Unfinished Business (The Shades of Northwood 3) Read online

  She’s 16, Jack. She might look older, act older, but she’s still a kid!

  You think I don’t know that?

  I think you know, I think you understand, and I think you’ll carry on anyway.

  O’course I will. I love her.

  You know how many rules this is breaking, right? I mean, you do realise how much trouble you could both end up in?

  I tried to stay away. The first time I met her, I did my job and then I tried to keep my distance. But it wasn’t that easy. She’s too young for this kind of relationship. There’s too much that could go wrong. But logic doesn’t really count for much when your heart speaks louder than your head. Up here, in the dead air between minds, Jack spoke with a rich, deep south accent. Whether it was just because the Texan twang was his native one and therefore the one all his thoughts came in or it was just harder to maintain an adopted accent when he was worked up, Katie didn’t know. It was cute. He should speak like it more often. Surely you went though all this with Adam.

  That was different.

  It would be, wouldn’t it?

  We were both over 18!

  She knows she can’t kiss me. I take her memories away if we do. I can’t let her forget me.

  Maybe that’d be for the best.

  Katie felt something bubble up inside - something furious, something she didn’t want to control. She couldn’t let this out around her friends. Jack and Lainy continued talking but Katie could no longer focus on the words. A haze of dark light glowed around what she imagined to be her own consciousness and she could barely see the gentle flow of words. She felt like she was floating away from that place. Somewhere very far away, and yet right next to her, there was a noise that shocked her out of this detached state and brought her thundering back into her body. She felt the two parts of her mind slot back together and squash that horrible feeling of being angry and used between them. The sensation was… she wanted to say nasty but a tiny slice of her had kind of liked it. The sudden knowledge that she could be bad and not have to apologise for it was intoxicating. All she had to do was give in.

  No!

  Where were these thoughts coming from? She didn’t want to feel that way. Not about her friends.

  Slowly, she became aware that Jack was banging on the thin bedroom wall and bellowing at her last housemate, Leo, to turn down that annoying popcorn music from his games console. Just to be even more irritating, the music went up a few notches before it finally settled at a level somewhere just below deafening. He made to fade straight through the wall and talk to the other boy about something but, at Lainy’s warning look, decided to use the door instead. Then it was just Katie and Lainy, looking awkwardly at each other. Things had never been tense between them before, not really, only Lainy was trying to hide the conversation she had just had with Jack, and Katie was struggling to hide the fact she had heard it all. She couldn’t wait for her 18th birthday – the day there would be no more secrets in this house. She wanted to be able to talk to Lainy. Tell her how her whole world was tearing apart.

  “So, you two are good now?”

  “We’re getting there,” the older girl answered with a shrug. “He thought I went back to work too soon.” Katie frowned. “A few years ago, I was in a car accident with my dad. He died and I didn’t. I’m a nurse and I couldn’t do anything to help the poor sod. I never went back to work at the hospital after that. I just set this house up with Adam and took care of you. It used to be enough but I needed to go back to nursing. I needed to know I could still make a difference.”

  “And he didn’t want you to?”

  “Oh, he did. We talked. I just accepted the offer before I spoke to him. There were things we were going to do.”

  Before Katie had a chance to ask what kind of things, Jack stormed back into the room and leaned against her wardrobe, jumpy but not breathing fast. Not breathing at all. His eyes were dark and flashing. He looked shocked. Haunted.

  “Okay, it’s looking good. I think we’re done here.” Lainy fiddled around with the foam loop, guided the cast back into it, “There. That should take the pressure off,” and left. She was right – it felt lighter and easier now it was back against her chest.

  “Jack, what’s wrong?” She went over to him, took his chin in her hand and forced him to look at her. He might have 150 years on her but when her loved ones were scared or in danger, she was damn well going to be the boss. Whether she wanted to take charge of this was something she would find out in time. The answer would probably be no. But for now… something had shaken Jack, given him that haunted look, and she knew it had to be dragged out before something else happened. And there would be something else – disasters never came on their own.

  “It’s nothin’,” he said and shook the worry out of his face.

  “Come on, Jack. You don’t have to be macho around me. Hell, I’ve been in hysterics when you’ve been around me and I never cry in front of people.” Okay, that wasn’t all the way true. People had seen her cry but only her nearest and dearest and only when she couldn’t help it. Every now and then, tears were more powerful than words. “Something’s got you worked up.”

  He tore his gaze away from her and fixed it on his scuffed boots. That only brought back memories of how those scratches had got there and that was a bit too close to home for the moment. He didn’t want to worry Katie with his troubles. The girl was just starting to go a whole day at a time without looking over her shoulder for somebody trying to jump her – he wasn’t going to take that freedom away from her. “It’s nothing you need to worry about Lady Katie.”

  “Okay, now I really think I need to know.”

  “I just… I jus’ saw a name. It freaked me out a little.”

  “A name?”

  “It was my name.”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Back in my time, my name wasn’t the most uncommon.”

