Kiss at Midnight (The Shades of Northwood 4) Read online

  “I don’t care that it’s ugly, I’m keeping it,” said Jaye after a long silence. She rolled her sleeves up and held her right arm out, nodding slightly. ”Yeah. I like it. It’s symbolic, don’t you think? It, like, ties us all together – a symbol of what we all did.”

  A harassed looking woman – Carol, who worked on reception – hurried past and threw a funny look at the girl with the silver scar who appeared to be talking to herself. Jaye glared back and Carol shook her head and moved on.

  All I see, began her partner in conversation. All I see is a permanent reminder that you guys risked everything for me and I died anyway. You don’t have to keep it… and you shouldn’t.

  “Most of the others won’t get the choice, you know,” she carried on as though Katie had never even spoken. Which she hadn’t. At least, not in the physical sense. ”Most of them’ll scar eventually anyway but if they – hey, are you cold?”

  No, I’m shivering for the fun of it. And then Katie realised that none of the snarky comebacks she wanted to answer stupid questions with were secret any more. She blushed - well, maybe she blushed. Her cheeks certainly warmed up but she wasn’t sure she had any real blood to give them that rosy tint. Yes, I’m freezing.

  “Might help if you put some clothes on then, babe.”

  Katie looked down at herself, long brown hair streaked with dried blood falling over her face – a thin hospital gown and a plastic band around her ankle with her name and medical number on it. No wonder she was cold. How?

  “Just close your eyes and imagine them on you. One condition though… you have to physically own them. And if nothing you own fits, then somebody can buy you stuff and give it to you. Then it’s truly yours and you can wear it. Get it?”

  Katie nodded even though she wasn’t sure at all.

  “So, go on. Try it.”

  She hesitated. All kinds of things could go wrong. What if she imagined her hospital gown off but couldn’t make anything replace it? What if she imagined herself into an outfit and couldn’t get rid of it? What if her focus took a holiday and she imagined the whole town into Disney OTT-ness? What if she just thought about clothes and ended up wearing everything she owned? Oh God, this could go wrong in so many ways. The only consolation was that if she did mess up then Jaye was the only one around to see. With a final look at Jaye for encouragement, Katie screwed her eyes shut and tried to think herself into some proper clothes.

  All the clothes she had at home, all the new things Marcie had made her buy just a couple of weeks ago, and the only one that stayed in the front of her mind was a white and pale blue outfit she didn’t even own any longer. The pale blue sweats had been what she was wearing when the world first got ripped from underneath her. The tracksuit that had been torn to shreds and stained with blood and guilt and shame was the last thing she wanted to be wearing. Think of something else, anything else. Something was happening.

  “I guess it’s a start.”

  What? What have I done?

  Katie followed a pointing finger down to her feet, now clad in thick soled but air light work boots. Laces snaked over the floor at the sides and Katie bent down to tie them up, feeling a restraining hand on her arm.

  “Imagine them tied.”

  It took a few minutes and a few accidents but finally the boots were tied with the power of her mind. And she was exhausted.

  “Do you remember what you had to do?” Katie frowned at her friend. “We tried to save you, keep you alive, but you said you had things to do. What things?”

  Had she? Why would she say that? Why would she prevent the big-hearted girl saving her life and willingly dive into death? Maybe something had happened. I don’t know. I can’t remember much. Jaye, why can’t I remember? Suddenly she was frightened. Behind Katie was a chaos of colour and sound, flashes and lightning strikes, whilst before her… she just didn’t know. Couldn’t even picture anything beyond this very moment.

  “It’ll come,” Jaye assured her. “Dying’s a very traumatic experience, you know.”

  But you knew right away. That you were dead, I mean. You knew that. Did you know how it happened?

  “No. And I still don’t. But I can take a pretty good guess.” She stopped talking for a minute and rubbed her hands over face. “My ex boyfriend was lovely. Always looked out for me, always stood up for me. Until that night. We went to bed and then something happened. I think they said it was some undiagnosed heart problem or something, but I opened my eyes and I was… And he wasn’t there either. He assumed he’d done something and then he took off before I knew how to tell him it wasn’t his fault. He went off the rails after that. Mickey, his name was.”

