Chapter 32

[The following chapter contains strong language. Reader caution is advised.]

Tuesday 16th March 1999

Guess I should talk about Bao’s birthday party before anything else… With his birthday on a Sunday, he’d managed to convince his parents to have the party itself on the Saturday. And… I don’t know what I’d expected, but it’d blossomed (or devolved?) into a house party.

I couldn’t say if he invited everyone he could, or if had word spread, but there were a lot of people.

And, well, I couldn’t not go. This wasn’t a random party, it was my friend’s birthday celebration.

Sooo, I focused on conversation, kept myself busy with drinks, and had my back to the more erratically-moving party-goers.

… and yeah, I wound up fairly drunk. (Underage drinking is bad, kids.) I don’t recall much past the first few hours of the party; mainly running around Bao’s house, playing some hardcore air-guitar to I think Stereophonics, and trying to take Dakota’s shoes off.

Bao let us Painters, Lucy, and of course Harriet, stay the night. I have the faintest memory of clambering into bed with Dakota after the party had wound down, and laughing incessantly at something or other. Next thing I knew, it was almost midday and my head was throbbing.

And I’m led to believe I got off lightly, too…

I’d barely woken up when Lucy wandered into the room, stark naked. It took a few minutes to get rid of her, as I obviously avoided looking at her and every time I thought she’d left, it turned out she was just keeping quiet to wind me up.

The rest of the day was pretty fun, though. Bao’s got a whole lot of… well, everything. Games, comics, videos, you name it. Things were much more subdued, probably because we all had various degrees of hangover, but we played some games, had some laughs, and indulged in a pretty great birthday cake.

Otherwise, life has continued on like always. School, friends, monsters. Our bizarre day-to-day.

Kayleigh was gradually become a more frequent fixture, too. I couldn’t really tell you precisely what was going on between her and Zahid… they certainly didn’t seem like an actual couple, and I’m not sure if they had any romantic feelings for each other.

Case in point: Kayleigh sat on Zahid’s lap, legs spread, playing Mario Kart against Bao, while Zahid talked with Dakota. How am I supposed to interpret that?

“This is pretty lame…” Kayleigh grumbled. “Don’t you have Destruction Derby or something? A proper game?”

“This is a proper game…” Bao argued, before fist-pumping at his latest victory. “You’re just annoyed because you keep losing.”

“I keep losing because the game sucks. Come on, we could be mowing down zombies or something. You’ve got me skidding on bananas like something out of Looney Tunes.”

“Okay…” my friend conceded meekly. He paused the game, then moved over to the console, begrudgingly turning it off. Kayleigh showed no concern for having clearly upset him, focusing on bobbing the controller in her hands.

I switched my focus to Dakota and Zahid.

“I’m sure it was Karen…”

“Why would Karen have been there? She doesn’t do Dance, or P.E.”

“I know, that’s why it’s so weird…”

Yeah, I had no context for that discussion…

Kendal, Lucy and Harriet were making a load of noise in the kitchen… sounded like Harriet trying to keep the other two under control.

… when did I wind up sat on my own in a house full of eight people?

“While you’re doing that, I’m gonna use the bathroom,” Kayleigh told Bao, abandoning her post on Zahid’s lap and heading out of the room, pulling the living room door up as she went.

Bao and I looked at each other at the same time.

“Mario Kart isn’t lame…” he told me stubbornly.

“I know, man,” I assured him. “It’s just not for everyone.”

“Yeah…” he sighed while beginning to rummage through the present selection of games. I figured I’d leave him to it.

With a stretch, I stood up from the armchair, and wandered across the room to the closed kitchen door. There was still an unholy racket going on beyond it, and my curiosity was getting the better of me.

I’d only opened the door a crack when it was slammed shut from the other side.

“Don’t come in!” Harriet urged tensely. “Naked girls!”

“Why is my sister a nudist?!” I yelled back in exasperation. Seriously… that girl took any opportunity to try and flaunt her body… (and let’s face it: she was surely the one who initiated it, not Kendal).

