want you
passing out on me again. No way you’re missing out on what I’ve got planned.’

‘Do what you want to me. Just leave Raegan out of this. She’s
innocent.’

Quick as a flash, the jovial tone was replaced with a
venomous hiss. ‘So was Sebastian, you son of a whore.’ Then, almost as swiftly
as it appeared, the nastiness faded; once more, Sam shifted into patronising
mateyness. ‘Up you get, now, time to get moving.’

It was the vacillating between filth and
false
niceties that was
really scary, Raegan realised. Sam sounded completely
unhinged. There was more grunting now and a shuffling that sounded like ropes
sliding over skin and material. Declan was being moved. He didn’t make a sound.
She almost hoped that he had slipped back in unconsciousness; sleep would be
better, surely, than what Sam had in mind.

Numbly, as if the paralysing agent had frozen her heart as
well as her limbs, Raegan watched an ant scuttle along the blades of grass
centimetres from her nose. As if in a dream, as if it was happening to someone
else, she continued to track its progress as she was flipped onto her side with
rough hands and hauled into a sitting position.

Next moment, Sam had crushed the tiny creature underneath
his foot.

She was being hoisted high in the air; she couldn’t feel his
hands, but she could see the branches of the trees, some of them now at eye
level. She could have almost been flying.

The hateful fury she had initially felt on hearing his voice
had ebbed away into numbness.
So had any notion of hope.
Sam had been too clever.  There was no white charger with a knight this
time; no Con swooping out of the sky to save her.

Soon she would be with her mother again. It did not feel so
bad.

A little voice in her head nagged at her, insisting that
this was only a safety mechanism: her body’s way of coping with what was in
store. She ignored it. She had to hold onto this feeling; this acceptance. She
didn’t want to think of all the things she had not done, all that she had not
known. She didn’t want to think of those feelings unexplored, of Declan, Leron;
or the faces she would never see again, of Con, Bridey; of Bree and Jasper.
There was no point hoping. No point fighting. Soon it would be over.

If only the end had been near, Raegan might have held onto
her sense of numb resignation.

Unfortunately Sam seemed determined to make the final
moments last. With a constant flow of patter, he adjusted components of the
massive funereal pyre he’d constructed, even consulting hand-drawn plans to
ensure everything was just so. Sickeningly, as Raegan was being strapped to the
stake, it dawned on her how much thought had gone into this night. While she’d
been daydreaming about him, he had been planning; conducting research,
constructing diagrams, and carefully coming up with ways to hurt her. It was
hideous.

Finally he turned to Declan, lips bared in a rictus grin.
‘Let’s sort you out now, shall we? You can’t just loll about! No mate, you need
a front row seat!’ With bruising, unforgiving hands, he wrenched Declan’s prone
form up off the floor, plonking him in a chair set at the edge of the clearing.

‘Don’t worry, you won’t fry. Not yet. But you’ll be near
enough to smell her flesh burning.’

Her brother’s face was white with pain now; but still, on he
clung, bravely resisting unconsciousness. Sam wrenched his head up by the chin,
holding it in place so that there would be no escaping the view. Helplessly he
and Raegan gazed at one another.
Don’t blame yourself,
she willed him to
hear her thoughts.
It’s not your fault.

‘You’ll never get away with this.’ Narrowed to the merest
slits, Declan’s eyes glittered dangerously.

Sam rolled his. ‘No rest for the wicked, no bad deed goes
unpunished and bla bla bla. Heard it all before, Dec. Couldn’t you have come up
with something more original? Anyway, who is going to ‘get’ me? Haven’t you
been listening – I took care of the others. Slipped a nice concoction of
rhubarb leaves in their evening meals; should keep them occupied in the
infirmary for a few hours.’

‘There are worse things than being caught.’

‘Like what? What have I got left to lose?’
A hint of bitterness, now.

‘Your soul,’ Declan said quietly.

Sam’s fist tightened convulsively on Declan’s chin, nails
disappearing into the flesh. ‘That died when he did.’

The sudden violence of his departure left a spray of crimson
rivulets trickling down Declan’s neck. Sam picked up the petrol can with a
shaking hand.

Then it was Raegan’s turn.

‘I am sorry that it has to be like this,’ he said chattily,
addressing her for the first time. He unscrewed the cap. Raegan wished she
could make the slightest movement to convey her disgust. Even a small curl of
the lip would be better than this flabby blankness - and even Christian had
allowed her that privilege. This was a type of punishment she could not have
imagined. This was true enslavement.

Sam was dousing the lower section of the pyre now, his
movements slow: luxuriating in his moment in the spotlight. The speeches
continued.

