Dylan really hated the hospital. She, Tristan and Joan were there again, waiting to see the doctor, to check how her leg was healing. Her appointment time had come and gone twenty minutes ago, though the awkward silence made it feel more like an hour. Finally, a squat, grumpy-looking nurse appeared at the ward door and hollered Dylan’s name.
“You can wait out here,” Joan told Tristan when he rose with her.
Tristan opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it. He looked to Dylan.
“I want Tristan,” she said simply. “He helps keep me calm.”
That wasn’t a lie exactly.
“The doctor doesn’t need a crowd when he’s trying to look at your leg, Dylan.” Joan was using that deliberately reasonable voice that always set Dylan’s teeth on edge.
“You’re welcome to stay here then, Mum,” Dylan offered, saccharine sweet.
“Oh, for goodness sake.” Joan rolled her eyes and marched off in Nurse Grumpy’s direction.
Dr Hammond was seeing them again. He greeted Dylan warmly and offered Tristan a wary nod. He likely remembered the tension from before. He explained that he was going to be removing the cast today.
“Is it not too soon, doctor?” Joan asked, in her best nurse voice.
“Well, ordinarily it would be,” he agreed. “But I want to make sure that the bone is healing straight and that none of the wounds are becoming infected. Better to know now than later, when the bone can’t take her weight.”
Dylan only vaguely heard him, her attention was focussed on the tool in his hand which looked like…
“Is that a circular saw?” It came out as a panicked squeak.
“Well, yes. In essence, but it’s very safe.” Dr Hammond held it up for Dylan to see. “Don’t worry,” he joked, “I haven’t been making any garden furniture with it.” He grinned at her cheerfully, then hit the power button for the mini-saw with his free hand. He looked like a horror-movie psycho. Dylan watched the little spinning disc get closer and closer to her leg, but at the last minute she caved, turning her face away. She squished her eyes together and waited for the pain.
“It’ll be fine, Dylan.” Tristan was suddenly there, clasping her hand.
She felt the vibration and heard the change in noise as the saw began to slice its way through the plaster. It created a weird tingling itch down the front of her shin and she wanted to jerk her leg away. Only the images of blood spurting across the sterile white room stopped her.
Less than a minute later the buzzing stopped. Dylan eyed her limb through half-closed eyes. Her leg looked like a prop from a Frankenstein movie. There were long red lines where her skin had been sliced to insert the pins, and these were crosshatched with thick black threads. Most of her flesh was a mottled purple colour. Most embarrassingly, however, was the two weeks’ worth of leg hair that dappled her skin.
“Don’t look,” she ordered Tristan.
“Well,” the doctor was frowning down at her leg. “These look, these look…”
“Gosh.” Joan was peering over his shoulder.
“What?” Dylan’s stomach was a pit of dread.
“It looks remarkable,” the doctor admitted.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Joan echoed.
“Your leg is healing very quickly, Dylan – and cleanly too.” He reached out and began to palpate Dylan’s knee and the muscle of her calf. “How does that feel?”
“Fine,” Dylan answered honestly.
“Hmmm. I think—” he stepped back. “I think we’ll do an X-ray, just to see what’s happening.”
It took less than an hour for Dylan to be wheeled round to the X-ray department, Tristan and Joan trotting behind her, and for the radiographer and her technician to get the shots they wanted of her leg. The longest part was hanging around in the waiting room for Dr Hammond to come back with the results.
He did appear at last and, though it was Dylan’s leg that was the one in question, it was Joan that Dr Hammond engaged in conversation, drawing her over to a PC in the corner. Tristan hovered behind them briefly, then returned to Dylan with a grim expression on his face.
“What is it?”
He didn’t answer at once.
“Tristan?”
“Your leg,” he said, nodding down her naked limb in all its multihued glory. “It’s…”
“It’s what?” Dylan asked. She really wished she could cover it, hide the hairs that she swore were growing longer each time she looked at them.
“It’s healing too fast,” Tristan said. “Did you hear what the doctor said?”
“Well, isn’t that a good thing?” Dylan asked. “Maybe I can keep the stupid cast off and you won’t have to push me everywhere.”
“I like pushing you,” Tristan told her with a smile. “No, it’s… you’re healing like me.”
“What?”
“In the wasteland, when I was hurt, it didn’t take me long to recover. Do you remember?”
