Unfinished Business (The Shades of Northwood 3) Read online

  THE SHADES OF NORTHWOOD 3:

  UNFINISHED BUSINESS

  Wendy Maddocks

  ©2012 by Wendy Maddocks

  Smashwords edition

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  Where we left…

  “I’m ba-ack!”

  Dina was allowed home a few days later, even though the hospital had advised against leaving so soon. There were forms to sign and prescriptions to collect – pain pills and ointment for her scars. She moved straight back into the big room with Jaye despite Katie offering to swap in case she wanted her own space. But the offer was declined – Dina said she never wanted to spend so much as a night alone again. Katie wondered how much she remembered of her time in Room 4. She didn’t like to ask though.

  “You missed tryouts the other day,” Adam reminded Katie the following Monday morning. “Decided to give them a miss this year?”

  “Just putting them off for a while. Work’s keeping me busy.” She put her hands together in a praying pose and fluttered her eyes at Leo. He rolled his eyes at her – not one for light-hearted mockery when it came to his religion, but he was starting to learn that the girls only did to get a reaction – and stalked over to cut and put ketchup on her bacon sandwich. Even the most basic things were impossible when you were one hand down. “I wanted to ask… am I still on for a free self-defence class? You know, when I’m all healed up.”

  “What happened to the one on one tuition thing?”

  She shrugged and tried not to blush as Lainy bounded into the kitchen obviously exciting after getting off the phone. “Still hoping but, you know, team player and all that.”

  “Well, if you’re up for personal training, I could teach you a few things, cast or not.”

  “Oh, I can’t keep it in any more!” squeaked Lainy, the words coming out like one long word. “You’re all here now and I can’t wait for the house meeting tonight.”

  “Lainy,” Katie said. “Breathe. In, out, in, out-“

  “Shake it all about. Shake it, baby, shake it. But be careful not to wake it.”

  “Not helping, Jaye. Also, doesn’t make sense. Now, why the hell are you excited at this time in the morning? It’s disturbing.”

  “Well, that was Dr de Rossa on the phone. We were talking and… how would you guys feel if I went back to nursing? It’s only a few shifts a week so I can still be here a lot. But I seem to be patching one of you lot up all the time so I figured… why not get paid for it? I was quite good back in the day and then it was… I had to stop, but I miss it every single day.”

  “I think it’s a great idea. You should definitely go for it!”

  After a long pause, which Lainy was too hyper to notice Adam muttered “I think we should talk,” then started to clear up.

  Chapter one

  “Remember, Katie, you’re trying to break his fingers, not yours.”

  “I’m trying!”

  This short, sharp exchange had become quite normal in the Newton Street house over the past couple of weeks. In the beginning, Katie had been reluctant to put any force behind the manoeuvres Adam was teaching her but…

  “You’re forgetting you’re at least twice as strong as me Adam.” And she was using her left hand which wasn’t the strongest.

  “No, I’m not. But the guys you’ll be trying this one will be full of alcohol and adrenaline. And that makes them dangerous. Now, push!”

  With her hand – the other one was bundled up in a plaster cast and cradled to her chest in a foam loop that went around her neck – Katie pushed down with the heel of her palm and grunted. Adam was a tall guy, broad and muscly too. It was hard to get a decent grip on him but he had spent hours showing her how to get good grips on any part of any body, no matter what size or shape. Well, not all parts maybe. Hand down, grab bollocks and squeeze until something pops was pretty instinctive. All at once, his fingers began to arch up as Katie pushed the back of his hand into the carpet, she laced her fingers through his and started to pull back. When she felt his hand protest under the pressure she let go. “But I have the element of surprise. I mean, no-one’s going to expect me to know how to defend myself.”

  Adam shook his hand out and started to flex his fingers. “How did that feel?”

  “Not too bad. It was harder than before though. Were you fighting me?”

  “Could you have finished the job if I was?” Answering a question by asking another one. Helpful. “At least you’ve stopped making straining-for-a-crap face. You need to work on speed though.”

  “You cheeky sod! I never made poo-face.” She made a fist and smacked Adam in the chest with it. He gave an exaggerated wince. A dump truck driving into Adam would probably do more damage to the truck than it would him. Probably. “Maybe a face that said trying to crush your bones is like trying to bend steel rods.”

  “You’re getting stronger.”

  But learning how to defend herself was not all about strength or even blocking physical attacks – it was about knowing how to control and diffuse situations before they ever got that far. And that was the skill she really needed. Working at a nightclub was reason enough to want to defend herself – working there at age sixteen was even more of one. The things she had seen since arriving in Northwood pushed the need to the edge and the challenges she had facedown just rose up and kicked those reasons right off the cliff.