  That’s harsh.

  “Yeah, but I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

  She remembered something Jaye had said not long after they had first met. You said he was in prison now. He didn’t hurt you, did he?

  “That’s the story I heard. Millford. We lived there. I died there. And, no – to the other bit.” Jaye smiled and sat back, her baby blues in a far away and happy place. “He never touched me in anger.” A shadow clouded her gaze and was gone so fast Katie wondered if she had imagined it. “He was so sweet. So laidback. There were stories that he just snapped and… but he didn’t. I’d know.”

  Really?

  “Maybe,” she shrugged. “I never visited him to find out.”

  Do you ever think you should? Just to let him know it wasn’t his fault?

  She shrugged. Jaye was still a kid – older than Katie, sure, but under that smiley veneer, she was still young and confused and… vulnerable. They had that in common. “The dead have issues with the living. Outside Northwood they do, anyway. There are rules.” And how was Jaye meant to explain them to this girl when no-one had done the same for her?

  I thought you said you died in Millford. So... how did you get to come back? It was my understanding that Northwood was the only place with that power.

  “Remember when I said weird crap goes on in that town?” Jaye stood up and gestured to herself. “Say hello to the weird.”

  A hush fell over the pair as late afternoon faded into evening. Katie was trying to remember anything about the earlier part of the day. It didn’t seem right that she was sitting her in a blood-spotted hospital gown and work boots when she had died just a handful of hours ago. The only thing she really clung to was that her friends had been there with her – where-ever there had been – had all willingly stepped into a circle and shared her pain. It had been dangerous and stupid. They had known what they were risking but they had believed in Katie – had faith that she was strong enough to survive anything. And how had she proved that faith? Katie stood up and held her hand out to Jaye who just stared at it with far away eyes. Sitting here moping was depressing. Katie felt Jaye put her hand in hers even if she couldn’t feel it, and jerked her head back towards the hospital. There were people in there who needed a hug more than she did.

  Although the medical building was only small, the corridors seemed longer this time around… silent and stretching. There was the steady thud and squeak of Jaye’s platform shoes on over-polished tiles. That was the only sound echoing – the place felt abandoned even though there was always somebody here. Jaye stopped at the door with a discreet MORTUARY sign above it. Nobody wanted the place shoved in their faces. Through the frosted glass, a few bobbing heads were silhouetted against the fluorescent lights. Adam, Dina, Marcie… the only three who had been able to come to the hospital. It seemed pitiful that there should only be a handful of people mourning a girl who had touched all their hearts. The door opened and Adam stood there with one hand on the handle and one pressing the little white pad that controlled the lock. He just stood there, staring at Katie. The only sign that anything was wrong was shaggy blond hair that was messed up from having hands constantly dragged through it. He pulled his gaze away from Katie and came to
rest on Jaye, holding the door open so that she could duck under his arm. Not that much ducking was needed with over a foot in height between them.

  Nobody looked at Katie when she stood in the middle of the seats her friends occupied. They can’t see me, she realised. Even Adam couldn’t see me. He was just trying not to look at her.

  “They need to know.”

  “But not just yet. They’ll have questions and we need to figure out some answers they’ll believe.”

  It wasn’t hard to guess that the small gang were discussing Katie’s parents. Of course they had to know. Their eldest daughter had gone off to college and she was dead before the first half a term was out. It happened all over the country but not to the Cartwright family who had surely been through more than enough. Katie chewed on her bottom lip as she listened to the conversation flow around her. It was halting and forced. Talking about anything seemed to be the last thing any of them wanted to do. She wanted to scream at them to just SHUT UP THEN! but they wouldn’t have heard her.

  “I can’t believe it,” muttered Dina, rubbing sleep out of her eyes but not looking as though the doze had been very restful. “She saved my life not too long ago and I couldn’t save hers. What kind of friend does that make me? What does that make any of us?”