I turned around to find Dakota and Zahid both looking at me.

“You all good there, Alex?” my girlfriend asked me, failing to hold back an amused smile.

“Y-Yeah! No, I’m fine!” I waved dismissively.

“Right,” she nodded, “just that you don’t normally start shouting about your sister being a nudist…”

“Maybe it’s a new thing he’s trying out,” Zahid quipped. “Randomly talking about his sister being naked.”

“It’s not like I want her to be!” I pointed out loudly.

“I suppose. If you wanted anyone to be naked all the time, it’d be Dakota.”

“Well I mean not all the time but-”

Oh, the thought. Just the thought of it.

“Maybe next time we’re home alone,” she remarked with a playful smile.

“Hm.”

“… what…?”

Now she almost looked concerned.

“I’m gonna have to hold you to that,” I warned her.

Her expression relaxed immediately.

“It’s a date, lover-boy.”

“Flirt alert!” Bao shouted out spiritedly from the floor.

“Shh, I’m trying to zone it out…” Zahid responded softly, shutting his eyes for emphasis while smiling lightly at his joke.

The kitchen door opened behind me, and I turned in time to see a ruffled Harriet let out a detoxifying huff.

“Your sister is a bad influence…”

“I apologise on her behalf-”

“Nooo, don’t do that, Alex!” my sister called out from the kitchen. “I stand by my right to be naked!”

Past Kendal’s lewd giggling, I heard the distinct sound of the front door opening. Like a cat, I was suddenly on high alert.

“Guys… the front door…” I spoke quietly, my eyes trained on the living room door as though I could see through it if I looked hard enough.

“I heard it too,” Zahid replied, before audibly standing up from the sofa. Dakota clearly did the same, as she carefully moved ahead of me moments later, towards the door leading to the front hallway. Her hand was primed to summon and grasp her Lokon spear at a moment’s notice.

She pushed the living room door a little, and peered through the gap; then, almost immediately, she threw it open wide and rushed to the equally-open front door.

I didn’t even think, just followed after her in the certainty that she needed us to back her up.

I’m not sure, in that fleeting moment, what I expected to see. Maybe some kind of monster; maybe Saoirse entering and I’d completely misread Dakota’s urgency.

Instead, as I caught up to Dakota, I was confronted with the sight of Kayleigh, and Nick Riley, and half a dozen other men.

In Nick’s hands was Kayleigh’s backpack, stuffed with our weapons.

And while everyone else hurried into the hallway behind me, I noticed who else was stood there: Will.

Kayleigh. Nick. Will. All stood together like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Hey guys,” Kayleigh addressed us smugly. “Meet Dad.”

“Thank you for playing nicely with my daughter,” Nick added with barely-contained glee.

“No, fuck this,” Zahid snarled. “Fuck all of this. Kayleigh-”

“It’s been fun, Zahid,” she told him flippantly.

I looked at the weapons, glowing in the evening darkness. Surely Nick had made precautions to prevent us from simply summoning the weapons back?

I tensed my open hand in an effort to teleport my sword over to me. No luck.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one trying, as Nick laughed at us.

“Yeah, just wiggle your fingers like they’ll come back to you. I made some nice restrictor clamps, and Kayleigh attached them to the active terminals.”

The emblem ports, apparently – looking again, each one was masked by some kind of white dome-like object.

“You’re done, kids.”

He sneered triumphantly. That damn punchable face of his.

“You lost.”

A satisfied chuckle emerged from his throat as he turned away, carrying our weapons off. The others around him moved immediately after, while Kayleigh opted to blow Zahid (or perhaps all of us) a farewell kiss before joining them.

“Don’t just leave, damn it!” Zahid bellowed after her. None of them so much as turned around. We were completely neutered now; we posed them no threat.

Unlike the rest, Will lingered a little longer. His expression seemed almost remorseful.

“School. Midnight,” he told us lowly, before poking his chest with his thumb and then pointing at us with his index finger. With an extra light nod, he followed the rest of Nick’s cronies off into the street.

