Long Division (20 page)

He turned away and looked around to the shattered remains of his flat. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have a working computer at the moment.’

I huffed my breath and ran a hand through my hair shakily, eyes drifting to the piles of torn papers at my feet. His steps retreated across the floor.

My mobile
ping
ed! and I pulled it from my pocket. Ashley. Asking if I’d want to go out for dinner tonight. I clenched my teeth. Damn. I found myself texting yes even as James broke through my thoughts. I had to abandon my reply. I swallowed my frustration and looked up to him. ‘Sorry?’

He was gazing out the window. ‘They’ll come back.’ His voice was a near rasp, and it jarred me; the perfect machine had broken.

‘You think they’ll do
this
again?’ I stepped closer to him, not liking the edge in his tone. James was rather prone to over exaggeration, but, given the circumstances, I wasn’t entirely sure it was unwarranted.

He swung his head round to me and faced me with hollow eyes. ‘They’ll come back. They won’t let me live.’

‘James,’ I laughed humourlessly, more like a choke. ‘You can’t say that! What—whatever is on that drive can’t be bad as all of that!’ I knew it was false even as the words broke from my lips. My stomach did a slow flip, seeing the hopeless expression his face held. My gaze shifted to the window behind him. I glowered at the InVizion tower that was so perfectly framed there. That bloody tower. That perpetrator of all troubles. ‘After all the shit we’ve pulled, surely they would have made some sort of move by now. Why do this all of a sudden?’

He let out a weird groan.

‘All right, hey, James, just calm down, yeah?’ I moved across to him and pulled him roughly round to face me. The force was enough to shake him from his daze. ‘You’re not going to talk that way. Okay? We’re going to figure something out.’

‘Numbers are the ultimate order.’

I ignored his rambling. I needed to get out of this place. I needed a break. I wanted to be with Ashley. Yet with James’s apartment ransacked, I didn’t feel comfortable with him sleeping there alone.

‘Look,’ I took a deep breath. I supposed I wasn’t putting myself in any more danger than I already was, after all, I was probably dead too. ‘Why don’t you stay at my place? Yeah? At least for tonight? It’s been a long day and this place is a wreck. You can deal with it tomorrow. We can deal with it. I can help you, if you’d like.’

He swayed, head shaking—his whole body.

‘Yeah,’ I said curtly, deciding for him. ‘Come on; pack a bag for what you need. I don’t think we should stay here any longer as it is, and if we’re both in danger, then—then I think safety in numbers, yeah?’

He’d probably appreciate that turn of phrase, if he’d heard it at all.

It was sounding like a better idea the more I thought about it. Perhaps I was just trying to convince myself, but the notion of going home alone now was no longer an option in my mind. I turned from him, since he was clearly not moving any time soon, and packed a bag for him.

When I returned, he was still in the same spot. I tugged on his arm. ‘Right, time to go.’

He obediently did as he was told, following me without question. At the door he paused. ‘What about all of this?’

I shook my head. ‘We’ll deal with it tomorrow.’

He locked the door, damaged by whoever had broken in, and we left, back to my flat. Bringing with me his danger, his problems, and turning my stomach in nervous tumbles.

On the way, I reluctantly sent a text to Ashley, explaining something had come up and I would not be able to meet her. I was less than happy to do so, but admittedly, at the same time, a tiny bit relieved. It was that tiny bit relieved feeling that I didn’t want to pay much attention to at the moment.

I hadn’t managed to convince myself that moving James in—if only, hopefully very temporarily—was a good idea.

Anyhow, too late now. He was already here, already settled. I couldn’t go back.

Once he was comfortable, he kept to the area he’d established for himself, which was the sofa, and kept quiet—after a brief, tense disagreement about him not allowed to smoke. To be honest, even as small as my flat was, it was almost as if he wasn’t there. He didn’t want to eat what I’d ordered in; he was careful about his space; he was nothing more than an odd, silent ghost. Without his walls of numbers, without his computers, without his stable life he seemed to be nothing. All he had was his thumb drive, which he still hand tightly clenched in one hand. Which he still, aggravatingly, hadn’t shown me.