  But Adam didn’t need to know about any of that. All he had to know was that he taught self defence, Katie wanted to learn it. There was not much to be done with her forearm in plaster. But the little moves… sometimes they were better than turning an annoyance into a confrontation. “Do it again. Don’t hold back and don’t stop.” So Katie repeated the push/pull action and kept pulling even when his fingers were so far back they should have snapped already. Then he twisted under her and reversed the grip so he was pushing instead. There was a struggle – Katie was determined not to give in – and then the hold broke. She thought she could have broken fingers but whether they would have been his or her own was another matter entirely. “Okay, I’m done for tonight.” Her broken wrist was begging for painkillers and an essay on altruism beckoned. How interesting had her life become? When you had nearly died at least twice and actually died once within days of moving to Northwood, tight deadlines seemed kind of mundane. Between making sure her grades stayed high enough to keep her scholarship, working at the club, and doing her fair share of jobs around the house, Katie was spread thin enough. She liked this predictable cycle of eat sleep work. Right on cue, another part of her routine popped up. A pair of thick soles raced across the landing and a door slammed, inviting a stream of abuse. It sounded as though Jaye had just stolen the bathroom from her room-mate, Dina. A high peal of laughter and then the door creaked open and shut once more. The girls shared most things and, tonight, it sounded like make up.

  “There goes my hot water,” Katie sighed. She had been planning to get somebody to wash her hair but Jaye was incapable of leaving the bathroom with any hot water in the tank – whether she needed it or not. “And here go I.”

  About half-way up the stairs, Lainy swept in through the front door, bringing in a sudden blast of approaching winter with her. “Hi, sweetie.”

  “
Oh, hey. I thought you were on the late shift tonight.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t think anyone will miss me. I’ll be up later. Now, where’s that feller of mine?”

  Katie jerked a thumb towards the front room. “And tell him to stop beating up on little girls.” Lainy looked her up and down. At nearly five foot seven the look took a while. And Katie still had a few more years of growing to do. “Point taken.”

  As she passed the bathroom where Jaye and Dina were squealing over some new techniques for smoky eyes, a familiar sensation hit. It was a cool, squeezing hand around her insides. Her stomach contracted in both discomfort and longing; not quite pain, though that would certainly come, and a sudden need for the feeling to continue. Because the end result would be worth it. Katie hurried past one open door and one closed one with that talking cat from YouTube drifting through it, and dashed into her small room at the end and slammed the door behind her. The first port of call was the bottom drawer of her bedside table where she kept some Paracetamol. She could dry-swallow them or pop a couple and take them with Red Bull. Neither option appealed but she eventually decided to swallow them dry. She wanted to sleep tonight. A beep came from her prone – a text message from some ringtone firm trying to sell her Halloween tunes. Hmm… tempting. Not. Katie pressed the power button on her laptop and, as she waited for it to load up, eased her cast out of the foam loop and rested it on the desk. It was her right hand, her writing hand, but she could just about type and use a mouse with it. Thank you modern technology. Can’t even get me out of homework. The essay was about half done. She wanted to finish it later tonight and only have to double check it tomorrow because there wouldn’t be time for much else before work.

  And then it started hurting again.

  It took a moment for the pain to set in but at least Katie was expecting it. She let her mind turn inwards and a ball of silvery energy shot through with purple-black streaks formed in the pit of her stomach, and she focussed on that. It had taken until now to grow that ball of life force into this healthy orb from the shredded mess it had been left in a fortnight ago. That was down to having her new friends around all the time. A little love worked wonders for a girl. Sometimes, though, it felt like love was killing her.

  These almost daily visits were definitely taking a toll. Although getting to spend time with Jack was wonderful, it was also torture. An invisible finger dug deep into that silver ball, hooked a whisper thin strand of light and pulled. It came loose and that was painful enough. It unravelled and Katie forced herself back into the real world before she fell into her own soul. The pain wasn’t oh my God bad and hadn’t been since the first couple of times when all this had been new; more like she was slowly coming undone inside. Each and every tug of that string of light was just pulling another splinter out of her soul. Melodramatic much? This was the most beautiful hurt Katie could ever imagine and she never wanted it to stop because somewhere… somewhere deep and hidden… she knew she deserved it. Only – however corny it sounded, the breath she couldn’t quite catch, the waves of tiredness that nudged her edges – none of that even registered when Jack’s ghostly image began to form in front of her. It didn’t stop hurting.

  “Hey,” she grinned, putting her hand up to his face – or where his face would be when he was flesh once more. Her skin would always be the first thing he felt. “I missed you.”

  Jack couldn’t speak until he was fully solid so he just smiled in return. And that smile was love. Pure and eternal and invincible. Maybe Kate hadn’t completely worked out her feelings for him yet but Jack had loved this girl for so long. He’d waited more than a century for her – weeks, months, a year or more, it wouldn’t make much difference. I missed you too.

  Katie jumped. “I keep forgetting you can do that.” It should not have surprised her. He had sent his thoughts to her many times but she never expected it when it happened. “You need to start knocking when you want to do the mind meld thing.”

  Knock knock.

  “Not happening, cowboy.” Katie turned back to the computer screen which was staring at her and wondering why she didn’t love it anymore. Altruism and modern society. There really wasn’t all that much to say. It didn’t exist any more. End of. “Unless you’re planning to share some thrilling new ideas for this essay, I am not moving from this seat!”

  What you writin’? Love letter? For me? You shouldn’t have.