“Why aren’t we doing anything…?” Kendal asked behind me.

“What do you suggest? We rugby tackle him while all those other guys sit back and watch?” Zahid snapped.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Lucy informed us all with an almost sing-song tone, right as Dakota moved us back to close the door.

“That was the Nick guy I told you about before…” Kendal explained to her gently.

“Did we know Kayleigh was his daughter or not?”

“No, we didn’t…” I replied while following Dakota back into the living room.

“Guys…” Bao started. “I don’t wanna say I told you so, mainly because I’m not sure if I did…”

“Bao, dear, that’s a minefield you shouldn’t tread in…” Harriet’s voice followed.

Dakota paced the living room tensely, contemplative, face struck with concern. I thought better than to interrupt her thinking by asking if she was okay. She was surely trying to figure out our best course of action.

Chatter and bickering continued behind me, but I put curiosity to one side and tried to ignore it since it really didn’t help.

After maybe a minute of consideration, Dakota stopped pacing. She made a beeline for the hallway, and I made sure not to obstruct her path. The others snapped to attention as she moved through them.

“I’m going to call Clyde and Amelia, and Neil,” she explained as she arrived at the phone. “Then we’ll meet up with Will at midnight and see what he has to say.”

“Great, the shock broke your brain,” Zahid grunted. “You want us to walk into the most obvious trap-”

“What else could Nick want with us?” Dakota interrupted him. “He’s got the weapons. He knows we can’t do anything about that ourselves. If he wanted us dead – and I don’t see why he would – he could’ve gunned us down right here. There are houses right opposite the school so leading us there to shoot us doesn’t make sense, especially when we’ve got the time to call the adults. And Will was being as discreet as possible when he told us to meet him.”

Zahid said nothing while Dakota dialled the number Clyde and Amelia had given us.

“She was just thinking this through…” I pointed out to him under my breath, for which he gave me an annoyed glare.

…

We spent a nerve-wracking few hours trying to find something to do… though there was very little we could do to bide the time when we were so riled by everything that had happened. Zahid in particular was restless, and after we talked him out of leaving the house to go for a walk (in spite of the assumption that Nick no longer considers us a problem, a point he latched onto in the ensuing argument), he retreated up to the loft.

Seems that’s the go-to place to sulk and vent in this house…

Unsurprisingly, Lucy was the only one who didn’t show much stress. She opted to perform some songs for us at one point; supposedly to lift our spirits, though I feel like she just wanted the attention…

On the adult front, Clyde and Amelia were baffled when Dakota contacted them. Nick had apparently been completely under the radar for the past few months. They assured us they would be over before midnight. Neil also stated that he and the rest of the team would come down first thing tomorrow.

It was shortly after 10pm when Clyde and Amelia showed up, and they escorted Lucy and Harriet back home. We didn’t want them to be directly involved, and there was no need for them to meet with Will. Harriet complied willingly, even though she was nervous for us, while Lucy practically fought tooth and nail to stay.

Midnight came. The adults had driven us to the school, and were within sight in case something bad happened.

Will was waiting for us as we arrived, lingering in the shadows. It was strange, being outside of school at night. I’d been on school grounds in the evening, but even then there were still lights on both in the school and on the homes in the immediate area. There was nothing but streetlights and the night sky now.

“First things first,” Dakota spoke to Will as she led us towards him. “Tell us everything you know, and how the hell you got involved in this.”

“Hello to you too…” he muttered.

“Stop being a smart-arse and fucking talk,” Zahid growled back at him, still agitated.

Will sighed.

“It’s funny you’d be the most pissed off with all of this. This all started when you went off with her at the Christmas party.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I should’ve known it’d lead to all this,” my friend spat in frustration.

“Shut up and listen,” Will told him. Kendal put a hand on Zahid’s shoulder in an attempt to ease him.

“After you all went home, she took me aside and explained everything to me. Why she flirted with you the whole time. She was starting to get close to you so she could get the weapons.”

