Hola!!! I’m so happy I can be updating again. Thank you so much for all the support you’ve give me; it means LOADS to me, I can’t even say! Only 37 days til school’s out (including weekends!)!! So excited. Unfortunately my teachers have decided they’re behind and are piling on homework and tests and papers so screw them, it could be difficult to write. But track’s almost finished, and then I’ll have loads of time, so don’t despair! Say a prayer for me cuz my English teacher’s attempting to teach poetry and Romeo and Juliet together and she literally has no idea what she’s doing. This sucks. But yeah, so enjoy this chapter (sorry for the cliffhanger last week!) and please keep commenting and voting, tell me what you think!
Gracias!! <3 vb123321
Chapter Twenty-Three
♥ Astrid ♥
Everything happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to react, even though I was supposed to be a professionally-trained spy. As the doors burst open, Jay grabbed my arm and shoved me behind him, swearing at the top of his voice. His gun was already in his hand, brandished at the three men that entered the room as he said something in Portuguese, but Charlie had moved more quickly.
His hand whipped up, firing a few rounds, and one of the men fell to the ground. But then Charlie was falling too, a strangled cry escaping his mouth as he toppled over face-first, clutching at his leg. Dimly I heard myself screaming as Jay took my shoulders and forced me to the ground, pressing me down as he fired his own gun at the men. Part of me registered Josh doing the same to Joel, one of the men falling to the ground as Josh’s bullet hit him, but my eyes were fixed on Charlie.
One of Jay’s bullets slammed into the last G7 agent, and suddenly all the firing ceased. As the pressure on my back decreased, I scrambled away from Jay, dashing towards Charlie and kneeling at his side, frantically saying his name. He raised his head, panting and staring at me with wide grey eyes.
“Get out of here! There are more of them, get out!”
“Are you okay?”
I tried to find where the bullet had entered. He pushed himself into a sitting position, holding one leg out at an awkward angle and wincing. Blood was splashed over his upper left thigh, sticky on his hands as he tried to stem its flow. I looked up at Josh desperately as he came to my side, asking if Charlie was okay.
“Do we have any bandages?”
“I’ll be fine,” Charlie growled, his voice taut. “Josh, get her out of here. And the kid. I’ll follow you guys.”
“We’re not leaving!” I gripped the bottom of my sweatshirt, prepared to take it off and use it as a bandage, but Charlie leaned forward and grasped my hands, his eyes intense as they met mine.
“Listen to me.”
“He’s right.” Jay had appeared behind me, putting his hands on my forearms and gently lifting me to my feet. “You all need to get out of here.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but Charlie gave me such a fierce look that I found I didn’t have any words. With a grimace, he pushed hard with his fists against the ground and somehow got to his feet, swaying alarmingly. Josh caught his arm to support him, but Charlie shrugged him off with a defiant look, glaring at me.
“So are we going or not?”
His pained face swarmed before my eyes for a moment as I stared at him, his other words flying through my head. I felt so uncontrollably guilty and scared and angry with myself that I had gotten all of us into this situation, yanking my arms out of Jay’s grasp and snatching up my gun from where it had fallen out of my pocket. I was shaking, my eyes drawn to the blood on Charlie’s leg: It brought back memories of the red flowers from the manor, blooming across the floor, and I had to physically shake myself to gain control.
Noise came from above us, sounds of shouting and more footsteps that made the tension in the room increase. Josh was taking control, making sure Charlie could stand before picking up his gun for him and putting it back in his hand. He then gestured for Joel to come forward from where he had been hiding from the bullets in the back of the room, and the kid ran up to his brother, his blue eyes huge. Jay’s face was black as he looked at him.
“You need to get out of here, buddy, you hear me?” When Joel didn’t register his words, he grabbed his shoulders and fixed him with a beady look. “Don’t fight me on this one, okay, just go with these guys and stay safe –” His voice was cracking violently, his hands trembling on Joel’s shoulders. “I might not see you again, okay, so I want you to know that I love you and I missed you and –”
Joel was crying, his face bewildered as Jay hugged him fiercely, his own face working bravely as he struggled to keep from breaking down. When he finally released his younger brother, Jay looked like someone had slugged him in the stomach. He nodded to Josh, who gently took Joel’s arm and pulled him away, his gun at the ready as they neared the door.
“Go,” Jay said to me, catching my hand and squeezing it. “I don’t want you to be here when they come.”
“They’re already here.” Charlie’s voice was strained. He was looking at me, his eyes pleading with me; his expression hurt my chest. “Astrid, we need to leave. Now.”
