Chapter 18 #2
Euan’s pen scratched against the grid paper like a needle finding the groove in vinyl. He wasn’t writing poetry. He was writing a perimeter.
"State the facts," I murmured, leaning over his shoulder. I could smell the burnt-sugar panic coming off Alfie, who was hovering on Euan’s other side, vibrating like a plucked string. "Don't make it a manifesto."
"I am currently listing technical constraints," Euan muttered, the pen moving in sharp, angry strokes. "1. Zero-proximity enforced. 2. Common areas vacated. 3. Exit route unobstructed."
"It’s too cold," Alfie argued, reaching for the paper. "It reads like a parking ticket. Tell her... tell her not to be scared."
I caught Alfie’s wrist before he could smudge the ink. His pulse was thumping against my thumb, erratic, rabbit-fast. "If you tell her not to be scared, she’ll wonder why she should be. You don't tell someone the scaffolding is safe; you just don't shake it."
Alfie slumped, letting me guide his hand back to his side. "I hate this. I hate leaving her back there alone thinking we’re monsters."
"She doesn't think we're monsters," Cal said from the counter, dropping a tea bag into a mug with a soft plop. "She thinks you're three blokes who just told her gravity works differently around you. Give her a minute to adjust her physics."
Euan finished writing and capped the pen. He looked at the note, then at me. It was sparse. Clinical.
We are moving to the front cab. The lounge is yours. The exit is yours. We wait on your signal. - The Band.
"It’s proper," I said, nodding. It wasn't soft, but soft wasn't what Zia needed right now. She needed solid ground. "Cal, deliver it?"
"With the tea," Cal confirmed. He poured the water, Earl Grey, no milk, precise temperature. He set the folded grid paper on the saucer, weighing it down with the spoon so the bus vibration wouldn't rattle it off. "Go on then. Scarper."
"We're going," I said, grabbing Alfie by the scruff of his pink coat. "Come on, Riot. Forward march."
Moving to the front of the bus felt like tearing a muscle.
Every step away from the rear hallway, away from where Zia was hiding behind a curtain and a crisis, felt wrong.
My biology was screaming at me to go back, to sit outside her bunk like a guard dog, to check the locks, to offer my neck, to do something.
But I was the fixer. And right now, the only way to fix the house was to leave it.
We crowded into the driver's cab area. It was tight. The partition door slid shut behind us, sealing us off from the main lounge. Now it was just us, the road noise, and the back of our driver, Barry, who wisely didn't say a word, just turned the radio up a notch.
Alfie collapsed into the jump seat, pulling his knees to his chest. He looked small inside that ridiculous faux-fur coat. Euan sat on the floor, back against the partition door, closing his eyes as if he could listen through the steel and wood for her footsteps.
I leaned against the dashboard, staring out the massive windscreen at the M1 rolling by in the dark. Rain was starting to smear the glass.
"She has the Exit Card," Alfie whispered into his knees. "She keeps it in her back pocket. I saw the outline of it yesterday."
"Standard kit," Euan said, eyes still closed. "Rowan insisted."
"If she uses it," Alfie said, voice wet, "if she gets off at the next services and calls a cab... that's it, right? We can't chase."
"We can't chase," I confirmed, crossing my arms over my chest to keep them from shaking. "If she plays the card, the game is over. That was the deal. Seattle rules."
"We changed the rules," Alfie said miserably. "We bonded."
"We bonded," I corrected him, "she didn't. Not knowingly. You can't retrofit consent, Alfie. Biology isn't a contract she signed."
We fell silent. The wipers swished back and forth. Thwump, thwump. A metronome counting down the minutes until we found out if we still had an engineer, or if we were just three idiots with a triple match and a broken heart.
I checked my phone. No notifications. The group chat was dead silent.
"What's Cal doing?" Alfie asked.
"Making the space neutral," I said, picturing it. "He'll put the tea on the table. He'll sit on the sofa with a book. He won't look at the hallway. He'll be boring. Boring is safe."
"I wish I was boring," Alfie mumbled.
"You're a lot of things, mate," I said, cracking a weak grin at him. "Boring isn't on the rider."
"Alert," Euan said, eyes snapping open. He tapped his smartwatch. "Motion sensor in the rear corridor triggered."
The air in the cab instantly spiked, ozone and burning sugar and sesame snapping. We all froze.
"She's moving," I breathed.
"Towards the exit?" Alfie asked, half-rising.
"Unknown," Euan said, staring at the tiny screen on his wrist. "She is in the lounge. Heart rate... elevated but steady."
I squeezed my eyes shut, visualizing the layout. She’d be standing there. Seeing the empty room. Seeing the steam rising from the mug Cal left. Exploring the vacuum we left behind.
"Hold the line," I told them, though I was mostly telling myself. "Let her breathe."