Dead Girl Walking (24 page)

I start to walk slowly around the car park, eyes flitting everywhere and seeing shapes in every pocket of darkness. But when I look again there’s nothing there. I think I might actually be going crazy.

I don’t know how much time has passed when I finally stop waiting for him to appear, it’s like my brain can’t deal with chronology right now. I stow my knife back in the bag, though I keep it in easy reach. The initial adrenaline kick has subsided and I feel cold, right through to my bones now, so I guess I’ve been out a long time. The smell no longer seems to be here either, or maybe I’ve just become accustomed to it. Whatever just happened, it doesn’t seem to mean anything after all. Perhaps I did imagine it. Perhaps I’m so obsessed by this pursuit that I’m beginning to imagine him everywhere.

What the hell am I doing here? Am I supposed to do this or not? Maybe I’m way out of my depth.

Bouncers stand at the door of the casino ushering people out. It must be nearly dawn, then. Howls of laughter ring through the night air as the punters depart, along with drunken cat-calls and shouts for taxis and I can almost smell the heat of bodies from here. I suddenly, desperately need the safety of my house. Turning homeward, I
throw a last glance around for a sign of him but there’s nothing. I’m practically running as I start back home.

Helen smiles brightly at my entrance.

‘I’m glad you’ve come back,’ she says.

‘I never said I wouldn’t.’ I peel off my coat and drape it across the back of my chair.

‘No, that’s right, you didn’t,’ she says. ‘So, how have you been this week?’

I take a seat and give a vague shrug. I wonder if she can see how exhausted I am. Night after night wandering the streets, days spent dwelling on the next patrol or my relationship with Dante. None of that is conducive to sleep at all. I had promised myself that I wouldn’t come back to Helen now, thinking that seeing her and talking to her might give away what I’m up to, but after being chased by shadows last night, I decided to keep today’s appointment. It’s like my safety net, the place that stops me from going crazy and gives me a breather from all the madness that has become my life. So even though I’m scared of slipping up, it seems a better option than sitting in my house jumping at the sound of every falling dust mote. ‘Good,’ I say. ‘I’ve been out a lot.’

‘Really? And how did yesterday go?’

‘You mean the funeral?’

She nods.

‘Ok,’ I say, ‘not as bad as I thought it would be.’

‘Do things feel different today?’

‘In what way?’

‘Well,’ she says, folding her hands in her lap. ‘Do you feel like you’ve had some sort of closure? Has it made you think about where you go from here?’

‘You mean have I forgotten her?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘The people we lose never leave our hearts and memories, but time can dull the pain a little. People grieve and move on, it’s part of life.’

I want to say that I’m not
people
. But then I flashback to the face of a fifteen-year-old corpse and wonder if her family are grieving and moving on. How do you ever move on from that?

‘It’s not always that simple,’ I say.

‘It’s not,’ she says. ‘But that doesn’t mean it’s not achievable.’

‘How long does it take?’

‘How long is a piece of string?’ she says.

I don’t know why people say that, it’s the most annoying reply to a question ever. But I don’t tell her that, instead I think for a moment and something else occurs to me. ‘What if you were having a really bad recurring nightmare? Something so awful that you couldn’t function during your everyday life for fear of it? How long would that take to work out?’

She gives me a small smile. ‘Is that someone you know?’

‘Maybe.’

‘One of my patients?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Then I’d say that’s between me and that person how his recovery is going. Unless he wanted to tell you himself.’

‘What can I do to help him if he won’t share it?’

‘Cassie, we’re here to talk about you, not your friend.’

‘But this matters. I just want to do some good, I want to help people. I’m tired of leeching the life from everyone around me… and that’s not meant to be a pun or irony or anything, I’m talking metaphorically…’

She smiles. ‘I know.’

‘I think helping fix other people can help to fix me, I think it’s what I’m supposed to do with my second life. Does that make sense? And I think helping to fix him is the first step.’

‘It might be, but you know I can’t talk about him.’

‘I don’t want you to. I just want you to tell me what I can do. That’s not talking about him, that’s talking about me.’

She sighs. ‘You have to wait, that’s all. Wait for him to be ready. I suspect that you are new to each other and are both keeping a part of yourself hidden away from the other. That’s only natural in all new relationships.’ She pulls out her notes. ‘Has that helped any?’ she asks as she starts to flick through them.

