Stray (35 page)

The hard bit is reaching the landing.
Don’t look right
. I go straight to my room but it’s freezing there too. Despite the duffel coat, I’m starting to shiver. My body seems to have forgotten the science. I’m a Shield. Our core temperature is supposed to recalibrate.

My bed, which I didn’t make, is made. My dirty clothes, which I didn’t pick up, are in the laundry hamper. My chest aches. I close the curtains, turn on the light, the bedside lamp and stand in the middle of the room. I leave my coat and boots on, wrap the quilt around me and lie on the bed. The shivering doesn’t stop. The central heating blows cold, stale air from resentful floor vents. Alone and cold is worse than just alone. It strokes my fear.

I heave myself up, duffel coat, quilt and boots, grab my pillow and shuffle out into the hall to the bathroom. There’s an unavoidable throat-grabbing glimpse of Miriam’s empty bed.
I did this. She’s gone because of me
. I shove the bathroom door shut and yank the cord to the wall heater. It’s as rowdy as a lawnmower and produces an instant volcanic jet stream of hot air. I push the shower curtain aside and climb in, propping my pillow on the end, legs curled up, my face tipped to the wall heater.

I cry a bit. The heater muffles the sound and dries my tears. Eventually I stop shivering and fall asleep.

* * *

“Bloody hell, it’s sweltering,” Kitty whispers, cutting off with a small gasp. “Oh, Jamie, look at her. He said she seemed fragile, didn’t he?” A strangled sob. “Why didn’t they let us know she was coming home? Leaving her here by herself. It’s disgusting. Goes to show you what heartless bastards Affinity–”

A panicked rustling.

“Jamie. I said the ‘A’ word.”

“You did. I expect the kill order will come through any moment.”

A muted thump. “It’s a demerit. That’s like five, today.”

“Yes. Knox is just pulling up now. He looks very cross. Perhaps you should go down and explain.”

“That is not funny. Not even remotely funny. Two hours in that underground fortress is more than I ever want to experience again.”

“Then stop talking.”

“Can you turn that thing off?” she says, muttering. “It’s giving me industrial hearing loss.”

The click of the wall heater and quiet like cotton wool in my ears. I crack an eyelid open from the top of my cocoon. “Why are
you
not saying the ‘A’ word?”

Kitty drops to her knees beside me, teary, runny-nosed and grinning. “Hey.” She strokes my hair, my face, sniffing, her cheeks bright pink. “We didn’t know you were coming home. Davis called Jamie and said you were – that he just dropped you off. He was worried, with no one being in the house. So we came. Is that okay? I brought Buffy – had to drag her from Dad’s study, hissing and spitting. She loves Dad. We thought – we thought it might be a bit rough coming home to an empty house. We didn’t want you to be alone.”

Aching, I close my eyes and smile into my quilt.

“We knocked but you mustn’t have been able to hear the door with the rocket engine going.”

“I was cold.”

“Oh? Well, thank goodness for that.”

“The central heating was taking too long, so I shut myself in here. I must have fallen asleep.”

She exhales in relief. “I was afraid you might be, you know … having an episode.”

I lift my eyes in question to Jamie. His face is hard to read but I don’t mind because it’s been four weeks since I looked at him and he’s beautiful. “Episode?”

“She’s worried you might have lost your marbles.”

“Why do people keep saying that?”

“You
are
sleeping in the bath,” Kitty says, her voice tender. “Are you sure you’re ready to be home?”

“The psych team felt a familiar environment and normal routine, school and friends and stuff, would be the
best path to recovery
. I seriously agreed but it means I have to see one of their psychologists every Thursday.”

“Ethan said you had a hard time.”

I groan and sink low in the tub, pulling the quilt up over my head. “
So
I blew a few things up. Only at the beginning.”

“A lab,” Kitty says.

I yank the quilt down. “Not a
whole
lab. It was just a couple of cabinets and doors … and one wall.”

“Cabinets, doors and a wall?” Kitty raises her eyebrows.

“Well,
everything’s
made of glass! It’s not my fault.”

“All right!” She lifts her palms at me. “Stay calm - it’s a small room.”

