Afire Page 14

  I walk to the right, towards the edge of the circle of light. The front door closes with a soft snick, and Ryan’s footsteps shuffle the grass behind me. I stare into the pitch, unable to see anything beyond the swathe of torchlight, so pan the area with the beam. It picks up the grass, the arc of the hill ledge in the distance, and the stretch of starless sky but nothing more. Glancing to my left, I listen for movement other than ours while looking at the yellowed dots and squares—the lights of the village.

  Who the hell would come up here? Everyone knows everybody else in the village. No strangers have come to visit that I know of. Unless Josh is messing about? Yeah, I wouldn’t put it past him.

  Ryan arrives at my side, hands bunched, thick fists darkened by the night. “I can’t see anything. You sure you—”

  “Yep, I’m sure.” I lean close to whisper, “Reckon it’s Josh fucking about. Shh!”

  I take Ryan’s wrist then switch off the torch, turning back to check Josh isn’t standing on our doorstep with his usual stupid grin. He isn’t there, so I tug Ryan down the side of the cabin and around the back. The edges of our garden kind of blend onto the hilltop, so we shift along the rear of the house to the back door.

  It stands ajar, and my guts roll over.

  “Did you leave this open?” I whisper, looking at Ryan.

  Light from the kitchen shines through the window in the back door and highlights his fearful expression. He’s frowning, and his mouth is downturned as though he’s thinking back to whether or not we’d been out the back tonight. I hadn’t.

  “No.”

  “Shit.” Would Josh go this far with a joke? I don’t think so, and my instincts tell me something is off. Tangible fear comes off the pair of us, and I think about how we’ll deal with a stranger breaking in. Odd that they chose this place. I know it’s out of the way, but their escape route is limited to the path down the hill or the forest edging it. Stealing a TV and getting away quickly isn’t on the cards. So if someone is up here and it isn’t to steal, why are they here?

  “The light was off when we went out the front door just now.” Ryan swallows audibly.

  “Right.”

  Shit!

  Taking a deep breath, I step inside, the torch held out in front of me in case some bastard’s in here and I need to strike. Ryan’s right behind me, and he closes the door. I creep out of the kitchen and down the hallway, leaning against the wall opposite the stairs. Peering around the living room doorjamb, I stare inside. No one—unless they’re behind the door. I look at the space between door and frame—again, no one there.

  I point upstairs and look at Ryan, who takes his phone out of his pocket. Thankful one of us has a modicum of sense, I take the stairs slowly, the hallway light fading into dark the higher I climb. Ryan stands at the bottom, looking up at me. He holds up his hands to ask whether he should stay or follow, and I shrug. I’ve got no fucking clue what he should do. Part of me thinks he ought to stay where he is so he can call for help if someone is up there and I shout out, but the other part…fuck, I’m shitting myself, if I’m honest. Don’t want to do this alone. I jerk my head, indicating that he come with me, and he nods.

  On the landing, I narrow my eyes to see in the semi-darkness. Two doors stand closed—the bathroom and spare bedroom—but our bedroom door is half open, the exterior light bleeding through the thin curtains. It offers enough for me to see better, and I push open the door, expecting it to rebound off someone hiding behind it. With a dull thud, the handle smacks into the wall, and there isn’t a damn soul in here except me, Ryan at my back.

  I turn and look at him, eyes wide and brows raised in silent question: Did I imagine that shadow, or what?

  He shrugs and cocks his head toward the other doors. This time he’s leading, and I’m apprehensive about that. Yeah, he’s usually the one who acts like he has more balls than me, but when it comes to protecting him, to sticking up for him…

  Ryan opens the bathroom door and pushes it wide. Nothing. The spare door comes next, and he does the same.

  No bastard is in there! What the fuck is going on?

  A creak sounds, loud and ominous, and I reckon it came from downstairs. Fuck, what if someone only made it look like they’d come inside? What if we’re up here and they’re now down there? I glance at Ryan, and he takes the stairs, dashing down them in an attempt to catch whoever the hell made that noise. Rushing after him, I almost slip on a middle step and grab the banister rail to steady myself. My heart beats way too fast, and my legs and guts hollow. Ryan barges into the living room—the light is still on, and it’s clear no one is here. For a second, I wonder if I’m going mad, whether the shadow was a trick of the light, but shit, the air seems charged with badness now. I trail Ryan down the hall and into the kitchen.