  Katie moved over to her and sank down in front of Dina, willing those sharp eyes to notice her. D, you guys are the best friends I could have wanted. I know we didn’t know each other very long and you tried to drug me when we met but… Jesus, this is hard. I want to be remembered, not mourned. Not grieved over. Because, for whatever reason, I’m still here. She turned her attention to Marcie. Perhaps the young woman had felt the hurt most of all. She had to explain the death of Aunt Katie to her young son - a job Katie didn’t envy her. Over the last couple of months Marcie had become a sort of cool aunt of her own, spending Saturday nights with her watching films and drinking wine.

  “She was a really sweet girl,” Marcie sobbed. No tears but her breath shuddered her every word. “Freddie thought the world of her.”

  “We all did.”

  “And now I need to go tell him. It’s his birthday on Saturday. We were going to take him to the Plush Play in the shopping centre. It won’t be the same…”

  “I could come,” Jaye offered and glanced over at Katie for her approval. It was given. “I’m not Katie but hell, at least I’m small enough to race him to the ball pit. She’d want that.”

  Katie felt tears beginning to warm the backs of her eyes. She blinked them away, not sure she could have cried them anyway. This moment wasn’t hers. This was about her, about the lives she’d left behind, and her heart was breaking. She had no right to feel this way. According to Jaye, dying had been a choice. A chink of light drifted through the far window as a shadow passed through and left the building. Daylight. Even though she had just come back inside, the sunshine felt very far away.

  Marcie nodded but the accompanying smile was strained. A figure in a white coat blew through the corridor and paused at the open door to the cold room further in. He was reading something off a clipboard and trying not to meet anybody’s gaze, clearly uncomfortable at having living people and vital emotions in his chamber of corpses. Powerless to resist, Katie followed some twisted desire to see her body – see what had been done to it. Every logical thought she had shrieked at her to turn around and walk away without looking back… and she believed it implicitly – looking down on her own ravaged shell could only lead to emotional meltdown. But there was something stronger than cold logic at work here. Something primal. Something possessive. It was her body and, dammit, Katie didn’t want it bisected and dissected.

  Once she was in the frigid air of the room with the world looking as still as her own body on the metal slab before her, the urge to run away battered at her once more. The door had swung shut behind the man in the white coat, leaving her trapped like a small animal in this place.

  There was no escape.

  The instant turning around to leave was cut off as an option, even that dark desire to peek under that lumpy sheet quieted. Something horrible was trapped in here with her and the man in the lab coat. Katie reached a hand out towards the white sheet, a good few feet from touching it. And she stayed like that, frozen. Unable to move forward, unable to go back. There was no way she could touch the sheet o draw it back, her hands would sink right through the cotton. Why was she on a slab in the mortuary anyway, and not tagged and slid into a chill locker? There was nothing mysterious about the way she died. No need for her to be out here to be stared at by curious medical students. Then the man in the lab coat strode over to the counter and took out a package of sterile instruments and left them on the counter as he went over to flick the blinds closed and the spotlights over the body on. He put a few things on the wheeled trolley and pushed it over to the body, ripping open a pack with a scalpel in.

  What? What are you doing?

  This doctor of death was going to stick that sharp knife into Katie and slice her open. What he was hoping to find inside her could be anything – maybe this was routine, maybe he had suspicions. Whatever. This was insanity. She reached out and tried to put a hand out to stop his arm moving towards her body. It fell straight through him. How could she stop him hurting her if she couldn’t even touch him? He folded a sheet over her and slightly shifted his grip on the scalpel. It arced down, surgical steel glinting in harsh light. So clinical, so cold, so perfectly unemotional.

  Stop it! Don’t hurt me!

  Her protests were doing no good. So far, only Jaye had been able to see and hear her, and she couldn’t expect this man to be able to hear her thoughts at all. No matter how loud she thought.

  He looked down at the pale body laid out before him and swore quietly. “So much fucking worse when it’s a kid.”

  Fighting it all the way, Katie followed his eyes and found herself staring into her own face. She was pale – paler than she had ever seen herself but nowhere near the greyish pallor she had expected. Her eyes were closed and looked bruised and sunken. An open but bloodless cut marred one cheek. She looked… perfect. Dead people in books or on TV always came across as exhausted, ruined, broken. But not this girl. This girl would be young and pretty forever. She couldn’t bring herself to take a look further down her body; her slashed legs and shoulder. The fact that they would be bloodless too was somehow worse than pools of ruby life. It meant that her flesh was truly dead.