“Okay – okay, now you’re giving me an episode.” I thrash my way out of the quilt, suddenly overheated, and sit up. The duffel coat is bulky and it’s hard to move. I pull at the toggles and glare at Kitty. “You didn’t answer my question. Why are you not saying the ‘A’ word?”

She grimaces and touches the back of her neck.

Jamie’s expression closes in. “Barb and Dad’s phone lines, computers, digital footprint, you name it, will be monitored for the rest of their lives because I broke protocol. Kitty has an interim tracker for six months until they can be sure she’ll keep her mouth shut.”

I stare at him, the slow, horrible reality sinking in. “And … how did they cope with that?”

“I think they figured it was coming when I went in for my hearing.”

I nod and watch his face. He looks tired. He looks sad. “And how are they now after … everything?”

Jamie’s brow tightens and Kitty makes a wretched face. I give up on the toggles and drop my hands in my lap. I feel the tears on my face but I don’t sob or shake. “They must really hate me.”

“No.” Kitty starts crying again, rubbing my back. “No, they don’t hate you. How can you even think that? Nobody forced me to do anything. I’m not a child and I’m sick of having to explain that to people. I made my own choices.”

“Okay, maybe they don’t hate me but they must be incredibly disappointed and angry and hurt and terrified that their daughter nearly died because of me.”

Jamie heaves a sigh and gets down on the floor next to his sister, leaning his back against the tub. He sinks his face into his hands, elbows on his raised knees. “You know,” he begins, low and quiet. “It is possible to be incredibly disappointed and angry with someone … and hurt and terrified by their choices … and still be in love with them at the same time … isn’t it?”

I hear the additional words in that statement, and the question at the end, making it more than it was, making it declaration and forgiveness and a request for forgiveness all at the same time. I can only see the side of his face, his hands covering his eyes. There’s a slight pout to his lips with the build-up of pressure, colour forming at the tip of his nose, a careful brush with the side of his thumb to remove moisture from his cheek, a hint of a tremor in the deep draw of his breath and that’s all I see before I’m blinded by my own tears.

“I’m sorry about your brother,” he says.

I can’t speak.
It’s my fault. I killed him. I did it
.

Kitty begins to sob in earnest, her cries echoing off the bathroom walls more than making up for Jamie’s and my silence. Jamie leans his head back on the tub and tilts towards me. I lean and rest my head against his and Kitty strokes my hair. She begins to talk as she weeps, about how terrified Aiden was when he found her at the house in Joss Hill, how she warned him about what happened to me and how he begged her to go home, how she wore him down and the slow thaw over the next two days they had alone together. How careful he was to always keep his distance and how she wished he wouldn’t. How she noticed when he could finally meet her eye directly. How brave and funny and polite he was and how amazing it felt the first time she made him laugh. How he tried to shield her with his body in the attic when Benjamin started firing his gun, how he whispered her name over and over as he carried her to the stairs. How she wishes it could have been different. Then she gets too choked up to speak and eventually loses momentum. We sit in silence for a while then she asks, “Will there be a funeral?”

“No. Ethan and I had a sort of service at the compound. It was weird but nice. Davis came.”

“Bloody hell,” Jamie mutters.

I give a soft snort and nudge him with my head.

Kitty nods through her tears, her nose pink, her lips swollen. “Any news about Miriam?”

“No change.”

“What’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know. Ethan’s not giving up. We’ll keep trying to reach her.”

“Oh, Evs.”

I close my eyes and whisper, “I don’t want to be alone.”

Kitty kisses the top of my head. “We’ll stay.”

I stand with Jamie at the side of my bed, Buffy purring and twining around our legs. He unloops the toggles of my coat, taking his time. I look at his face like looking at water and I’m parched, drinking in the strong lines, the angle of his jaw. “Your hair’s grown.”

He smiles softly, his grey eyes travelling up and over me. “So has yours.”

I wrinkle my nose. “I look like a boy.”

Slowly, drawing his lower lip beneath his teeth, he slips his wide warm hands inside my coat and reminds me of my curves. “I don’t think so.”

I close my eyes and lose time.

He brings his mouth to my ear. “Definitely … not … a boy.”