  The back door is open again, but no one is here. Is the catch faulty? Is that it?

  Ryan turns to look at me. “What the fuck?” he mouths.

  I shrug, and he walks over to close the door again, locking it this time. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and something rustles behind me. Ryan spins to face me, eyes going wide as he looks over my shoulder. His mouth opens in slow motion, and I swivel toward the hallway, my gaze first taking in the fact that the small door to the cupboard under the stairs is open and then to the man standing behind it. And the gun he holds pointing at me, his wrists resting on the top of the door.

  “Doug?” His names leaves my mouth as a squeak.

  He sneers, lips curled and ugly. “What kind of wanker doesn’t check the cupboard under the stairs?”

  Ryan steps up beside me. I can’t take my gaze off Doug—what the fuck is he doing here?—but from the corner of my eye I see Ryan’s fists bunch. Questions flash through my mind in a split second: Why does he have a gun? How did he find us? What does he want?

  Doug steps out from behind the door and kicks it shut. He holds the gun out, still trained on me, and plants his legs apart as though getting ready to pull the trigger. It brings back memories of Trevor doing the same thing, and I will my bladder to hold up—fucked if I want to piss myself through fear again.

  “Trev wasn’t happy you came back.” Doug’s stare holds mine. “Sent me here to make sure you understand he meant what he said.”

  I have the absurd urge to laugh. I mean, if that gun wasn’t aimed at me, if Trevor hadn’t done the same damn thing, I’d have thought this was some kind of joke. Kids you know from school just don’t act like this. Fuck yeah, I’d been bullied by them, but guns and shit like that? No way! But it was happening, this is how they’d turned out, the path they’d chosen, and we had to get out of this somehow.

  “Fuck off, Doug,” Ryan says, moving to stand between me and Doug. “I told you we wouldn’t be back.” He pauses, then, “And what’s Trev’s fucking problem anyway? Why’s he got a beef with Lee? That’s what it’s about, isn’t it? Schoolyard shit from years ago that has no place in the adult world.”

  Doug laughs, a menacing sound that sets my nerves more on edge. “Listen to you. Watch too much chat show TV, you do. Don’t you fucking get it? Trev is hard, man. Someone to be feared. And I’m his right-hand, know what I mean? We don’t take shit. We don’t like our orders being ignored.”

  This is doing my head in. Doug’s acting like he’s some gang lord or something, as if he’s so tough he’s to be feared. Yeah, I’ll admit I’m scared—who wouldn’t be with a damn gun pointed at them?—but Doug and Trevor being like this? Give me a fucking break!

  “Uh, far be it for me to question your scariness, mate,” Ryan begins, “But we’ve known you years. Seen you fall over and scuff your knees in the playground. Seen you crying when old Frankie—remember him? The science teacher?—caught you bunking off school. This isn’t you, Doug.”

  Doug clamps his jaw and shouts, “Don’t fucking tell me who I am! You know nothing about me!”

  Ryan steps forward, hand up to show Doug he doesn’t mean any harm. “Doug, you ought to go home. Tell Trev you d
elivered the message and we won’t be back. Fuck, tell him we shit ourselves, tell him whatever, just go, yeah?”

  “No! I can’t. Trev said…” His double handgrip on the gun loosens—sweat, I guess—and the gun shakes. From his anger? Fear?

  “Trev said what?” Ryan moves closer.

  Doug takes one hand off the gun and swipes his arm out, striking Ryan on the temple with his fist. Ryan staggers sideways, crashing into the cooker. I lunge forward to try and grab the gun, to smack it out of his hand, but Doug is quicker. He aims at my stomach, his finger pulling back on the trigger, sweat beading his forehead and dripping down his face.

  The gunshot sounds so loud in the confines of the cabin—mean and hard and wretched. Ryan shouts “Fuck!” and scrabbles back to his feet, bracing himself on the cooker top with one hand. I feel no pain so look down, seeing a hole in my jacket front. Then a searing burn starts in my gut, spreading throughout my torso and gaining heat as it goes.