  Her body empty of blood and breath.

  She was pretty much hypnotised by the cruel glint of razor sharp steel getting closer and closer to her skin.

  Stop it! You can’t hurt me. I’m not dead, not really. Can’t you see me? I’m standing right here. Get that thing away from me!

  But it kept coming. Closer and closer until it was a millimetre away from cold flesh and time seemed to freeze. Katie screwed her eyes shut and opened her mouth to scream, imagining the scalpel parting her flesh like soft fruit. I’m not a fruit, she thought. Would she feel the knife cutting through her mortal body via some psychic link? Maybe she’d be sucked right back into that physical agony. Maybe her body had to be intact to maintain this ghostly version of herself. Then those musings were lost as Katie opened her eyes into utter blackness. Such a complete darkness that Katie had to raise her hands to checks she had not left her eyes closed by mistakes. No, they were most definitely open. There was just nothing to see.

  She did not know how long this complete void would swallow but rather than be panicked by it, Katie stilled her bouncing feet and twitching fingers, took a deep breath (which she wasn’t sure she actually needed) and tried to calmly piece together what had happened earlier today, why she was suddenly dead, whether she should be worried and what these things were Jaye had claimed she had wanted to die to do. Simple. Yeah, even I don’t believe that. Katie bit down on her tongue, hoping the jolt would make that annoying voice shu
t the hell up. She didn’t hold out much hope – until her mind was as surprised as her mouth at tasting very real blood there. Bits and pieces started trickling into her mind like the blood sliding down her throat. Silver bridges… eyes aflame with hate and fury… something slicing through darkness to flay skin away… and blood. White roses speckled with blood. There were always white roses, filling the air around and about with their just-too-sweet perfume. They were important though. And then a sick feeling twisted in Katie’s stomach. It was a little like… she didn’t know quite what but the feeling was strangely familiar, familiar like she had felt this exact same thing before. Disgust? Revulsion? Okay, so there was a feeling and some pictures. Now she had to try and put them together and find out why they had resulted in her death. The thought made her shudder. Knowing how it happened just made it all too real. And it wouldn’t change anything anyway. What else could she puzzle over while she waited for some place to materialise around her? Where was she right now? Well, it was an important question because she might be trapped somewhere dangerous and endless – an eternal void that would eventually erase her every memory from the outside world. And yet… although a tiny part of her was frightened of being lost forever, Katie couldn’t bring herself to think of it.

  Pack it in, Katie. Having a quiet word with yourself was a sign of going crazy, wasn’t it? You’re way past that girl. Stop avoiding the issue and-

  Avoiding the issue suddenly was not an option as Katie felt herself being dragged forward; a cold weight settled in place of her nausea, squeezing and caressing her insides, pulling her forward. A thousand colours, a million scenes, all passed her by in a blur. And then the world stopped moving and she was standing on a cracked desert with a few huge rocks far in the distance. The sky rolled with silent thunderclouds of varying greys. Not a thing lived in this barren wasteland. There were no birds trying to out-pace the storm, no cacti standing tall, no footprints – however old and faded – to prove there had ever been another soul here. Not even any of the sun bleached bones cartoon deserts always had. Trying to find some sign of life Katie started wandering around but no matter how far she walked, and no matter in which direction, there were only more miles of hard packed earth. Well, this isn’t working. There’s nothing out here. Nothing but air and heat and – and bad things. She was suddenly cowering like a trapped animal, hands clasped over her head, trying to curl up as small as she could. It may well have been the middle of the day but the clouds were so heavy that it was impossible to tell. Day, night, light, dark, it didn’t matter. All that filled her thoughts was the knowledge that she was completely alone out here. Alone and scared. Anything might be lurking around, ready to pounce. Katie glanced around for something to defend herself with, instinctively patting herself down as if she had something in her pockets. Papery hospital gowns don’t have pockets, eejit! If there was a kitchen around here somewhere… a spoon would do. Then she stopped. A breeze tickled along the back of her neck.

