Chapter 14 #2
Luckily for them, there were two orange helmets looped around the safety railing, so Taylor plopped one onto his head. He’d always fancied himself a hot contractor on a building site. Maybe a bricklayer, or a plasterer. Those jobs looked satisfying as hell.
“Fine!” Amil finally said. “But I am definitely telling the sarge that this was your idea when we inevitably fall to our deaths.”
Taylor smirked, holding out a hand again, and to his surprise, Amil took it. He let Taylor slide the second helmet onto his head, but drew the line at letting him clip it into place.
“I’ve got it,” Amil said, slapping Taylor’s hands away.
“Roger, Roger,” Taylor replied, flipping open a covered switch labelled ‘start’ and then another that said ‘unlock.’
Amil shrieked when the lift shuddered to life, so Taylor gripped his arm to steady him. He didn’t pull away, which was a surprise in itself, but Taylor could feel the tension pouring out of his shoulders.
“You don’t have to come up, you know? I was only messing. You can wait for me at the bottom.”
Amil only huffed and shook his head.
“Alright,” Taylor murmured, letting his thumb hover over the green button. “Up we go.”
After a few seconds of shaking, shuddering and some seriously badass looking hydraulics sliding into place, the platform began to rise. “Nice,” Taylor said, pressing the button harder, which made the lift rise faster.
He looked down at Amil, who was holding on to the railing for dear life. “Open your eyes, Rose,” he said, jostling Amil’s shoulder.
“Fuck you,” Amil spat, swiping at his hand. “I am not opening my eyes, you prat.” His legs started wobbling, and Taylor had to catch him under his arm.
“Oh shit, are you afraid of heights?” he said, gripping Amil’s stab vest to hold him up.
Amil turned his head away. “No, this is just a stupid, stupid idea.”
“Because if you’re afraid of heights, I’ll take you back down.”
“No! Just… just get up there, so we can help the kid.”
The lift juddered some more, so Taylor let Amil sink onto his knees. “You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone, you know? It’s only me and you here.”
“I know that,” Amil snapped back. “I’m not trying to prove anything, I just—” He groaned, resting his head against Taylor’s leg. “I don’t want people to think I’m weak.”
Sighing, Taylor patted the top of Amil’s helmet. “I get that. But you don’t have to act like an arsehole every second of the day. I know you’re brave. Sargie knows you’re brave, and if you’re trying to impress her I could probably—”
Amil snarled, thumping his head against Taylor’s thigh. “Will you stop saying shit like that? I do not fancy Isla, and she doesn’t fancy me. We came to Dingly Heath at the same time after I—”
He let out a frustrated sound and clamped his mouth shut.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter. She’s not interested in me and I’m only interested in om—” He shut his mouth again, and when Taylor glanced down it looked like he was trying to chew his bottom lip off.
They reached the second floor, where parts of the lead flashing had started to come away, and Taylor had to pull Amil to the side to stop a piece from stabbing him in the foot. Amil reached up and gripped his hand, so Taylor squeezed it tight.
“Can’t blame you,” Taylor said, looking up at the approaching roof. “Omegas are pretty nice. Not you though. You’re minging.”
When he looked down again he saw the ghost of a smile creasing Amil’s mouth. “Thanks,” he whispered, pressing the heel of his palm into his eye. “You don’t… you don’t need to keep doing that. I know you aren’t a dick.”
Taylor tipped his head and grinned. “Well… I mean… I am a dick, a lot of the time.”
Amil laughed. “Thanks for not saying something like ‘Oh, well you just haven’t met the right alpha yet. I’ll show you what a real knot feels like.’ I get that all the fucking time.”
Taylor sighed, his face warming as memories of Johnny’s hot, hard knot chose that moment to invade his thoughts. The way it slid beneath Taylor’s, all wet and pulsing. He swallowed hard.
“Um, yeah. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.”
Squinting, Taylor looked up at the lip of the roof and wished the lift would just fucking hurry up.
His mind was wandering again, taking him to places he didn’t want to go, like how Johnny’s hair smelled when it was damp with sweat, how his hands felt when they gripped Taylor’s thighs, or how he’d looked up at him like Nala during that one song from The Lion King.
He shivered, because that was one hot lion.
Shit, Johnny had looked good. He always looked good. He was allowed to say that, right? That his best friend looked good all laid out beneath him? Or that when they smashed their mouths together Taylor would have happily choked to death on Johnny’s tongue.
Bugger.
Bugger.
Bugger.
