“Where did he go?”
“We don’t know, Charlie. That’s why I was on my way to find you. Leo doesn’t know the school very well yet. Is there anywhere you think he’d go when he’s upset?”
It was a rare day that Leo wasn’t upset, and Charlie couldn’t recall him ever finding sanctuary at school. And even if he could think of a place where Leo might have been, would he rat him out? Could he?
Charlie’s stomach did an uncomfortable flip, and his fingers automatically drifted to the bracelet on his wrist—the one that matched the brightly coloured beads Leo often wore over the bandage on his injured arm. Unbidden, his mind treated him to the image of Leo’s ruined flesh and new panic set in. “Is Leo okay? Is he hurt?”
Mrs. Parkin shook her head. “We don’t know. He wouldn’t let Mr. Griggs check.”
Of course he wouldn’t. Leo hated men—all men, even Reg. Especially Reg. There was no way he’d let a burly brute like Mr. Griggs put his hands on him. “What are you going to do? Have you called my mum?”
“There’s no answer at home, so we’ve sent a message to her phone, asking her to call the school. Do you know if she’s around today? We’re about to call your father.”
Charlie thought of Reg taking that call and shuddered. Reg hated violence. He wouldn’t let Andy watch the boxing at home.Oh God. What if he sends Leo away?
Nausea finally overwhelmed Charlie, and he sank into a nearby chair. Kate and Reg gave each kid they took every chance in the world, but only if the rest of the family was safe from harm. Would they see Leo’s attack on Darren as a threat to them all?
I have to find him.
Nausea forgotten, Charlie lurched to his feet. Mrs. Parkin stepped back, eyeing him in the same way that teachers usually eyed Leo. “Where are you going, Charlie?”
“Toilet,” he said, looking past her for an avenue of escape. “I need to text my brother too. He might’ve heard from Leo. They’re—um—close.”
Charlie had never been much of a liar, and the sense that Mrs. Parkin saw right through him made it hard not to squirm under the weight of her suspicious frown.
But his squeaky-clean record perhaps worked in his favour. She stepped back and waved him away. “Okay, Charlie. Go to the bathroom, then contact your brother and see if he knows anything. It’s very important that we find Leo, and I don’t want to bother your father at work.”
Charlie would’ve agreed to just about anything to escape. He appeased Mrs. Parkin as much as he could, and then made his escape, fleeing the office and dashing across the courtyard to the nearest block with toilets. Once inside, where Mrs. Parkin couldn’t see him, he cut through a classroom, retrieved his bike, and slipped out of a side gate. Leo wasn’t at school. Charlie didn’t know how he knew, but he did. Leo was long gone, and Charlie felt every ripple of his distress like a knife to the heart.
I have to find him.
But where to start? Leo wouldn’t have gone home, which left the park, and the sacred place under the bridge where Charlie had taken him the first time he’d been upset at school. This was nothing like that, but the canal called Charlie’s name.That’s it. He has to be there.
Charlie rode like the wind to the black bridge and ditched his bike on the path. He scrambled down beneath the bridge, where the water was murkiest, half expecting to find Leo exactly where he’d sat all those weeks ago, but the small clearing was empty. Devoid of anything, save a grubby, blood-smeared bandage.
I’m just like him. I’m just like him. I’m just like him.
Leo pressed his fists into his eye sockets and rocked back and forth, reliving the other boy’s bones crunching against his knuckles over and over as he rained blows down on him—punching and kicking. Revelling in his pain. Enjoying it. Embracing the sick satisfaction as it spread through his veins.
I’m just like him—
Fuck.
I am him.
The realisation burned through him like wildfire, roaring up his throat from his stomach. He ripped his hands from his face and lurched sideways, vomiting onto the dusty ground. The other boy’s blood swam before his eyes, and it was all he could do to stay upright. To not crumple and be at one with the dirt where he belonged.
I want Charlie.
But he couldn’t have Charlie, because he didn’t deserve him. Charlie was good, kind, and pure. And Leo was evil . . . like Dennis.
I’ll hurt him. I’ll hurt Lila.
I have to go.
Leo scrambled to his feet. His coat dragged on the ground, hanging off his good arm. He shrugged it off and hurled it in the vague direction of a nearby bin, but paid no heed to where it landed, distracted by his damaged arm. Exposed to the bitterly cold air, it was weeping blood and the strange clear fluid that frightened him so much. In the past, he’d imagined that it was his soul crying for Wendy. Now he knew that it was what remained of him seeping away, leaving nothing in its wake but every damned gene Dennis had given him.
I hate him.