“Come with us,” I begged, my eyes on Jay. “Please.”
He hesitated, but Charlie said, “There’s no point in you staying here,” and Jay’s face hardened, blue eyes meeting mine.
“All right, I’ll come with you, but after we leave here, I can’t stay with you. It’s too dangerous for me to be with you guys.”
Seeing that we were following him, Josh moved out of the room, Joel sending one last wide-eyed look at his brother before hurrying after him. Jay’s face was like stone as he gestured for Charlie and me to go first. Charlie limped to the door, grabbing at my shoulder from time to time as his leg buckled beneath him. I held him steady, my heart pounding as the awkward tension sparked between us; I couldn’t meet his eyes with Jay so close.
Why is it so easy to kiss Jay?
We moved through the hallway in a silence as sharp as a knife, my eyes fixed on Joel’s and Josh’s backs as they reached the stairs and disappeared. It took us a moment longer to reach them, and when we did, Charlie half-collapsed against the wall, breathing hard. His face was pale and sweaty, his hand still clenched against his thigh, and I leaned over him worriedly, wondering what to do.
“Go,” he said in a constricted voice. “I’ll follow eventually, just leave me.”
But I was never leaving him again, not after the manor and the red flowers and all those months without him. I wasn’t going to let that happen again. I looked up at Jay as he met my eyes with a strange expression, his eyes oddly gentle as he took my arm and shook his head silently. Confused, I furrowed my brow, but he didn’t explain, just said,
“We’re not leaving you here, Charlie.”
Charlie’s face set in determination as he pushed himself off the wall, clutching at the stairwell and looking back at the two of us. “Come on, then. Let’s get a move on.”
I made him go first up the stairs so that I could support him from behind, his steps slow but steady as he made his way up. The only noise was that of my heart pounding in my ears and our footsteps on the stairs. I could feel Jay’s eyes on my back as we reached the top of the stairs, turning to see him looking at me with bleak eyes that pierced me to my soul. Disturbed, I reached out voluntarily to touch his arm, but he stepped back, onto the top step, and looked at Charlie.
“Take her out of here. There’s one last thing I have to take care of.”
Charlie’s grey eyes met his blue ones for a long second before he nodded, and then Jay disappeared down the stairs again. I moved in that direction as well, words gathering in my throat although I didn’t have any sound, but Charlie put a hand on my shoulder. It was more for support than to stop me, beads of sweat rolling down his face as his grey eyes glued me to the spot. I found myself walking to the door with him, pushing it open so that we could see Josh and Joel staying low as they moved away from the building.
I made sure Charlie was safely out of the sight and in shouting distance of Josh before I said, “I’ll be right back. Don’t follow me.”
And then I dashed back into the building, slamming the door shut as he yelled at me. I knew that he would try and follow me despite his fear of the place – damn him, why was he so protective? But of course I knew the answer now – and so I hurried to the basement steps. I almost tripped as I made my way down them, coming into the bright light at the bottom.
Immediately someone grabbed the back of my shirt, jerking me backwards and slamming me up against the wall. Gasping for air, I stared into Jay’s blue eyes as slowly the reactive adrenaline faded from them to be replaced by terrified fury. He didn’t release his grip on my shirt, shaking me so aggressively that my head rattled against the wall.
“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted in my face as I blinked dizzily. “Why the hell did you come back?”
“I couldn’t leave you,” I said brokenly, holding his wrists and wishing he would stop shaking me. “They’re going to kill you. Don’t lie – I know they’re not here for us.”
He paused, his eyes an inch from my own, stretched wide with pupils dilated wildly. I held my breath as I watched the wheels turn in his mind behind his feral eyes, hardly daring to move until slowly he lessened his grip on my shirt and stepped backwards. Exhaling silently, I tightened my grip on my gun and looked at the ground, unable to meet the anger in his eyes.
A long breath of air escaped him, his shoulders moving up and down. I stole a look at him, his blue eyes glaring at me from behind a strand of golden hair, and then he said in a deadly calm voice, “Are you going back up there or what?”
I shook my head resolutely, which made him growl in frustration, but at last he shrugged in resignation and told me not to ask questions. Feeling like an eight-year-old, I trailed after him, nerves spiking as we moved through the eerily quiet basement. Jay stepped into a brightly-lit room full of computers, sitting tensely at the edge of a chair and typing away at one of them, although its bright blue screen gave nothing away. After a moment he gave a thin-lipped smile of satisfaction and switched it off, standing and moving on to the next one.