‘I don’t know.’

She looks up from her paperwork. ‘Tell me about your trips out. What sort of things have you been up to?’

‘Nothing in particular. Just out, walking and stuff… y’know.’

‘And how have you felt being out? No panic attacks?’

I’m about to reply when it hits me. Apart from yesterday I haven’t really freaked out all the nights I’ve been hunting. I’ve been nervous as hell, of course, psyched and ready for attack, confused and scared, but I haven’t actually lost it like I did last night.

‘No,’ I answer slowly. ‘I don’t think I have had any.’

‘That’s great,’ she beams as she writes it down.

Dante is leaning on the wall of the clinic building when I step onto the street. He kicks himself away from it and smiles at me.

‘Hey.’

‘Are you going in now?’ I ask.

He shakes his head. ‘I thought we could do something.’

‘Don’t you have an appointment with Helen?’

‘Maybe. I don’t think I’m in the in the mood, though.’

I frown at him as we start to walk, the sun sitting low in the sky making me squint. ‘You’re not ditching her are you?’

‘I’m surprised you haven’t,’ he says defensively.

‘Me too, actually.’ I glance up at him. ‘So, why aren’t you seeing her today?’

He shrugs. ‘There doesn’t seem any point.’

‘Won’t your mum hit the roof when she finds out?’

‘Why would she find out?’

‘Won’t Helen phone her?’

‘She’s not allowed to without my permission.’ He adds in a silly voice, ‘I’m all growed up now.’ He throws me an awkward smile. ‘Which means I can do whatever I want.’

‘All that world of choice and you come to meet me?’

‘I wanted to know if you were ok. After yesterday…’ He smiles, that sweet, uncomplicated smile of his that is about the closest to the real Dante I get, and my heart swells at the sight of it. When everything else in my life is a mess, this smile from him seems to give it new meaning. I smile back.

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Well,’ he says carefully, ‘it was kind of a big deal.’

‘It was. But I’m all growed up now too.’

‘I didn’t mean that… I meant… It doesn’t matter.’

I reach for his hand and he seems to relax.

‘Usually I’m horrible to you, but that wasn’t actually me being horrible,’ I say. ‘Besides, you should be flattered. I’m always most bitchy to people I really like. That’s my Gran’s fault.’

‘You must think I’m amazing then,’ he says slyly.

I look straight ahead and bite back the second smile that pulls at the corners of my mouth.

‘So you’re ok?’ he asks.

I nod. ‘Yeah, I think so.’

‘And it was ok with Helen today?’

‘Yeah, I think she seemed happy. She did that little excited scribble thing that she does when you say happy things to her.’

He laughs. ‘I noticed that too. She really gets off on positive vibes.’

‘Maybe she’s on bonus for turning out rounded individuals.’

‘She’s on for a massive one when she sorts me out, then.’

‘At least you can be sorted out.’

He smiles at me. ‘You’ll see, everything will work out.’

I raise my eyebrows. ‘Where did Mr Optimistic come from all of a sudden?’

‘I might as well take each day as it comes and stop worrying about what will come with it,’ he replies with a shrug.

‘That’s what my gran used to say.’

‘So that makes it sensible advice then?’

‘Yeah,’ I say, looking up at him, ‘I suppose it does.’

We turn the corner of my street and I pull my keys from my bag.

‘What’s that pinned up on your front door?’ Dante asks as we draw nearer.

I yank the piece of paper down. It’s covered in squares and letters cut out of newspapers and magazines, like you see in some corny TV thriller. The content is anything but corny, though. Dante leans over to read it with me.

I’ve seen you looking for me. Next time you will find what you seek. Then the dead girl walking will walk no more
.

‘What does that mean?’ Dante asks, staring at me.

I want to speak but nothing will come out. My brain processes the possibilities faster than I can keep up with. He’s been to my house. There is no denying now that he knows what I’m doing. Where else has he been? How long has he been following me? How much does he know? Suddenly, I don’t know who is hunting whom anymore.

‘What’s going on?’ Dante says, pulling me to face him. The page is in my numb fingers. I shake my head, unable to form the words that would explain it to me, let alone him. He takes the paper from me and turns it over. ‘That’s it,’ he says, ‘that’s the whole message. Who would leave something like that for you?’