And I still didn’t have the heart to ask him what was on it.

We spent our evening routines completely separate, which was fine with me; I wasn’t left with worrying with what to do with him.

It was as he washed up, I turned on the television, struggling not to think on the fact I could have been out with Ashely, instead of hidden in here, where the dishes rattled with the passing of trains.

I turned to news and put the kettle on.

‘A new string of alarming attacks and vandalism have been on the rise across the city—and around the world. Worries of a new “super bug”, possibly transmitted by birds, have our scientists talking. We’ll have more of this report at—’

On the table next to the sofa—where James had taken up residence—his mobile buzzed and continued on so, making me cringe with each vibration. The bathroom door swung open and James, wrapped in a dressing robe, stuck his head out, toothbrush in hand.

‘Mind getting that, would you?’

I turned off the television and gave him a look. ‘You sure?’

He was already gone, back to washing. I could hear him cleaning his teeth.

I abandoned my cup of tea and walked cross the few feet of space that separated my small kitchen from the sofa. I swept up James’s mobile.

‘It wants a code!’ I raised my voice, frustrated. Nothing with him was easy.

I heard water running and then he shouted out a string of numbers I could barely catch as I hurriedly typed them in. Luckily, I managed. Then came the struggle to figure out how to operate his device before finally pulling up the flashing icon that indicated a message—or so I assumed. A document popped up.

‘Oh, it’s from Fox. More notes from a meeting.’

James let out a bored huff.

I read through it anyway. Most of it was so confusing and coded I couldn’t make it out. Random words trailed past my vision.

REVERSAL. RAV. VIRUS.  COVER. MIRROR NEGATIVE FEELINGS.

I frowned. ‘James?’

He stepped out, wearing nothing more than pyjama pants and the dressing robe, untied; hair tousled. How was it possible he did not work out because
honestly.
He was thin, but his muscles still managed to stand out beneath his pale skin, striped by those two scars.

I felt my ears warm at the sight and looked down to my socks. I waved the mobile in my hand. ‘Any idea what
RAV
is?’

He yawned and plucked his phone from my grasp before sprawling on the sofa, lanky body yards longer than what the tattered cushions offered. He read over it for a moment. By the silence, it was clear that he’d gotten just about as much from it as I had.

‘No idea,’ he said at last.

I pressed my fingers to my eyes. ‘What about that virus? Why would InVizion be worrying about a virus?’

James closed his eyes and dropped his mobile back to the table. ‘Code.’

My nose crinkled. ‘You think that’s what they’re labelling their…mind control?’

James shrugged his bony shoulders.

There was a muffled yell and a
whump!
and the wall that separated my flat from the neighbours’ gave a rattle. James eyed it suspiciously.

I waved a hand. ‘Don’t mind that. Next flat over. Should knock it off…they’re never very noisy.’

Another stifled cry made me wince at the words as they left my mouth.

He nodded and sank back against the cushions. There was something disturbingly stunned about him, and more than a little small. Being out of his comfort zone, his security, his little rituals and routines, it was getting to him. I watched his hands ball up, scrunch the fabric of the robe against his legs. His eyes were glued to the opposite wall. He was just sinking away from me, and it hadn’t even been a full day. I couldn’t let him do that. I’d brought him here. He had to stay strong. I didn’t know what else was coming, but if they’d ransacked his room so brazenly, then I didn’t think they’d hesitate doing much else. James had to know that, too.

I poured him a cuppa and walked over, setting it on the table where his phone now rested before I sat on the opposite end of the sofa, near his feet, to watch him. He didn’t touch the tea. He just stared, silently, into space.

My neighbours had gone quiet.

I clasped and unclasped my hands, fighting for something to say to break up the silence that had been the majority of his being here.