  Doug’s eyes grow wide. “I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m sorry! Trev said…Trev…” He turns, running down the hallway and flinging open the front door.

  I stare after him, dimly aware of Ryan by my side, my hands lifting to cover my stomach. He swears several times, jabbing at his phone buttons. I grimace as the pain level increases and squeeze my eyes closed. Taking my hands from my stomach, I glance down at them. Blood covers the palms, and like it’s been given the green light to flow freely, I feel it oozing out of my stomach.

  Fuck. Fuck, he shot me! Jesus Christ!

  Ryan babbles into his phone. I jerk backwards, saved from falling by Ryan catching me with one arm. My legs give out, and I slump to the floor, the pain and blood flow getting stronger. Ryan kneels beside me, phone wedged between his ear and shoulder, and pulls down my coat zip. It’s hard to take a breath now without thinking my lungs aren’t big enough to hold the air. As Ryan lifts my T-shirt, I close my eyes and listen to his voice as he speaks to the emergency services.

  I allow bad thoughts to creep in. I imagine the ambulance crew having to leave their vehicle at the foot of the hill, them running up the path to get to the cabin. The crew will have to come from the next town over…

  They’re not going to make it. I’m not going to make it.

  What about Ryan? He presses a wadded-up tea towel to my belly now, and his breaths come in short spurts along with a few muttered fucks and shits. I give a small smile at that and drift on a sea of pain, keeping my mind alert by envisaging various scenarios. If I don’t make it, will he be all right without me? My eyes burn, and tears drip down into my hairline. I want to live, to be with him forever, until we grow old and ancient and can’t fuck anymore because our cocks don’t work. I smile again, wishing I could tell Ryan what I’d thought—he’d find it funny—but no words come out. It’s like I’ve lost the ability to speak.

  Blackness seeps into the edges of my mind, obliterating the images of me being tended to by paramedics. One sharp, abrasive pain rips across my stomach, and I have no energy to cry out. My arms and legs weaken, and it’s like I’m sinking into the floor, melting into the linoleum. My breaths stutter, and I try and suck in a deep breath, panicked that the judders I just gave will be my last.

  The pain is gone. The blackness is absolute. And I give in to wherever sleep, or death, wants to take me.

  INFERNO

  ~

  Chapter Four - Ryan

  Ryan watched the paramedics load Lee onto a stretcher. His heart pounded too damn fast, fright sending him light headed, and he reached out to steady himself on the kitchen worktop. He felt sick to his stomach and fought the urge to chuck his guts up. He stared at the floor, at the blood, and snatches of movement from the paramedics danced on the outskirts of his vision. One paramedic gave a count of three, and Ryan looked up. They lifted the stretcher and carried Lee down the hall and out into the night. Panic gripped Ryan. Lee was unconscious, had bled all over the floor…

  What if he doesn’t make it? What if he…

  No, he wouldn’t think like that. Couldn’t think like that.

  Stepping over the blood, Ryan rushed down the hall and went outside. He’d agreed to meet the ambulance at the hospital but had no fucking clue where to go. The next town over…he’d been there with Lee on shopping trips, but never to the hospital. He stared ahead, seeing one paramedic’s head bobbing as he walked down the hill. Tears burned Ryan’s eyes. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Their life together had only just begun. How could the past come roaring back like that? Ryan had expected bumps in the road with regards to Lee’s mother, but threats from Trevor while he was still banged up inside? He raked a hand through his hair, leaning on the doorjamb to gather his thoughts.

  I need to get my act together. Get to the hospital.

  He dashed about the cabin after washing his bloody hands and changing into clean clothes. While stuffing some of Lee’s clothes—pyjama bottoms, jeans, T-shirts, and toiletries—into a holdall, he rang Josh, his phone on loud speaker so he could do both tasks at once. Shocked at the news, Josh agreed to pick Ryan up at the foot of the hill and take him to the hospital. Josh had been right—Ryan wasn’t in any fit state to drive. Hell, he’d have crashed through lack of concentration.

  At the bottom of the hill, he waited, on edge. What was happening with Lee? They’d probably reached the hospital by now, and he’d been informed by one of the paramedics that the police would want to speak with him, what with the gunshot wound and all. Normally he’d have stayed at the cabin awaiting their arrival, but he couldn’t, not when it was Lee who’d been shot.