  Jack.

  The tickling sensation came again and she was almost sure it was him. Her green-eyed cowboy. The feeling was close and intimate. It felt like… fingers, a lovers’ touch. And then the invisible fingers splayed themselves across her neck, circling around to run across her jawline and then to her throat.

  Jack, she repeated, too excited/terrified to move. Because she knew Jack was not the one touching her like she was as tough and fragile as glass. The hand was too small, too smooth, and not nearly as gentle. The hand swept over the top of her gown, tracing the ugly round neck. For one horrible moment, Katie was certain this hand was going to tighten those phantom fingers around her neck like a vice and choke the life out of her. The life she still had. The life that kept her ghost on earth. The icy touch left and Katie was dimly aware of her vision beginning to swim; to blur at the edges, like God himself was trying to rub out the world. Before darkness pulled her under, a shadow faded in, small enough to be a human boy, bent to whisper one word in her ear, and then hovered over her until her eyes slid closed. Katie gripped onto consciousness fiercely – she wasn’t tired, she didn’t even feel faint – but the dark shape seemed to want her to sleep. It would be rude not to.

  What was the word? What was the word?

  Katie drifted back into herself slowly, aware of rain thumping down on her back with enough force to bruise. Would she ever feel the dull pain of a bruised knee again? What was the word? It was just static in her head when she thought of it. Far away from this place, it would come back. I shouldn’t-

  Katie.

  Ghostly fingers brushed over the back of her hand and worked their way into her clenched fist. The Shadow Boy had come back to finish what he started – she was sure of it. But a larger part of her knew it was Jack. She gripped his invisible hand, petrified it might just disappear if she let go. Everything disappears. Everything. Everyone.

  The hand became more solid as she hunched there on the ground. The connection that let them speak to each other with their minds flared into life as he sent calming nonsense sounds to her. Immediately, Katie felt soothed. Soaked through, but soothed. She lifted her free hand and pushed wet locks out of her face before looking at her boyfriend. If he was still her boyfriend. Last time they’d been together, she had shouted at him, slapped him, then kissed another man. Only, he didn’t know about the last part. But one look up at his pure green eyes, a brief flame of – of something, too many emotions to identify – and he damn well knew now. Only... it wasn’t enough that he knew. She needed to actually say the words, make it real so they could work through it together. Just... not yet. Not today. All in one movement, he wiggled his fingers, twisted towards a large rock that hadn’t been there before, and set off jogging towards it.

  It felt like miles of featureless desert to get there but the rain had softened to a drenching drizzle, although the clouds were still thick and threatening. The rock – it was definitely getting closer. Soon. That was it. That was what Shadow Boy had whispered. Soon what? Was something going to happen soon?

  “… okay.”

  Katie felt the cool walls of a cave around her. No, not a cave, just a hollow between these boulders. It didn’t matter. She sank against one, gratefully, ridiculously glad to have a solid wall at her back.

  “Katie!”

  She looked over at Jack. Sixteen years old and something over 150 at the same time. His constant companions were a Stetson and brown leather jacket. A beige tee and worn black jeans completed a look that would have been slightly bizarre on anyone else, but on Jack… he would look wrong in anything else. The perfect bullet scar in the centre of his forehead, his ocean eyes, those tender hands. Even his scars were perfect. She blurted out, “I love you,” knowing it wasn’t the most traditional greeting. It had to be said. If she didn’t, maybe he wouldn’t know. Maybe he didn’t believe her.

  “I know,” he smiled. “Sometimes, you have to do the wrong things before you know what the right ones are. I love you, too.”

  “I just… I needed you to know.”

  “And now I do. This is my knowing face.” Jack turned a thoughtful expression on her, drawing a laugh that caught the air like a jagged sob. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “Of course I am. All in one piece and everything.” She wanted to give him an arrogant little twirl to prove the point but didn’t have the energy.

  “What happened to you? Where’ve you been?”

  He tilted his head to one side and flashed a challenge at her.

