Everlong: (Book One of the Everlong Trilogy) (23 page)

I tried drawing, put my headphones on, the music turned up loud to drown it all out, but I could still hear the demon's pounding drum, its war cry. And it wanted to take me down.

But I couldn't let it.

I wasn't going to go back down into its dark lair, however hard it pulled on me with its suckered tentacles. A fire had been lit in the pit of my stomach and like most animals, the beast didn't like fire. I just had to make sure that fire didn't blow out.

I sat on the edge of the bed, hunched forwards, my hair scrunched tightly in my hands, praying for the banging to stop. I had to get out, and get away from them. I stood up, grabbed my hoodie and slipped downstairs unseen, quietly letting myself out of the front door. Outside darkness had tumbled down, a curtain falling over the forest of steel and brick. Rain drops splattered around me like tears on a page of a book, but I didn't know if I could turn the page. Maybe I was stuck in the horror story of my life, the demon snapping at my heels.

I started walking. I had to somehow break this cycle of crap my life had become. I wasn't completely ready for that challenge yet - I didn't even know where to start - but I knew that I had to make it happen.

I went back to the bridge, looking out over the black water, thinking about the time I had been at the exact same spot, just waiting to jump.

It all looked so different now, so alive under the heavy sky. A pair of swans glided like ghosts across the rain-pocked water and on the opposite bank a fox dashed for cover into the brush, splitting the night with its eerie high-pitched screech.

The clock began to strike twelve.

I could've jumped again. Finished it properly. Dexter couldn't save me a second time, could he?

But staring out from the bridge I realised that, although things were still the same, things had also changed. I had changed.

Death wasn't my only option anymore.

There was still fight - still life - left in me, whatever the beast said.

I looked up at the sky; there was no moon, no stars, just darkness.

Something caught my eye on the opposite bank. I couldn't tell what it was lying on the muddy river bank, but it was un-natural and out of place, a small mass of silvery light that shimmered weakly, almost as if a part of the moon had fallen to the ground and now lay dying.

I ran across the bridge towards the fallen moon, feeling its gravitational pull deep within my soul. It wasn't until I was sliding across the muddy bank that I realised that it wasn't a moon at all, but a man, curled up in the mud, covered in congealed blood.

A black tattoo ran across the man's back, a pair of wings that curled down as if they were folded back at rest. There was a long laceration on his right shoulder blade, correlating with the inside of the wing, it looked almost as if someone had tried to cut it out. There was a lot of sticky, blackening blood across his back and on the floor.

I turned him over slowly and felt his neck for a pulse; it was very weak but at least it was a pulse. His skin was ice cold and he was trembling; hypothermia was probably setting in. I had to get him to a hospital, and fast.

'Don't worry,' I said, 'I'm going to call an ambulance.' I brushed the matted hair away from his face.

His eyes flickered open, stunning me into silence; I knew him. Two beautiful eyes, like diamonds waiting to mined from the rock, looked back at me, weak but still full of life. His lips parted as though he wanted to speak but he didn't. Instead he let out a faint hiss as though even his breathing was too much for him, and then he let his head fall back, and closed his eyes.

'I need to go, ring an ambulance, I'll only be a minute-'

'No,' he whispered.

'You need to get to hospital-'

'No.'

'If you don't, you're going to die.'

'Leave me.'

I put my hands under his arms and carefully pulled him backwards, to the towpath beneath the bridge. I draped my hoodie over his trembling body. 'I'll be back...in a minute.'

'No,' he said, in barely a whisper, 'leave me to die.'

Something inside me broke at those words and a deep sadness washed into my soul.

I left him under the bridge and raced back to my house, knowing that I didn't have long, but I needed to do all I could to save him.

Once I was at my house, I let myself in through the back door. I slipped my shoes off, leaving them on the mat, and quietly hurried up the stairs to the bathroom. I grabbed a few towels from the cupboard, being really careful as I crossed the landing and passed Cassie's bedroom which had now fallen quiet. I went back downstairs to the utility room and rummaged through the clean washing, pulling out a pair of Dan's jeans and a thick grey jumper. I left a towel on the floor for when I came back.

Before long I was back under the bridge. The guy was still where I had left him, trembling in the mud. Somehow I managed to get Dan's jeans and jumper on him. He was caked in blood and dirt and looked in a really bad way. What if I lost him? What if I didn't do the right thing and he died?

'You need to help me,' I said, 'I can't carry you on my own.' I felt tears building at the back of my throat. I forced them back down. Now was not the time to cry like the pathetic little girl I was.

He nodded but didn't open his eyes. I managed to drag him off the floor, but slipped back in the mud, covering my jeans in blood and dirt. Eventually I got him up the bank and onto the path, trying to hold up his weight as much as I could.

The rain started to fall faster as we stumbled down the road. And all I could think of was that he couldn't die because I couldn't even remember his name.

When we got home, the lights were still off, so I pulled him through the side gate to the back door. I felt his cold body pressing down on me as I fiddled with the lock and I knew I had to save him.

Somehow I managed to quietly drag him up the stairs. When I got to my room I let him fall onto the bed. I collapsed next to him, completely exhausted, but I knew I had work to do, so I hauled myself back up. Before I left, I pulled the duvet over him, and then went to see what damage I'd caused downstairs.

It didn't appear to be that bad. I mopped the kitchen floor, shoved the dirty towels straight into the washing machine and went to clean myself up in the shower. For the first time in my life, I hoped that when Cassie came down in the morning she'd be too loved up to notice if I'd left any mess.

It was two-thirty in the morning before I managed to crawl back to my room, half expecting him to be gone, just a figment of my crazy imagination.