Did she remember? That memory was burned onto her brain. She’d thought Tristan had died. He’d been caught by a whole swarm of wraiths because she’d been too slow, too clod-footed. And when she saw the damage that the wraiths had done to him, she thought she’d die of shame.
Then, in the morning, she’d been shocked by the improvement. As if he’d spent a week healing rather than just a handful of hours.
“You think?” Dylan asked. She looked down at her leg. The purple bruising and angry red scars looked plenty bad to her.
“Dylan,” Tristan reminded her quietly, “Your fibula and tibia were like a jigsaw puzzle, they had to put in multiple pins. You don’t recover from that in a fortnight.”
“Let’s just see what the doctor says,” Dylan replied.
As if he’d been waiting for her cue, the doctor chose that moment to show her the X-ray picture on the screen, not that it made much sense to her. She could make out the harsh white lines of metal where they’d braced her bones together, and the slightly curved lines of the bones themselves, but she’d no idea if they looked good or bad.
“Well, I didn’t really believe what the radiographer said, but I have to say,” the doctor said, “this is remarkable. If it hadn’t been me who performed the surgery on you initially, Dylan, I’d have said the consultant exaggerated the extent of the damage.”
“Really?” Dylan asked. She ignored Tristan’s I told you so look.
“Really.” Dr Hammond smiled at her. “Your bones have fused and, though we don’t want you putting too much pressure on your leg, I think we can dispense with the cast. We’ll just strap it up to give it a bit of support.”
“I can get rid of the wheelchair?” Dylan asked, hardly daring to hope.
“You can get rid of the wheelchair,” the doctor confirmed. “Although, you’ll have to have crutches and you might find them hard going at first.” He nodded at her lower body. “Let’s have a look at the gashes on your left leg and lower back. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’d healed completely!”
***
The next day, Dylan and Tristan took a taxi to school. When it stopped outside the entrance, Dylan got out on her own two feet. She had to lean heavily against the side of the vehicle while Tristan dashed round with her crutches, but she was standing. It was enough to make her grin up at the three-storey concrete monstrosity of a building.
She could get about pretty well now, but Tristan still insisted she use the lift. Strangely, it seemed even more tight and cramped than it had before – possibly because she was much more aware of how it lurched and juddered as it hauled them to the top floor.
“I hate this thing! Every time we get in I think it’s going to break down and trap us. Or the cables will snap and send us plummeting to our death.”
“It’s only three floors,” Tristan said. “That’s hardly plummeting.”
“It’s far enough to die,” Dylan told him acidly.
“I tell you what,” Tristan said, moving closer in the cramped space. To Dylan’s surprise, he dropped both their bags and leaned in so that he was sandwiching her between his body and the wall. “I’ll distract you.”
Dylan opened her mouth to speak and Tristan took advantage, covering her lips with his. She let out a startled squeak – they were in the school lift! – but the threat of being caught wasn’t enough to make her put the brakes on.
Tristan hadn’t kissed her like this since they’d left the wasteland. Not a proper, no-holds-barred kiss. He’d said she was too delicate, that she was healing. It had frustrated her no end, but he was making up for it now and no power in the world was going to stop them. Except, perhaps, the need to breathe.
Gasping, Dylan broke away. Dropped her head back against the wall of the lift and tried to calm her racing heart.
“See,” Tristan whispered into her ear. “That sped things up a bit.”
Dylan let out a strangled laugh that settled into a happy little sigh. Tristan gave her a chaste final peck on the cheek then collected her crutches from the floor – she didn’t even remember dropping them – and handed them to her. Then he stepped out into the heaving corridor, cool and nonchalant. The only hint he gave that he was as affected as she was, was a happy little wink before he turned to clear a path for her through the crowd.
Not even the thought of two periods in the freezing portacabin with Miserable Monkton after registration could dampen her mood.
When they got to the hut that served as Monkton’s teaching lab, the teacher was nowhere in sight. That wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was the excited buzz in the air. Dylan halted on the threshold, taking in the animated faces with no small amount of confusion.
“What’s going on?” she asked Marie Cummings, who was the only person not involved in the small huddles dotted around the room. Another social outcast like herself, Marie had been Dylan’s seating partner in several classes before Tristan’s arrival. That was probably the reason behind the slightly miffed look Marie gave her, but apparently the gossip was too good not to share, because she couldn’t hold on to her snit.
“A murder!” she said, eyes flashing behind heavily framed glasses.
