Sugar & Squall (7 page)

Something snapped inside him. He looked down and laughed even louder before returning to my eyes.

“What? What is it?” I said, cheeks burning.

He smiled. “There’s
somewhere we haven’t checked thoroughly.”

“There is?”

“Sure. Meet me in the dining hall at eleven.”

“But it’ll be dark?”

He laughed louder. “That’s the idea.”

“Do I need to bring anything?”

“Just yourself.”

“What the hell is going on here? I don’t get it.”

He threw his hands up. “Nothing, honestly. Just meet me there and I’ll explain.”

And when I tried to question him further, he was already out the door.

#

Fifteen minutes later I stood
alone in the dining hall. The long windows sent columns of moonlight cutting across the room. Between each it was dead black.

Without Logan, the stillness of everything was magnified in such a large space. Then he emerged from the far door, jogging up in front of me bathed in soft blue. There w
as a backpack over his right shoulder and he had a particularly cheeky grin on his face that looked entirely suited to something you might see at the zoo. It was an expression I hadn’t seen him wearing before.

My eyebrows drew tight and I brought my lower lip up in inquisition. “J
ust what are you planning here? Everyone is missing, we don’t know why, and you can’t stop smiling.”

He threw his hands out. “
Just follow me.”

We headed down into the main hall, through a door on the left of the stage into a small passage. It was completely dark and my eyes hadn’t adjusted, so I was forced to run my hand down the wall to find my way.

Mild light drew like a curtain in front of us as Logan opened another door. Then
voila, le pool
.

The rain hadn’t backed off.
The room was dark, but long, thin windows reached to the floor on the far side, fanning out silver light in strips across the water. Ornate columns ran down the other side, old and resolute. Everything else was tiled in what I imagined to be white, though it was too dark to tell. Like the rest of the school, old and new made for strange bedfellows.

The pool was huge, the water
looked marbled in the light, a blanket of mist brushing against it.

“Clearly, there’s no one here,” I said. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Logan turned to me. “I think we should take a break. I don’t know about you, but all this searching around is driving me nuts. There are other, more constructive things we can do given we have this whole place to ourselves.”

“We’ve got to keep searching.”

“Do we?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

It was a
good question. We’d already covered practically every square inch of the island.

“
It’s clear no one’s coming back anytime soon, at least not with this storm outside, so I have a proposal.”

I kept the scowl. “I’m listening.”

“Let’s cross something off your list.”

“My list?”

Oh,
that
list.

And there was that odd grin again, wistful and reckless, his right eye on fire, half-winking above.

I lost myself in his eyes for a moment and somehow managed to claw my way out of them to produce a sentence.

I spun around and paced on the spot. “The DNB was just something stupid I came up with. No one was supposed to see it. Now the whole damn school knows.” The words echoed even louder in irony.

Logan caught me by the shoulders and spun me around to face him. He made no effort to let go. He held firm. Something inside me stopped at that moment. Time hung and all I could do was stand there in a stupor.

Finally, he released his hands. “It’s not stupid. In fact, I think it’s perfect.
You don’t think we need a break? Besides, no one’s going to see us, especially with the storm outside.”

I looked at the pool and r
ealization came crashing in like a tidal wave. “Oh, no, no, you’re not seriously asking me to–”

“Yes, yes I am,” he said, puffing himself up to full height and lifting his head. “Let’s go skinny-dipping, right here, right now.”

I stepped back and threw my arms around, eyes wide and incredulous. “Are – you – insane. We’re stuck here, probably as the rest of school is getting their brains sucked out by some alien race, and you want to go skinny-dipping. What if someone came back, or found us?”

“What if they did?” He was walking around me, questioning. “What’s the worst that could happen? We get detention for a month, a year. And nothing’s going to be
out there in weather like this. It beats walking around in circles.”

I
was wary and looked him straight in the eyes. “You just want to see me with my clothes off.”

He put his hand to his heart and stood at salute. “I swear I won’t look, not even a tiny bit, and I’ll go all the way with you.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“You know what I mean.”

“Sure do.”

The rain shifted up a notch, hammering against the windows in a percussive slurry.

Logan moved closer. “I know how it seems, but I just want to help you out. Imagine crossing that stuff off. How good would that feel, to be wild and spontaneous for once, to just let it all go, all hang out?”

Another raised eyebrow.

“Not the best analogy, but you know what I’m talking about. If you don’t do anything just completely reckless, out of control ever again, do this one thing. I won’t tell a single soul.”

It still sounded ludicrous in the circumstance, but I had to admit Logan had a strange effect of me. He was fire, and try as I might, I just couldn’t stop myself from reaching out and being burnt.

When
was
the last time I’d completely let go? I was always so paranoid, so careful not to lash out lest I flare up and knock out someone’s teeth. Socially, my life constantly hung in the balance, a continual tug-of-war between fending off fuckwits and trying to make do with anyone stupid enough to befriend me.

A day or two ago I’d felt the release, the feeling of something fresh and unopened, running off into the night like that. True, I’d been bitch-slapped by my supposed BFFs on the beach, but they’d disappeared with everyone else. Now I was here, alone, with Logan. That said something in itself. Why couldn’t I just do it? Why did I have to shield myself away, shave away any kind of spontaneity in my life? I deserved a little time out.

