It took a few seconds for Reg’s words to sink in, but the imagery reached Charlie first—the fire, the smoke. Lila’s terror. Leo’s screams as the flames licked his ruined flesh.Oh, Leo.
“Stop the car,” Charlie gasped. “I’m going to be sick.”
Leo’s secret place was much like the sanctuary Charlie had offered him under the canal bridge, but instead of the lapping water, there were birds rustling the bushes, and squirrels playing in the trees. Before the fire, Leo had spent most of his days in these woods, sitting at the foot of the biggest tree, finding comfort in its broad trunk, even in the rain.
Especially in the rain, and it was raining now, big fat drops that cooled his heated skin. He tried to imagine that the clean water would heal the burning mess on his arm, but reality was too painful for that particular fantasy. And the pain was currently the only thing keeping him awake. Fighting, running, and bunking the train to Swindon had been apparently exhausting, and if not for his arm, he’d be fast asleep.
Wouldn’t be the first time you’ve slept here.Leo closed his eyes and thought of the sticky summer evening when he’d first snatched Lila from her cot and run all the way here, knowing that Dennis couldn’t pass the pub without going inside. Wendy had trusted him to keep Lila safe, and he’d stayed here all night with Lila asleep in his arms, waiting for Dennis to go to work the following morning. He repeated the routine a dozen times over the years, before the police had started fetching him home.
Bastards.Hadn’t they understood that Leo had had a plan? That if they’d left him alone, he’d have eventually grown up enough to deal with Dennis himself?They let him kill my mum.
The rain on Leo’s face was suddenly warm. He swiped at his eyes and scrambled to his feet. He didn’t cry at the tree. Never had. And he wouldn’t cry now. He picked through the dark woods, glad that the path hadn’t changed much in his absence. The police had often used dogs to find him and Lila, but Leo needed no help to find his way, just the shape of the trees in the moonlight.
A series of crooked branches led him to the alleyway behind the old house. A brick wall had replaced the rotten fence, and a smart new gate had been fitted at the back. Leo was tempted to scale it, but his arm hurt too much. Instead, he went around the front and squeezed under the tarpaulin that concealed the gap in the scaffolding attached to the house. It was a tight fit, but Leo was slimmer than he’d ever been, and perversely enjoyed the scrape of the bricks against his skin.
The back garden was a boggy mess, ruined first by the clomp of fireman’s boots, and then the subsequent building work to make the house safe. Leo’s feet squelched in the mud until he came to Wendy’s favourite place: the rockery by the shed. Leo ran his hands over the moss-covered stones. In the dark, they felt like velvet, and he smiled. He’d tell Lila about them. She’d like that.
But you’re not going to see Lila again.
Leo’s smile faded. How had he forgotten? Because if he got away from whoever was likely chasing him by now, he’d never be able to go back to Heyton—not for Lila, or Charlie.I’ll be dead to them.Perhaps he already was.
He sat on the wet ground, and then lay down as his body gave up on him. The cold seeped through his torn school shirt and into his bones. His heart wept for Lila, but it cried out for Charlie. Leo had never been cold around him, even walking to school in the frost, their every breath turning to mist and mingling with the smoke of Leo’s morning joint.
I was happy then.
I miss him.
Leo closed his eyes. Soon he’d have to move—get up and bunk another train to the end of the world—but, for now, he allowed himself a brief moment with his Charlie-themed dreams that would never come true.
“Leo.”
“Leo.”
“Dad, he’s not waking up.”
“Give him a minute, son. It’s pretty cold out here.”
The voices startled Leo, rousing him from that weird kind of sleep that wasn’t really sleep at all—rather a restless doze that teased him with rare moments of blissful oblivion that he wasn’t prepared to let go of just yet.
Go away.
But the words stayed inside as the closest voice whispered his name again.Charlie.No. He had to be dreaming. Charlie didn’t belong in Swindon, or in the bleak future that Leo had resigned himself to, and there was certainly no place for him in the muddy garden of the burned-out house Leo had once called home.
“Leo.”
Leo shook his head and flinched away from hands that were definitelynotCharlie’s.
“Leo.”
Damn it. Even in his sleep, Leo couldn’t ignore Fliss. He opened his eyes a crack. Fliss was glaring down at him. He blinked, sure she’d disappear, but she didn’t, and he couldn’t deny that her warm palm felt nice on his freezing chest. “Charlie?”
It wasn’t what he’d meant to say, but like magic, Charlie was suddenly there, the heat of his touch leaving Fliss in the shade. “I’m here, Leo,” he whispered. “But you’ve got to sit up so we can get you warm, okay? Dad needs to take you home.”
Dad. For a long moment, the term meant nothing, but then Reg loomed out of the shadows and reality crashed down on Leo like a frigid wave of despair.
Dad.
Reg.