“What are you doing?” I couldn’t hold the question back.
His brow was furrowed in deep concentration, so intent on his work that he didn’t even register that I had broken his orders. “Wiping their system,” he muttered, his eyes fixed on something on the screen I didn’t understand. His golden hair hung over his eyes, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“They still have it here?” I asked in disbelief. “I thought you said they left.”
“They did.” He tapped enter, frowning as words flashed at him. “But I know how to access it from somewhere else, and I figured this might be my last chance to some serious damage.” He allowed me to scrutinize the screen over his shoulder. “Bank accounts,” he explained with a wolfish smile. “Can’t do much without moolah, can he?”
“Jay.” My voice was very small. “He’s going to kill you.”
“Was going to do that anyway, wasn’t he.” Jay’s face held a self-satisfied look as operation successful flashed across the screen. Pushing the chair away from the computer, he rose and walked around to a socket in the back wall where several plugs were connected. Lifting up his pant leg, he pulled out a knife and slashed at the wires, sparks emitting from them as he severed them completely. I watched with a growing sense of panic, knowing that with every strike of the knife, he was slicing away his own life.
“Jay –” I tried again, but he had risen to his feet and was looking at me with a defiant expression in his blue eyes. I found once again that I didn’t have words, falling silent as my chest ached; I wanted him to hold me and tell me everything was going to be fine. A more alternate reality I couldn’t picture.
“Come on,” he said, a little more gently as he reached for my hand. “We can get out of here now. I’ve done what I came to do.”
A glitter of silver at his neck caught my eye, and he clearly noticed, because the hesitation was clear on his face as one hand touched it rather defensively. I looked away, offering him a small smile as we moved back into the hallway. He wouldn’t meet my eyes, his own troubled as we headed back towards the stairs and began to climb.
We were silent the entire way up, his hand warm and damp in my own, although I couldn’t tell if it was his sweat or mine. I heard the clink of the key against its chain as he fingered it, not daring to say anything lest I made him change his mind for the worst. That key was our ticket home. The Red list was so close to me; all I had to do was reach out and lift it over his head, even though he seemed so close to giving it to me.
But would I be able to fire the gun, release the bullet, end his life? The pressure on my hand, the reassuring glance he sent my way, the proximity between us – I knew I would never be able to do something like that. Charlie and Josh and Joel didn’t know about the other half of this rescue mission for ourselves, the part that I alone could do. They didn’t know that Young wasn’t satisfied with only the Red list.
My heart was heavy in my chest as we reached the top of the stairs, my steps slowing as I thought about what I had to do, what I was unable to do. Jay looked back at me as if he was reading my mind, his eyes knowing, but before he could say anything, there was an explosion of noise from outside the front doors. In a burst of déjà vu, they flew open, silhouettes of more agents appearing there even as Jay dragged me to one side, into the shadows.
They hadn’t seen us. One of them moved forward, his dark face like stone as he walked up to the basement door and peered inside for a good long moment. Jay’s breath was silent next to me, his eyes darting around the room as he looked for an escape, but I was fixated by the man, who was now moving away from the door. Jay tensed, and I gripped my gun more tightly, prepared to fire, but then the man’s arm arced above his head and moved downwards in a familiar motion –
“Grenade!” Jay hissed in my ear, unnecessarily, and we both clamped hands over our ears as the air exploded around us. Although he had aimed it at the basement door, the fire it created licked at the old wooden walls, spreading rapidly. I could feel the heat moving towards us like an angry lion, searing our faces as the dimness of the room was dispersed by the furious glare of the fire.
“Move!” Jay screamed at me, exposing us as he shoved me away from him roughly. I stumbled, whipping my gun over my shoulder and firing at the G7 agents as I ducked into the adjoining room Josh had seen, sliding on the dust and mildew that had gathered on the floor. I could hear yells coming from the main room as the fire crackled on the walls, and a moment later Jay fell through the door after me.
His eyes were wild as he clutched at his shoulder: I could see blood spreading. “I’m fine,” he panted even as I opened my mouth. “Just a scratch, it didn’t even go in, don’t worry about me. They’re all dead.”
“Are there more of them?”
I grabbed his arms, pulling him further into the room as fire roared suddenly at the door, searing the frame. He staggered against the intense heat, snatching at my shoulder to steady himself as he shook his head in answer to my question.
“We need to get out of here,” he gasped, straightening and taking my arm. “Come on, let’s try the back.”