I pushed the disappearance aside. I felt oddly detached from myself, which worked. I was not myself, after all. I was Kat, and Kat could do whatever she wanted.

“Fine,” I agreed, “on my terms.” I couldn’t
even believe what I was saying it was so out of character.

“Sorry?” Logan wasn’t expecting it either.

“I’ll do it.”

“You’ll do it.”

“Yep.”

“Okay, let’s go then.”

“Let’s.”

“You’re sure you want to do this?” He didn’t sound so sure himself.

Did I? I honestly couldn’t say. My toes tingled. My whole body felt tight and tense. I thought back to the diary. I thought of how I had come up with that first line, probably watching some C-grade chick flick.

It was a chance to let go, total freedom. That’s what I wanted, wasn’t it?
Who cares if everyone was missing? Didn’t that make it better, more reckless?

“I want to do it,” I muttered, walking past him to nowhere in particular, just keen to move as opposed to standing still doubting myself.

My body started back-flipping on my brain. This was madness. It was weird of him to suggest it, too. His silence almost made me think he was quietly re-thinking the idea as well, yet neither of us spoke out, our only company the rat-a-tat-tat of rain overhead.

I liked wearing clothes. I imagine most people did.

“I think the girls’ changing room is over there,” Logan said, jogging ahead of me and pointing down past the columns.

“If anyone comes while we’re in, make a run for it.”

This did little to appease my fast-declining courage.

“Where will you be?”

“I’ll get changed – undressed – over in the boys’ changing room. I assume you don’t want to come out together, so I’ll come out first, jump in and yell out. I won’t look, and the towels are in the backpack on the bench here. Okay?”

I feigned casualness. “No problem.”

We headed in separate directions. My heart rate tripled as soon as Logan was out of sight. I walked into the girls’ change-room feeling about and sat down against the lockers trying to catch my breath. It was darker there, sheltered and private.

I heard a splash outside. Logan shouted something and I silently cursed him for rushing me along. I stood up and started undressing, laying my clothes out on a seat near the door exactly the way I was wearing them in case they needed to go back on in a hurry.
The only thing I left on was Mom’s necklace. I never took it off. I didn’t have a hair-tie. I’d just have to make do.

Soon I was standing there naked. It was cool and completely unnatural, which was funny when I thought about it. I could hear sound beyond the door.

I had lost my mind. I was sure of it.

Ideally, the best way to approach the situation was to run and jump in, limbs akim
bo and loose bits flailing like a completely free spirit. That was how they’d do it in the movies. It would be spur of the moment, a couple of teenagers going for a midnight dip in the woods – only to be hacked to pieces by some crazy guy in a hockey mask.
Real good.
Naked
and
dead.

Instead, I poked my head around the change-room entrance. My body was pressed up as close as it could to the cold wall.

“Don’t look,” I announced, as loud as I could muster. My voice bounced off the windows and walls, reverberating with the rain and turning into something alien.

That was the right word. I felt so incredibly strange standing here in this situation. Vulnerable
– even better. I shook, more from the thought of stepping out than the actual cold. I had goose-bumps in places I didn’t even know you could get them, and while there were maybe only fifteen feet to the pool, it might as well of been five hundred.

“I’m not looking, see. I’m covering my eyes,” Logan shouted back.

The pool room was dark. Blue light danced on the ceiling, the walls and windows. Mist reached up off the surface. Logan was more of a shape than anything else. His body bounced up and down in the water, but with the ripples it was like looking into a broken mirror and certainly not the full-frontal peep-show I’d managed to conjure up in my mind’s eye earlier.

“Okay,” I said, stepping out from behind the wall and walking towards the pool. “Don’t turn around. I mean it.”

I crept forward in little steps to the pool’s edge with my arms wrapped around my upper and lower halves just in case.

The tiles were ice cold as I padded along them. Everything smelt of chlorine. There was such a strong current of energy running though me I was scared by jumping into water I’d electrocute myself. I gave up my feeble attempt at modesty, let my arms go wide and
dove head first into the water.

It was the obvious the pool was heated, but this was like a bath. I surfaced, dragging hair out of my face and eyes. My legs kicked beneath me. I
did
feel free. I was dizzy with it.

Logan turned to face me, casually bobbing over. He kept his eyes on mine, not le
tting them fall below the waterline, but there was nothing to be seen thanks to the play of light on the surface abstracting everything below. Even so, I kept my arms out in front of me protectively.

“How does it feel?” he asked, breathing through the words.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I responded, everything coming out staccato from the effort of keeping myself afloat.

“I can’t either,” he replied.

Something occurred to me. “Hang on, how do I know you’re not just wearing trunks under there?”

“How do
I
know you’re not wearing bottoms?”

“Because you have my word, that’s why.”

“And you have mine. Isn’t that good enough?”

This was a critical question, one of trust and certainty, make or break. It was funny. I’d only known Logan for a day or two at most, but the more time I spent with him the more comfortable I felt. This was new, being able to let go and trust someone completely. I mean, I was naked in a pool with him. That said it all.

“I trust you,” I replied, though it came out weak.

“Good. Then I get to ask you one question, anything I like. Then you can ask me one. Deal?”

He was gliding around in front of me, water rising up against his chest as he did so.

I sunk down in the water so only my eyes were showing, predatory.