Halfbreeds: Real World, #1

Chapter one

On the scrubby, slightly overgrown and browning lawn behind a small Victorian terraced house, two fair-haired boys, five years apart in age, wrestled roughly, each prepared to beat the other into submission. A short distance away, around the worn yellow Formica topped table dragged out from the kitchen sat three adults: the two parents of the boys and another man: Scott. Scott spent most of his spare time in the home of his best friend, Alex. The two men had been good friends since beginning school and inseparable since, something the marriage of one hadn’t changed.

Overhead, an azure sky only scudded by the occasional wisp of feathery cloud let down the hot sun that scorched the grass and parched the soil even more. It was late July, the beginning of the school summer holidays and the two boisterous boys were looking forward to the weeks of running riot with their friends in the streets, endless games of football and maybe the occasional ice cream.

As another news report began on the transistor radio perched in the open kitchen window, Scott almost groaned when it began with yet more about the pointless moon landing a few days ago. He was sick to death with hearing about it, Neil bloody Armstrong and Buzz sodding Aldrin. And what sort of stupid name was Buzz anyway? The sort of moronic nick-name only Americans could inflict on each other. It was all a waste of time and money, about nothing more than getting there before the Russians; yet another stick to beat the Reds with. As if any of that shit really mattered. Scott’s life consisted of working to pay for drinking in the pub and pulling a skirt whenever the opportunity arose. Though he knew he wasn’t an attractive man, there was something about him that women always fell for. He didn’t know what the something was but chose not to question his good fortune when it meant he got a bird pretty much whenever he wanted.

Around halfway between the scrapping boys and the group of adults, stood a very lonely, small six year old girl, Natalie. She had almost-ripe corn coloured hair scraped up in tight pigtails that pulled painfully on her scalp, and pale blue eyes that often disconcerted people. Her narrow face pinched with indecision about where in the garden she should go, Natalie hovered uncertainly on her own, knowing she probably wouldn’t be welcome whichever group she tried to join. Her brothers never wanted her company, the oldest, Robbie, always making that fact abundantly clear to the little girl, usually with a hard thrown fist. Natalie didn’t want to begin collecting bruises when Robbie was going to be around all day every day for weeks to come. By the time they all went back to school she would probably be struggling to hide the discolouration anyway, so there was not point getting started too soon.

If her mother had been out doing the shopping, Natalie wouldn’t have hesitated to go and sit with her father. Alex was the only one in the family who could bear having Natalie around. But Joan was at home and would unfailingly manage to make her daughter feel as if she shouldn’t show her face with the rest of the family, as if she didn’t belong. Natalie knew her mother didn’t want her, though didn’t know why. Most of the time the girl endeavoured not to attract the attention of her mother and brothers, kept out of their way as much as she could, so she couldn’t work out what it was she had done wrong. But Joan Woods made her daughter aware of the fact she was always to blame. If only Natalie knew what for.

Seeing his daughter was all on her own again, Alex called the girl over. Natalie ran to him immediately, one of her rare smiles lighting her face for a moment as he drew her up onto his lap and wrapped a thick arm around her skinny frame and held her close. She snuggled into the broad chest that was nearly all the comfort she had ever known. To Natalie, her dad wasn’t simply the only one in the house who loved her; he was his daughter’s god, a benevolent deity who gave her solace.

But Alex wasn’t her only god, not by any means. Natalie’s eyes strayed to Scott.

The bloody kid was fucking staring at him again!

If it wasn’t for the fact Alex was the nearest he had to family, Scott wouldn’t come round here during the day. Between the bitch Alex had been duped into marrying and the freaky bloody kid that gawped at him endlessly, Scott didn’t feel all that relaxed. The two boys were just background noise to Scott, no more significant than a fly buzzing around, easily ignored or warned away with a waved hand of dismissal. But not this bloody kid with her constant staring that was really starting to give Scott the willies. There was something unnatural about her, something . . . wrong. He didn’t know what it was. Though he had never given a monkey’s about kids one way or the other, this peculiar daughter of his friend had always struck him as being different, strange, just not right.

It was better when Scott and Alex could escape to the pub, then they could both act as they always had, picking up birds for a quick knee-trembler after closing time. And drinking as much as they bloody well wanted, until they were both ready to spew, not caring that they would be suffering for it the next day.

Nights like that were rare these days; that bitch Joan always wanted to go with her husband when he went out, which basically put the kibosh on either man pulling. Scott was pretty damn certain the lazy bitch had got pregnant deliberately, just so she could get Alex to marry her. Get knocked up and it was off down the aisle with the poor sod unlucky enough to get caught out. That was never happening to Scott, never in a million years. If he ever got stuck with a calculating, manipulative bitch like Joan and a bunch of fucking snotty kids, Scott would throw himself under the nearest bus rather than endure like Alex did.

