Dark Heart Surrender (29 page)

‘There you are,’ came a voice behind me, and I saw Ashley’s face light up. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’ Ade moved past me and put his arms around her. ‘Would you care to dance?’ he asked her, nuzzling her neck in front of me. Ashley let out a pleased giggle.

I swallowed. I had no rational explanation for what had just occurred. But I had the sickening feeling that Ade had somehow conjured that whole situation up to freak me out. And he had succeeded.

Ade pulled Ash away to the centre of the dance floor and, as he turned her around, his eyes met mine, a glint of humour there, along with a flinty sharpness.

I had given myself away.

T
hings were coming back. Olivia huddled down underneath the thin quilt and stared up at the overhead light. The hostel didn’t provide much in the way of home comforts; a single bulb swayed a little from the ceiling.

Olivia rolled over on to her side, a black, bleak feeling coming again. She closed her eyes and a flash of a red dress, a pretty made-up face, someone stroking her, passed through her head.

She knew it was the early hours of the morning. Tomorrow she would go back. Back to the house and ask Lydia Ellis again if she recognized her. She’d seen the fearful look in Lydia’s face, a look of recognition perhaps, but mostly denial. Olivia had little to go on but an instinct. No one had come forward for her. Not even after the national news bulletin. She was alone in the world.

Except, she was convinced, for Lydia Ellis.

There was something in that house, something that reeked of badness. Lack of love. The girl, with her old-fashioned coiling red hair – she had looked at Olivia as though she was dirt on the floor. More than that, she had seemed spiteful, resentful. Her body twitching in the doorway as Olivia had sat talking to Lydia.

And the boy. He hadn’t been exactly friendly either. The two of them had seemed anxious around her, concealing it badly with arrogance. Olivia didn’t know much, but she had a rare perceptiveness when it came to character, to behaviour. On the streets, she had seen enough weirdos to know.

Olivia gasped.
She had lived on the streets
. She remembered that.

Excited at this sudden unveiling of something about her past, Olivia reached for the pen and the paper that the policeman had given her. So that she could write things down, things she remembered. She scribbled the words ‘London’ and ‘streets’.

Olivia had no money. She had one more night in this place and then she was back. On the streets.

Olivia dressed in the dark. She needed to get out. She sprinted down the scruffy stairwell, passing the two young guys manning the desk, who barely saw her she was through the main door so quick.

Outside, it was chilly, but she barely felt it. She had to get to the house, where she knew Lydia was sleeping.

‘G
o for a drive?’ Ashley echoed, frowning. ‘But why? Aren’t you having a good time?’

Ade stroked her cheek with his finger and I looked away. Standing at the makeshift bar, he had been all over her. It was difficult not to look. Partly in revulsion, partly in a kind of hostile jealousy, I turned my back on them both. I wasn’t going to play this game.

‘I just thought it would be nice to be alone together,’ I heard him say, just loudly enough. ‘But if you’d rather stay here, that’s fine.’

Ashley made one of her kitten noises, a cross between a mewl and a whimper. ‘No. It’s not that. I just, well …’ I glanced over to see her gesturing at me with her eyes.

‘Don’t worry about me,’ I said. ‘I was thinking of heading off anyway.’

My watch said ten-thirty. I wanted to go home. I should have called a cab a long time ago. What had stopped me?

‘I’ll take you.’ Ade put his arm around Ashley. ‘We’ll all leave together.’

I was about to refuse – the last thing I needed was close proximity to Ade Ellis. I’d had enough of that for one evening. But seeing Ashley’s innocent expression jolted the obvious chain of thoughts in my head.

I couldn’t leave her alone with him.

And Ade was looking at me challengingly, daring me to say no. Did he know I would have to say yes?

‘Thanks, that would be good,’ I said lightly. ‘But Ashley’s house is nearer.’

Ade gave a twitch of a smile, but squeezed her shoulder. ‘Looks like we’re not going to get that alone time after all,’ he said. ‘But I suppose that can wait.’