‘I did think about coming clean. We were friends. That part
was real... as real as it could have been, since it was based on a lie. It’s all
been a lie, Raegan. Did you know? We were all in on it. Our orders were to
maintain the deceit. You weren’t supposed to know you had a brother.’ His
sovereign ring glinted in the light as he straightened up, smiling sadly at
her. ‘You were better off not knowing. Really I’m doing you a favour by ending
this now– what kind of life has it been for you, you silly cow? Lied to by your
parents, lied to by your teachers, your so-called friends, and finally by your
twin.
Harsh.
But let’s be honest, you were pretty
thick not to work it out. Still, now you know!’ Sam shook with soundless,
mirthless laughter. ‘And that’s the best part of all! Look at your prize!’ He
gestured to where Declan sat. ‘What a twin he is - a coward and a murderer!’

By this time Raegan was almost glad she could not show her
true feelings.
Because, despite everything, Sam could still
get to her.
His words were as scalding as acid thrown in her face;
almost as strong as the smell of gasoline, overpowering and pungent, wafting up
from beneath. A block of ice thudded into her belly. Were she to make a sound
now, it would surely be a scream of pure, abject terror. She did not want to
give him a satisfaction.

‘He tried to steal my brother from me.’ For the first time
there was real pain in Sam’s voice. ‘He was jealous. He didn’t have a twin. He
couldn’t join in. But friendship wasn’t good enough. He had to try and push me
out.’

‘That’s not true.’

Sam whirled around so fast Raegan hardly saw it. Suddenly
deranged, flecks of spittle frothed at the corner of his mouth; his cheeks were
a hectic, virulent red. ‘It is true. Sebastian had never tried a drug in his
life before you came along; would never have thought of using that stuff if you
hadn’t given it to him!’

‘He asked me to get it.’ Declan regarded Sam with a mixture
of defiance and pity. ‘And I did. For that, I owe you an apology. I was real
curious. I knew Magma was meant to have mind-altering properties- I thought
maybe through it we could find a way to work together as twins did, and that way
I could access my powers.
Selfish.
But Sebastian was
the one who came up with the idea.
The one who fronted the
cash for the Magma.’

‘Liar!’
Sam roared
,
throwing the empty petrol can on the floor. ‘It was you!
All you.
But then when it came down to it, you didn’t have
the guts, did you? You let him be your guinea pig and then left him to fend for
himself in the fire! That’s why he-he-he couldn’t get out!’ Voice wobbling
dangerously, he turned and walked to the edge of the clearing. His shoulders
were heaving.

With urgency Declan fixed his gaze on Raegan. He knew he
might not get another opportunity to set her straight.  ‘I’m being honest,
swear to God. I’m not proud of myself. But I’m no murderer. For Chrissake,
Raegan – Sebastian was my best friend!

‘I
know
I should have stopped him taking it, but I
was totally naïve. I couldn’t believe that it could be so powerful, or that it
could work so fast. But straight after swallowing the pill he just…lost it. We
were locked in my room, no-one else around. He got up onto the windowledge –
ready to fly, he said - before I tackled him, but he threw me off. Because I’d
rushed at him, he got this idea that I was a demon so... he got out his
lighter.’ Declan swallowed hard, face tinged green-grey with the effort of
talking. ‘He threw it at me. I ducked. Avoided getting torched
myself
but I’d hung my clothes wall to wall. The flames
spread around the whole room. But, still thinking I was a demon, Seb locked the
door on me.’

A tear formed at the corner of his eye. Raegan felt water
bloom in her own as if in sympathy, her vision battling against the rising
toxic fumes. The paralysis was easing.

‘I couldn’t make it to the window. The smoke was too thick.
I fell, hard.
Couldn’t get up again.
Then Seb came
back and kicked the door in. I thought he’d come to his senses - boy, was I
wrong. But he got me out... pretty much threw me down the stairs. The flames
were chasing us. But then - he wouldn’t move! I was standing at the bottom of
the stairs, he was at the top, but he was just standing there, staring at the
fire. It was so loud. I was yelling at him to hurry up...’ Declan closed his
eyes. ‘He ran back into the flames. Before I could get up there, the top of the
building blew. They had to pull me out of the rubble.’

‘And Sebastian was already dead.’ Sam had rejoined them now.
Deathly pale, he swayed where he stood as if ruffled by the breeze lifting the
tree branches.
‘Killed in the fire.
Because
of you.’
Angrily brushing his cheeks, but not before Raegan noticed the
water stains, he grabbed a full can of petrol and emptied it. Gone was the
precision of before. There was a manic quality to his movements now that Raegan
had not seen.

‘Now you’ll know what it feels like.’ The can, now empty,
clattered to the floor. Teeth bared in a lipless grin, stretched so far they
could see the unhealthy white of his tongue, Sam took something out of his
pocket and waved it in Declan’s face.

Declan sucked in a breath. ‘Sebastian’s lighter.’