Jesus Christ! Why was that bloody kid always staring?

Light a fag. Try to ignore it. Don’t look at her or you’ll glare, and Alex wouldn’t like that. Just keep pretending it wasn’t happening.

These sort of phrases had become a mantra to Scott, helping preserve his sanity when he was visiting. The mantras kept him from belting the bloody kid. One day he was sure he was going to snap, and then he would shout at her, lash out, just because he had to get her fucking eyes off him!

Natalie’s eyes roamed over Scott’s features. Though he had never spoken to her, Scott Carling was Natalie’s favourite person in the whole world. Every time he came round to see her father, Natalie would spend as much time as she could looking at him, as if her eyes were permanently thirsty and Scott was the most quenching drink in existence. Just his presence in her home made her happier than anything else could, even going to stay with her granny, which was the only place Natalie didn’t feel like some kind of infectious disease.

As Natalie’s ice-blue eyes tracked over the features she knew by heart, she drank in Scott’s glossy, loose black curls that fell to the collar of his shirt, his bright eyes that were as blue as the practically cloudless sky above, his aquiline nose and high forehead, his sharp cheekbones and chin hinting at a five o’clock shadow as ebony black as his hair. His thin-lipped mouth was set in a harsh line; Natalie knew she was the cause of that. She knew every expression those features arranged themselves into, including the one he had now, the one he always had when he was trying to pretend he didn’t know Natalie was looking at him. It was the expression she knew most of all. She knew he was irritated with her, but then everyone seemed to get irritated with Natalie, so she didn’t take Scott’s irritation particularly to heart.

Just once, Natalie would love it if Scott would really look at her properly and smile. That would make up for everything else.  He could do it now. Right now. Just turn your head and look at me, she willed, even as she knew it was pointless hoping for it to happen. Please look at me, she added futilely. But she had these thoughts every single day of her life. One day that dream had to come true. One day Scott would look at her properly and say her name and smile. If he didn’t, what was the point of her being alive?

Natalie had often wondered what it would be like not to exist. She never told anyone. There was only her daddy and her granny who would listen anyway. Natalie didn’t like to bother anyone. If she told her father or grandmother about the things she thought they would only worry, or mention it to her mother, who would then be on at Natalie constantly. Even more constantly than now.

But she did try to work out if there was a way she could simply not be any longer. She had seen safety films at school and wondered if there was a way to recreate any of the things the films said were so dangerous. She suspected pain would be involved, but just getting through an average day involved some sort of pain, so she thought she could deal with that.

It was only the thought of never being able to see Scott Carling that stopped Natalie climbing up to the high roof of her school and getting too close to the edge of it, or running out into the road when a big lorry was coming, or drinking the bleach her mother kept under the sink. She knew more ways than just those to die. Lots of them. She thought about each one. She went through everything she would have to do, practicing every step involved several times over within the privacy of her mind.

It was only her obsession with a grown man that kept her from finding a way to stop breathing. Scott was more important to her than anyone. His presence in her home, her life, kept her battling on through each new day.

Neither her father or her grandmother, or even the new friend Natalie had at school - the first friend Natalie had ever had in her life - were quite enough to make up for having a mother who hated her, a brother who made her want to curl up in a corner and cry until she had been completely washed away. Natalie never cried though. If Robbie ever saw her eyes looking red or her nose all snotty, he would punch her hard in the ribs, and Natalie had to hide the bruises from her father.

The one time Alex had seen the evidence of Robbie’s abominable behaviour on Natalie’s bony ribcage, he had questioned his wife over it. Joan claimed it happened to Natalie at playgroup - even though she had been watching Robbie as he threw his fist hard into Natalie’s body. Joan refused to see that her darling son ever put a foot wrong. It was always Natalie’s fault that she got hurt; she wound her brother up, Joan stated. When Robbie hit Natalie, Natalie got sent to her room for aggravating him. Danny was allowed to fight back. Boys will be boys, Joan said.

After that, Alex realised what had been happening and made a lot more effort to keep an eye on the goings on in his home, often keeping Natalie with him to protect her. But no amount of talking to Joan would make her change her attitude towards their daughter. Alex had tried his damndest to find out why Joan seemed to loathe the sight of Natalie. But Joan wouldn’t even acknowledge that was the case. And there was only so much Alex could do to protect his daughter when he was out at work every day.