Heat fuzzed the air behind us, smoke billowing through the doorway and filling our lungs as we struggled to move forward. The combination of dust and smoke was like a gloved hand around my lungs, causing me to cough, eyes watering as I gasped for air. Jay was choking too, his body jolting violently, but we kept pushing forward, trying to avoid the cluttered furniture as flames danced across the walls.
“Where’s the freaking door?” he kept yelling, his voice becoming hoarser and hoarser with each frustrated exclamation. Tears streamed down my face as I sneezed and sneezed from the swirling dust, his arm wrapped protectively around me as we struggled to breathe. His hair was plastered to his sweaty face, his eyes sparking almost as furiously as the fire as he looked around desperately, coughing.
At long last we reached the opposite end of the room. I fell against the wall, yelping with pain as my hand collided with hot metal: a doorknob. The fire had reached that wall, oppressive heat against our faces, blinding us as Jay gave a dry sob of relief. He ignored the searing heat of the doorknob and twisted it: It was stuck fast. Swearing more violently than I had ever heard him do, he shoved the door open with one shoulder, a savage look on his face, and I kicked it for good measure as the fire inched closer.
“Come on!” snarled Jay, and at last it burst open.
At the same time, a burning timber fell from the ceiling, smacking against my back. My mouth opened in a scream of agony, my brain barely registering the fresh air that flowed from the open door as I staggered outside. Fire was at my back, the heat swarming my entire being although the pain had not yet struck – and then someone grabbed me, pushed me to the ground. That childhood ritual flashed in my mind – stop, drop, and roll – and almost involuntarily I began rolling over and over on the dirt.
When the heat ceased, I went still with my face pressed into the ground, my breath still coming in great, hacking coughs that made my entire body shake. Jay was holding my shoulders, saying my name over and over, and at last I raised my head blearily, his face swimming before my eyes as fresh air entered my battered lungs.
“Are you okay?” He was shaking me again, real fear in his voice. “Damn it, Astrid, talk to me!”
“I’m fine.” My voice was distant, rattled; I wanted him to stop shaking me.
“Oh my gosh.” He wrapped his arms around me as I slowly rose to a kneeling position, his hand moving over my face as he took deep breaths to get control. “Is anything broken?” he asked, feeling my back, my shoulders, my hands. “Does anything hurt?”
I took a second to evaluate myself, pushing my hair out of my face – and then I stopped dead. Slowly I ran my fingers through my dark hair, my eyes widening as I realized how much more quickly I could do it. The fire seemed to have scorched off the bottom half of my ponytail, the ponytail holder falling out and the now much-shorter strands falling around my sweaty face. I let out a shaky breath as I realized how lucky I had been.
“You’re okay,” said Jay in an epically relieved voice, but then he came to his senses, dragging me to his feet. The building was still in flames behind us, the heat stretching its fingers out towards us again as fire continued to swarm through the ancient wooden walls. Choking and coughing still, I clung to Jay as we sprinted away from the scene, unwilling to let go of him, preferring his heat to that of the fire, willing it all away.
We staggered down the street, my back still smarting, my mind flying to Josh and Joel and Charlie – oh no, Charlie. A horrible thought struck me: What if he hadn’t left the front of the building, stubbornly waiting for me, and the agents that had come had – but I couldn’t think like that. I had to remain positive or the world would melt around me, the flames sucking in everything in its path. I had to remain cool, untouched by the fire.
Jay slowed about a block away from the building, leaning against the façade of another and fighting for air. His eyes were fixed on me anxiously as I stood next to him, something in them that I couldn’t read. When I looked at him, he reached for me and folded me into his arms. I buried my face against the coolness of his sweatshirt, breathing in the mixture of his familiar scent and the refreshing coolness of the crisp air.
“I have to go now, Astrid,” he said softly in my ear, but I pretended not to hear him, closing my eyes and willing the moment to last forever. I never wanted to leave his arms, wanted to stay safe in them, but he pulled me away from him so that I had to look into his eyes.
“Astrid.” His voice was pained. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
“What are you talking about?” I refused to understand, refused to read between the lines: I hadn’t missed all his hints about Cloying wanting to kill him, but that didn’t mean I had to believe them.
He touched my face gently, a sad smile on his face. “Get out of here. Charlie needs you.”
