Blood Entwines (14 page)

‘They put me in a bed on a ward with other coma patients,' he continued. ‘And then they stole from me. Because of the card I suppose. My parents wanted us all to have donor cards, especially since I have a rare blood type.'

She stared at him, the words
rare blood type
making an impression on her.

‘That's the first time it's happened. The first time they took something important. I was asleep, of course, couldn't stop them. But I knew something was missing. You have it.'

His steely blue eyes locked on to Kara's from across the room.

She still wasn't following what he meant, still not capable of putting two and two together.

‘I didn't know how to find you at the beginning, but then I realised I could just check my own records.'

He flashed a self-congratulatory smile at her.

She winced.

‘Blood transfusion for traffic-accident victim. The rest was easy. I just searched the internet, looked you up in the newspaper.'

Kara's brain finally added all the information together and she gasped. She felt dirty, her skin scratchy. She sniffed at herself to see if she could smell him on her. She knew now what she had that belonged to him and why her veins wanted to pop every time he was near.

She had his blood in her body. It was inside her, mixing with her own. The realisation made her feel ill, more than ill. She bolted past him, pushing him out of the way as she raced towards the bathroom.

She heaved over the toilet bowl. What was going on? The room spun round her as she laid her cheek against the cool ceramic of the toilet. Germs were the least of her worries. She wiped the strands of sweat-drenched hair from her face and held up the palm of her hand. A little pink scratch was all that remained.

She healed really fast, that was something the doctor had commented on, repeatedly, at the hospital.

Every one of them had said it. ‘Oh my, Mrs Bailey, your daughter,'
stepdaughter
, she felt like yelling at them every time, ‘has very quick healing powers.' Or maybe it went something a little different, perhaps it was more like, ‘Oh my, young lady, you seem to have excellent cell regeneration.'

Their voices merged into one in her head, and it ricocheted around in her brain. It was too much. She hadn't received blood from an ordinary guy, a good Samaritan. She'd got some mutant freak blood that had a mind of its own. And now it wanted to return to its owner, like a lost puppy.

Oh my God
!

How much did she have? How much of his blood was in her? She couldn't remember now what they'd said at the hospital, a pint, maybe two or three. She retched over the bowl again but nothing would come up. Her throat burned.

She clung weakly to the toilet, groaning in misery. Her head hurt, her body ached. She lay her head down on the tiles and counted to ten in an effort not to think about it.

She got to number thirty-seven before a wave of exhaustion took her.

Hannah woke, a scream threatening to choke her. She rolled on to her stomach, smothering the noise in the folds of her pillow. She couldn't risk waking her parents. They were worried enough about her as it was.

Slick with sweat, the sheet tangled around her lower limbs, she waited for her heart rate to return to normal, for the pull of the dream to lessen. It had been three days now. First, a migraine had started, just above the bridge of her nose. She lost sight in her right eye and couldn't bear to move. Her mother wanted to call the doctor, but Hannah begged her not to, insisting that she would be OK. All she needed was to lie still in a darkened room and count the seconds till the pain lessened. If the doctor was called, a blood sample would be taken and her meds level would be low, arousing suspicion.

She needed to stay away from Dr Morris at all costs.

Earlier she had eaten a small meal, forcing each bite of food into her mouth, chewing and swallowing. It was through sheer determination that she did not throw up all over the table. She smiled quietly at her parents, exchanging meek chit chat, pretending that she was feeling better. The migraine had lessened but then the dreams had come back, worse than ever before.

It was always the same scenario, a person – a man or woman, sometimes a child – gripped in the midst of a paralysis of fear, the smell of it, the sound of it, the taste of it, wrapping itself around the person in her dream, leaking over Hannah as well. There were different scenarios of fear but always the same outcome – a pause towards the end, like the inhale of a perfect breath, then nothing. No more tangle of decisions, no more struggle, no more fear. Just death.

Her epilepsy was like this sometimes. She could feel it creeping over her, a build-up of slick energy, a coursing tsunami of power, as if she had been plugged into the mains for too long, her battery full to overflowing. Then all that energy, all that pent-up power, zapped through her, flinging her to the ground, twitching through her body.

The dreams she could contain, screaming into her pillow at night if necessary, the epilepsy she could not.