The Friday night after that incident, with the then three year old Natalie, had been the first time Alex had resumed his previous womanising. Picking up a pretty young brunette in the pub, Alex had given her a thorough seeing to on the back seat of the family’s Ford Anglia. It was petty really, he knew, a small rebellion by a man who felt impotent at home, proof he was still a man. How could he change the way Joan behaved when she didn’t think there was anything wrong? It frustrated Alex and left him needing to deal with that frustration in the most basic way.

The rot had set into Alex’s marriage for good in that week, and now he was left contemplating divorce on a nearly daily basis. All that stopped him going to see a solicitor was the stigma that would attach to his children when people found out they came from a broken home. Yes, divorce was easier than it used to be, but kids of divorced parents still got called bastards. And how would he be able to explain to anyone that Joan was a perfectly loving mother to two of their children and an uncaring bitch to the third? No one would ever believe that.

The last few years might have seen women burning their bras to express a desire for equality, and Alex didn’t really blame them - who wanted to feel inferior? He certainly didn’t want it for Natalie when she grew up. Poofs didn’t get arrested for being poofs any longer, behind closed doors anyway. But not a great deal had really changed. It was still less than ten years since that barmy obscenity trial for Lady Chatterly’s Lover.

Alex knew what Scott thought about his and Joan’s marriage, though the two men never spoke of it; men didn’t talk about stuff like that. Alex had his own suspicions about his wife and when exactly she had got pregnant. He wasn’t entirely convinced Robbie was his. It might be Alex’s name on the birth certificate, but that didn’t mean it was his blood in the boy’s veins. At the time, he had been too distracted by how easily Joan had spread her legs to think about who else she might have done it for.

At least Alex knew Natalie was his daughter. She looked like the photos of Alex’s mother when she was young, right down to those penetrating light blue eyes that seemed to hold thoughts way beyond a child’s years. But Natalie didn’t have Alex’s mother’s humour. Natalie was a quiet, solemn little girl who hardly ever smiled, often didn’t speak much, unless Joan was out and then it was almost impossible to get the girl to stop talking.

Alex knew, deep down, Natalie was too quiet. He knew a lot of people found his daughter uncomfortable to be around and put that down to her somber nature. Maybe if she smiled and laughed more, people would feel more relaxed around her. He knew Scott found Natalie unsettling, but then Natalie did seem to stare at Scott a lot. Maybe it was because Scott never looked back. Kids could be queer like that, like cats singling out people who hated them.

Twining one pigtail round his fingers, Alex pulled the little girl closer for a moment, whispered to her she was Daddy’s favourite girl, and promised to read her a bedtime story before he went to the pub.

* * *

Her eyelids shooting open suddenly, Natalie heaved air into her panicked lungs, sweat beading her forehead and top lip, her body full of adrenaline from the strange dream of being pursued by the red-eyed threat, the sound of sirens. None of the images clarified enough for her to remember properly, remaining a jumble of fear.

Her shoulder hurt. It throbbed and stung, as if something had torn all the skin off it.

Feeling a hand over it gingerly, Natalie was surprised to find she wasn’t bleeding. When she put her fingers on the pain, it didn’t even really hurt. The pain wasn’t hers. She didn’t know whose it was. Someone important. Someone vital.

Still terrified, Natalie buried her head under the tangle of blankets and tried to stop her heart racing, blood pounding in her ears so she couldn’t hear properly. It had only been a dream; it wasn’t real.

Keep saying that, a little voice in the back of her head told her. Say it enough and you might believe it. Just like the things in the dark. Everyone told her they were her imagination, as if they could make it so by saying it constantly. As if they could convince Natalie that was the case. Natalie knew the things were real. They pressed against her window at night. She felt their eyes on her if the curtains weren’t properly closed. She hid under the blankets then too, petrified of approaching the window and shutting the curtains properly herself. It didn’t matter how hot she got at night in the summer, nothing would persuade her to leave the wooden sash open even a crack. She often woke crying in the night, feeling the things pressing in on her.

In the suffocating air under her covers, Natalie kept her fingers pressed on her shoulder to stop it hurting and screwed her eyes tightly shut, counting her breaths in and out as a way of trying to settle herself.

By the time her small body began to slacken into a natural sleep, dawn was creeping like the thief of sleep over the horizon.

* * *

Waking the next morning, Natalie still remembered her odd dream. The fear she had felt still lingered whilst she found clothes in the small built-in cupboard in the corner of her small bedroom that served as a wardrobe. She pulled on a pale green pinafore dress and leather sandals, and headed down the stairs, stretching to try and make her short legs reach over the top tread that always creaked. She had done it every morning since she had discovered she had finally grown enough to manage.