Charlie…his face swam before my eyes, bloodstained and bewildered as it had been in that alleyway after the encounter with Finn…why didn’t I kill him?...the pain in his eyes as I found no words to match his, those intense words that tumbled from his lips as the turmoil in his mind took over his throat, the tears in his eyes late at night as he struggled with the past…
“You need me,” I whispered, trying to catch Jay’s hand. But he stepped away from me, moving backwards down the street, away from me, shaking his head. “Jay –” His name was choked out, but it was as if he couldn’t hear me: He held my eyes for another long moment as he continued to move away, and then he turned on his heel and disappeared from my sight.
It was impossible to tell how long I stood there, unable to move, my chest aching from a combination of smoke and dust and heartache, but at last my feet responded to the only strand of sense I had left. I found myself turning away, stumbling woodenly down the street without the fuzziest idea of where to go, my mind on his blue eyes. But as I moved, my head cleared, the blue pushed aside by the grey, and my worry and terror for Charlie rose again. He had been shot – where was he – did Cloying’s men get him – where was I going…
I was running then, my breath still tearing out of me painfully, my head unfamiliarly light as the new short hair stuck to my damp face. I had no idea where I was going, but my feet seemed to, my boots pounding on the concrete ground. The coldness of the air barely touched me as I rounded a corner, my heart nearly bursting out of my chest with relief as I recognized the figures crouched under the awning of an abandoned shop.
Josh looked up at me as I approached, the relief that flickered in his eyes quickly replaced by blank anger. “Where the hell have you been?” he practically shouted at me, half-rising. “Do you have any idea how freaking scared we were?”
“Josh, leave her alone.” Charlie’s voice came from the ground: He was propped up against the wall of the store, his eyes glassy and sweat pouring down his face as his breaths came short and fast. His hands were still clenching the wound in his thigh, stained completely red, but he looked up at me as I stopped by his side.
Joel sat at his other side, tearstains on his face, and he immediately asked, “Where’s Jay? Is he still in the building?”
But I had eyes only for Charlie, kneeling by his side and taking his hands in my own, massaging them as I looked at him worriedly. “Josh, why didn’t you bandage him?”
Josh let out a frustrated noise, but it was obvious that he was too anxious to be that angry with me. He tugged off his sweatshirt and then his shirt, throwing the latter into my lap. Giving him a grateful look, I picked up the shirt and ripped it apart at the seam into one long strip. Reaching into my boot, I tugged out my knife and cut a square of jean material away from Charlie’s thigh, displaying the wound. Then I reached for my belt buckle, unclasping it and snaking the belt out of my jeans. Joel stared at me in shock, and despite the urgency of the situation, I couldn’t help but smile at his expression.
“Belts are great for storage,” I told him, my fingers feeling the tough leather until I found one of the hidden pouches. Pressing it, I popped out a small case filled with a grayish antiseptic powder, opening it and meeting Charlie’s eyes. “This is going to hurt,” I warned him, but he jerked his head, signaling to just get it over with. I took a deep breath, tipping the container so that the powder trickled into the gash.
The stoic look on Charlie’s face disappeared as his jaw clenched tightly and his eyes bulged slightly. His fingers curled in fists, digging into the ground as he leaned his head back against the building, sweating pouring down his face as he fought to remain silent. The first seconds were always the worst, so I worked quickly, using spit to wash out the wound and add a little more antiseptic. His entire body tensed, his knee lifting off the ground. Taking Josh’s shirt, I wrapped it around Charlie’s upper thigh, tucking the end in and sitting back.
Slowly the air whooshed out of Charlie’s lungs, his body relaxing and his eyes closing briefly. I touched his face in an involuntary action, something hard stuck in my throat, and he half-opened his eyes to look at me hazily. He seemed to be almost delirious in that moment of pain, lifting one hand to cup the back of my head, running his fingers through my short hair. I allowed it, his grey eyes swirling in my vision.
“Did you hit up a hair salon on the way over here?” he whispered, his own hair sticking to his shiny face. I pushed it out of his eyes, smoothing it back as I smiled at him.
“Think the hairdresser did a good job?”
“Bit choppy…” He lowered his arm, looking exhausted. “Is that the style now?”
I laughed, sheer relief shining through the sound. I felt like crying, inexplicably wanting him to wrap his arms around me as Jay had done, yearning for his embrace even though I hadn’t wanted to leave Jay’s just a moment ago. What was he doing to me?
Josh stiffened suddenly next to me, and when I looked at him, I saw that his attention was fixed on something over my shoulder. “We need to move,” he said as he caught my eye.
“Are they coming?”
He shook his head, reaching out a hand to help me to my feet. “Not yet, but I see smoke. Something happened.”
“Cloying’s building caught on fire,” I explained, staring at the spiral of grey just a few blocks away, thinking of Jay. Where was he now?