This time the dream ended differently. There was fear and death, yes, but instead of nothingness at the end there was a figure, hidden in darkness, and that figure was searching for Hannah, calling to her. He was desperate to find her. She could feel his covetousness. Hannah had something he wanted and he would not stop till he found her.

She looked at her clock: 5.30 a.m. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep. The sun would be up soon. Hannah swung her legs out of bed and shuffled over to her desk, pulling on an oversized sweater as she went. She flicked on the lamp, casting a dull yellow glow over the desk. She could do some study; the thought didn't really appeal to her.

She took out her laptop, a brick of a machine that had been a second-hand present for her sixteenth birthday. It was clunky and not very impressive to look at, but it worked. She turned it on quietly, pushing the mute button, not wanting any sound to prompt a visit from her mother. Over the last few days she had taken to hovering over Hannah, watching for anything unusual. Hannah knew that Dr Morris's number was on speed dial.

Glancing at the little desk calendar, she calculated the days till she was of an age to be legally emancipated from her parents. Seven months and twelve days. All she had to do was keep her head down and stay out of trouble.

Hannah wondered what had possessed her to agree to let Kara Bailey sit at her table in the canteen. Never could Hannah have predicted that Kara Bailey was the link to the weirdo. Yes, Hannah knew him, had seen him before, but not the way Kara expected. Hannah had dreamed of him, on more than one occasion.

The first time, his fear was like the other dreams, something to do with his parents, their death, the screaming. Hannah shook as she pushed a button on her computer.
Don't think about it
.

The second time was different. It was as if he were two people: there was fear, yes, but power too, a flooding of energy, as if he was feeding on it, taking pleasure in it. The two feelings, fear and the thirst for power, were overwhelming. She had lost consciousness, awoken on the floor of English class, her teacher bending over her, putting her into the recovery position, shouting for one of the others to get the school nurse. Another epileptic fit.

It was real this time, no dream. He had been waiting for them, had called her Watcher.

Whatever was going on, she was not about to get sucked in. It was none of her business. Kara Bailey was on her own. Hannah stabbed the start-up button on her laptop again. It was being temperamental. There was a niggling thought just at the periphery of her mind. Guilt. The realization annoyed her.

OK, so the girl had saved her from being whacked in the head at volleyball practice and it was kind of nice to have someone to sit beside in class, and eat lunch with, and generally talk to. She liked her.

Hannah punched in the password, stabbing fiercely at the keys. She checked herself just in time as she felt her emotions rising.
Stay calm. Stay calm
. She repeated the mantra over and over in her head. It was not a good idea to be overly emotional. Yes, she liked Kara and was a little annoyed by this, but it did not change the outcome. Kara was linked in some way to the weirdo and Hannah categorically did not want anything to do with him. And so, by default, Hannah would have to stay away from Kara.

She logged on to the news and scanned the page. A man, an accountant, Mr Saunderson, missing for more than a year. Someone had spotted him recently and alerted the police. There was a picture. Hannah stared at it. She knew this man, this accountant. She had dreamed about him, in a car park, fumbling with his keys, fear clawing its way up his throat, stopping him from thinking, stopping his limbs from working. Too late, he was too slow. The keys would not work. Something gripped his shoulder, the slow turn, then a scream.

Hannah closed her eyes. All these people in her dreams, the fear, the panic welling. And now this newspaper report. The two things had to be connected. The weirdo was the key . . . He was the lynch pin that tied everything together. Hannah had to understand, needed to understand.

She opened up the search engine and typed in the words
Saunderson
and
missing.
Maybe if she did some research she would find a link. If Saunderson was real, if the weirdo was real, maybe the others were too – the young woman, the little boy – all the people in her dreams.

She paused mid-strike. Something was wrong. She listened to the sounds of the house. She stretched her attention beyond her bedroom wall, in the general direction of her parents' room. She reached out with her mind. Nothing, except sleep. She could not detect anything there. She shrugged her shoulders; perhaps she was being overly paranoid. Tentatively she moved her attention beyond the house, letting her mind roam as far as possible. She felt her control stretch further and further. Her abilities were becoming stronger. This new aptitude worried her.

There. Almost at her limit she could feel it.

