“But they agreed – they signed an agreement! It’s all legal!”
“What you gonna do? Take them to court?” He shook his head. “You can’t trust anyone, Jem, you should know that. Except me, of course.”
“But they lied. Bastards! What are we gonna do now? How are we gonna get away from here?”
He sighed. “I don’t think we are, Jem. This is it – we’ve got a few hours. We’ll just have to make the most of it. Like you said up there.”
“But that’s not right, Spider. We’ll never make it now. We’ll never make it to Weston. I wanted to walk along the beach with you, have fish and chips like you said…” I had to stop there, as I was choking over the words. He put his long arm ’round me.
“Don’t get upset. It doesn’t all have to be today. We can do it another time. Face it, they’re gonna put me away this time, probably you, too, but I can wait. I’ll wait for you, if you…?”
“Of course I’ll wait for you. I waited fifteen years to find you. I could wait another fifteen if I needed to, but…” How could I say it? But time’s run out. There is no more after today.
“But what?”
“Just…just…I dunno. I just don’t think it’s going to work out.”
“’Course it is. Sometimes things are really simple – I love you and you love me. That’s all we need. Whatever happens, we can get through it.”
Why can’t things be like that? He loved me and I loved him, but the number in my head was telling me that he was going to die today. And the numbers had never been wrong. Leaning against him, breathing in his muskiness, I suddenly got a sick, sick feeling. There was nothing wrong with Spider. He wasn’t lying beaten up in a police cell. He wasn’t ill. Tattoo Face was gone, and there was no one chasing us with a gun or a knife.
The only thing threatening him was me. I’d made it happen – I’d drawn him back to me on the fifteenth of December 2010: 12152010. I saw the number and somehow I knew its message would come true. While I existed, the number existed. I was the number and the number was me. I don’t know if anyone else, anywhere in the world, saw them, or if the numbers they saw were the same ones I saw, but once I’d seen one, that was it. They didn’t change, they didn’t go away. Anne was right: I was a witness, but maybe not just in a general way. I was a witness to the end of particular people on particular days.
There was only one way to deal with it. The only way to cancel that number out was to remove the person who saw it.
I stood up slowly and looked around. I couldn’t expect the keys to be back in the drawer in the vestry, but I knew Simon always had some on him. He was talking to Anne in one of the side aisles, keys glinting in a big bunch at his waist. I ran up to him and lunged at the keys. I had them unhooked from his waistband before he knew what I was doing. Pushing him aside, I raced to the tower door. There were so many keys, so many, but I got the right one, second try. I didn’t look back, not once, I just wrenched open the door, slipped through, slammed it behind me, and locked it, shutting out all the raised voices, even the one I longed to hear. Especially the one I longed to hear. But it was there in my head as I climbed the spiral staircase.
“Jem, what the fuck…? Jem!”
As I stepped out onto the roof, horizontal rain lashed into me. I locked the door at the top of the staircase and picked my way across, over to the tower. In those few seconds, my clothes were soaked, jeans flapping wetly around my legs. Once I was in the tower, I knew what I had to do. Ignoring the other side doors, I went up until I found the bell-ringing room, then across and up the top staircase. I didn’t bother securing the last door – the other three or four would slow them down enough. It would be far too late by the time they got to me. I was breathing fast and hard, my chest hurting with the effort. My legs were wobbly from the climb, and the wind buffeted at me, almost knocking me over. I put both hands on the stone parapet to steady myself.
From far below, I heard shouting. I wouldn’t let myself look down. I kept my eyes on the rooftops and the hills beyond.
I waited until I’d caught my breath a bit, but not long enough to lose the adrenaline rushing through my veins. Eyes on the horizon, I gave a little jump and, using all the strength left in my arms, pulled myself up onto the stone wall. I crouched there for a second, getting my balance, and then slowly, with arms outstretched, got to my feet.
The rooftop pool across from me contained a handful of swimmers, defying the storm above them. I knew now for sure that I’d never be one of those people. I would never be anything other than what I was now – a girl who, for fifteen years, had brought death and destruction to those around her. A girl who’d been stupid enough to start to believe in love, and who now knew that there was only one way to save the boy who loved her.
Perhaps, after all, I had seen my own number.
It had been reflected in Spider’s eyes all along.
12152010.
The day I said good-bye to it all.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
My toes were curled inside my shoes, as if that would help them grip on to the wet stone. I tried to stand as tall as I could, to face the end with dignity, but the wind and the rain were mocking me. They knew that in the scheme of things, I was tiny, nothing, and by blowing me around, soaking me, they were putting me in my place. It took a surprising amount of strength just to stay up there – the weather was blasting in from the front of me, trying to knock me back onto the flat roof behind. I could lean into it and not fall, except it would suddenly change; the wind would drop, and then I was flailing my arms about, reeling on the edge, toes gripping even harder.
I guess my mistake was thinking. I didn’t just get up and jump, that would have been the way to do it. But not me, I had to stand there for a bit with my mind full of stuff. If I jumped, would the wind actually blow me backward? How long would it take to fall? Would I feel it, when I made contact with the ground? Would I actually hit the ground or the pitched roof? Was this really meant to happen? Was this my life, fifteen years and no more? Did I have a future, lying somewhere out there, waiting for me, and was I about to cheat it?
I tried to focus, to bring all these random thoughts back to the important one: If I ended it now, if I found that courage, I could stop the misery for a lot of people. Most of all, there was a chance I could save Spider. If no one saw his number any longer, perhaps that number would no longer exist.
I needed to do this, and the way to do it was to go in style, like diving into a pool. I raised myself up onto my toes, stretched my arms out wide. I’d count myself out. Numbers would see me through to the end. “Three…two…”
“Jem!”
I looked over my shoulder. Oh, God, he was there, spilling out of the staircase door in an untidy mess of arms and legs.
“Jem! Please, please, no!” His voice was thick with terror.
“Keep away, Spider. Keep away from me. I need to do this.”
“But why? I don’t understand…please don’t. Oh, my God, please don’t.” He was inching toward me.
“Keep away!” My words a high-pitched screech, carried away on the wind. He stopped, held his hands up.
“It won’t be that bad, Jem. Prison. We can handle it. And then we can wipe the slate clean. Start again. Jem, please, we can do this.”
“It’s not that. I can’t explain. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I have to do it.” I was teetering on the brink now.
“I don’t understand, Jem. I don’t understand why you’d leave me. Why would you do that?” He was edging forward again. Even in the wind and the rain, I could smell his sweat – it flooded through me, jolting me back to our first meeting under the bridge, back to our night in the barn. “Why would you leave me, Jem? I don’t understand.”