‘As justice goes it is rather poetic. You took my twin from me;
now I’ll take yours. Then you’ll join her. The circle completed – all with this
flame.’ The lighter flared.

Declan just looked at him sadly. The words were soft and
pitying. ‘Sebastian would be so disappointed in you.’

‘Shut up!’ With unmerciful viciousness, Sam cracked his hand
back and forth against Declan’s face, over and over again.  Finally he
landed a series of savage kicks to Declan’s injured chest. Pain lanced through
Raegan; she felt the blow as acutely as if it had been to her own ribcage. Her
twin crumpled off the chair to the floor, collapsing onto his injured side.

The knife glinted again, silver and
unfriendly against Declan’s cheek.

‘You can scrabble on the ground. See what it’s like to be a
helpless worm while she dies.’

As Sam straightened and advanced on the pyre, Raegan could
hear his breaths coming in short, harshly excited bursts.

There was no ceremony. The scream building in her ears died
as the lighter flickered in the air and then fell, faster than a knife through
butter.

She could not feel the heat of the great whoosh of flames as
they sprung up around her, awful and magnificent by the same token; but she
could hear the crackle and roar and the sight was blinding. At this close
range, with flames this size, it was like gazing into the sun. She could see
nothing else. If she could bypass the mindnumbing fear for a few short moments,
she would feel grateful that she’d been spared both the sight of her brother
and the agony of being burned alive.

Gradually, however, she became aware that this was not to
be. Her eyes appeared to be growing accustomed to the light and, through the
haze, she made out dark shapes: the trees, watching traitorously, the
glistening water of the lake, and finally the prone form she had hoped to
avoid, now turned towards her. Sam was
crouched
by
him, teeth gleaming with an ugly maroon, forcing her brother’s head up to
watch. Declan seemed to have aged a thousand years in a single moment. There
was something devastating about seeing such a mouth – a beautifully wide,
generous mouth, usually firing insults or chattering nine to the dozen –
hanging motionless, frozen in an ‘O’ of anguish.

The bond she never knew existed tugged at her now, linking
them over the fire. She couldn’t bear to watch as it was torn apart.

And then suddenly she was not. She had shut her eyes.

The leap of joy was immediately replaced by a hollow dread.
If she could close her eyes it meant the drugs were leaving her system. The
more the paralysis faded, the more pain she would feel. She began to cough. Her
lungs finally felt the weight of the invading toxic fumes.

As her heart ricocheted against her rib cage, flailing in
desperation, she thought how pointless her powers seemed in this moment. Beats
per minute might be something she could control outside of the walls of Unit
Prime, but it was still a countdown to death.

She didn’t want to die.
God, how she did
not want to die.

Her eyes stung against the acrid smoke but she inched them
open.
One last look into the horizon.
A sudden rush of
heat distracted her from the surprising blur of movement in the distance.

The bottom of her dress had caught fire.

In fact two things happened at once. With a loud, whistling
zip
,
the material burst into flame; at the same time, a huge armoured vehicle
stormed into the clearing. Sam whipped round. A split-second later Declan made
his move. Hopelessly weakened, he had somehow managed to escape some of his
bindings. He launched himself on top of Sam. Hazy figures were leaping out of
the tank, sprinting towards the two men. The clouds of ash were too thick now
to make out their faces.

The smoke choked the scream that tore from her parched
throat. The two men were rolling over and over towards the bottom of the pyre,
dangerously close to the flames. She barely noticed the fire inching up her
body. As heavy and immovable as a stone, she could only wait, staring at the
scene unfolding like a horror film.

And then a figure was soaring up, over the tower of orange
and burning red, clearing the blaze by centimetres. It crashed into the stake,
clinging on for dear life. Warwick’s fierce dark eyes stared out of an
ash-streaked face. A fearsome knife was clenched between his teeth.

With the deftest, lightest hands, Warwick sawed through the
ropes. She sagged against him. The flames from her dress, buffered by his wide
body, had not completely died; instead, they licked at his fatigues, greedy for
a new victim.

He ignored them. Still balancing precariously on the pyre,
he angled himself between her and the crescendoing fire. Ripping an oversized
dark cloth from his shoulders, he wrapped her in it, swinging her up into his
arms as if she was a tiny child. Cradling her against his chest, it was only
now that he spoke.

‘The flames are too high. If we don’t clear them, I’ll have
to throw you up. Bree will catch you.’ Though he was shouting at the top of his
voice, it sounded disembodied and strange to her ears. Adrenalised by his
presence, though too shell-shocked to feel relief, she had felt sharper, more
energised. Now she felt the opposite. All strength was leaving her. She was
losing focus; instead of the heat growing more intense, it was slipping away.
Blackness, instead of burning, orange-tinged lightness, crowded at the edges of
her vision.