Shattered: A Shade novella (10 page)

‘My
stomach’s in knots. I’ll take a cup of that ginger tea too.’ She drifts over to
the back door, sighing. Without a word, she draws both bolts to lock it.

My
heart starts to pound in my ears. Must she do that in front of me?

I
hold up the teapot. ‘How much goes in this for two people?’

‘You
asked me that yesterday.’

‘I’m
asking again. Is it two or two-and-a-half teaspoons?’

‘Two
and a half, unless it’s the Assam, then two. Perhaps you could write it down.’

I
slam the teapot on the granite worktop. It cracks into half a dozen pieces.
Cursing under my breath, I sweep them into my hands and cross to the rubbish
bin.

‘That
was my mother’s.’

I
look at her stony face, the pieces still in my cupped palms. ‘Sorry. I’ll fix
it.’

She
rubs her temples, looking older than I’ve ever seen her. ‘I’m sorry I snapped
at you for being forgetful. I know you’re still not sleeping well. None of us
is.’

Cos I wake you screaming.

‘Zachary,
are you angry with your father and me for leaving you behind in the States?’

‘You’d
no choice.’ I take another teapot from the cupboard. ‘They deported you.’

‘That
doesn’t change the fact you were abandoned by your own parents. Perhaps you
feel you can’t show your anger to Dad because he’s sick. So I end up taking
it.’

‘I’m
sorry.’ Those words seem to be all I say to my mother these days.

‘Don’t
be. I
can
take it.’

‘Well,
you shouldn’t have to.’ I turn away. ‘I’ll bring this up when it’s ready.’

She
takes the hint and leaves me alone. As I open the cupboard to fetch the tea, I
realise
Aura and Martin have been chatting a long time. I
may have,
em
,
mischaracterised
to her what happened between our mates and us. Not lied, exactly. I’d never lie
to her.

Ach,
I’m lying to myself even thinking that. Now that I’ve started, by hiding how
bad things really are, I don’t know how to stop.

I
stare into the cupboard.
What was I
looking for?
The kettle whistles.
Oh,
right.
I reach for the tin of tea.

‘Hey!’
Martin’s voice startles me, and the tin tumbles out of my grasp onto the floor.
‘Ye told Aura we weren’t speaking to our mates
cos
of
me
?’

‘I
told her there was a fight.’ I pick up the tin, the lid of which luckily stayed
on. ‘She must have drawn her own conclusions.’

‘She
said I should make peace with them, for
yer
sake.’

Of
course Aura would bring it up with Martin, try to solve one of my problems.
‘What did you tell her?’

‘I
improvised. Called them
bawbags
. She likes that word,
by the way. Then I changed the subject.’ He sticks his hands in his front
pockets. There’s a rustle of paper in one. He draws his hands out again and
looks away.

‘So
she doesn’t know I hit Niall?’

‘Not
unless you tell her.’

‘I
will. Someday.’

‘Aye,
right. You tell her nothing, do you?’

‘I
don’t want to worry her. She’s got enough problems of her own.’

Martin
snorts. ‘So courteous of ye.’ He turns on his heel and walks out of the
kitchen, leaving me alone again.

He
thinks my silence is about my pride. But it’s life or death. One small
confession to Aura, like my punching Niall, or my extreme insomnia, could lead
to more questions, which could lead to bigger secrets.

Including
the one that could destroy her.

Chapter
Seven

Date:
9 October

Weight:
66 kg

Hours
sleep in last week: 14

Nightmares
in last week: 9

Flashbacks
in last week: 3

Panic
attacks in last week: 2

Days
since 3A: 45

Days
until Aura: 72

It feels
good to shave. Orderly, regular, normal. Sometimes, like tonight, I use twice
the amount of lather I need, just because I can. Often it’s these small
freedoms that please me most.

I
slide the straight razor – the sort my dad prefers, so I’ve come to use
it too, and it’s true it gives a closer shave, once one gets used to it –
over the curve of my chin, where I find it trickiest. There. Perfection.

It’s
always a challenge to fill these late hours, after Mum and Dad are away to bed
and Martin’s still at work. The house becomes too quiet, and my thoughts too
loud. It’s hard to believe that before my captivity, I used to relish my time
alone.

The
water in the sink has turned green from the shaving-gel suds. I rinse the blade
again and start under my left jaw. For some reason, that’s the only side where
the hair grows below my face; on the right side, it stops at my jawline.
Puberty is an odd, unfinished business.

I
feel a slight sting, as if from the world’s smallest bee. A spot of red blooms
amid the white lather. As I stare at it, the mirror starts to cloud around the
edges, the creeping frost of a flashback.

Look away
, I tell myself.
Do whatever it takes to stay here.

But
I’m already lost.

‘Sorry about that.’ The barber
–
or whatever he is
–
wipes a spot of blood from the edge of my
jaw, near my left ear. ‘It’s hard not to nick someone who has three weeks of
growth.’

‘It’s alright,’ I tell him. I’m so happy
to have someone touch me and speak to me, I don’t care if he makes a thousand
cuts to my face. ‘Why am I being cleaned up? Is this a regular thing now?’
Perhaps the DMP has seen fit to treat me more humanely. Perhaps I’ll be let out
of my cell every day, for exercise or recreation or … anything. I’d even
welcome an interrogation.

‘You have a visitor,’ says a man behind
me.

I start to turn my head, but the barber
catches my jaw. ‘Hold still so I can finish.’

‘An attorney.’ The voice comes closer.
‘She’s here with a representative from the British consulate.’

My heart leaps. ‘I’m going home?’