He was never going to be able to look at Johnny’s mouth the same way, was he?
His deep bow, the smoothness of his top lip compared to the slightly chapped bottom.
The way they were two different colours, the bottom one pinker than the top.
And his tongue, so soft and wet. And Johnny better never lick a lollipop again or Taylor might have to—
“Why do you look constipated all of a sudden?” Amil said, ripping Taylor out of his dirty, dirty thoughts.
Taylor laughed—manically—because that felt like the only appropriate response. “This should be high enough,” he said, voice strained as he stopped the lift at the edge of the roof. “Shout over the radio and let Aquaman know to bring that inflatable pad thingy, just in case.”
There was a narrow walkway snaking between two pitched roofs, with industrial sized air vents poking up from the tiles. A flat patch of roof lay at the end with a massive, ancient looking air conditioning unit, and Taylor had no idea how the fuck a kid managed to get inside it.
“Do you want to stay here?” he said, elbowing Amil’s shoulder.
“Ah… yeah,” he replied, tapping his radio. “I’ll update the sarge.”
Taylor nodded, gently settling Amil so he sat with his back pressed to the lift control panel.
He couldn’t deny that when he stepped out onto the roof there was a moment where his legs turned to jelly and he thought he was going to have to ask the fire brigade to rescue him after all.
But fuck that, and fuck the fire service, because it passed after a couple of seconds all on its own.
He took a breath and looked around. The views were really quite stunning from up high.
On one side it was endless fields, all neatly tilled by farmers who probably had severe OCD.
On the other—on the Falkington side—there were ugly concrete high-rises and storm clouds that seemed to hang over that area in particular.
Maybe West Newton wasn’t so bad after all.
He caught the smell of weed almost immediately, and he braced a hand against one of the sloped roofs as he stepped awkwardly between them. It was easier said than done in all his kit, because it was like walking a tightrope with a lopsided, two-stone weight on his back.
He sniffed. It didn’t smell like the kid was smoking it at that precise moment in time, but it was strong enough that it made his nose wrinkle.
Reaching the end of the walkway, Taylor looked back and gave Amil a thumbs up. Amil responded with the middle finger, so he knew he must be alright. Taylor rolled his eyes before stepping around the corner and onto the flat section of the roof.
There were glass skylights running all along the middle section, and shitting tits if that didn’t give Taylor the most unpleasant sense of inertia. He pictured that one scene from Final Destination, where the guy fell through a roof and his femurs shot up through his armpits in a fountain of blood.
The air conditioning unit hummed, and Taylor realised there were more vents attached to the side of it. All of them were closed, but he could hear movement echoing from behind two of them.
Well, screw breaking both his legs, because he immediately lurched forwards and hooked his fingers into one of the metal grates and pulled.
It opened more easily than expected, and there came a sudden high-pitched squeal, followed by a barrage of swearing, kicking legs and flailing arms. Taylor threw his head back as a pair of ratty old trainers nearly knocked his teeth out, eyes going wide when he realised who it was.
“William?” he said, leaning back and bracketing his arms either side of the vent. “Jesus, kid. What’re you doing up here?”
“Go away!” William cried, his lips peeling back over his tiny teeth. “Go away, go away!”
Taylor took a breath, clenching his jaw as William started pummelling his stab vest. He was dirty and pale, and smelled like damp, which Taylor guessed meant he’d been out there all night.
“Stop it,” Taylor said, gripping William’s shoulder.
“Go away!”
“What’re you doing here, dude? Don’t you know how dangerous it is?”
“I don’t care, I don’t care!” William cried, backing off and pressing himself into the corner of the small enclosure.
Taylor realised he was sitting on a grate, and the shuddering sound had come from the fan kicking on beneath it. It sucked the air in, making the vent go cold.
“Look, just come here, okay? We’ll get you down and take you—”
“No!” William cried, tears making fresh tracks down his grubby cheeks. “I don’t want to. Leave me alone.”
Taylor snapped his head back as William threw another punch. Sucking his teeth, he said, “Um, yeah. Not happening, my guy.”
Despite the aggression, William’s eyes were wide and watery, his chin quivered and his brown hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in weeks. He smelled terrible, but more than anything else he looked exhausted.
“What happened?” Taylor asked, using the most soothing voice he could muster.
“Nothing!” William yelled, gripping the front of his ragged coat and curling himself into a ball. He pulled it over his head, so Taylor used the opportunity to press the talk-through button on his radio.
“PC Campbell to Sergeant Wilson?”