“Jamie, this is against the rules. It’ll show up on our readings.”

“I’m on a break from rules.”

“You’re on a break?”

“Well, they don’t have a Proxy to torture us any more.”

I can’t joke. Just thinking about her makes me shiver. “There’s plenty of other ways to torture someone.”

“That wasn’t quite the tone I was going for.” He does something with his feather-light touch that makes me catch my breath.

“Are you going to kiss me soon? Because if you don’t I
might
have an episode.”

His grin makes me want things.

“I’m afraid if I start I won’t ever stop and that might be awkward when my sister comes back with the food.”

“How long do you think she’ll be?”

He groans against my neck. “Not long enough.” He makes a slow and luxurious sweep up my body and slides the coat off my shoulders.

The memory blast is instant and horrible. Jamie’s hands on a blue blouse, the spill of sandy hair over delicate shoulders.

We
both
freeze.

That’s how I know I’ve Transferred it.

“I’m sorry.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter.”

“Was that me?”

“No.” I shudder. “I don’t know? It doesn’t matter.”

He leans back so he can look at me. “Was that Helena?”

“I think – I think that’s what the Proxy said.”

He frowns and closes his eyes.

I feel like crap. Like I’ve contaminated a perfect moment. “I’m sorry. She – she was trying to upset me, trying to manipulate me. She showed me things to be cruel.”

“Did she Transfer the pain?”

“What?”

“She put that image in your mind? Did she Transfer the pain with it?”

“I don’t understand.”

He draws his lips back from his teeth before pressing them together. “Deactivation is agonising. Physical touch with your Cooler produces blinding headaches and muscle pain. It’s like forcing the wrong ends of two magnets together. Everything fights against it. You have to inject yourselves with a drug to even be able to touch and then it’s this sickly, weird, dislocated state …” He makes a frustrated grimace. “What she showed you was a lie. It was
nothing
like this.
Nothing
like being with you, or touching you.”

“You don’t have to explain,” I hurry to assure him. “You had a girlfriend. It is totally none of my business what you did.”

Something flashes behind his eyes. “Don’t say that.”

“What?”

“It would matter to me.” He blinks hurriedly. “I mean if it were the other way round and I was forced to see you with someone. It would matter to me. Majorly.”

I squint at him. “So you’re jealous of my non-existent ex-boyfriend I didn’t have sex with?”

He leans his forehead to mine. “Blindingly. The whole Hulk monster, burn-the-world-down kind of jealous.”

“I see. Well … I am extremely confused and I’m fairly sure there’s some kind of violation of important feminist principles here but I have to tell you that I
hate
Helena. I get that it’s Synergist jealousy and all but I’m talking physical harm,
hate
her. And seeing
that
… even though I had no right to feel anything, and hearing the Proxy repeat her words …”

“What words?”

I don’t want to look at him. “The words of the sanction.”

“What?” He lifts my chin.

I sigh and cringe. “The Proxy told me what Helena was saying. She repeated the words of the sanction and sort of did my freaking head in.”

He widens his eyes. “We never said those words.
I
never said those words.”

“I saw her lips moving on-screen, the Proxy spoke in time, it matched.”

He shakes his head, his grip tightening on my waist. “We never said the words. I’m deeply sorry that you saw me with her but I promise you we never said those words.”

I remember the Proxy smiling afterwards.
It’s hard to know what to believe
. “She made it up.”

He looks pained. “Well, that part.”

“Why would she do that? Just to mess with my head?”

“I’m sorry.” He strokes my cheek and we stand there for a while, feeling the resonant hum of our signals, the tingling sweetness of shared electricity.

“You know, on the psych ward … we had to do this thing where we identify the lies we believe and replace them with the truth.”

He pulls back with a smirk. “Lessons from the loony bin?”

I narrow my eyes in warning. “I’m not very good at it, but say, as an exercise, we took the image of you touching Helena, and especially her words–”

“Which we have now established were fake.”

“Yes, fake, but it still made me believe you wanted her in the same way that you want me. Or worse, that you wanted her more, which technically is fine and none of my business because the past is the past, but–”

“It’s a lie.” He cups my face, his gaze intent.

“Then what’s the truth?”