  Headlights coming up the road ahead pierced the darkness, and Ryan itched for Josh to hurry the hell up. The car swerved and came to a stop. Ryan jumped into the passenger seat, wanting to scream for Josh to hurry. He needed to be near Lee now, to know what was going on. Whether he was…all right.

  “Jesus,” Josh said, pulling away and heading for the next town. “What the hell went on up there?”

  Ryan explained, finishing with, “We had no idea those blokes had turned so bad. Just thought they imagined themselves as hard nuts, know what I mean? Saw Doug on the day we buried Lee’s mum. He started in the pub. Had no idea the prick would visit Trevor and tell him we’d been back.” He chuckled half-heartedly. “Besides, who’d have thought Doug would carry out Trevor’s orders? I fucking didn’t.” He sighed and stared out the windscreen, wishing the car zoomed down the motorway faster than it did. “Never took any of them seriously. Not even when I found out Trevor had pulled a gun on Lee already. I mean, you don’t, do you? You don’t think kids from school pose any threat.” He turned to look at Josh.

  “Sounds like they turned bad all right.” He flexed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Tell me, why the hell have they got a problem with you anyway?”

  “I’ll give you one guess.”

  “Jesus. Stupid.”

  “Yeah, but some people…”

  “I know.” Josh grimaced and shook his head. “He’s in good hands, Ryan.”

  “Yeah, I imagine he is, but…shit, he’s my life, you know? I can’t…I don’t want to lose him.” A sob caught in the back of his throat, and he cuffed his cheeks and nose.

  “Hey, you won’t. Gunshot to the belly—he was lucky there. In the chest or the thigh…not so good.”

  Ryan huffed out a wry laugh. “Thank God for small mercies then, eh?”

  They continued the journey in silence. Once there, Josh pulled up outside the emergency department.

  Ryan opened the car door, one leg out on the path leading to the main doors. “Thanks, man.”

  Josh smiled. “No problem. Ring me when you have news. And if you need me to pick you up… Or if you want Lee’s car, Sue can bring it here. I’ll follow her, then take her back to Biddingford.”

  “Cheers.” Ryan got out, eager to get inside and seek someone out for an update. He bent over before closing the door, one hand on the roof, the other on the top of the door, and peered inside. “Will you let the boss know
what’s happened?”

  Josh nodded. “Will do. Go on now. Get in there.”

  Ryan shut the door and turned away, walking through the automatic doors with leaden feet. It seemed the adrenaline rush had left him tired. He approached the desk—unmanned—and tapped his fingers on the top. Glancing around brought no sign of doctors or nurses, and he muttered under his breath about this being an emergency area and what good was it if no one was there to handle a bloody emergency. About to lose his temper, fear and worry roiling in his gut, he smacked his hand down on the brass bell and bit his lower lip. A young brunette nurse, hair scraped back in a bun, came out of the station behind the desk, and other shadows moved behind the closed white blinds.

  What are they doing in there? Having a fucking tea break?

  Irritation burned inside him, and he glared at the nurse, knowing she didn’t deserve the brunt of his anger but unable to stop himself. “Shouldn’t there be someone on this desk at all times?”

  She smiled the smile of someone who’d been asked that question a million times. “Can I help you, sir?”

  “Err, yes. That’s why I’m standing here.” Stop it. Calm down. Be polite.

  She tilted her head, waiting for him to give her a list of ailments, he supposed.

  “My partner was brought in about half an hour ago with a gunshot wound to the stomach.”

  “Name?” She tapped at the keyboard.

  Ryan gave it and waited while she browsed the computer screen, irritation branding his stomach, producing bile that zipped up his windpipe.

  “Ah, he’s in surgery. If you’d like to wait—”

  “Is he going to be okay?” The thought of Lee in surgery made Ryan want to cry, but he held back the tears. He couldn’t afford to break down now.

  “I don’t have access to that kind of information,” the nurse said kindly. “If you’d like to wait over there?” She pointed to the waiting room chairs, most of them filled with people in various states of injury. “I’ll come and find you when he’s out.”