“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I wanted the police to take you away.”
“Why?”
The car pulled up beside them. Leo watched the tyres creep closer to their sodden feet. “Because you had the same shoes as him.”
Leo opened the car door and crawled inside. Charlie smiled, and Reg faded away. Fliss too, though Leo was sure he felt her hands on him. He lay down and dropped his head in Charlie’s lap, absorbing the warmth radiating from him like a lion in the sun. Charlie had always felt good—magic, even—but now, when there was nothing left of Leo but darkness, Charlie was the sun.
Charlie tangled his fingers in Leo’s curls and sighed. “You scare me, Leo.”
Leo closed his eyes.I scare myself.
Charlie paced the landing upstairs, straining his ears for any sign of Reg returning from the Swindon hospital where Leo had been for the last four days. Hypothermia and a blood infection—those things made sense, given the state Leo had been in when they’d found him in his old back garden. Bloodied, freezing, and barely conscious, there had been a split second when Charlie had honestly believed he was dead.
But then Leo had opened his eyes, and Charlie had realised that the cold-induced delirium was only the start of the chaos wreaking havoc in Leo’s beautiful soul.
“They won’t be long,” Fliss said softly from the doorway of Leo’s room, where she was entertaining Lila. “Mum texted from the motorway services.”
“What about Andy? Where’s he?”
“On his way. He’ll be here before Mum and Dad.”
“Good.” Charlie blew out a breath and shoved his shaking hands into his pockets. Leo was due to be discharged the following morning, and until now, Reg had been staying in a Travelodge close to the hospital, but he was coming home today, with Kate, for a family meeting that could only be about one thing: Leo’s future.
Lila squeezed past Fliss and trod silently to Charlie’s side. She touched his hand.
He glanced down and plastered a smile on his face to sign, “What’s up, little one?”
The puzzled frown Lila had worn since Leo had abruptly vanished from her life deepened. “I want Leo.”
Charlie crouched down and gently tugged the pigtails Fliss had plaited into Lila’s hair that morning—a concerted effort to keep her occupied while Kate had persuaded the social workers to allow Fliss to care for Lila while she and Reg visited Leo. “Tomorrow. Leo’s still poorly.”
“His arm?”
“Yes.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. The doctors in Swindon reckoned Leo had been carrying a low-grade infection in his injured arm for months, and that it had got worse slowly enough for no one to notice. Did that explain why Leo had been sick so often? Why his skin had been so clammy and cold when he was upset? Why he’d cried out in the night?
Of course it didn’t. The horrors that had brought Leo and Lila into the Poultons’ home echoed in Charlie’s head every moment he couldn’t guard his thoughts, and that would still be there when the infection had cleared.
Lila drifted back to Fliss and the cache of Charlie’s art supplies they’d unearthed from under his bed. How Fliss had known they were there, he had no idea, and he didn’t much care. Lila could draw on his face with permanent marker if it distracted her from the fact that her brother was still MIA.
The front door opened. Charlie darted to the top of the stairs, but it was only Andy.
Charlie’s disappointment apparently showed. Andy grunted and hung his coat over the banister. “Bloody charming. Drive through rush hour to get here and you haven’t even got a brew on.”
He stomped down the hall to the kitchen. Charlie hesitated only a moment before following, and reached Andy’s side just as he was tossing teabags into the pot. “What do you know?”
Unflappable as ever, Andy filled the kettle with water from the tap. “About what?”
“About Leo. Are they sending him away? Are the police going to take him? Will he go to prison? What about—”
Andy held up a hand. “Whoa. One thing at a time.”
“Tellme.” Charlie worked his jaw. “It’s not fair that I’m always the last to know.”
“Yeah, well. Life isn’t fair, squirt, and I can’t fix it this time. All I can tell you is that Ma and Pa are doing everything they can for Leo, but you know that already, if you’ve got any sense.”
“That doesn’t tell me anything.”
