“Truth be told, I don’t know what it is. What we are.” She speared flakes of errant pastry with her finger. “It was inevitable, really. I should’ve seen it coming.”
Angie frowned in obvious confusion so Nell pointed at the TV screen.
“Mattie’s star is only going to get brighter. It isn’t like she didn’t warn me about her career taking precedence over relationships.” All Nell was sure of was that her heart, the one she’d vowed to protect, was hurting. And now, she was going to have to find a way of repairing the tear in it before it ripped apart completely.
Chapter 32
In the darkness, Mattie woke to the sound of Moeen snoring next to her. She rolled her eyes. Honestly, the man sounded like an ancient steam train chugging up a steep hill. She wriggled in the seat, trying to relieve the pressure on her numb bum. That was what came of sleeping in a van with the passenger seat reclined to its furthest setting, which was nowhere near flat. Ice clung to the windscreen, but she was just about warm enough, snuggled inside a sleeping bag that held a musty aroma, suggesting previous cellar storage.
Beside her, Moeen snored loud enough to make the seat vibrate. Grinning, she filmed him on her phone. There, photographic evidence that she wasn’t exaggerating. Her home screen declared it was a little after five. She glanced at Moeen. Lovely as he was, it wasn’t him she’d envisaged waking up next to on Christmas morning.Nell. How would she be spending the day? At home? Or with her elderly parents and extended family? Knowing Nell’s sense of obligation and duty, it’d most likely be the latter.
Mattie re-read their short message exchange. She’d hoped for, but hadn’t received, a response from Nell to her last one. What had she expected? Jolly festive greetings? Declarationsof love? She yanked at the sleeping bag. The damn thing had become twisted around her foot. Then her stomach rumbled. Moeen snored some more. “For fuck’s sake,” she muttered. Unzipping the sleeping bag so she could move her legs without cutting off her circulation, she dragged her backpack onto her lap. The chocolate she’d bought at Berlin airport was still in there somewhere. Not wanting to wake Moeen by turning on the van’s interior light, she fumbled in the darkness, ferreting in the depths of the bag. The corners of a small rectangular box pressed into her palm. Nell’s Christmas present. It was a necklace with a pendant formed of two blossom petals, one made of silver and the other gold. It was stylish, classy, strong, and beautiful, just like Nell.
Mattie dropped her head back against the seat. She rubbed her temples, aching from a lack of sleep and too many adrenaline surges. After a briefing by the team she and Moeen were replacing, she’d been in the thick of things. Just as a neurosurgeon was excited about a rare brain tumour needing medical intervention, the thrill of the chase of an excellent story fuelled her. This time, however, it was different. Words were her lifeblood, but finding the correct ones to describe the challenging situation people were being forced to confront was near on impossible. Somehow, she’d managed to file reports to the news desk in time. Usually, her economy of emotion meant she was able to avoid over-empathising and soaking up other people’s trauma and pain. But on this trip, hell, it was taking a lot to prevent her own emotions from leaking.
It’d started with Dilara. Dilara said she was forty-seven, but she looked considerably older. Glazed eyes full of anguish spoke of the fear and trauma she’d experienced more than words ever could. She was bewildered, unsurprisingly clearly unable to fully process what had happened.I feel your pain, your fear, Mattie had wanted to say. But this was Dilara’s journey, not hers.
A pot plant sat on a low table and a sofa with cushions were alongside it, all still in place. How could that be when two of the room’s four walls were no longer there? And then she’d learned that almost everyone who’d lived in that house was dead.
Mattie clasped the jewellery box in her palm, her fingers wrapped tightly around it. Did she regret choosing the assignment over Christmas with Nell? Truthfully, no. But how the hell could she decipher the jumble of confusing and conflicting emotions that had taken up residence? Previously, she wouldn’t have bothered to ask herself that question because she already knew the answer. Now...she was being greedy because she wanted the jobandNell.
What did that actually mean? She was in love with her? That was... She puffed out her cheeks, and her breath misted in the frigid air. How to put all of that in a text? Impossible. And she needed to tell her in person this time, not a bloody voicemail message. In the end, she wrote two simple words: Merry Christmas xxx.
Moeen snored so loudly he woke himself up. “Oh, man.” He grumbled. “What time is it?”
She checked. “Five thirty.”
He stretched, walloping his hands on the van’s roof. “Did you get much sleep?”
“Until your bloody snoring woke me,” she said. There was no need to mention the weird dreams chasing her and darkness swallowing her whole. She showed him the video.
He growled. “Delete that and I’ll pay you in vodka.”
She snorted. “Too late. It’s already on its way to your missus.”
Moeen reached behind his seat for a large flask and two plastic mugs. Last night, they’d snagged hot water from a shop that had a generator and chose to hunker down in the van rather than tackle the icy, broken roads back to their hotel, which was an hour’s treacherous drive away. They’d parked on a street wellaway from damaged buildings that were in danger of toppling at any time. “Tea?”
“Sounds good.” She flicked on the van’s internal light and held the two mugs while he poured the hot water. Not wanting to risk draining the van’s battery, she switched the light off again. Silently, they nursed their mugs and stared out of the windows. There were still a couple of hours before sunrise, and the city appeared to be holding its breath.
“It does my head in how dark it is here,” said Moeen. “We’re in a city, but there are no lights. Not on the streets or in the shops. Even the buildings that do have generators have minimal lighting.”
Mattie nearly said it was a ghost town, but that was too close to the bone.
“Where do you want to start today?” asked Moeen.
“The field hospital,” she said. “A doctor contact of mine based there said she’d be up for doing an interview.”
Moeen’s bushy eyebrows met in the middle. “She?”
“Zabu.”
“Ah. Zabu. And does the lovely Nell know about her?”
“Don’t go there, Moeen.” After her early morning musings, she was way too tender for teasing. Besides, there was no comparison between the two women. Nell was everything. “This is about work.”
Thankfully, he had the good sense not to fish any further. Mattie offered him some of her Berlin chocolate supply while her brain calculated how to approach the medical story she wanted to pursue. Initially, hospitals had struggled to deal with the overwhelming number of patients suffering crush injuries. The situation had been exacerbated by severely damaged infrastructure, power outages, and a shortage of medical supplies such as specialized surgical equipment, trauma kits, antibiotics, and pain relief. The World Health Organization andvarious medical emergency response charities had set up field hospitals to provide trauma care and medical support. The latter was where Zabu came in.
As daylight broke, Moeen drove into the shell of the city centre and parked up. Before Mattie got out, she fixed a mask over her mouth and nose in an attempt to reduce the amount of dust and toxic smoke she’d breathe in. She left the safe, warm confines of the van and stepped onto the cracked pavement. Immediately, she gagged. That smell. The mask couldn’t stave off the lingering stench of death. She shuddered. The bodies of so many people and animals were still trapped under collapsed buildings.
