Spark (38 page)

I sigh, resting my head on the reinforced glass. Though Aiden’s eyes are closed, the rapid beat of his heart tells me he’s conscious. Steel cuffs gleam at his wrists. He could easily break them. I wonder if he took Jamie’s warning to heart. Across his bandaged chest and abdomen are more restraints and I know his legs are strapped in place beneath the sheet. Compared to the frenzy the night he arrived, the scene is peaceful.

“Can I speak to him?”

“You can try.” The guard hauls himself up and taps the door. The nurse and a second guard, already crowding the small room, turn to watch me enter. “She has five minutes,” he says.

The nurse edges around me. “I can monitor him from the nurse’s station.”

“Can I speak to him alone?”

“You know that’s not going to happen,” the first guard says.

I shrug and move around to the far side of the bed. He closes the door. The second guard positions himself in front of it and watches me with bold curiosity. I frown until he looks away.

“Aiden.”

His chest rises and falls slowly.

I wait.

He doesn’t move.

“I know you’re awake. I can hear your heart racing.” I can’t help glancing at the guard. Sure enough his eyebrows lift. “I’m going home today.”

Aiden’s eyes flicker open to stare towards the foot of the bed and my own pulse quickens in response.

“What do you want?” His voice cracks from lack of use and the guard straightens up at the door.

I’m surprised too, that I get a reaction. I reach for the pitcher of water, stalling for time. I make awkward work of it, filling a glass with my left hand, but I manage to bring the straw to Aiden’s dry lips.

He frowns, confused by the gesture, but he must be thirsty because he drains the glass. I refill it and Aiden shakes his head, attempting to wave the offer away. At the clank of his cuffs he quickly lowers his hand, staring again at the foot of the bed. “What do you want?”

I’m not sure I really know and I stare at his profile, measuring in my mind the arch of his brow, the slope of his high cheekbone and the edge of his jaw. Are they echoes of mine? “How are you feeling?”

“I don’t know,” he finally says. “Hard to get things straight in my head. Bad dreams.” He swallows, unable to hide the fear in his voice. “Is she all right?”

I nod.

Sweat beads on his forehead and his knuckles whiten with strain. His eyes lock on mine. “I didn’t hurt her?”

“We stopped you.”

His cuffs rattle on the bed railings as he grips the chains. He falls back on his pillow. “I thought …” Barely audible, he trembles as he speaks. “I saw it so many times. I dreamed it. So many times. I thought … I had …” He swallows again, wincing at the effort. “But she’s okay?” He looks directly at me. “She’s okay, right?”

I nod. “She is.”

He closes his eyes. Tears track down his cheeks, and I stand, staring as hope and despair war inside me.

There is a tap at the door. “That’s time.”

There’s one more room to visit before running the gauntlet of well-wishers waiting by the nurse’s station. I walk slowly to Leonard’s room. Bandages wrap his neck and shoulder, cutting across his chest and beneath his arm, but he sits propped up on pillows, awake, talking, smiling at Barb. She rises to greet me, her eyes shimmering, her arms coming around me gently, her lips brushing my cheek. Leonard holds his hand out to me and I take it, feeling choked up with joy and guilt and regret.

“I’m glad you stopped in to see me.”

“Of course.”

“You’re going to stop terrorising the doctors with your mystery blood?”

I snort. “Yes.”

He runs his thumb over my knuckles. “Have you talked to Jamie?”

I screw my nose up. “He has avoidance issues.”

Barb sighs. “He’s slept in that horrible chair in your room every night you’ve been here.”

“I know. I’ve heard him arguing with Miriam for dibs.”

Leonard chuckles. “Gallagher men are notoriously unforgiving … especially of themselves.”

“That’s not true,” I say. “You forgave me.”

He squeezes my hand. “There’s nothing to forgive. You protected our daughter. You saved your brother’s life. I couldn’t be prouder of you.”

I bite hard inside my lip, not wanting to cry, glancing warily at Barb. She strokes my arm. “We love you, Evie, even though you’ve cost us a fortune in household repairs.”

My
friends
, and it’s weird but nice for me to think of them as mine and not just Kitty’s, wait at the end of the corridor. Miriam comes towards me, looking worn out. She suffered a dislocated shoulder and hip, another split lip, cuts to her legs and a concussion. Her face is almost completely healed now. The dark shadows under her eyes are from sleepless nights shared between hospital rooms, watching over me and watching over her son – from his room’s viewing window.

Neither Miriam nor I have touched on the big issue between us – her being my mom – keeping that and the matter of my twin brother, and all that means, a secret. For my part, I have no clue what I’m supposed to do about it or if there’s anything to be done at all. I sure as hell don’t want to talk about it. I know she won’t push it. She’ll wait for me, but that feels like pressure too.

She touches my arm. “How’s Aiden?”

I keep my voice low. “He spoke.”

Her eyes widen. “He did? How did he seem?”

“He wanted to know about Kitty.” I can see by the narrowing of Jamie’s eyes, over Miriam’s shoulder, that he’s heard me.

Her face creases in concern. “What do you mean?”

“He wanted to know she was okay.” I hurried through the explanation. Now isn’t the time. “He was relieved.”

Hope overshadows her surprise and disbelief. “Okay.” She smiles. It’s all a bit weird, the pressure of so many things that need to be said. She pats my hand. “I’ll come back to see him tonight.”

Kitty reaches me first. The bruising on her cheekbone has turned a spectacular purple. She wraps herself around me and hugs me tight.

“Gently,” Barb warns.

Kitty steps back, allowing room for Imogen, Lila and even a quietly concerned Kaylee to crowd in for a moment.