  “I was in the hospital,” she told him. Okay, so not telling him she had been in the hospital morgue was technically a lie. Lies by omission just didn’t make her feel as guilty as outright fibbing. “And then I was here.” Katie crossed her legs beneath her and sank down to the ground, pushing herself as far back against the rocks as she could. The rain was still pouring outside but the drops seemed to vanish the moment they touched
the ground, leaving it as parched as before. Katie watched for a few seconds, wanting to be out in it again, getting soaked just to prove to herself it was real rain, it was not really vanishing. But she already had the wet arm. Although even that was taking on an ethereal quality – a sense of feeling wet and not actually being wet. Her throat rasped as she spoke, piecing the puzzle together as she spoke. “There was a fight. Another one, but with the man who killed you. And, I know what you thought, but he wasn’t your father, Jack. He killed your father and took on his image. I nearly believed him too. There was just something off about him. Like he was trying too hard and he didn’t really care when I told him you were missing. And then... well, I killed him but I don’t really know what happened to his body, I was pretty out of it-“ understatement of the century. Jack put a hand against the rocks and scooted up to sit next to her. He tried to take her hand and cuddle her until her shivers stopped.

  “What do you mean? Slow down, Lady Katie.”

  She froze. “No, I need to think. You need to listen before we get back to us.”

  “Isn’t this already about us?”

  “Yes. No. This is about the us that has a job to do here, not the... other us.”

  “A job?”

  “I’m getting to it. Eventually.” She ran her burnt and scarred left hand through her hair, trying to calm it from the Bride of Frankenstein mess it had adopted. “Before he died, he said you were somewhere I’d never find you. But he also mentioned you both came from the Dead World. It wasn’t really much to figure out he must have trapped you here somehow.”

  “He?”

  “The man who killed you was pretending to be Henry Lawson.”

  “My father. Who died at his hand.”

  “I’m sorry.” Katie ached to put an arm around him. A century and a half of watching mortals live and die was evidently no cushioner to finding out one of your own family was dead. Murdered. But she couldn’t comfort him. I wish it was easier. I wish I could help more. But this... this loss and fury you’re feeling, I can’t take that away. And she knew what he was feeling. The complete emptiness inside had become too familiar this year. “He turned back into the sheriff when – I’m not sure he ever was a real sheriff – when he thought he had me beaten. I never had another name for him.”

  “Christ. Why did he come back for us?”

  She shrugged. “The important thing is we work out why we’re here and how to get out.”

  “Okay. Can we just... be together for a while first? It feels like forever since I seen you last.”

  Counting back, she decided it had been about three days since they had last seen each other. And their goodbye hadn’t been exactly amicable. Katie had smacked him, slammed a door in his face and let her housemate lay into him with everything but knives. Yet, here he was, still reaching out to her, still trying to love her. “I was a bitch to you. I’m a bitch a lot.”

  “I got no problem with it. Keeps me on my toes.”

  “I thought I was helping. If I could make you leave, you’d be safer. Instead, he caught you and stuck you in the Dead World. “

  “Not your fault, Lady Katie. I trusted myself. Thought I was big enough and ugly enough to protect myself, here or there.” No question where there was. The mortal world.

  The one neither of them belonged to any more.

  But Katie, nevertheless, had to get back there. Something important was waiting for her. She lifted her burnt hand and traced her fingertips over his jawbone. Every line and curve. Something deep in her soul trembled at the contact, feeling exposed and vulnerable in the paper thin gown and little else. The rest of her body stop shaking in the very instant the storm stopped and pale sun broke the cloud. She let her tense form relax against him. They were both ghosts of their former selves but, somehow, in the Dead World they were alive to each other. She could hear his heart beat and his breath whisper past perfect lips as well as she had ever done back home. It felt wrong. They were in the world of the dead – everything should be darkness and shadows. Trying to dispute the impossible perfection of the moment was just stupid. Relax and enjoy being with Jack was what she should do. So why did her mouth keep making noises? “You’re going to hate me when I tell you.”