  Jack turned bright green eyes on her and tried to catcher gaze. If he held her brown eyes then everything would be alright – Katie would lose herself in them and her questions would die away, and no more questions meant he didn’t have to give her answers to. Answers that would only make more problems.

  “Has something changed between us? Because I thought we were going to start telling each other things and I can tell you’re not telling me something important.”

  She was right. And he wanted to tell her what was wrong. He really, really did. It was only the fear that stopped him – the dreadful certainty that she would work herself up over a tiny thing. Because that was what Katie did. She took an insignificant moment and made a drama out of it and then when something truly momentous happened she just… didn’t.

  “I mean, that’s what a real couple does. They tell each other their hopes and their fears so the other one can share them. I want that for us.”

  “Oh Katie, I want that too. And that’s why you have to believe me when I tell you this is nothin’ important.” But it was. But it was something he would deal with alone. Jack crouched down and sat down on the floor, pulling a blanket off the bed to cover the both of them with. “You know how sometimes you see a stranger writin’ your name, and you wonder how they know you? It turns out to be their name because a million people have the same name.”

  “You promise?”

  He nodded and put an arm across her waist. “Promise,” and then he felt guilty for lying to her.

  “You know, the bed is much more comfortable.”

  “Exactly. When you get cosy, you forget there are some things you shouldn’t oughta do.”

  She eyed him with doubt. They had already done quite a few things they shouldn’t have but it probably wasn’t wise to do any more of them… or think about them. “You’re changing the subject.”

  “She’s smart. Points for that.”

  “Stop it. Stop treating me like everything’s the same. You’re keeping a secret from me and if you are, I want to know it. I want to help Jack.”

  “Y
ou are. You’re helping me forget I was ever worried.”

  Katie reached down inside her for that tangle of energy and brushed the surface of it, feeling the hum of life all around it. She could try to pull a thread out and reach into his mind and just take the words from his mind. It would be easy. Not painless but if they couldn’t talk this out then their relationship was already heading for the skids as far as she was concerned. No. They weren’t in trouble. Jack wasn’t keeping some huge secret from her. She didn’t need to know every tiny detail. She was just being paranoid, looking for problems where there were none. Just so used to fighting that anything even resembling a problem provoked that challenge response in Katie. “You’re right. I’m being silly. We’ve got a couple of hours before I have to go to bed. We should spend them on us.”

  Doing things your Daddy’d kill me for, Jack finished the thought. He glanced at her and covered most of his face with the brim of his cowboy hat. There was a hint of a blush under it. It wasn’t that Jack was particularly prudish about physical intimacy or that he had suddenly come over shy near Katie. If that was the case then solving it would be simple – sleep with her and get all those fantasies over and done with and never have another care about such things. It was the fact that their relationship was… unconventional, to say the least, and they had found more creative ways to be close to each other.

  My Daddy will never know, she thought back at him. It was easier to think when he opened his mind to her. She leaned back against Jack and turned her face into his chest, breathing death in. Somehow, it didn’t smell the same as it had on some other Shades. Well, the ones who were trying to kill her, to be specific. Then, death had smelled foul; like rust and ashes and acid. On Jack, it had the same notes of something old and used up but also of something more… something desperate. He was quite a dark Shade apparently, and that basically meant he had to spend a lot of time in some other world with other dark Shades, and so smelt of the grave. Lighter Shades – the ones who spent all their time in this world – were clean and could smell of whatever perfume or cologne they wore. On Jack, the stench of death was just an undertone Katie was getting used to, mostly hidden under lingering fragrances of straw and horses.

  He put one arm over her shoulders and leaned back until they were lying on the floor. “You said your wrist was hurting?”

  She did her best to shrug. “Pain killers have kicked in. It’s not too bad.”

  “But it could be better.” He laid one hand over her cast and closed his eyes. I don’t want you to rely on tablets and chemicals.

  And I don’t want to rely on ghosts.

  As she watched his hand slowly sank through the half inch of plaster and gauze and padding, and into that thin cushion of air between the cast and her wrist. Katie instinctively tried to pull her arm away- listening to her eyes yell that there was a hand ready to grab her broken bones, while her brain calmly whispered that he had a magic touch, that she wouldn’t feel a thing. Her brain was wrong. She did feel something. It wasn’t pain, the eyes had got that one wrong. There was a strange sensation as his hand brushed her skin, just she imagined the sieve felt when flour fell through it. Then there was a coolness creeping through the bones in her wrist, centred on her radius, cooling it down from its agitated state of trying to knit itself back together. Until this process started, Katie had not even realised how much discomfort she was in. Just got used to it, I guess. Her bones stopped itching and burning and slipped into a satisfying numbness. Feeling nothing was far better that feeling her insides itch. And just as this calm was spreading through her right forearm, Jack let his hand sink deeper – almost soul deep. Uh-oh.