Ashley looked almost relieved. ‘Sure.’ She smiled at me, then at him. ‘It can wait.’

No light on country roads often makes for cosy companionship. Not so tonight after Ashley had been dropped off home. Still sitting in the back of his car, I was glad of the distance from Ade, deliberately avoiding looking up in case I saw his eyes in the rear-view mirror.

He’d hardly pulled away before he was turning back to me. ‘Alone at last,’ he said in what seemed like a jovial tone. ‘I was beginning to think it would never happen.’

‘Eyes on the road,’ I said flatly. ‘And please don’t start that again.’

‘You’re afraid of me,’ he stated in answer, ‘without your boyfriend to protect you.’

‘Not so.’ I yawned, though the last thing I was feeling was sleepy. ‘I’m just a little tired of your mind games.’

There was a stark silence and, forcing myself to catch his reflection, I saw a granite-like set to his eyes.

‘Mind games,’ he echoed softly. ‘I see.’

‘You see what?’ Despite my determination not to react, I was fighting irritation. And nerves. And on top of that a mounting sense of déjà vu. I’d endured a similar car ride to this a long time before. With Evan – Raphael, as he really was. I could hardly believe this was happening again. Someone with a vendetta on their mind and me caught in the middle of it. Once again, Luca was nowhere to be seen.

Though it was me who had sent him away. It had been a mistake. A stupid, childish mistake.

Ade was taking his time to respond. A car flashed past us on the other side of the road and the headlights illuminated his profile, his sharp cheekbones, his large, intimidating frame.

‘Not everything is in your mind,’ he said at last, cryptically. ‘Some things are real. An intelligent girl like you – you know that. Perhaps you’ve been kidding yourself it was all your imagination?’

‘What are you talking about?’ I snapped, and my hand moved towards the door handle – though what good would that do me in a moving car? ‘You talk in riddles, you and your sister. Stupid riddles.’

‘But they’re riddles you have begun to make sense of.’ He paused, turning slightly. ‘Even though you are putting up this pretence, it’s been clear to me from the start that you are attracted to me. I can smell it.’

I exhaled, to conceal the adrenalin that was starting to pump through me.

‘You are so arrogant.’ I tightened my grip on the handle. ‘And you’re wrong. How many times do I have to tell you? Luca is—’

‘Luca’s gone,’ said Ade icily. ‘Apparently where no one can find him.’

‘Just for a bit,’ I said. ‘He’s coming back.’

‘Oh?’ Ade turned down the road to Bale. ‘Is he?’

The relief I felt at seeing the familiar shops, even Pete’s locked-up yard, was palpable within me. There was only a little while to go and I would be home, where my parents and my little sister were. And the next morning I would go to Nissilum. I would go and get Luca.

But Ade was slowing the car down, creeping to a stop. He pulled up outside the diner and switched off the engine.

‘I’m starving,’ he announced. ‘How about some food?’

I shook my head quickly. ‘I ate before I came out. I just want to go home…’

‘But I haven’t finished talking to you yet.’ Ade’s voice was stony. ‘And I like talking to you, Jane.’

I closed my eyes, summoning every bit of strength I had. How could I have been so stupid?

‘So,’ Ade whispered, ‘talk to me.’

Outside, there seemed to be a rustling and I realized how deserted the streets were. Looking out, I expected the bright lights of the diner, but the windows were black. A jolt of panic hit me as the street lights buzzed and flickered.

‘Ade. Stop it.’ I levelled my gaze at his eyes in the mirror, with real effort.

‘I can’t. It’s not that simple … There is a long, long history that you cannot be expected to understand.’ He tapped the steering wheel and I saw through the front seats that his hands were quivering. I knew that the car door was locked. I felt myself sweating.

‘I do understand,’ I said, watching Ade take a hand off the steering wheel and move to the key in the ignition. ‘But it isn’t Luca’s fault.’