  “Tell me what? I love you, Lady Katie. More than ever now I know you tried to save me.” He took the hand away from his face and blew a kiss onto the scarred palm. Then he rubbed a thumb over the cut on her cheek and down her bare neck to the slash across her shoulder. Those were the only scars he could see so far. “And what it cost you. You could never say anything to make me hate you.”

  “Promise me. Hand on heart, you’ll always love me… even when I make stupid decisions.”

  “I know everything you’ve done, Katie.” He slid her hand up to cover his heart and covered it with his own. “Do you feel that?” She nodded and he then put her other hand over her own heart. “How about that?” She frowned, unsure what she should be noticing then gasped as she felt it. Their hearts were pulsing in perfect sync with each other.

  “What the hell?”

  “Don’t panic. We share a heart beat. Do you know how rare that is?”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Mostly that I love you enough to make you a part of me. I know you let the darkness take you over, I know you killed that man and you shouldn’t be guilty. I know you did everything in your power to resist. I also know none of this is making any difference, is it?”

  “I gave up everything and now…”

  He shuffled closer and pulled the pretty girl towards him, stroking her hair as she buried her head in his chest. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. You’re safe with me.” But he suspected that wasn’t the entire truth. He glanced around for any approaching threats but soon pushed the concern into the back of his mind as his love nestled her head further into his clothes and making him tingle at her closeness. She was tired. Too tired to sleep. Too tired to be much good at anything until she had slept and got some proper rest. Jack would hold her until her eyes closed and her breath became deep and even.

  The first soft waves of sleep washed over Katie. All the things she should be trying to fix were floating further and further away. And she didn’t care.

  Katie lifted brown eyes to his and searched his face. His face was just a breath away

  Jack, I don’t want to forget.

  How could she forget the instant his lips touched hers? A kiss that was gone in a heart beat. This isn’t your world. Normal rules don’t apply here.

  Really? No more rules and restrictions? We can be together?

  He slid down until he was lying on the uncomfortable ground, half in the shade of the rock and half in the sunlight. Katie tugged the laces on her boots but they were stuck tight so she closed her eyes and visualised them untied, off her feet and neatly lined up in the shadows. And then her feet were bare and hard mud and sand were pressing between her toes. She was determined to make the most of every last feeling and sensation because each one might be her last. Any moment, she might be dragged back to the real world – boy, it was really something when Northwood was a reality check – and have to become some kind of weird half-person. I’ll only ever be half alive.

  “I wonder how you crossed the barrier?” Jack mused as Katie settled down beside him, draped one arm across his chest.

  “I died.”

  He struggled up onto his elbows and his eyes went wide.

  “I didn’t mean to. Well, I don’t think I did. Actually that’s not true. My friends tried to revive me while there was still a chance but I wouldn’t let them. I know it was an insane thing to do but I don’t regret it.” She pushed it back down to the ground and laid her head his shoulder. “Because then we wouldn’t have this.”

  “If you go now, go straight home, maybe they can still bring you back.”

  Katie shook her head. There was no chance Jaye or
any of the others could bring her back. She wasn’t completely sure she would want them to. “I have to do something.” Her head was beginning to ache. Painkillers hadn’t fixed it last time she had felt this way – felt this sudden detachment from her body, brain processing the violations of her body like an impartial observer. Time hadn’t healed all wounds although, admittedly, these strange sensory flashbacks were getting less frequent.

  “Hey.” Strong arms rose around Katie and rested lightly on her shoulders. It was a pointless exercise to get too close when she was locked in a memory because she would simply freeze up and freeze him out. Although her eyes might recognise a friendly face, body and mind associated contact with threat and attack. “You’re safe now. No-one’s gonna hurt you with me around.”

  “It’s a bit late for that, Jack. You weren’t there when I needed you.” Oh, she knew it was not his fault. He couldn’t have come to help even if he had known she needed him. And what could he have actually done to stop her death from happening? But she couldn’t stop a little flash of anger that he could have at least made this all easier. “Everyone else was there and... I hurt them all. And you get away scot free.”

  “If I could have found a way outta here... If there was any other choice, I wouldn’t leave your side for a minute.”