  He melted further into her body than was strictly necessary and the room blasted into another dimension. Katie could see her bed, her furniture, her window, but they were all overlaid with swirls of moving colour and light. The swirls were the energy everything had – moving things (like her computer) were imbued with energy of their own because of the potential for life they bore, but other things – large, inanimate objects like desks and drawers gave out echoes of the energy of people who had used them. Most things in this room glowed with her life force but there were smudges of brightness left by her housemates as they came in. It was so nice just to be able to see a tiny glimpse of this magical world again. She turned to Jack to thank him for showing her this world –

  Oh God. Oh Jesus, Jack was so gorgeous in this new vision that it hurt to look at him. He was still Jack, no aura or surrounding glow. There was a tiny flame deep in his chest. Katie tried to rub the back of her hand over it, suddenly needing to feel the warmth it gave – it was tiny but looked so intense, so destructive – but she came up against a wall. His actual chest. And it was cool again, not cold, but a good few degrees off room temperature. What kind of heat could he deliver if he just allowed himself to touch that fire? Katie frowned at him for a second – a thought occurred and two things clicked in her head – but she couldn’t seem to keep her thoughts straight. Something to do with Jack being full of this unfeeling and it maybe having something to do with him not wanting to talk to her about… what? She’d forgotten and she hoped to hell that he wasn’t making it that way. And then the puzzle lost all importance.

  Something moved behind her. A mess of letters and books swooshed to the floor, moved by an invisible gust of wind, and fluttered to cover half of the dark carpet, leaving trails of gold and orange in the disturbed air. She tried to trace the lines the things left and giggled as she tried to catch the ends. It felt silly and giddy and exactly right.

  Jack caught hold of her hand and together they stretched straight up – his hand twisted around hers. Katie glanced across at him. There was a moment of absolute perfection between the pair, joined skin on skin and so much more, and then it was gone. Broken. Shattered. Logic was trying to fight its way to the surface. And logic – cold, cruel logic – said that they couldn’t be together like this, couldn’t be this happy, they hadn’t earned it. Only, this moment was so perfect, so intimate, neither of them wanted to interrupt it.

  “But- “

  “Hush. You think too much. Stop doin’ that.”

  “I have to think.”

  “Why? What is there beyond this?”

  “College, work, family and friends, running, not getting myself almost killed….”

  “You need to stop worrying. Look, you got Jaye and Dina back, the sheriff can’t hurt us no more. You’re nearly a straight A student. You ain’t got nothin’ to worry about so just… quit it. Okay?”

  But how could she? How could she really? So many things in this town to worry about and Katie had… actually yes, Katie had beaten all of those things. She had died and came right back to carry on. She had broken her wrist and gone straight from the hospital to join in another fight at Shimma. Even when she had seen Jack killed and lying in the middle of a storm, she had faced his murderer and won. Through the tears and the blood, Katie had carried on fighting and now she was realising that she deserved this peace, this rest. This year had been – traumatic, if that wasn’t too big a word – with everything that had happened since coming to Northwood, the reason she came here at all, and having to suddenly stand on her own two feet with all these new relationships and demands on her time after sixteen years of her family’s protection and care. So yes, she had earned the right to enjoy herself and just be a teenager for a while.

  “Incoming!” a voice yelled out, sounding hollow and strange. She didn’t recognise it but then even her own breathing sounded alien in this state of seeing. Something whizzed through the air, slicing it like a knife. Katie sensed it heading straight for her chest long before she saw it. Even then her reaction time would be far too slow to stop the spinning thing from hurting her so she relied on her instincts and shot her left hand straight up above her head, desperately hoping that her reactions were accurate enough to stop it.

  It was a vain hope. Her left hand was not her strongest and, even though she was learning to rely on it more a
nd more, it still didn’t feel as natural as her right. And it told.

  She caught the thing hurtling towards her body but not before a sharp point on it carved a split down the pad of her index finger and across the palm. It started stinging but only a tiny, ignorable bit. Her hand closed around the object and she whipped her hand back down to her chest to absorb the tiny shockwaves.

  “Thought you might want it back.”

  Jack blinked and rolled away, up to his feet. Katie looked down at the thing in her hand, a silver disk with spikes, and crawling with red lines and smudges. Hate and anger, pure and ugly and limitless. It started getting hotter as she looked at it, quickly hot enough that she yelped and dropped it to the floor, half-expecting it to burst into flame and burn a hole in the carpet. Her vision snapped back to regular three-dimensional viewing. She saw a silver badge lying between her knees when she got up; just an ordinary badge with no powers of emotion. Still, she didn’t want to pick it back up. Just in case. Katie watched it carefully and when she was satisfied it wasn’t going to jump up and bite her face off, she raised her head and looked in the direction the badge had come from. The sixth housemate, Leo, was standing by the open door and looking at her with a puzzled expression. “Maybe without the attempted amputation of all my fingers?” It wasn’t hard to guess why he looked that way. He had spent a bewildered few weeks trying to get his head around the idea that half of his friends were dead or about to die. She didn’t think he had come to terms with the idea yet. It was no easy task.