There’s a moment of silence. ‘Some sicko,’ I finally manage to say. ‘Someone round here who thinks it’s funny to pick on the freak.’

His expression softens and he takes my keys from me to open the front door. Leading me down the passage, he sits me on a chair in the kitchen and runs a glass of water for me.

‘You’re ok?’ he asks as he gives me the glass. I wave it away and he puts it on the table in front of me. ‘You look terrible,’ he says.

‘I don’t feel well.’

‘Are you going to hurl? You need a bucket or something?’ he asks, glancing around the kitchen with a helpless expression. He doesn’t seem like he knows what to do with me. I wouldn’t know what to do with me either.

‘Dante…’ I begin slowly, my head spinning, my words feeling as though they’re not really forming in my mouth, ‘Marmalade… I think… I think she was killed.’

‘Killed? Someone killed her? That makes no sense. Why would someone do that?’

‘To get to me. Someone is playing sick games with me, trying to hurt me…’ I stop mid-sentence, the spinning of my head now a speed-of-sound blur.
Dante
. He’s taken Marmalade and I have nobody now but Dante. ‘You’re not safe here!’ I cry.

He shakes his head, his expression clouded by confusion. ‘You’re freaking me out now. You want me to call that policeman?’ He picks up the note and reads it again. ‘I’m calling him, this is sick and he needs to check it out.’

‘No,’ I whisper before my head goes down, forehead on the cold wood veneer. I can’t think straight. The killer is going to come after Dante; I have to make him see
that he’s not safe. I try to lift my head but it’s like stone and the flashbacks come through, stronger, more terrifying than ever before…

I’m in a car, blood in my mouth, in my vision, screaming
.

I’m on waste ground, back pressed into grit and broken glass and he’s on top of me, in me, in places where he shouldn’t be
.

I’m hemmed in by the corpses of old cars, dirty diesel fumes and the smell of cleaning alcohol in my throat and I can see a tattoo and now I see his eyes and they look like eyes that I know…

When I come to Dante sits watching me carefully. I’m on the sofa and it seems he’s done his best to keep me warm with the blankets from my bed but I still shiver beneath them. My joints are stiff and unresponsive so I lie still and look up at the ceiling while I try to reconstruct what happened.

‘You fainted,’ Dante says; something like reproach in his voice. ‘I didn’t know what to do with you.’

‘It’s a thing I do,’ I say, aware of how dry my mouth is. ‘Is that water to hand?’

He offers the glass and I push myself up just enough to take it. ‘How long have I been out?’

‘Not long,’ he says. ‘Ten minutes tops.’

‘I’m getting better at it then,’ I reply.

‘What happened?’

‘A flashback. They’re not usually that bad, though.’

He pauses. ‘Is that what happened when your police friend called me?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You get them a lot?’

‘Yeah.’

‘The car accident?’

‘Yes. Sometimes other things too.’

‘What other things?’

I take a sip of water and hand back the glass. ‘I can’t talk about it… I’m, sorry but I promised someone.’

‘Seems a bit mean to expect you to keep that promise if they know it affects you like this.’

‘They don’t. And there’s more to it than that, much more.’

His gaze drops to the floor. ‘Do you want me to stay?’

‘Do you want to stay?’

‘Yeah,’ he says.

His eyes are on me again, that mournful darkness that wants to swallow me whole. He’s my safe place and I want him to stay, more than anything. But the fear comes back to grip me and I’m not sure that he should. I don’t think I could survive losing another person.

‘If it’s about what you were saying earlier, I already know that it’s not safe being around you…’ he smiles slightly. ‘But I also decided that I don’t care. So tell me to stay.’

I think about what he’s said and I’m struck by one overriding notion. The guy who is out to get me already knows about Dante, just like he knew about Marmalade. Dante is already in danger and maybe the best way I can keep him safe is to take my stalker out before he can get to us. Once I’ve processed this thought, my mind is made up. ‘I want you to,’ I say.

His expression lightens. ‘Great. Do you want some more water?’

‘No. Maybe we should get something a bit stronger.’

‘What… you want to
drink
?’

I push myself up. ‘Why not?’