  But Katie was far away and remembering green I was pushed onto green and then I couldn’t breathe because of the hand I bit it bit the hand hard there was blood he ripped my clothes and hurt me but I remember the blood the blood it must have scarred. She felt a weight on her shoulders and went rigid beneath it, automatically throwing herself into a defensive mode. Then she saw it was only Jack and relaxed, head bowed and sobbing out tears she couldn’t find. “I think I’m trapped here until I figure out what it is I’m meant to do.”

  He hated not being able to help her. Jack rested his hand on her shoulder for a few more minutes and then let it slide down to the small of her back, gently guiding her back into his embrace. She didn’t fight him. “It’s not as bad as all that.”

  “It’s terrible! I’m only 16 and I’m dead. Do you remember how it felt to realise you’ve lost all your friends – lost them forever. You’ll never get another chance to do those mad things you were never brave enough to do in life. I’ll never get my chance to run in the big championships and win medals or…or just work my backside off to pay the bills. Because I’m stuck here. Maybe just today. Maybe it’s forever.”

  She fastened her arms around his neck and brought his face to hers with her finger.

  You didn’t mention your family. He couldn’t say it out loud. She was forgetting them already…

  “You understand why I have to go back, right? I have things to do.” And why couldn’t he come back with her now? There was nothing left to scare him into staying.

  I’m not scared. I just… this is my world now. I have to be here.

  Katie twisted her head a little more and her lips found his, a hungry kiss of two young people who had been apart for too long. For weeks, their physical contact had been stolen nights in each others arms and minds. Kissing had been strictly off-limits. So she was determined to make this one to remember. One to sustain her through the lonely nights and endless days, through the cold winter and an autumn that would chill her to the bone.

  Katie thought of her cosy little room at home, of all her friends’ smiling faces, of those smiles lighting a darkness reserved for hate and agony and suffering. She thought of a full sports scholarship gone to waste, of a job being handed to some other girl with a cute bum and a willingness to clean toilets, of how the clothes in her wardrobe would never get worn again. Of how she would never get to run holes into those new trainers and of how perfectly happy she was pounding asphalt on the track, of how the sun had shone as Roy had died caring for the kids on that track. Mostly, Katie thought of how she had vowed never to be a victim again.

  Helpless.

  Defenceless.

  Victim.

  Her eyes started to slide shut as Jack thumbed the sleeve of the hospital gown off of her left shoulder, then her right. Katie held her breath trying to recall if she had a bra on – she couldn’t feel straps cutting into the tender, broken skin. Then she felt fabric scratching her chest – the doctors must have cut the straps off. He kissed the hollows between her shoulder bones and Katie bit her lip.

  “Please. Please stop.”

  He didn’t.

  “Jack, I can’t. I can’t have you once and risk never touching you again.”

  “You did this for me, remember?” he murmured against her skin. “You took my scars and made my memories of pain into moments of pleasure.”

  “I was really horny,” she said, knowing that plea would never hold up in court.

  “Do you want me to stop?”

  Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. God, yes.

  “’Cos I’m not gonna.” And he didn’t. He peeled back each section of the paper gown, kissed, stroked, nibbled every scar or blemish he found under it, and tied it neatly back into place when he was done. Then he planted a kiss on Katie’s forehead and bunched up his jacket for her to us as a pillow. “I won’t do anything else. I know when to stop, when it’s too much. I just wanted you to know.”

  “I still love you too.”

  “I’m glad. Now, sleep, Lady Katie.” He crouched down by her head and brushed her hair behind her ears. “Sweet dreams.” But her eyes were closed and she seemed halfway to Dreamville already. As he moved to lie down beside her, Katie squeezed his hand in that panicked way of hers.

  “Will you still be here in the morning?”

  As time wore on, something dark and dangerous crept across the world. Something thick and constant and searching for souls. Fragmented souls. Essences displaced – spirits that were weak and broken. It would pick them off; take hold of those splintered spirits and turn a crack onto a chasm. It has burst people wide open before,, had made them quiver with fear but to scared to run away. Not that there was anywhere to go in the Dead World. Nowhere to hide.

  It was a lonely place to spend forever. And nobody, nobody, would change it.

  Chapter two