A decision, an intent, murderous. Hannah pulled back from it, fighting to get away from the blackness. She slumped at the desk, her breath coming in sharp gasps. She was going to be sick. Pulling in her awareness quickly, she tried to come back into her own consciousness, getting away from the decision that was based on blood. It was worse than in her dreams. Being faced with the reality of such a decision made her feel nauseated, left a stain on her, an imprint in her head. In a few short seconds she knew the internal debate, the struggle to decide. The weirdo was out there somewhere, contemplating about blood, thinking about Kara. Had he come to kill her? Had she met the same fate as the people in Hannah's dreams?

Hannah opened Facebook. She would have to hack into someone's account to get the number. Not a big deal, she knew all about computers and coding. She rooted in the desk drawer for the rarely charged mobile.

‘Please be OK. Please be OK,' she chanted, her fingers racing across the keyboard.

The noise of the phone ringing infiltrated Kara's dreams. She turned over and buried her head under the pillow.
It's too early.
She drifted on a wave of pleasant almost-sleep, until a memory poked at her and she sat bolt upright in bed.

She squinted at the clock through blurry, sleep-filled eyes. The alarm showed that it was 6 a.m.

Her computer emitted a shrill beep. Someone had sent an instant message. Her phone on her bedside table vibrated. More messages.

How had she got into bed last night?

The last thing she remembered was lying on the floor in the bathroom.

She groaned loudly to herself. Her head felt like a block of concrete. She dragged her fists across her eyes, scraping back the sleepy crusts from the corners.

In a split second a thought entered her head. He must have carried her from the bathroom.

‘Oh my God!'

She whipped back the duvet and checked what she was wearing: the same clothes as last night, her jeans and T-shirt. She said a silent thank you. Her hoodie was on the chair in the corner, curled on top of it fast asleep was the black kitten.

Kara got out of the bed slowly, stretching her limbs, mentally checked that everything was in order. She moved to her computer. Ten IMs from Hannah.

Kara had no idea Hannah had an online presence. Had never given her her account details.

She clicked a few of the messages.

Where r u
?

Answer ur phone
.

Why r u not online
?

She wrote a quick message and pressed send.

I'm alive. Not that u care either way. C u at school if u bother 2 turn up
!

Kara couldn't seem to ignite her brain cells. The whole morning passed in a blur. It was as if she was moving through oil, doing everything at a slow, laboured pace. Pulling on her clothes, fixing her hair, gathering her school things – it seemed to take forever. Eventually, she made it to school, walking as quickly as she could down the corridor.

By the time she got to class the teacher was already there and all the other students seated. Kara paused in the doorway. Hannah was sitting at her desk, looking pale and tired, hunched over her books. Kara momentarily felt sorry for her, but then remembered the last few days of no contact.

‘Glad you could join us!' Kara slipped into her seat, dropping her bag to the floor.

Hannah looked at her guiltily. The teacher called for group work and the students began to pair up. The sound of quiet chatter filled the room.

Hannah scraped her desk and chair towards Kara's, looking a little abashed. They bowed their heads together over their books and pretended to read for a moment.

‘Well . . .' said Kara. ‘Where were you? You just disappeared. I haven't heard from you since you stormed out of my house!'

She shot an accusing look at Hannah.

‘I wasn't feeling well. Migraine.'

Kara snorted at the lame explanation. She waited for a better excuse, but none came. Hannah sat still in the chair, reading her book.

Resigned to the fact that she would get no further apology or information, Kara considered if she should forgive Hannah. Glancing over her shoulder, she looked to the back of the room. Jenny and Ashleigh were sitting in their seats chatting together, their open books ignored. What options did Kara have?

Tutting loudly to highlight her reluctance, she summarised the events of the last few days, leaving out details about Ben and the gap. If Hannah wasn't going to reveal all her secrets, then why should Kara?

‘So he, it . . .' Hannah struggled for words. ‘It wants to go back?'

Kara looked towards the window. ‘I don't know. I suppose so. It was like the blood had a mind of its own and just jumped back into his body when he cut his hand.'

‘And what happened to your blood?' Hannah looked at her expectantly.

‘It was like it's half and half. Diluted or something. His blood went shooting off back to him and separated, kind of, from mine. So . . .' The words trailed off between them, but they both knew what the other was thinking.