Ade dropped his hand and his shoulders slumped slightly. ‘He is in Nissilum,’ he said, his voice, his words, sounding crisp and forbidden, ‘where he is safe?’

‘So there’s no point,’ I said, leaning forward. ‘There is nothing for you to gain from me. It isn’t me you want.’

‘But he wants you – he loves you, doesn’t he? He would never want anything to happen to someone he cherishes – someone he crossed worlds to be with.’

I swallowed, hot and cold at the same time. ‘He has made his choice.’

‘His choice?’ Ade turned to face me properly. ‘Or yours?’

L
uca was helping his father chop wood when he felt a pain like lightning strike through him. He dropped the axe and bent over, gasping.

‘Boy?’ His father stuck his axe in the block and moved quickly to him, his large hands taking Luca by the shoulders. ‘What is it?’

Luca sank to his knees, feeling a great pressure mounting in his brain. He held his head in his hands.

‘I’ll fetch your mother,’ Ulfred said anxiously.

‘No!’ Luca lifted his head and saw the shock on his father’s face. Ulfred put his hand out to touch his forehead, crouching down to be level with him.

‘What is it?’ he pleaded. ‘Are you ill?’

‘I have to get back,’ Luca managed, feeling driven yet weak at the same time. ‘There’s something happening on Mortal Earth – to Jane.’ He closed his eyes as another jolt of pain went through him.

Ulfred sighed. ‘The Vulpecula?’

Luca found himself shaking now, so much so that he could hardly respond; he simply nodded.

Ulfred seemed to be considering, watching Luca carefully, as though weighing something up in his mind. He pushed the boy’s hair back off his face in a tender gesture; seeing the pain in Luca’s eyes perhaps, he cleared his throat.

‘There is … there is a way you can finish this,’ he said.

‘Father, I can’t stay here while Jane is vulnerable.’ Luca looked up at Ulfred. ‘I love her. She is everything to me.’

‘I can see that,’ Ulfred said gently. ‘And there is another way …’

‘Another way?’ Luca grasped his father’s hand. ‘Tell me.’

Ulfred glanced back at the house, where inside Henora was preparing the evening meal. He had such a troubled look on his face that Luca feared he would change his mind. But Ulfred knew he had already said too much to go back now.

‘You must listen very carefully, because this solution poses great danger, for you, for Jane – and for us, here on Nissilum.’

‘I’m listening.’ Luca got to his feet, gaining strength at this glimmer of hope. ‘I have no choice. I have to do anything in my power. You see that?’

‘I do.’ Ulfred held out his arm and drew his son to him. ‘And I am proud of you, boy. You’re going to need every ounce of bravery and strength you have if you do this. If it doesn’t work, the consequences are dire. If it does, then we have freedom from the Vulpecula for all eternity.’

S
he was lost. She didn’t know this place. She had only a vague memory of where Lydia lived. Olivia looked back at the empty, dark road and froze. She wasn’t used to the country, she was used to city streets.

A single light in the distance made her step back automatically, but it was a bicycle, slowly approaching.

The rider stopped some way from her and dismounted, removing her helmet; a lot of hair fell out. Olivia saw the girl only wore a dark T-shirt, her skin paler than anything Olivia had seen.

Olivia raised a hand in nervous greeting and the girl led her bike over.

At the sight of the girl closer up, Olivia shrank back. It was her. The sister. Polly. Olivia shook her head, but it was too late.

‘You?’ Polly’s face was hostile. ‘What are you doing here?’

Something careered into Olivia’s mind: Polly’s hand pinching her wrist, her dark-red hair brushing against her sharp intent face. And her eyes, reddish-brown, fierce.

‘Please, leave me alone.’ Olivia moved to walk past her.

‘Wait.’ Polly reached out and grabbed her arm. ‘I can’t just let you go.’ She stared suspiciously at Olivia, who knew somehow that she couldn’t tell. She couldn’t reveal recognition.

Polly’s face was so close to her. ‘You should never have come back,’ she whispered gutturally. ‘You were never meant to come back.’