Why hadn’t he killed her when he’d had the chance?
He turned and limped slowly down the road. With each step he felt a lessening of the pressure, a relieving of the discomfort. He would need to bleed her soon. If he waited much longer, who knows what would happen?
He swung his leg over the bike and kicked it into gear. He had to get out of here.
He needed to prepare. The pain – he would have to figure out how to deal with that.
He had made a big mistake. Another one. When would he ever learn?
***
Something irritating tickled Kara under her cheek. She huffed in annoyance. Probably her pillow needed plumping. A gust of wind rippled over her and she realised, in a moment of pure panic, that she was not in bed.
A burning in her throat reminded her of the piercing scream that had shattered the silence – her piercing scream. She groaned with new awareness as she tried to get her eyelids to function. She was on the footpath, under a tree. Clammy hands seemed to be all over her, touching her forehead, her arms, her legs. She was not alone.
Ugh, she thought with revulsion, get off me.
She forced her eyes open and recoiled in horror, a face, so close she could see the pores. Every intricate detail flooded her vision: a spot bubbling up underneath the skin at the chin, two enormous hazel eyes shaded with concern, looking at her. She reached out her hand to push the face away. But her hand never made contact.
‘Kara?’
The voice familiar.
‘Kara,’ the voice continued. ‘Are you all right?’
She lifted her head slightly from the cold ground. She pushed her hand in front of her to get him to move out of her personal space, so she could breathe a bit easier. Her hand didn’t touch him.
‘Here. Here,’ he urged. ‘Let me help you.’
His voice was loud, booming. She cringed as it assaulted her sensitive eardrums. A hand reached out to her shoulder and helped her into a vertical position. She rested her back against the tree trunk for support. She could feel damp from the grass seeping through her skirt. She tried to focus her wayward attention on her helper. Her vision swam, but there were no black dots, just intimidating detail.
She forced her eyes to focus on her surroundings. Bewildered, she noted that a small but intent group of spectators had gathered around her. Mrs Corey from down the street was there, her little poodle sniffing around Kara’s feet, its impatient huffs of breath loud to her ears. Two students from the year below were staring with wide eyes, memorising the scene, no doubt to be retold in exaggerated detail as soon as they got home.
Kara shuddered under everyone’s inspection, under all the watchful eyes. She turned her attention to the person in sharp relief in front of her before flinching. Ben Shephard leaned towards her, his eyes searching her face for some clue as to her distress.
Her first thought was that Ben Shephard was not perfect: he gets spots like the rest of us.
A second thought jumbled its way into her head: Why is it like looking at him through a magnifying glass?
The group of spectators had formed a half circle of expectation round her, yet all she could think of was their detail, so crisp – from the hue of their skin to the creases in their clothes. One of the kids, she observed, had a small hole in his shirtsleeve, it peeked out from under the cuff of his jumper.
It was all so precise. Kara could see everything, hear everything – the birds in the canopy of branches overhead, the cars driving a few streets away, the sound of someone emptying their bins. The scent of freshly cut grass overpowered her, someone’s body odour equally so.
A soft whine escaped from the dog, he looked at her expectantly, his head titled to the side waiting, watching.
Kara shifted her weight and moved gingerly away from the support of the tree, while Ben gripped her arm. She smiled sheepishly at him. She was mortified – of all the people who had to be nearby – and silently cursed her ill luck.
‘Wow, Kara, you gave us a really big fright. You were screaming your head off. I could hear you down the end of the street. I thought you were being attacked.’
‘Ya,’ interjected one of the students. ‘Then you fell down and started twitching like crazy, having some kind of fit.’
Ben shot him a look to shut him up. Kara cringed as she tried to shake his hand loose of her elbow.
‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘I think I fainted or something.’
‘Some fainting spell that was, young lady,’ Mrs Corey said from the edge of the group. ‘I could hear you from my back garden, six houses away.’ She nodded in the opposite direction. ‘I thought someone was being murdered.’
‘Thanks for that,’ said Ben dismissively as he led Kara away from the gathered spectators, gently maintaining his hold on her elbow. The older lady tutted to herself, muttering something about ‘young people nowadays’ as she moved away. Obviously satisfied that nothing untoward was happening, she summoned her dog with a sharp whistle. The whistle pinched Kara’s eardrums mercilessly.
The little group disbanded as Kara hobbled stiffly down the street. Ben watched her expectantly.
‘What?’ she asked, a little sharper than she intended.
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘You just look . . .’
She glared at him.
‘. . . a bit pink.’
He laughed quietly to himself as she squirmed in irritation.
‘Come on.’ He inclined his head once in the direction of her house. ‘I’ll see you home.’
How does he know where I live? This had been one of her fantasies before, being escorted home by Ben Shephard, but now the reality of the situation seemed decidedly inferior. She realised she had a wet patch on the back of her skirt from sitting under the tree.
Kara wanted to get home as quickly as possible to deter anything else embarrassing happening to her. She was almost certain she had road dirt stuck to her cheek and haphazard leaves from the tree matted into her uneven hair. Ben probably felt sorry for her after the scene in the canteen. Kara folded her arms across her chest, conscious of the proximity of the boy next to her.
She sniffed the air. A great many smells filled her nostrils, the strongest of which was Ben’s deodorant, strong and spicy, but underneath that was another smell, slightly unpleasant, something sickly sweet. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it irritated her. She wondered what it was.
He looked down at her, smiled a lopsided grin. She averted her gaze and stared at the cracks in the footpath.
‘Kara, I wanted to . . . Well, I wanted . . .’
Oh God, he’s going to tell me about him and Ashleigh.
Ben stopped walking, turning to look at her. ‘It’s OK, you know.’
She squinted at him. ‘What’s OK?’ She had no idea what he was talking about.
‘That you didn’t want to see anyone. Your mum . . .’ He ran his fingers through his hair, making it dishevelled. ‘I mean, stepmum, came to see the principal. Said you didn’t want to see anyone. That you were concentrating on getting better.’
‘What?’ Kara’s face scrunched in disbelief.
‘There was a big announcement at assembly. Respecting your wishes and all that.’
‘I don’t . . .’ She was struggling for words, her mind processing the information. All that time in the hospital, alone, no visitors calling to see her, no contact with her friends.