She felt like throwing something. Instead she moved into the canteen and joined the queue, aware that a large proportion of the student population was staring at her. This day was turning out just peachy.
Slowly, whispered voices heralded her arrival and then a wave of silence rippled across the room. Kara could see some of the GCSE students at the far end of the canteen stand up to get a better view of her. She stopped in her tracks, unsure of what to do next, swallowing nervously.
But Ben was behind her, a gentle hand placed on the base of her spine.
‘It’s cool. They’re staring at me,’ he whispered, his breath tickling the back of her neck. ‘It happens when you’re a football legend. You get used to it.’
Kara smiled, rolling her eyes. ‘Dream on,’ she said, as they moved forward in the queue for food. She couldn’t see his face, but she knew he was smiling. She wondered if Ashleigh had seen.
Then it happened, what she knew was coming all along, since the day in the hospital when Jenny showed her that picture. Ashleigh would not stand for competition, no matter how slight.
She manoeuvred herself in between Ben and Kara and, just loud enough for the first two rows of tables to hear, said, ‘You know, Kara, it’s great to have you back and I’m delighted that your hair is finally growing out, but just to let you know, as a friend, I think you shouldn’t let your appearance go totally. You look a little like a transvestite.’ Ashleigh touched the material of Kara’s jumper, fingering it with distaste. ‘You know I can help with fashion advice. Do something about your terrible hair.’
Ashleigh smiled sweetly, a genuine look of concern plastered across her face. Her words were sugary with sincerity, laced with friendly undertones and sprinkled with just the right amount of sympathy.
Jenny stiffened beside her friend and then uttered a titter, an acknowledgement of her allegiance to Ashleigh.
Kara felt the room expand to the size of a football pitch, then crash in around her as if she were stuck in a lift with fifty other people jammed next to her. She swallowed, blinking her eyes twice, trying to focus.
She was going to rip Ashleigh’s face off with a fork.
‘Kara,’ Ben touched her elbow. ‘You OK?’ The sympathy in his voice made Kara want to puke.
‘I’m fine. I’m just not very hungry any more. Excuse me.’
She pushed past the queue in the canteen, elbowing her way out of the door. She made it to the bathroom, leaning over the sink. Her hands were shaking, a high-pitched screech in her ears.
Her ex-best friend was a total maniac.
‘Get a grip!’ she growled at her reflection in the mirror. She would have to get her temper under control or she wouldn’t survive this term. Seeing Ashleigh and Ben together would be a common sight. There was no escaping this. Ashleigh and Ben were an item now.
‘But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.’ Her eyes blazed in anger as she stomped out of the bathroom. She was going to skip the last period, something she had never done before. Something the old Kara would never have dreamed of.
The old Kara is dead.
With this thought in her head, she pushed her way through the double doors out into the crisp winter day.
She was going to smash the heel of her boot into Ashleigh’s pretty heart-shaped face. Not really, but a girl could daydream.
***
His senses jumped to attention. He sniffed the air, straining his hearing: nothing remarkable, just the usual daytime noises.
He kicked at some stones with the toe of his boot. All this waiting gave him a lot of free time to think, to remember. He didn’t like it.
He flexed the muscles in his arm. They felt strong, but not as strong as they should feel.
He should feel whole. Instead he felt as if he was missing something.
Why hadn’t he killed her? The nurse waddling down the hallway, the alarm blaring, he had no choice but to step back from the doorway, into the shadows.
Then a thought had occurred to him. What if he could just take it back?
Then he wouldn’t have to kill her. He would just cut her and watch her bleed.
He couldn’t access her personal details without a code. So he was forced to wait.
But never mind – she was close. He could smell her.
Soon.
It was almost time.
But first he needed to steal some food.
Chapter Ten
Kara walked down the street, focusing on her footfall, one in front of the other. It began to drizzle. Her anger had subsided and she relaxed a little, allowing the knots in her shoulders to loosen up. Lifting her eyes from the footpath, she looked around. Sparse yellow leaves, the remnants of the autumn, peppered the path, collecting in bundles next to walls, at the bases of trees, by the gates to people’s houses. Winter was here. She had missed out on a whole season and time hadn’t waited for her.
There was a big oak tree, naked of leaves; she recognised where she was.
‘Oh.’ The single syllable escaped her lips.
The road in front of her seemed the same as any other road, except for one detail. This particular road held her in its very fabric, bits of her, fibres from her clothes, fragments of her skin, her hair, even her blood. She stared and stared, black dots swimming in front of her eyes, a buzzing noise wrapping itself around her consciousness like a squeezing python. She was paralysed by a distant memory – her bare feet sinking into soft sand and her body floating endlessly at peace.
Someone was screaming. She could hear it underneath all the other noises in her head. Goose bumps colonised the skin along her arms. So much to process – layers of emotion peeled one over the other. Was it possible to have one singular thought or was it always going to be like this, a constant barrage of thoughts and counter-thoughts, like a game of chess battling on in her brain?
Her legs buckled; the road seemed to grow blacker, yawning foully before her, trying to swallow her up. In her veins, a fiery pain flared, rushing against her insides. The air around her turned arctic and pressed against her sensitive skin; her clothes rubbed irritatingly; every minor movement of her body tormented her. She stood shaking, staring at the road, feeling her body being engulfed in icy flames.
A flash of light pounded through her skull, blinding her, ripping through her brain, through her eardrums, through her whole body, coursing with insistence till it seemed to fill every particle of her. As she slowly ebbed into the folds of unconsciousness, she realised that the piercing scream, which now magnified itself in her battered eardrums, was her own. It ripped through everything within range, shattering the docile neighbourhood silence.
She failed then, in her attempt to hang on through the pain, she sank into the blackness, her body slumping on the dark, rain-spattered tarmac.
***
He watched her from the other side of the street, his presence shielded by the overhang of the leafless branches. He could smell her. His body began to heat up, the blood writhing within him.
He pressed his hand against the tree trunk, his nails digging into the bark. What was happening?
On the breeze the sound of her scream carried easily to his sensitive ears and pierced his skull.
His blood began to pulsate in his veins, shifting, rolling, tumbling against his insides. He balled his hand into a fist and pounded it against the sturdy trunk. This couldn’t be happening. Not this kind of connection, not with her. The blood, it had taken root, in her veins. It called to him, teasing him, goading him. The pain was his blood straining for hers, straining to reunite. His nearness was like a catalyst, accelerating the change.