“Is it somebody famous?” Dylan asked. OK, a murder was a terrible thing, but it didn’t usually have everybody up in arms. The pupils of Kaithshall were not particularly known for their social conscience.
“No, it was a construction worker,” Marie said with relish.
Dylan’s thoughts immediately went to the tunnel. “So why is everyone…?” she gestured at the room.
“There’s footage!”
“Of the murder?”
“No, the victim. The person who found the body videoed it and posted it online. You can see everything! He was, like, eaten or something.”
Dylan looked at Tristan, who had turned whiter than her during this conversation. Not wanting to hear any more, she shuffled past on her crutches, negotiating the tables until she and Tristan could hide away at the back of the classroom.
“Can you believe that?” she asked him as they sat back down. “D’you think it’s another worker from the tunnel?”
Dylan could see the mobile screen in the centre of each group. Her eyes rested briefly on Dove MacMillan, who was grinning broadly and acting out a dramatic reconstruction of the poor man’s death.
Tristan’s whisper in her ear made her jump. “Have you got your phone?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I want to watch that video.”
“What! Why?”
Monkton chose that moment to wander into the classroom, so Dylan had to wait while he handed out some worksheets and told them their task for the day. She grabbed the chemicals they were supposed to be mixing, and as soon as Monkton was occupied elsewhere, she elbowed Tristan in the ribs.
“Well?” she hissed. “Why the hell do you want to watch that grotesque video?”
“Because,” he gave her a look that told her he thought she was being extremely thick, “your friend said it looked like he was eaten.”
As he spoke, he ran his thumb over the screen of her smart phone, loading up the video. In the pit of her stomach, Dylan knew what was coming.
“You think… you think it’s related to the deaths of those four workers?”
“I think it is one of them.”
“What?”
“Well, one of the paramedics on the scene said something similar about the bodies in the train tunnel. I think maybe it’s his footage of one of those guys.”
Dylan tilted her head and just stared at him for several long seconds. Then she couldn’t hold it in any longer. “What?!”
Tristan squirmed, looking distinctly uncomfortable. It wasn’t a look she was accustomed to seeing on him. She didn’t like it.
“When you were meeting your dad,” he began, “I did some searching on the internet and found a blog—”
“That was almost a week ago!”
“Miss McKenzie!” Monkton hollered across the classroom at her.
“Is there a problem?”
“No, sir,” Dylan ground out, forcing her furious gaze away from Tristan. “Sorry, sir.”
He humphed, which Dylan took as an acceptance of her apology. Teacher appeased, she went back to glowering at Tristan.
“Why didn’t you tell me what you found out?” she muttered furiously under her breath. Glancing at the worksheet, aware Monkton was still watching her, she snatched up a hazardous-looking bottle of liquid. Pouring a healthy glug into her dish of white powder, she watched it all turn molten green. How exciting. “Well?”
“Because I didn’t want to upset you. What was done to the bodies, it made it pretty obvious who killed them.”
He held her gaze, as if trying to establish how determined she was to hear the answer. She was very determined.
“They were clawed,” he said. “There were gouges on them made by long talons. And the bodies had holes in them, like—”
“Like something had punched its way right through them,” Dylan finished for him. She felt the blood drain from her face. “Wraiths.”
Tristan took a deep breath. “I think so.” He winced. “No. I know so. They were killed by wraiths.”
“But how could wraiths be here?” She tailed off under the steady look he was giving her. “We let them in. When we came back, we let them in, didn’t we?” Her hand crept up to cover her mouth. She thought she might vomit. “Shit! This is my fault.”
“This is why I didn’t tell you,” he said. “Dylan!” He reached out to grip her shoulder, gave it a gentle shake. “This isn’t your fault.”
She threw him a disbelieving look, though it was quickly replaced with horror, tears bleeding into her eyes.
“It isn’t,” he repeated. “We couldn’t have known what would happen – and if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine.”
She could only stare at him, the tears building until they spilled in hot streaks down her cheeks. Catching sight of Monkton out of the corner of her eye, she ducked her head and used her hand to cover her face. There was no way she could manage any expression but horror right now, imagining their mangled bodies. Flashbacks burst across her mind, memories of the swooping, clawing wraiths as they’d surrounded her.
They had utterly petrified her – and because of her selfishness four innocent men had had to face the same terror in the real world. Had had to die that way, only to find them in the wasteland too – if they even got there.
