Great.Leo rolled his eyes and let them fall closed. Damn. It wasn’t enough to be bored; they had to bequietand bored, silent. Like the dead . . .“’Cept the dead are never really silent, are they? Not in your dreams.”
Leo sat up sharply, his pleasant musings forgotten. He remembered muttering those words the night Charlie had dropped the X pills, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember why. That seemed to happen when he was with Charlie. His brain and his tongue were far too in tune with each other, and yet conversely disconnected.
In other words, he said shit he didn’t mean to say,allthe fucking time.
Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.
Leo tried to pull his thoughts back to that liquid place where there was nothing but Charlie and the sweetly clean scent of his skin, but the flickering of a Bunsen burner in his peripheral vision caught his attention. He frowned, glancing about to see he’d somehow missedeveryBunsen burner in the room being lit, even the one right in front of him.
The blue-orange glow sucked him in, muting the world around him to the faint, persistent hiss of the gas tap. He stopped breathing through his nose, but the smell filled his lungs and he tasted smoke on his tongue.
And then it burned his throat. Leo coughed as familiar heat spread through his ruined arm, tingling, smouldering on the scars, and then oozing out, creeping into every muscle and nerve, getting hotter and hotter, until he heard his skin crackle and smelled the stomach-churning stench of scorched flesh.
Leo swallowed and searched frantically for something—anything—to shield him from the brutal flashback that was coming. Him and Lila screaming, burning, running. Hurling open the kitchen door, only for strong hands to push them back.
“No, you don’t, boy. You can rot with your ma—”
Wayne kicked Leo again. “’Ere, look out. There’s the tool that spiked your brother.”
Somehow, Leo followed Wayne’s gaze through the classroom window. A lanky boy was drifting across the courtyard, hood up, hands in his pockets. Leo didn’t recognise him, but rage spread through his veins, a wildfire of fury far hotter than the agonising burn in his arm. His eyes narrowed, and his warped perspective tilted. The image of Wendy, broken and bleeding on the kitchen floor, morphed, her hair darkening until it was no longer ash-blonde and blood-stained, and instead inky locks flopped over a face that wasn’t hers.
Charlie.
Leo pushed his chair back. It tipped and clattered to the floor, but he paid it no heed, jumping over it and dashing to the classroom door. The buzz of surprise behind him barely registered, Mr. Lanning’s exasperated bellow even less. Leo ran away from it all and charged down the corridor to the side doors that led outside. He threw them open, scanning the courtyard for the drippy figure in the hood and spotted him by the gate.
Got you.
Leo sprinted across the courtyard, fists raised, and collided with the boy at full pelt, landing a quick succession of blows to his face and ribs. The boy grunted in shock, then cried out, gasping, as Leo kicked him in the stomach, and sent him sprawling to the ground.
“Get up, dickhead.” Leo grabbed the boy’s blazer and yanked him upright. “I’m just getting started.”
“Wha—” The boy raised his hands clearly in bewilderment rather than self-defence. “Who the fuck are you? What’s your problem, mate?”
“I ain’t your mate.” Leo pulled his fist back and struck the boy again, splitting his lip. “And it don’t matter who I am. I’m going to fuck you up.”
The boy’s eyes widened. Then he seemed to shake himself, and he scrambled to his feet. “Yeah? Come on, then.”
Leo grinned and sprang forward. The boy tried to block Leo’s blows, but instead of punching him, Leo grabbed his arms and forced them apart. He tipped his own head back, then flung it hard, putting all his weight and strength behind a head butt that sent the boy back to the ground.
The boy didn’t get up this time. In fact, he didn’t move at all. Leo pulled his foot back to kick him back to life, but two sets of arms clamped around him from behind, one at his waist, the other at his shoulders, restraining him in a hold so tight he could hardly breathe.
“Enough!” Mr. Griggs shouted as another teacher dropped to the ground to shield the other boy. “Break it up. Come on, lad. Inside with you. You’re going straight to the head’s office and likely home after that. You’re in big trouble, Mr. Hendry. Mark my words.Bigtrouble.”
Charlie shuffled out of his geography lesson arm in arm with Jess. “So you bunked off school with Callum and went to his house?”
“Nothishouse, Charlie,” Jess said. “I told you. We went to his nan’s bungalow.”
“And what did you do there?” Charlie braced himself, knowing she’d tell him every detail whether he wanted them or not. “Please tell me his nan wasn’t in?”
Jess huffed. “Course she wasn’t. She does Meals on Wheels on Mondays. We had the place to ourselves. Good job, too. We spent all day in bed.”
“You shagged him in his nan’s bed? Jess, that’snasty.”
“Who are you? The moral police?” Jess rolled her eyes. “Besides, I didn’t shag him. Not yet, at least. He doesn’t want to until after my birthday.”
“Probably best.” Charlie had heard that half the kids in the year above were already having sex, whether they’d turned sixteen or not, but the idea of being caught doing that sent the wrong kind of shiver down his spine.
“Charlie?”