Josh gave me a sharp look. “Is that what happened to your back?”
I glanced over my shoulder, just able to glimpse the charred material of Jay’s old flying jacket. The lump in my throat rising, I nodded, touching my hair again and letting out a long, shaky breath. Josh was looking at me strangely but said nothing except “I think we should get inside, so at least we’re off the streets.”
I agreed, looking down at Charlie, whose eyes were closed again, his chest rising and falling in fast, shallow breaths. Joel looked terrified, and I tried to give him a reassuring look, saying, “Jay’s okay. You heard what he told you, right?” Joel nodded. “Just keep that in mind. Everything’s going to be fine.”
My words sounded hollow in my ears, but Joel looked at me gratefully. His naïve trust hurt like a bullet wound, my conscience screaming at me to tell him the truth, what Jay had done and what Cloying was going to do to him. Trying to think positively, I pushed open the door of the shop, gun first, and stepped inside. After searching the first floor, I gestured for the others to join me. Joel came in first, followed by Josh, who was supporting Charlie.
“What should we do?” Josh was so tense that I was surprised he could talk, his eyes moving around the room rapidly.
I pointed my gun at another door, which opened into a dark storage room. “Why don’t we go in here? I’ll check it out.” I moved inside before anyone could protest, inspecting it, and found that it held a staircase leading up to the second floor, presumably where the owner of the store would live if there was one. Moving out again, I said, “It seems safe enough, and there’s a way to get out of it from inside.”
“Sounds good,” said Josh, looking apprehensively at the wide windows that covered most of the walls of the shop. “Much more out of sight.”
We moved into the room, Joel seating himself against the wall with his knees drawn up to his chest and a blank look on his face. Josh helped Charlie walk inside, the latter with his head down and hair flopping over his face as he leaned against the wall, still standing. Josh stepped away from him, sharing a helpless look with me as I closed the door. All of us gasped automatically, and I instantly regretted the action: I hadn’t realized how dark it would get once the only source of light was cut off.
I was suddenly aware of a sharp, heavy breathing. As my eyes adjusted, I could see that Charlie had straightened. I said his name, gently, but he didn’t seem to hear me. A small light illuminated the room suddenly, Josh’s face lit up by the glow of his phone. He was looking at Charlie, whose outline was now clearer. His face was made ghastly by the dim light; his eyes stretched wide and sweat shining on his cheekbones. Hands clenched into fists, he fell back against the wall as I looked at him, turning and smashing against it in a sudden fit of terror.
“Charlie,” I said again, reaching for him, but he pushed me away.
“Ficar longe de mim!” he gasped, jolting away, and I stopped dead, suddenly frightened.
“Charlie, you’re okay,” I tried, but he didn’t seem to hear me.
“He’s coming.” He turned to look at me, his eyes stricken as he slammed into the wall again, as if he was trying to force it open.
“Who’s coming, Charlie?” I asked quietly, although I thought I knew. Josh and Joel were dead silent, not daring to say a word as we watched him. He shook his head, leaning his forehead against the wall.
“Charlie, you’re fine.” I came forward again, touching his shoulder gently, trying to be reassuring. “He’s not here, he’s not coming, don’t worry. He’s not going to hurt you.”
“You don’t understand!” His voice rose as he tried to hurl himself at the door again. This time I caught his arms, forcing him to stay in place. I could feel his entire body trembling as he stared at me, eyes huge. Slowly he sank down to the floor against the wall, putting his head on his knees, and I crouched next to him, gripping his hands tightly as he hung on to them like they were his lifeline.
“What don’t I understand?” I whispered.
His voice was muffled, but I could hear the pain and despair in it. “The dark. He always comes in the dark. Whenever I close my eyes, he’s there, but he’s not there for me. He’s there for you – he’s going to kill you.”
I froze, my brain shutting off for a split second before I managed to choke out, “How do you know that, Charlie? He couldn’t hurt me.”
“He said he would.” The grey eyes rose to meet mine, so haunted that they seemed to pierce my soul. “He told me, in the dark, over and over. He’s going to hurt you.”
I couldn’t say anything, just sat there holding his hands as he let his head droop against his knees again. Finally I knew the truth behind the nightmares and the fear of that dark, dark room – it wasn’t fear for himself. It was fear for me. I met Josh’s eyes over Charlie’s head, expecting to see the same surprise, but I was taken aback by the bitterness in them. He seemed almost reproving, looking away from me as I stared at him in confusion.
Had everyone known but me?