Solace & Grief (19 page)

B
y the time they arrived on Jess and Evan's doorstep, it was pitch black, and to complicate matters, Jess had lost her key. Drained though she was, Electra managed a brief illumination and summoned it, whereupon everyone tumbled dispiritedly inside, not even bothering to turn on the lights. Exhausted, trembling and in total darkness, Solace collapsed on the floor and closed her eyes. Unconsciousness came swiftly, but remained shallow: she slept restlessly, half-waking at each uncomfortable motion of hip or elbow on the hard surface, at the pins and needles in her pillow-arm, at the automatic grinding of her teeth. Raggedy slips of light began to punctuate her awareness, filtering in through a small and grubby window. She ignored it for as long as she could, but what little rest she'd managed was irreparably broken. Wincing at the stiffness in her body, she eased herself up and looked around.

They were, as she dimly remembered being told, in a basement, which here translated to a single room with a tiny closeted sink and toilet off to one side. Except for where she and her friends had made room for themselves, almost every square inch of the floor was packed with junk, as though the whole room were one giant cupboard. Books constituted most of the clutter, slipping from boxes or heaped dustily on the floor in a way that seemed to Solace, a lifelong reader, disrespectful. Elsewhere were clothes, alternately draped over cartons, hanging from inelegant wall-pegs or crumpled and forgotten in wads and piles. Most of them, it seemed, belonged to Jess – Solace would have been hard-pressed to envisage Evan in a strapless red evening gown at the best of times – but there were traces of his tastes, too. Other miscellanea included several dusty paintings, a bag full of old children's toys, a stack of jigsaw puzzles and dozens of ancient, hand-labelled VHS tapes.

As Solace woke, it became harder to ignore the lurking grief of the previous night's events, which threaded piercingly through her ribs like a lariat of thorns. Angrily, she stretched against the cramp in her back and looked desperately around for anything, anything at all, to keep her from thinking about the fire.

The room was square. Rising from amid the mess like odd mountain peaks, two single beds laid head to head fitted snugly and exactly against the far wall. Jess occupied one; Evan, the other. A battered, tattered lounge in the centre of the room was almost entirely covered by Harper, his breathing steady. Solace wondered whether or not she would one day be brave enough to comment on how much she liked his skin colour – a deep, dark brown that seemed innately oiled and glossy. His head, which was entirely shaved, rested on the lounge arm at an uncomfortable angle, while his long legs dangled lazily off the end.

Rubbing her eyes, she made note of the others. Manx and Electra had curled up together on a makeshift pile of blankets in the far corner. Electra had rolled herself almost into a ball, threads of pale gold hair spilling across her right cheek, while Manx lay pressed up against her back, holding her. Solace felt a tightness in her throat. She didn't begrudge Electra comfort: she just felt lonely. Despite being surrounded by friends, she felt disconnected, guilty – as if reticence on her part had caused the fire.

At least they know about Sharpsoft and the faceless man,
she told herself, but that didn't help; instead, it made her feel worse. Acting reasonably hadn't changed the fact that three people were dead, and while that wasn't her fault, she still fretted over whether or not she could've prevented it. Even if her friends were choosing to keep secrets, at least theirs hadn't endangered her or anyone else. Besides, what right did she have to demand their life stories? None whatsoever. She hung her head.

Distracted, she cast around for Laine – was she even present? Or had she run off like Paige? At first, she didn't seem to be anywhere in the room, and it was some long moments before she realised that the shadow under Evan's bed was, in fact, a person. Focusing her eyesight, she saw that the psychic was stretched out on her stomach, head turned side-on against a crooked arm so that only her closed eyes were visible. There was an unfamiliar softness to her features. Solace marvelled equally at how little she knew about Laine, or Harper, or Paige, wherever she was, and how little it seemed to matter. Would they try and find Paige later on? Probably, she concluded. What else was left for them to do?
Look for Glide
, said a part of her, but she didn't have the strength to find comfort in the thought.

She closed her eyes. What had her life become? Thinking about it, she almost had to laugh. For seventeen years she'd lived complacently enough, but all the while she'd been itching somewhere under the surface, screaming at the dreadful, oppressive normalcy of routine without ever lifting a finger to change it. And then, in the space of twenty-four hours, she'd fiddled with someone's brain, got drunk for the first time, slept cheerfully in a strange man's bed, made her first ever friends and set up shop in a warehouse. What had been the catalyst? The faceless man, her birthday, something in the air? And she was a
vampire
. How long since she'd figured that out? Reality was crumbling around her, worn away by doors through space and time, crazy voices, crazy people, crazy… just
crazy
, a universe of it, glittering up at her like the beads of a kaleidoscope. And here she was, Solace Morgan/Eleuthera, caught up in the middle of it, with Glide gone missing, her mother's book lost, three people dead and a warehouse in flames, and no more sense of what was happening than if she'd just stepped through Alice's looking glass.