She couldn’t breathe. If she opened her mouth, she’d be sick.
“Would you care to tell me what the issue is?” Monkton asked Tristan, ice in his voice.
“Dylan’s upset, sir. I think she’s in pain since the cast came off. I’ll take her for some fresh air.”
Vision still blurred by tears, Dylan let him lift her off the stool and lead her away. Monkton stood firm in their path, his arms crossed over his chest, and for an instant Dylan thought that Tristan would march right through him. Thankfully, they were saved by an almighty bang as Dove’s workbench exploded in a cloud of billowing smoke and test-tube shards.
Monkton’s hollered “MacMillan!” and the screams and excited cries of the rest of the class provided enough cover for them to sneak out unchallenged.
There weren’t many private spaces at Kaithshall Academy, but Tristan managed to find one. He led Dylan to a bench in an alcove around the side of the main building that provided a break from the wind. He held her while she cried into his shoulder, her face pressed into the fabric of his school sweatshirt to muffle the sounds. It was a long time before she was able to lift her head. Though humour was the furthest thing from Dylan’s mind, she snorted when she realised where he had taken her.
“You know this is where Dove brings his conquests?” she asked, raising one eyebrow.
Tristan’s focus changed from caring to indignant.
“Has he ever brought you out here?” he asked hotly.
“Are you kidding?” she gaped. Tristan waited. “No.” She rolled her eyes, then sobered. Felt her eyes prickle anew with tears.
“Wraiths. You really think they were killed by wraiths?”
“If I see the video, I’ll know.” He had the smart phone in his hand, but he waited, eyes on Dylan.
She didn’t want to watch. She really didn’t want to watch it, but Tristan was right, they had to know. “Go on then,” she said. “Let’s see.”
It took a moment to find, and achingly long seconds to load as the towering school building hampered their signal, but then the hoarse, gasping breaths of the man who found the massacre could be heard. Tristan lowered the volume until the curses and oaths were barely audible.
“I can’t see, Tristan,” Dylan pointed out quietly.
He glanced up at her, and reluctantly adjusted the angle on the screen so they could both watch. He’d been unconsciously protecting her still.
At first there wasn’t much to see. It was dark, the flickering light of a torch giving relief in flashes too quick to focus on. Then the torch settled on white skin rent in deep gashes. The lower half of the torso was nothing but a purple mass of torn-up flesh and empty space. A hole, like something had ripped right through.
“Shit, look at his face!” An exclamation could be heard from the video, even though Tristan had the sound so low it was almost on mute.
Dylan couldn’t help but do as the voice commanded – and then really wished she hadn’t. The horror and violence of his death was painted across his features.
“God,” Dylan whispered. “He looks so terrified.”
The video ended and, though Dylan got the feeling that Tristan would have liked to watch it again, he looked up at her and then pocketed the phone.
“There can’t be any doubt.” Tristan shook his head. “Not after that. Wraiths are here. They’re coming through the way we did.”
“What are we going to do?” Dylan whispered.
“I don’t know,” Tristan said. “I still need to think about it.”
“People have died,” Dylan reminded him. “Four of them – that we know of. It could be more.” She swallowed back her nausea again. “We’ve brought it into the world, and it won’t stop. Will it, Tristan?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It won’t. I just… I think maybe I need to go there, as soon as possible. See what I can work out.”
“By ‘I’ you mean ‘we’, right?” Dylan scowled at him.
“Dylan, no way! You’re injured, and it could be dangerous. I’m not letting you—”
“Letting me?” He wisely didn’t respond. “I’m coming with you, Tristan. You can’t go without me at any rate.”
He considered her, measuring the strength of her resolve. Dylan stared right back until he conceded with a sigh.
“All right.” He bent forward and touched his forehead to hers. “I’m sorry.” Dylan knew he wasn’t just apologising for wanting to visit the tunnel alone. “I’m really sorry, baby. I should have told you, I just…”
“You just what?” Dylan prompted when it seemed he wouldn’t go on.
“I couldn’t do it to you. Lay this on you. Not after all you’ve suffered.”
“We’re in this together,” she reminded him. “You and me. You should have trusted me.”
“I know,” he said. “I forget sometimes how strong you are. I mean,” he offered her a crooked smile. “You’re the girl who faced the wasteland all alone to come back for me.” A gentle kiss that soothed Dylan’s heart. “You’re the one who saved me.”