  “Anyone ever told you you can be a right arse sometimes?”

  “You love my ass,” said Jack, finally solid enough to speak, and turned around to give her a better view of said body part.

  “I don’t like it when it’s interrupting me,” she shot back and gave him a light smack on the arm. It was a lie – there wasn’t a single part of him that Katie could justly have a problem with – but the truth was, she didn’t need the distraction right now… and it was worryingly easy to get distracted with him around. “Oh God, I need someone to do this for me.” She put her head down and rested it on her cast, hoping the rough weave of the plaster would scratch some life into her. Giving part of her energy to Jack to allow him to take physical form had drained her and it would take a little time for it to return in full.

  He leaned over her, took a look at her screen and frowned. Reading hadn’t been a part of basic education when he was young and, whilst his mother had aught him letters before he left home, it still took him a while to figure out some words.

  “Jack?” Katie glanced up at him and searched his sea green eyes for something – strength, vitality – anything she could use to feed herself enough to keep awake. All she found there were shadows. Things he didn’t want to tell her yet. Things he maybe didn’t want to tell himself. But that was too deep, too soon; all Katie wanted was a hug.

  “Lady Katie.” At some point, that had become the name he used for her – like a cute little nickname. Katie liked it. It had first passed between them just after her arrival in Northwood, she was sure of it, but he had kissed her that night and her memories of the time were blurred pictures and snatches of conversations that might or might not have ever happened. It wasn’t that the kiss had been mind-blowing enough to blank her mind – it had been gentle and shy and pleasant – but Jack had a… talent. A special way of making sure he was forgotten. Jack was a ghost. Not a ghost in the spy sense where you just made yourself so incredibly average that nobody had reason to remember you, but a fully-fledged, card-carrying ghost. Of the dead variety. He was called a Shade. One of the things he could do was kiss a person and completely erase him from their memory. Which, all things considered, was probably a good thing. But, when Katie was meant to be in a relationship with said ghost – not kissing was becoming a problem. “Is something wrong?”

  Want the list? she thought at him. There was a lot wrong and Jack knew it. He was just doing that male thing of pretending his problems didn’t exist until they went away. “Everything I ever knew fell away when I moved here. That should’ve been enough.”

  “You told me yourself, everything you knew turned to fear.”

  “It was a big enough thing, you know, leaving home is the biggest thing a lot of people go through. Ever. So I thought I’d be home and dry because God knows I’ve been through it,” she continued, barely pausing for breath. Now that the words were coming out of her mouth, there was just no stopping them. “But oh no, the world just keeps on piling it on because hey, it’s Katie, let’s see how much more she can take. Well, newsflash World - Katie can’t take any more. I’ve been beaten up, whipped, nearly drowned. I thought I found friends but I had to fight to keep them. I had to kill a guy to stop him killing us both. And I can’t even kiss you because it’ll screw with my head.” What have I done? Why is the world punishing me? “And my wrist hurts.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t have no answers for you but the wrist… I can do something ‘bout that.”

  Jack gently placed his own hand over hers and touched her fingertips. Katie shivered. Being touched by Jack wasn’t like being
touched by any flesh and blood human. His touch was air-light but somehow cool and firm. It sent a tingle through her and it was good. A tingle that made her feel safe. Safety was all she had wanted for some time and Jack had been there to give that. He wouldn’t always be around though, as Katie had found out, so she needed to know how to handle herself in a fight. Like every-one, she hoped she never had to call on that knowledge but based on her first month here, the possibility was slim to none. She pushed back in her chair and closed her eyes, breathing deep and preparing herself for the wash of numbness that would sink into her wrist.

  And then there was a knock at the door.

  “Katie, can I come in?” There was a moment of silence then Lainy walked straight in with no more warning. “Let’s do this before I fall down.”

  “Long day?”

  “New lot of students. Think they know it all. They’ll learn. Believe me, they’ll learn.”

  “And you get to teach them. They pay you extra for that?”

  “As if! No. Goodness of my heart, sweets.”

  “Lucky you.”

  In the next second – so fast Katie would have missed it if she had decided to blink – Lainy shot a questioning look at Jack and he just stared back, no response in his eyes. She had found the two of them holed up here together a few times already and, although she never asked how Jack got there, the question was growing. Maybe she knew and was just being polite. “So, how does it feel today?” Lainy asked, taking the bandaged arm in one hand and prodding exposed flesh with the other. All the time she never took her eyes off Jack and Katie just knew there was some silent conversation shooting between them. If Jack could communicate with Katie psychically then it made sense that he could do it with Lainy too. So, in the way she had become very good at over recent weeks (worryingly good if she was honest) Katie split her consciousness in two, letting the very surface take care of what her body was doing, and pushed the rest of her mind over to the invisible level on which her friends were speaking. She felt Jacks’ mind nearby, just a wall, closed off and heavily guarded but couldn’t see Lainy. Then a snake of purple-black light raced across and there was a tangle of silver sending ripples of greens and blues to another tangle of silver, only this one had handfuls of black threads mixed in. And the blue and green waves began to sing. And the song turned into an argument.