“Jeez, Evie,” Lila says. “Who looks that good after a gunshot?”

“Van, of course.” Gil Bishop smiles across the heads of his friends. Abe and Pete are there as well, grinning at me.

“Shall we go?” Miriam says.

“Where precisely?” Kitty asks.

I stop in my tracks. So does everyone else. I haven’t given it a single thought. I no longer need to return to the Gallaghers’. Kitty’s safe. I can go home.

“Come back to our place.” Barb steps beside me. “Your aunt–” She swallows and those in the know look awkward for a moment. “Miriam won’t mind sharing you a little longer.”

Miriam nods. What can I say? I don’t have it in me to argue, though the idea of smiling my way through dinner is exhausting. I let them lead me up the corridor.

Jamie walks stiffly behind his sister, quiet and introspective. He has come to see me every day but never by himself, always with Kitty. The nights he has spent propped in the vinyl recliner that sat in the corner of the hospital room, leaving before I stirred in the mornings. I hate to see him torturing himself.

The silver lining of this dark cloud is Kitty – to look at her and see her easy smile. There’s lighthearted banter as talk swirls towards the Halloween Ball. Habit makes me want to walk beside her. Habit makes me close my eyes, briefly feeling for danger. There’s nothing. No tension beyond my own emotional baggage. No alarming zapping in my spine. Nothing.

The oversized hospital elevators allow room for the crush of supporters and Barb hits the button for the basement. “Reporters out the front,” she explains. “We can make a discreet exit.”

I nod, feeling a little weak at the thought. Barb used her husband’s clout to minimise the media fallout. There were no names mentioned, the assailant’s identity suppressed and though it made national news, the details were ambiguous.

As the elevator takes us down to the lowest level, the others chat around me. It’s bizarre being with schoolfriends. That whole world seems so distant. None of them appear to question the whitewashed version of events Kitty has fed them. The intruder attacked Kitty and shot Leonard and me before Jamie finally overpowered him. It’s being described as a home invasion. No mention of the fact it took place out past the estate grounds. No mention of Aiden, though I doubt that can be kept quiet for long.

There has been a lot of debate about the audacity of the attack and whether it was connected to what happened to Kitty at the ball; debate about the intruder’s goal. Looking for cash? Jewellery? Priceless artworks? Perhaps someone hoping to get into Leonard’s business files? Some kind of personal vendetta?

The musical ding of the elevator’s bell has us all turning to the doors. I use the opportunity to position myself next to Jamie. He glances down at me with his permanent frown. I take his hand, weaving my fingers through his. I need to get him alone though I don’t like my chances in the crowd. He wants the buffer of our friends between us.

There’s some indecision about who will go in which car. I stick by Jamie so that he won’t be able to dispatch me with someone else. He resigns himself to the fact and opens the passenger door of his car for me. I wave at Pete, Abe and the others. They crowd into Gil’s SUV, winking and grinning. They know Jamie blames himself, though they have no idea why, and I feel a rush of affection for them all for giving me a chance to talk to Jamie alone.

Jamie slides into his seat and starts the engine.

“Take me to the willow tree,” I say.

He looks at me, meeting my eyes properly for the first time in days. His confused frown gives way. He knows where I mean.

I smile. “Time for you to right a wrong.”

In the late afternoon light, the sky is hazy pink. Leaves fall in splashes of dying colour and the sun, a diffused golden ball, hangs low above the trees. The air is cold and sweet and the river sparkles in the shallows.

I leave my shoes and sling in the car and make my way gingerly to the water’s edge, where the smooth round stones give out to freezing gravel. I relish the icy burn when the current pushes the flow up the bank and over my toes. Jamie makes his way higher up onto the boulders, whitewashed relics heaved from the mountain. Hands in his pockets, he navigates the rocks with little concern for the placement of his feet. “We’ll be late.”

“They won’t care,” I say. Miriam and Barb both like to feed people, the boys like to eat and Gil will love being the centre of attention with four girls to look after him. I point downstream to a press of willows, anticipation rising in me. “There it is.”

I reach the tree first. Looking back over my shoulder, I wait for his hooded eyes to meet mine before I brush through the branches, a fragrant curtain with moving shades of gold, catching my clothes, tugging my hair. It’s much darker inside the almost perfectly spherical underside of the tree, but the effect of the late afternoon sun is magical, gleaming behind the long willow fingers.

I remember the fallen branch that forms a makeshift seat. There’s new graffiti now and the bark has worn smooth. I remember his warm lips and feeling that something momentous was happening to me. I remember the crowing boys, my burning shame and anger, and my heart swells, not at the memory of an old wound but the deep ache of present longing.

I listen for him, and swivel on the stones to face him, biting my cheek to keep from smiling. Jamie, furrowed brow, pursed lips, digs his hands in his back pockets, stretching his shirt against the broad plains of his chest and stomach, surly, stubborn. I hold my hands behind my back so he won’t see the tremor in my fingers. How many days has it been since we last kissed?

You’re an addict
.

“Okay. Before you right your wrong, I have a speech.”

His eyes narrow. “I thought we weren’t going to make speeches.”

It feels like stepping into empty space. “I’m sorry about Aiden.” It isn’t quite right. “Or, I’m not,” I say. “I’m not sorry he’s not dead.” This is complicated. “I mean, I’m sorry that Kitty got hurt. I’m sorry I didn’t keep her safe.” I spent my hospital nights torturing myself about Kitty’s close call. “I’m not sorry that Aiden’s alive.” I sigh. “But I am sorry about what that means for you.” I’m making a crap job of it so I stop.