Get A Life | ONC2023 Shortlist

8 | If hope is a solid thing | Hunter

We'll make Shane pay, Arch. I promise.

Darcy and I keep Archer company all the way into the city, and then promptly switch directions. Thanks to our lack of sleep and the girls' general #birthemergency heroics, our parents agreed we could skip school today. Darcy's theory is that her mum and dad were so shocked that Danica did something selfless for another human they would have agreed to anything.

My mum's heart is similarly full of the surprise of Audrey, not to mention the discovery that Lil and I are speaking again. Honestly, I could announce I was joining the circus today, and Mum would just smile vaguely and tell me to have a good time.

Free to do what needs to be done, Darcy and I catch a train to the hospital via a quick stop at Manny's to see Wozza. Arriving long before visiting hours, we lie under an ancient oak in the gardens next door and go over the plan. We ring Lily and refine the plan. We buy milkshakes and banana bread from the hospital coffee shop and rehash the plan.

It's only once we're in the lift on the way up to the maternity ward that I realise I don't like the plan. In fact, I hate it because Darcy is the one taking all the risks. But Darcy is vibrating with a brute determination that I have little chance of softening. She's holding herself taller, straighter, and with Danica-level bravado. She'll do this with or without me, and there's no bloody way I'll let her confront Shane alone.

Knowing that Shane's in Lily's room, Darcy and I head straight to the empty tearoom. Last night, the compact space was neat to the point of sterile. This morning it feels very much lived in. The ice machine still rumbles quietly in the corner. The TV still plays inane free-to-air programming. But someone's left two plastic vases of dead flowers and a travel-sized aerosol deodorant in the sink; there are coffee granules all over the counter; and well-thumbed magazines and newspapers blanket random surfaces.

Darcy edges around the discarded breakfast trays covering the coffee table and takes a seat on one of two scratchy couches placed at right angles to each other in the centre of the room. I sit down on the second couch, slipping a small black box between the throw cushions in the far corner.

Taking keys and my phone out of my jacket pocket and placing them on the seat beside me, I try not to notice that Darcy's bare knees are almost kissing mine. Try. And fail.

"Are you sure about this?" I ask.

"Not at all." Darcy scrunches up her nose. "This place is kinda gross this morning. Look at that fly swimming backstroke in the strawberry yoghurt."

"Not about the location, Darce. I mean, are you sure you want to confront Shane?"

"We've been over this, dude. I'm the only one he's likely to believe. It's got to be me."

"What if we didn't do it at all?"

Darcy spears me with her gaze, unblinking and unwavering. It's a look of thoughtful layers and gentle folds and depth, and it hits me in the heart like a honey-dipped arrow.

"You said it would eat at you forever if Shane got away with killing Archer." Darcy places her fingers over the quiver inked on my wrist. "I won't let it happen, Hunter. Not to you. Not to Archer. Not to Lily and Audrey."

She's so calm; so resolute. I don't have it in me to argue further, and a selfish part of me doesn't even want to. I want Archer's killer caught and convicted. I want closure.

In silence—anticipatory, adrenalin-charged silence—we wait for Lily to kick start the plan.

It doesn't take long.

"What are you doing here, dickface?" Shane snarls from the doorway. He's dressed in his trademark lad-about-town style: tight black designer jeans, a lemon tee-shirt that stretches across his muscled chest and arms, and snakeskin loafers that no doubt cost more than my mum's car. His newly shaved head emphasises the squareness of his skull and the thickness of his neck. He looks like a rich thug, which is fitting, considering that he is one.