If he took back his blood, would Kara survive?

‘Why don't we find out who he is? There has to be some record of an accident or something. The same way he found you. Let's check the local papers.'

The question was obvious, but Kara had been avoiding asking it out loud. She wasn't sure if Hannah would help her.

The fact that her stalker hadn't been waiting for her outside the school this morning had made her nervous. Not that his absence wasn't a welcome relief, but if he wasn't there then where was he? And, more importantly, what was he doing?

‘OK,' she said quietly, not daring to get too carried away.

Hannah had let her down once. Who's to say she wouldn't do it again?

Kara pushed through the revolving doors of the public library and inhaled deeply. The place smelt of paper, cracked leather and dust. She loved it. Hannah nudged past her into the foyer, oblivious to the sanctity of the library.

‘Come on. Let's get this done. I can't be late home from school.'

Hannah had been chewing on the inside of her cheek since they'd left St Aloysius'. They were skiving, but nobody would notice. The seniors were pretty much free to come and go as they pleased, as long as they had a permission slip – which was the only part of the equation they were missing.

‘Chill. We have plenty of time. It's not like your parents are going to send a search party for you if you're five minutes late.'

Hannah gave a withering look, rolling her eyes.

‘Would they?' asked Kara, staring after Hannah as she advanced towards the information desk.

‘Yes?' The librarian looked up, turning her head pointedly towards the clock on the wall. ‘Help with a school project, is it, girls?'

Hannah shifted from foot to foot, her gaze levelled at the floor, leaving Kara to do all the talking.

‘We want to have a look at your archive machine . . .' said Kara.

‘They're off limits today.' The librarian didn't give her a chance to finish her request.

‘But –' continued Kara.

‘The archive machines are not to be used by unsupervised minors, especially not during school hours when young ladies –' she looked at them both – ‘should be in class.'

She began to shuffle through library-loan-request cards, her hands moving efficiently. Kara didn't have a back-up plan. What should they do now? She turned to ask Hannah a question, but her friend was otherwise occupied. She was standing still, her hands bunched by her sides, the knuckles whitening. She made a low hissing sound. Kara looked up, none of the readers had noticed; the librarian was still arranging loan cards. Hannah whimpered. She swayed unsteadily before lifting her head.

Kara stumbled back, bumping into the high counter. ‘Hannah,' she whispered.

The girl's eyes had rolled back in her head, only the whites were visible. Her mouth moved quickly, uttering some kind of incantation. She looked terrifying and terrified at the same time, her milky gaze fixed on the woman behind the counter.

The librarian's hand stopped mid-movement and she slumped in her chair, as if the energy had been sucked from her. She opened and closed her mouth, but no sound came out.

‘Archive machine?' said Kara, her voice low.

‘Archives,' said the librarian loudly, pushing herself up from the chair, knocking the neat stack of library cards to the floor. She moved unsteadily from behind the counter towards the back room. Kara followed, leading a muttering Hannah by the arm.

The librarian took a bronze key from the chain attached to her belt and, like a jailer, she unlocked the door and pushed it open, gesturing to the back room. She turned on her heels and returned to the desk. Kara took Hannah and led her inside, kicking the door closed behind them.

The room was small, and two high narrow windows let in just a sliver of light. Low-hung electric bulbs provided the rest of the illumination. There was a large table with varying types of chairs huddled around it. A layer of dust topped the backs of the seats and the surface of the table. Tall grey filing cabinets took up most of the wall space, and there in the back of the room sat an ancient computer. Its screen was huge and the keyboard must have been about twenty years old.

Kara led Hannah to the dusty table and pulled out a chair. Gently, she helped ease her friend into the seat. The girl slumped forward, her head resting on her forearms, her back heaving as she wheezed air into her chest.

‘Hannah?' Kara was really worried. She'd never seen Hannah this way before. The last time the girl had messed with their teacher's mind it had been a silent and easy process.

‘Hannah,' repeated Kara, throwing her satchel on the table before kneeling down. ‘What happened?'

Hannah shook her head, coughing to clear her lungs. After what seemed like a long time, she lifted her head from her hands. Her eyes were deep pools of infinite grey.

‘Someone was looking for me,' she whispered.