‘No.’ The man steps in front of me, tall
and wiry, in a midnight-blue uniform with no insignia. I’ve never seen a DMP
agent dressed like this. His face isn’t a pleasure to look at, but at this
point, all I care is that it’s human. ‘They’re here to assess your welfare,’ he
says.

So that’s why I’m having a shave. To be
presentable. To not look like a prisoner of war.

‘Why am I here?’ I ask the man in blue.
‘Why am I alone? Am I being punished?’

The barber clucks his tongue. ‘Please
hold still.’

Now I’ve started talking, I can’t stop.
‘If I’ve broken the law, then put me in a real prison. Put me somewhere with
people!’

The man in blue holds up a finger and
pauses, looking like a professor about to expound on a theory. ‘Listen
carefully,
Mr
Moore,’ he says finally. ‘If you tell
the consul you’ve been kept in isolation for three weeks, he’ll be busting down
the door of our State Department demanding your release. The United Nations
believes that holding prisoners in solitary confinement for more than fifteen
days is, well—’

‘Torture.’ I’ve not said the
T
word out loud yet, and even now it hurts to
admit I’m a victim. ‘So if I tell the truth, I’ll be set free?’

‘Most likely.’

‘Why would you tell me this?’

‘If you were released, we’d need a
similar subject for our tests.’

A
similar subject
. A chill washes over me.
‘You mean …’ In my panic, her name slips further from my mind.

‘Aura. Yes. If you ever tell anyone the
first thing about your experience here, she will be taken.’ He leans closer,
enunciating each syllable. ‘Everything you’ve undergone, she will undergo too.’

A dog
barks, high and sharp, bringing me back to the present. I blink hard. It barks
again, through the open window.

Right.
The
neighbour’s
old Sheltie. Always has to piss at
3.05 a.m., like clockwork.

I
grimace at my half-shaven face in the mirror. Why can’t that place stay in the
past? Why must it invade today? These flashbacks, they’re not like remembering,
not like seeing it Then. They’re like reliving, as if it’s happening Now. As
long as I remain silent – and I must, to keep Aura safe – 3A will
lurk inside me, attacking with no warning or remorse.

I
must get it out.

A
cramp comes over my hand, and I
realise
I’m still
gripping the razor, so tightly it’s pinching the skin at the base of my finger.

Yes. That will fix it.

I’m
not impulsive about the task. I finish my shave, then rinse and dry my face and
the blade,
savouring
what I’m about to do, knowing
I’ll feel better once it’s done. I couldn’t possibly feel worse.

I
search my bare arms and chest for the perfect spot, then decide this needs to
stay hidden. So I remove my
pyjama
trousers and sit
on the toilet lid, then position the razor blade against my thigh, where the
thick, dark leg hair will cover the scar. But I’ll know it’s there, which is
all that matters.

The
first small cut makes me gasp and shudder. I slice again, this time in a
careful arc. Deep breaths help steady my hand and give it the control it
requires.

My
heart beats faster. This is what I need. I can never write, speak, or scream what
they did to me, but I can carve it on the one thing they didn’t break: my body.

Two-thirds
of the way through the
3
, I notice
I’ve formed a sort of
Z
, like my
initial. A sign I’m doing the right thing. A sign we’ll always be one.

I
keep going, putting their mark on the outside where it belongs, pulling it from
the inside where it’s killing me. A knock comes from somewhere, but my mind is
singing a march of triumph melded with a symphony of mourning, so I don’t
respond. I am Here and Now at last.

The
door swings open. ‘Oh. Sorry, I didn’t—’ Martin starts to retreat, then
stops with the door half shut. I can see his face in the mirror as he freezes.

He
comes back in and quietly shuts the door behind him. ‘Put down the knife.’

‘It’s
not a knife, it’s a
ra
—’

‘Put.
It. Down.’

‘But
I’m not finished.’ I’ve only just done the
3
and still need the
A
. Besides, my
entire body is humming. Can’t he see it in my eyes? They’ve never felt so
bright.

Martin
slowly raises his hands. ‘Just take a wee break? I need to talk to you about
something, and that’s distracting.’

Seems
a reasonable request. ‘
Awright
.’ I drop the razor
into the sink. ‘I should clean that.’

‘Got
it.’ Martin snatches it up, calmly rinses it, then sets it back inside the
cabinet. Then he retrieves a box of bandages and gauze. ‘You’re a
fuckin
’ mess, ye know.’

‘It’ll
look cool once it’s healed.’

‘Mm-hm.’
He kneels beside me and rips the packaging off a square of gauze. ‘I won’t hurt
you, I just need to …’ He presses the gauze against the cut. ‘There. Okay?’

‘Okay.’
His hair smells of cigarettes. ‘You’re still smoking?’

He
scoffs and presses harder. ‘Now’s really not the—’

‘
Ow
. Careful, don’t smear the three.’

‘I’m
not smearing.’

‘You
are, you’re—’ My voice catches as I see how much blood seeps into the gauze.
Fibre
by
fibre
, the white
cotton drowns in red.

God,
it’s everywhere – streaming down the back of my knee, over my heel,
pooling on the brown and green sandstone tiles. ‘Martin,
wh
-what
did I—’

‘It’s
awright
, mate. It’s
awright
.’
He says this again and again as he staunches the flow, then cleans the wound.
‘Seems we’re always bleeding around each other, aye? First me on the treadmill,
now this.’

‘But
yours was an accident, while this was—’ I’m too overcome with shame to
finish the sentence. ‘Please don’t tell Mum and Dad.’