55
There are lights, sweeping the forest floor, flickering in the trees. And I’m scared, because I don’t know what they are or why they’re here – because it could be Mack’s friends coming to back him up, or weirdoes because it’s Halloween. Maybe I should make a run for it, take the evidence and go. I could leave Damon with Mack now – the fight’s out of him. I’m breathing hard, panting like an animal. I’m looking around at the paths and willing my legs to stand. But they’re not listening to me. None of me is moving.
The lights are getting closer. Torchlight? For a second it’s like I’m in Joe’s game and these are the cracks of light he talks about – the cracks in the dark, the exits to other worlds. But I can hear people calling, I can hear someone shouting my name. Am I just imagining this?
Damon and Mack are crouching over each other, Mack’s coughing and talking fast. I can’t understand anything he’s saying. And there is someone coming into this clearing. There are a whole load of people.
‘Listen!’ I shout it at Damon and Mack.
When Damon turns, I see blood on him. Is it Mack’s, or his? I feel sick. Scared enough to shake.
Torchlight is sweeping everywhere now. And there are all these different voices, men I think, deep sounds. But someone gangly and tall is leading them all. I’d know his loping figure even in this darkness.
Joe moves quickly towards me, waving a torch. ‘Emily? You all right?’
He doesn’t even see the other two, not straight away. He bends down as he gets close and wraps his arms around me. And this time I let him hug me. I bury my face into his bony shoulder and I’m apologising about before, and he’s saying something the same.
‘This way!’ he shouts back to the people and the flickering lights. ‘She’s here!’
From inside Joe’s hug, I see the other people emerge into the clearing – police in high-vis jackets. Torches and movement and voices. Joe’s brought them all.
‘When your mum called I knew you’d be here!’ Joe says. ‘At the bunker.’
His eyes widen as he sees the smoke seeping up through the gun slit. He touches my face.
‘You’ve got blood on you,’ he says.
I point at Mack. I try to explain how it’s his blood from when I helped get him out of the bunker, and Joe tries to pull me away fast.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ His eyes are going from the smoking bunker, to them, to me.
I try to explain what I can. I say that it was Mack who killed Ashlee; that he didn’t mean to.
‘They were playing a game,’ I say. ‘It went wrong.’ I hold up the phone and tell him about the evidence.
I’m trying to tell him more, but I can’t get the words. I’m just gabbling. Saying nothing. Gasping for air. I’m aware of Damon coughing, and of two police officers coming across. I hear Damon starting to explain, start to say the same things I’m trying to tell Joe.
‘It wasn’t Dad,’ I whisper, finally. ‘Not Damon either.’
I gasp in cold forest air. As I look back at Damon and Mack, I see other people stumbling out from the trees behind them, like they’ve been drawn to these lights too: Charlie and Ed are standing on the edge of the clearing, staring at everything. They look at Mack and Damon, and then over to where Joe and I are crouched, they’re looking at the smoking bunker. I see someone in a high vis jacket stop them before they move off again.
Then, finally, I see a police officer coming towards me, carrying a plastic cup.
‘We should move out of the smoke,’ Joe says, grabbing my arm.
I let him lead me. I reach out and grab Damon’s other arm, try to get him to move too. We all sit on the edge of the clearing, leaning against trees.
I keep breathing deeply.