‘What?'

‘I was trying to change her mind and I could feel it. Someone else, searching for
me
.'

‘Who? Who's searching for you?'

‘I don't know, but
he
knows I exist.' Hannah looked pale. Her hands were shaking.

‘Here, put this on. You're freezing.' Kara slipped her blazer over her friend's shoulders.

‘Me changing people's minds is like a marker or a beacon. Whoever is looking for me can sense it, the way I can sense people's fear in my dreams, or their decisions when I want to alter them. The fear is their marker . . . the decision-changing is mine.' Hannah stopped talking, her eyes shifting from left to right as if accessing some kind of internal database. ‘I couldn't pull out halfway through.' She nodded towards the door, referring to the librarian. ‘It messes with their heads, leaves this gap, like a hole in their memory. Once it's there other moments disappear, other things that are important.' She tapped her left foot, jiggling it up and down, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

Kara wanted to ask how she knew all this, but suspected it had something to do with her accident.

‘It's OK. It's fine.' Kara squeezed her hand, changing the emphasis of their conversation. ‘I think we should just get what we came for. We can talk about the other stuff when we can concentrate fully.'

Kara went to the archive machine and pushed the switch. For a minute nothing happened. Then, with a whirring noise and something akin to computer splutter, the screen glowed an eerie green.

‘We'll start at five years ago and do the first three pages of each paper. They contain the main local-news stories.'

Hannah nodded, sitting a little straighter in the chair, her complexion regaining some colour.

Kara looked at the written instructions taped to the side of the machine. Tentatively she clicked the mouse and the screen shimmered. She typed in a date and the parameters into the search category.

Article after article in various shades of grey-and-white newspaper print whizzed by, the whoosh of the machine as it exchanged one date for the next the only sound. Kara's eyes strained as she scanned page after page, searching for the clue that would put them on the right track.

After a while Hannah appeared beside her, lending another pair of eyes to the search. Their enthusiasm waned as the newspaper pages, and the time, ticked by. Just when they were about to give up Kara spotted a small heading on the bottom of the
Daily Bugle
's front page.

‘There!' she exclaimed.

They leaned in to see the fuzzy print. The headline read:
Teenager Found in Alleyway
.

This morning the body of a youth was discovered in an alleyway to the rear of Drury Street. Whilst emptying the bins, council worker Burt Nugent came across what he thought was a dead body. On closer inspection he found that the youth was breathing and he immediately alerted police. Badly bruised and cut but with no obvious external injuries the youth was taken to St Mary's Hospital, where he is said to be in a critical but stable condition. Formal identification has yet to be made but it is assumed that he is missing person, Jack Kennedy, of Highbury Close. Mr Kennedy was recently bereaved of his parents, who died in suspicious circumstances
.

There was a small picture, a driving-licence photo at the top of the article. Kara peered at it, trying to see if it was the same person. This guy was much younger, maybe seventeen or eighteen. He was fresh faced, boyish even, his hair floppy, falling across his forehead. The eyes were blue. Hannah was watching her. Kara nodded her head.

‘That's him.'

There was a small map in the very bottom right-hand corner of the article. Kara drew in a sharp breath.

‘What?' asked Hannah.

Kara's finger touched the old screen, tracing the outline of the map, following along Drury Street and round the block of buildings to the front, which faced on to Hyde Street.

Her finger stopped in the centre of a row of buildings and hovered there.

‘It's where my dad died.' She nodded her head at the mouse. ‘Go back.'

Hannah complied, rolling the screen back to the top of the page. Kara read the date. ‘That's two days after my dad jumped.'

Her voice was shaking. She found it hard to talk about her father, least of all to reminisce over that day. Her dad used to make her pancakes for breakfast. On her birthday he would pick a different flower each year and leave it on her pillow for when she woke up. He'd taught her how to ride her bike and play Twenty-one. The police report claimed that he'd thrown himself from the roof of a six-storey building on Hyde Street at 3.27 p.m. on a wintry day, when the sun was low and bright in the sky.

Kara had been at school, her old school, and when it was time to go home her next-door neighbour was waiting for her. She knew when she saw Mrs Knowles that something was seriously wrong. Her doughy eyes were misted over and her hands kept wringing and unwringing themselves.