“This whole fucking time-”

“Easy,” Kendal soothed Zahid.

“Yeah. Basically,” our apparent nemesis nodded. “From what she told me, her dad tracked her down and offered her a slice of the pie. She’d never even met him before. Something about an underaged pregnancy or something…”

Marilyn. Nick’s old lover, who’d been part of Neil’s team and lead them into their fateful confrontation with Nick.

“Anyway. Her job was to enrol at the school, worm her way in with you, and then steal the weapons out from under your noses.”

“And she said ‘hey, we could do with some more teen representation, fancy joining us?’” Bao quipped.

“She has plans of her own,” Will continued. “Help him get the weapons, then steal them from him. Why have a slice of the pie when you can have the whole thing? She figured, if she could have Nick accept me too, she’d have an ally. We could turn on him together.”

He smiled a little, out of apparent amusement.

“The deal was we’d share in the riches. I believed her at first. Guess I was too smitten to suspect anything. But then I started to think… if she’s doing this because she wants those weapons for herself, why would she share them with me?”

“So… you hung around anyway and…?” I trailed off, trying to gather exactly what his motivation was.

“And figured out my own plan. Which is you.”

None of us said anything for a moment. I can’t speak for the others, but I was trying to catch myself after having been blown away.

“Let me get this straight,” Dakota eventually said. “You want to recruit our help to get the weapons from both Nick and Kayleigh, and then expect us to just hand them over to you?”

“I know how it sounds. And no, I don’t expect you to give me the weapons. But I want to be part of this with you. I want to understand that power. I want to find a way to use it myself, maybe, somehow. I’ve been picking Nick’s brain when I’ve had the chance, trying to find out how he made the weapons in the first place.”

He smiled at us lightly.

“I’m not an idiot. I figure you’ve got your reasons. I’m after a mutually-beneficial arrangement.”

“How do we know you’re not just reeling us in for Nick to do horrible things to us?” Kendal asked him with clear suspicion. I could hear the sole of her shoe grinding against the floor in agitation like a horse waiting to gallop.

“I guess you don’t,” Will shrugged as though it didn’t matter to him. “Come up with your own contingency plan if it helps you sleep. But you need me right now. You don’t know where Nick’s based and you don’t know your way around it. So if you’re that suspicious, you’ll have to figure out a way to stack the deck in your favour.”

Why this guy felt the need to talk like a Bond villain or something, I don’t know…

“By the way, we only have tomorrow. Nick’s preparing to relocate and set up shop somewhere else, and Kayleigh’s intending on stealing the weapons before then.”

“Then we better hash this out now,” Dakota responded firmly.

We came away from that moonlit meeting with a basic plan and Will’s mobile phone number.

…

By the time Clyde and Amelia dropped me off at home, it was almost 1am. And yet the living room light was on. Presumably, Mum was waiting up for me… what explanation could I possibly give her?

I tried the front door, and found it unlocked. Making sure to be quiet, I made my way inside and removed my shoes, before entering the living room. Exactly as I expected, Mum was sat there in her dressing gown, arms folded.

“Your sister said you were out egging houses with you friends… not that I believe her, of course,” she told me, somehow sounding accusatory all the same.

“Yeah, it wasn’t anything like that…” I spoke breezily, hoping to downplay my late night out.

“Alex. I’m glad you’re spending so much time out of the house.”

Hooray. Forever marked out as the weirdo where that’s worthy of note…

“But you can’t stay out this late without calling me. Honestly, you can’t stay out this late at all on a school night.”

And then she said it. The thing I didn’t want to hear.

“Is everything alright?”

“Mhm,” I nodded. “Time just got away from us… Dakota gets really carried away with video games, so…”

She stared at me for a few moments, trying to get a read on me, almost certainly not convinced that I was telling the truth. I was expecting to be reprimanded… expecting some kind of punishment. Once she finished, she stood up, walked over, and hugged me.

“I’m always here for you, Alex,” she stated gently.

I hugged back.

“I know…”

“Now, get to bed. School tomorrow.”