"Testing limits." Nash lifted one hand, failing to hold back a tremor. "It is a pitiful thing, to be so dependent. I would not last a day alone."
"Here."
Pan held out his hand, but Nash moved his own away. "We’ve already established that two days together is an excellent way to knock you to pieces."
He turned his head toward Fisher, but stopped when Madeleine held out her hand.
"I’ve nothing if not energy to spare," she said. "Do I need to do anything in particular?"
Nash hesitated, then said: "Not at all. Thank you."
"Shall we go clear more space in the hidden room?" Fisher asked, and led the others away, leaving Madeleine with an uncomfortable impression she was about to do something intimate.
She studied Nash’s hand, admiring the clean lines, then suppressed a murmur of surprise at the warm sensation which swept through her.
For some reason she’d expected it to hurt, and on one level it did, but the way running too fast down a hill hurt: a plummeting exhilaration. She was suddenly lit up all over, intensely aware of the roil of power inside her, and a complex passage of strength from her to Nash. And even more aware of him, as if she was in two places at once. She watched his stars growing bright, and trembled.
He fetched her cupcakes and super-sweetened hot chocolate, and carefully ignored her pink-cheeked confusion, and by the time her mug was empty she’d recovered and was able to be amused at how he was energetically striding about, tidying things up.
"You’d probably best take first watch," she said. "You’ll never sleep after that."
Nash agreed, and then made sure she was able to get up the spiral staircase without falling over. It wasn’t quite yet sunset, but Madeleine was more than done for the day. After a quick shower in her room’s en suite, and several futile attempts to reach Tyler, she removed her phone’s battery, and dreamt of running.
Chapter Ten
Someone – Noi, most likely – had come into Madeleine’s room overnight and arranged a tray of snacks and drinks on the bedside cabinet, so when piercing hunger woke her in the pre-dawn grey she needed only to sit up. Once the first urgency was met she noticed the cold, and escaped to another warm shower and an attempt to manage her hair.
Descending to the main floor, she found the lounge dark except for the glow of the muted television, and the clear, pale note provided by a vast, water-lapped sky. Pan was sitting in the open doorway to the patio, legs curled against his chest, chin resting on his knees, staring out at the water. He looked cold, small and defeated, all his mercurial energy drained.
Quietly putting together two steaming cups of over-sugared tea, Madeleine handed him one, then sat to share the dawn. A seagull was hovering in the distance, the first she’d seen since the dust.
"Gav was captain of the soccer team," Pan said, when tea or company had warmed him a little. "And he could act the socks off half the school. Fantastic at the comedic roles – did a great Bertie Wooster. Really generous on the stage, too, not fiddling about drawing attention to himself during someone else’s good lines." Pan tipped the last of his tea into his mouth, and swallowed heavily. "Just before, they were showing…Madrid, I think it was. Spain somewhere. You know how we were wondering if the Moths could body-hop? Go from person to person? They can. They’d caught two Blues and – I guess some of them must shop around for Blues with the most stain? They came out, and moved into the new Blues. The people they’d been in just dropped. Some Greens carried the bodies off."
There was nothing Madeleine could say. She sat turning her empty mug and listening to the sounds the ocean made in a quiet bay. Soft, secret noises, large yet gentle.
"Gav’s dead." Pan was barely audible. "He might still be in his head right now – or not. He might walk around being the Core of the whatever the hell clan for the next two years. But he doesn’t get to come back."
He sat a little straighter, putting his mug down carefully. "I agree with Emily. Fuck the running and hiding. Let’s find a way to fight these things."
"I’m open to suggestions."
"Would you do it?" Pan shot Madeleine a quick glance. "Any plan we come up with is going to involve us hiding behind you and your metal-crushing awesomeness."
"It’s not metal I’m worried about crushing," Madeleine said. "Fighting the – are we calling them Moths now? – fighting these things means attacking the people they’re inside. Hurting people who’ve done nothing wrong. I don’t know if I could try to hunt down and kill possessed Blues. I think I could maybe fight back if we were attacked, if it meant stopping…to stop the people here from being taken."
"Oh, God, yeah. It’s hard enough with Gav. I would have gone spare if they’d gotten Nash."
"Are–" Madeleine hesitated. "Are you two a couple?"
Pan gave her a Look, and she started to stutter an apology, but then he grinned, mischief revived.
"Hah, that’s okay. You’re just the first person who’s ever asked me that outright. Nash is – I met Nash my second year at Rushies, Year Eight. I’m a scholarship student there, and while most of the guys are fine about that, there’s always a few, you know? My parents run a petrol station, and you’d think that it was some kind of personal affront the way a couple of twits reacted.
"Year Seven was pretty hellish. I wanted to prove myself. You know, be the underdog who comes in and grabs the lead role. Didn’t manage it that year, but I snagged speaking parts in a couple of productions. And kept ending up with black eyes. I was a little squit back then, and it was always an elbow to the face, sorry didn’t see you there Rickard, ha ha. Then they’d trip me up on stage, put rubbish in the props I was supposed to use. They’d drive me into a fury, then ask me Can’t you take a joke? I swear, I have to hold myself back from anyone who says that these days. Can’t you take a joke? Only complete fuckwits say that.
"Year Eight, they were putting on Peter Pan and I knew I’d get the lead if I could get through auditions in one piece. And I also desperately wanted to be on the soccer team. Managed to scrape in as a reserve, and the day before my first chance to play some bright spark had disappeared my shoes. Team members are responsible for their own kit, and if I couldn’t get replacement shoes I’d be sitting out the match, and somehow no-one had any my size they could possibly spare. Only got a lecture when I rang home for money.
"Nash was one of six in my dorm room, new that year and kind of a big deal because of his family. His life’s been all boarding schools and film sets, and he’s met a hell of a lot of industry people. Everyone was trying to cultivate him, and he was being incredibly polite and distant. On the day of the match, he gets a package from his sister – stuff for cricket, a fencing mask. And one pair of soccer shoes which were way too small for him. I didn’t figure out for months that he’d simply ordered everything himself that morning, and had it couriered over.
"Then, on my way to the auditions for Peter Pan I was shoved into a cupboard and locked in. Just a joke, Rickard. Can’t you take a joke?" For a moment Pan became the essence of smug mockery, self-satisfied and unassailable. "Nash let me out. I was foaming with rage, wanted to go get myself beaten up trying to black a few eyes. The best revenge was getting the part, of course, but I doubt I would have remembered that without Nash."
"I’m beginning to see why he calls you temper-boy."
"Yeah." Pan grimaced. "I’m not that bad, really. Well, I went to counselling, and I’m not that bad any more. Nash talked me into that. Nash has pretty much saved my life the last couple of years, and no-one could be a better friend. We got gay-boy taunts, of course. Well, I did. Rushies has very strict policies about annoying extra-prestigious international students. Nash is gay. He’s been working out what that means for him, but it doesn’t seem to be me. And I could fill a book about the time April-next-door wore this really loose tank top and from the side you could see this curve. I was eleven, and I still react when I see a girl in a yellow top."