He was still there, curled into a ball, trembling under the duvet. I climbed onto the bed and curled up next to him, on top of the covers, like it was the most natural thing in the world, like we weren't strangers, like I'd known him forever. I should've gone to the spare room, should've slept there, but something inside me craved to be close to him, needed to pretend, if only for one night.

It was stupid and reckless - bringing him home, sharing a bed with him - but I didn't care.

I didn't even know his name, and yet I was lying next to him, sharing my body warmth, my sacred space. It felt good to be so close to someone.

I wish I could tell you that saving him was the most un-selfish thing I have ever done, but the truth was the complete opposite. Everything I did that night was for me. I was saving myself. I just didn't know it.

Evie

He had to go.

I was being needy.

I was being stupid.

I was being Cassie.

And, I couldn't be Cassie, jumping straight from one guy to the next, and that's what it felt like in the cold light of the morning. It scared me how easy I had fallen into the trap. Dexter didn't want me, so what did I do? Go and bring home the first stranger. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

As he showered, I lay on the bed, listening to the silence, punctuated only by the sound of running water. There was an empty space beside me, the dirt and blood smears the only evidence that the night had been real, that it hadn't been a dream.

But now it was over.

I got up and switched the television on, a distraction from thinking and to hide our voices from Cassie. I turned as he walked back into the room. My eyes caught his. My heart stopped. I couldn't breathe.

I finally managed to look away. He turned to close the door and my eyes were drawn back to him. Water was dripping from his hair, running like tears down his skin and over the intricate tattoo wings that swept down his back, the tips of which were lost below the towel he was clutching at his waist. I suddenly felt hot, my skin flushed. I tore my eyes away, too scared to look, even though I wanted to.

My body was on fire, my emotions loudly screaming at me, pulling me in different directions.

I saw him turn around out of the corner of my eye. 'I'm sorry,' he said.

'For what?' I said, looking up, my eyes captured by the sight of another intricate tattoo carved onto his chest which I had missed the night before, when it was caked with mud. It was another pair of wings, but this time with a skull at the centre of the design, with a silver dagger behind it. What was it with this guy and wings?

'For everything.'

'I'll get you some clothes.' I needed to get him out of the house. There was some kind of witchcraft in the air, it was pulling me in, enchanting me. I had to ignore the feelings bubbling up inside me, making my skin tingle, my breath quicken.

Those eyes were goddamn killing me. Why couldn't I be in close proximity to a guy and not want to kiss him? Kiss him? I instinctively looked at his lips. God, I was feeling really hot.

'Thanks.'

I grabbed my dressing gown and slipped it on. I moved towards the door, then stopped. 'You'll have to leave when it's safe,' I said, not daring to look back at him. 'They can't find you here.' I couldn't leap from one guy straight to another.

'Ok,' he said. I thought my heart was going to break. Stupid, needy Evie! What the hell was wrong with me?

Downstairs Cassie was sitting on the sofa, her hands curled around a mug of coffee, her hair pulled high in a messy pony-tail. Dan was next to her, messing with a stray bit of her hair at the back of her neck.

'Oh, hi Hun.'

'Hi. How are things with you guys?' I asked, trying not to look guilty. I shouldn't have bothered; Cassie was always more happy talking about herself.

'Well,' she said, reaching over to put her mug down on the coffee table before she grabbed Dan's hand. 'As you know, things, well, we kind of got off track there for a bit, but everything's good now.' She turned to look at Dan, her eyes brimming over with love, and for a moment I was overtaken by how much I despised her. 'We're going away for a bit, to Dan's parents in Cornwall, see if we can find any good wedding venues.'

'Oh.'

Eventually she prised her eyes away from him. 'I know we haven't been back long Hun, but we want to get married as soon as possible. We want to bring the wedding forward...to be married now.'

'Ok.'

'No more misunderstandings,' she said, her eyes fixed back on Dan.

'When are you off?' I asked, my emotions all battling it out for supremacy; relief, hatred, jealousy, sadness. I didn't know what I was supposed to feel; I just wasn't used to it. But my guilt at having a strange guy in my bedroom evaporated under the strain of everything else I was feeling.

'Next weekend. We're going for a week so you'll be on your own over half-term, unless you want to come with us?'

'Who me?' I said. I never usually got invited. Why ask this time?

'Well you are going to be bridesmaid.'

'No, I'll stay here. You don't want me cramping your style. We can do the girly stuff when you get back.'

'Ok Hun, if you're sure. See Dan, told you she'd be fine with it. She's a good girl.'

Those words stabbed me through the heart.

She's a good girl.

How would you know Cassie, how could you possibly know? I stood up, 'I'm going back up to my room, I've got a lot of work to do.'

'Ok Hun,' she said, not taking her eyes off Dan.

Evie

I grabbed angrily at Dan's clothes in the utility room - pulling out his favourite denim jeans and Ben Sherman jumper - before I stomped back upstairs. My anger was festering inside me. I was a good girl. A good girl! That woman made me want to scream. Or worse!

I yanked open the door to my room, my anger set to unleash on my mysterious stranger, but I stopped as my eyes caught sight of him, lying awkwardly across the bed, asleep. He wasn't supposed to fall asleep, he was supposed to be leaving.

But he looked so worn out, so broken and oh so beautiful, that my anger evaporated. A calmness had swept over my room, like when you're on holiday, sitting by the sea on a hot summer's day, with the breeze rolling in off the ocean, keeping you cool and calm and there isn't a single cloud in the azure sky. That's how I felt looking at him, his chest rising and falling like the ebb and flow of the tide and his sun-kissed skin like the sand at my feet.