‘You know,’ my voice wavered and I cleared my throat, ‘I know what it’s like to feel like you’re losing everything.’

He continued to stare at the wall. I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me.

I went on, unable to stop, feeling my pulse being to punch a little faster. ‘About five years ago, I lost it all. Or, I thought I had…’

My eyes drifted to a stray thread on my jeans and I plucked at it. Out of the corner of my vision I saw him looking at me now, vaguely curious. My stomach squirmed uncomfortably. I’d dug myself into a hole that I hadn’t been brave enough to venture into for years and now I wasn’t sure how to climb back out unscathed. And to tell James, of all people, of what had happened to me! James, who did not sympathise or understand what others felt, who never listened to me half the time. Why would he, out of everyone, be the one I found myself aching to tell? Would he not only disappoint me by his disinterest? Yet, he was watching me now, waiting patiently, for me to speak.

Either way, I couldn’t stop myself even if I’d wanted to. It had been so long since I’d talked about it, with anyone, that I had to say it now.

‘Was out with my family. Mum, sister and dad. I was on holiday from Uni and we’d gone out for the evening. We were here, in London. Been out to see a show, gone to dinner. Been a good day.’ The thoughts came short to me, but they came willingly. I wanted to say them. A bit like kissing someone you’re not familiar with. That same excited anticipation and nervous hesitance licked at my resolve.

‘I was driving.’

James’s head tilted slightly.

I shrugged. The rest came quickly. ‘Only took one second of my attention off the road for the crash to happen. The car hit us on the left. Right where my mum and dad were sitting.’ I scratched my cheek. ‘Car flipped twice. Ended upside down.

‘I don’t remember much more than that. All I remember seeing was tarmac and lights above me and breaking glass. And…and I could hear things.’ I winced. ‘My…mother was killed instantly, what they tell me. My father died before emergency services could arrive. Both of their injuries were just…too severe. The impact from the crash hit them directly. I…don’t think I need to go into the details.’

The deep rumble of a train, passing through one of the city’s veins vibrated the carpet beneath our feet. James was dead quiet.

‘I remember looking over, turning my head, it was grinding against the pavement; glass everywhere, and…I saw my sister. She was looking at me. I couldn’t see how bad off she was then, but…I knew she was…dying. Could just see it in her eyes.’ I looked away. ‘I remember trying to reach her. I was trapped. Sort of…panicked when I realised it. Seeing her; her injuries. I
had
to reach her. But I couldn’t. I was just…tearing myself up and couldn’t do a damn thing.

‘And then she looked at me, and she
smiled
and she spoke. She…she said, “It’s going to be okay, Mark, it’s going to be okay.” And I…I didn’t understand. Didn’t understand how she could be saying that to
me
when she was the one—’ I stopped myself.

Usually whenever I thought on it, I felt crushed, broken, unable to think beyond it. But this time, telling it to James, who, surprisingly, still looked at me, was liberating. I felt such a strange peace, a peace that I’d never felt, not since it had happened. Why I was now experiencing such a lifting catharsis was beyond me. Perhaps that’s what happens when one has nothing left to lose.

‘My injuries…’ I shrugged again. ‘Bad. Severe concussion. Broken arm; leg twisted all to shit. Spine…well, I’m sure you get the gist of it.’

I shook my head, staring at the wavy dark lines in the wood of the table. After saying it all, even as abbreviated as I’d been, I found myself struggling how to finish it. Why I’d told him, I couldn’t explain. Yet I’d done so. He now knew.

‘Why are you telling me this?’ James asked, voice a little hoarse.

I laughed humourlessly. ‘Hell, I don’t know. I guess…Because I know. I know what you’re going through, in a way. Losing everything, feeling hopeless, not sure how to go on.’ I stared at my shoes. ‘Don’t really know why I’m talking about it now,’ I confessed. ‘Haven’t talked about it…well…ever. I mean, I did see a therapist once or twice, just to…try and work it all out in my head but…’ I sucked in a breath through my nose. ‘Never really worked.’