It was all too much. She started laughing – loud, uproarious, broken. It didn't seem to matter whether or not she woke anyone up. She didn't know when the tears started or even if they were, in some small way, for herself as well as for Phoebe, Tryst and Claire. Eventually, she gave herself the hiccups, which made everything else seem
funnier
, except that she couldn't laugh for choking. Her cheeks were hot and wet with tears, and she found herself wishing more than anything else in the world that she could remember Phoebe's tripwalking joke, or the precise wording of Tryst's home-chemistry routine. A sudden stitch in her side began to pull; she forced herself to calm down and to breathe deeply, scrubbing her face ashamedly as she looked around the room. Had anyone heard her? At first, she thought not, but then she saw that Laine's blue eyes were open.

Feeling oddly wary, Solace watched the Goth girl stretch and wriggle daintily out from under Evan's bed. Once clear, she sat up on her haunches and flexed her hands, rolling her neck from side to side. Throughout all of this her eyes remained fixed on Solace, silent, unblinking and unreadable.

‘They're dead, aren't they?’

Solace jumped, and had the meagre satisfaction of seeing that Laine was startled, too. It was Harper who'd spoken.

‘Yes,’ Solace answered in a soft voice. Uncertain of what else to do or say, she swivelled around to face him. He was still lying on the lounge, his head now propped up by a hand. ‘How long had you known them?’

‘Long enough.’ He dropped his gaze. ‘We were friends.’

‘They were good people,’ said Laine. She hadn't moved; Solace wasn't certain how Harper could've known she was awake, but he didn't seem surprised to hear it.

‘Yeah,’ he echoed. ‘They were.’ Abruptly, he sat up, running a hand over his head. His eyes were red-rimmed, something which hadn't been obvious while he slept. He sighed. ‘I should go find Paige. She always runs away when she can't deal. Always has done. Probably always will.’

‘You want me to come?’ asked Laine, stretching again. It was a sincere offer, for all she seemed to dislike the other girl.

Harper considered. ‘If you want,’ he said finally. And then, as an afterthought, ‘You know she won't be pleased to see you.’ He still hadn't turned around, so only Solace noticed the odd little smile that crossed Laine's face.

‘What's new? She never is.’

‘I –’ Solace didn't know what'd she'd been going to say, but assuming there'd ever been words, they failed her.

‘It's okay,’ said Harper. Standing, he reached down a hand to help Solace up. ‘You can come with us.’

Somewhat predictably, Evan woke up last. Blearily, he looked around the room, wondering why he was here instead of at the warehouse.

Then he remembered.

‘Oh, bloody hell,’ he said weakly, flopping back onto his mattress. Rolling onto his side, he looked across the room and saw that Jess, Electra and Manx were clustered on the lounge. It occurred to him that there were fewer people present than memory told him there should be, and for a moment he was filled with the fear of having forgotten something important.

‘Where are the others?’ he asked.

Jess was drawn and pale. She shook her head. Her wavy black hair, so much like his, contrasted with the grief-pallor of her skin, making her look dead, and he wondered if his face was similarly waxy.

‘Don't know,’ she answered. ‘Paige ran off last night, remember? The others were gone when we woke up.’

‘Maybe they went to look for her?’ Manx suggested.

‘Probably,’ said Evan, before anyone could come up with a worse alternative. He felt dazed, incomplete, emotionally exhausted and horrifyingly sober. It was not a pleasant combination by any stretch of the imagination, and the stuffy, saddened atmosphere of his and Jess's pathetic little basement wasn't helping. He stood up.

‘I need some air,’ he muttered, and then, more loudly, ‘I'm going for a walk – I'll see if I can find them. They can't have gone far.’

‘Do you want some company?’ Jess asked, a little forlorn. It was an old question between them. The subtext was rather more complex: Jess was lonely, but, sensing Evan wanted solitude, asked only to let him know her mind. Evan tried to smile for her, but shook his head.

‘I'll be fine. You guys stay here. Maybe they'll just show up on their own.’

‘Okay,’ said Jess. The corner of her mouth trembled.

Evan went.

Striding away from the house, he ducked around several corners and through a lane until he reached a small, unkempt park, one of the few remaining examples of the older kind of exciting playground equipment now deemed too hazardous for council treasuries, if not for little children. This early in the morning, it was deserted. Dew glittered on the grass, while a veritable tiding of magpies struck up their wavering, beautiful chorus in a straggle of slender gumtrees. Evan didn't notice. There were far too many things on his mind for comfort, with only a single word that fit as an explanation.

Leaning up against an ancient metal slide, he looked around to make sure he was alone. Then:

‘Sharpsoft!’ he bellowed. No answer. ‘
Sharpsoft
, goddamit! You ugly, weird-headed bastard! I want a word with you!’

There was a
crunching
sound, not unlike aluminium foil being crinkled up into a ball, and when Evan turned around it was to find that Sharpsoft, infuriating as ever, was sitting on the steps to the slide. Normally, his expression was placid, mysterious and irksome; not so now. Anger burned in his crazy, metallic eyes as he lunged forward and grabbed Evan by the collar, all but shaking him.

‘Foolish boy –
what have you done
?’