Natalie didn’t know what had changed overnight, but the two people wearing the faces of her parents were strangers, jumpy and nervous strangers. Neither spoke. Joan didn’t even find anything to shout at Natalie about, just put a bowl of cornflakes and a drink of milk in front of her daughter with shaking hands.

Swinging her legs as she ate in silence, Natalie watched her father. He looked  . . . different. Scared. His hands shook too as he lifted his mug of very strong, almost tar-like tea to his lips. Natalie wanted to ask him what was wrong, but she didn’t like speaking in front of her mother. Drawing Joan’s attention was never a good idea.

You slept late, Alex finally said as Natalie wondered if she could get away with lifting her cereal bowl to drink the last of the milk out of it. Joan didn’t seem to be watching for an excuse to shout this morning, so Natalie might be able to do it.

Natalie nodded, waiting for the inevitable noise of annoyance or disapproval from Joan. It never came.

Another bad dream? Alex asked his daughter, a tremble in his voice. He was aware of how often Natalie woke in the night. A silent little girl with a far too vivid imagination. She usually had smudges of tiredness under her eyes of ice, making them look even paler in comparison.

Alex wanted to think about something other than what had happened last night. He needed time to adjust before daring to think about it all, to accept that not only was his friend gone, but that things Alex had always written off as fiction might actually be . . . real. He didn’t dare contemplate that those nightmarish monsters might have killed Scott. Though Alex had tried ringing the hospital, he couldn’t get any news of his friend because he wasn’t a relative. But there wasn’t anyone else around to check up on Scott. Now it seemed he had disappeared, but Alex couldn’t bring himself to go to the police. Who would believe the tale he would have to tell?

Finishing her breakfast quickly and nodding in response to her father’s question, Natalie escaped the strangeness and returned to her bedroom, waiting to re-emerge when Scott arrived. It was Sunday, so he would be round a bit later. If her father went out with Scott on Saturday night, neither man rose all that early the next day. But her father was already up; normally he wouldn’t come down until nearly lunchtime and then he would look and sound ill, often hiding away from any bright light for a few hours. She knew that his temporary illness had something to do with what he drank in the pub.

Natalie waited and waited. Lunchtime came and went. Then teatime. Natalie stayed in her room and waited, only going downstairs to sit at the table at meal time with her brothers and the peculiar parents the siblings had now.

Scott still hadn’t come by the time Natalie was settled into bed by her father. Alex sat on the side of her bed and read her a story as usual, but he was tense, wary, not really concentrating on the book he held. Puzzled and more than a little unhappy about not seeing Scott, Natalie was eventually overcome by sleep. She didn’t dream that night, as if there was an emptiness in her head, like it was hollowed out by the previous night’s nightmare, or as if she was missing something crucial from her life, something that fired her mind.

Scott never came, not that day or the next, or the next after that. Natalie wanted to ask her father where Scott was. But her parents seemed to want to be together all the time. They talked together in whispers constantly, falling silent when they noticed Natalie or her brothers’ close by.

The whole week slowly ground past without Scott coming. Another week passed by, leaving Natalie numb to every thump Robbie dished out.

As the weeks turned to months and the children were back in school, Natalie’s family seemed to have forgotten Scott had ever existed. No one ever mentioned his name. Natalie didn’t forget, secretly saying his name all the time to herself. Natalie missed his presence in her home constantly, like something had been pulled from her insides, something she needed to keep her alive.

Without him around, the thoughts of not existing anymore got more and more enticing. More than once, she made her way to the locked door that stopped her getting to the roof of her school. If she had ever found it unlocked, she would have gone through it.

Chapter two

Strapped to a hospital bed, Scott screamed as a thick, long needle injected a serum directly into his heart, pushing through skin, past ribs to the right of his sternum, then on into the muscled pump beyond.

He kept screaming as his reluctant heart forced the serum around his veins. Every thud of the organ in his chest was an agony, a battle between two very different worlds, one human and one . . . other.

He couldn’t hear a thing beyond his screams of pain, as the fluid in his veins burned him from the inside out, scorching through every fiber of his being, turning his flesh to ashes. His body fought the changes forced on it. It fought the help being given to slow the changes.

Something in his throat ruptured, leaving him unable to release the screams for a while. Then it repaired itself, giving him the outlet for the excruciating torment.

For hours, days, weeks, he didn’t know how long, there had only been this torture. It scoured him until all he knew was the sound of his screams, and the face of the woman.

She had been there from the beginning, urging him to keep fighting, not to give in. She told Scott she was waiting for him, she loved him, and she needed him in order to live herself.

Scott screamed her name, desperate to reach her, knowing she was his reward for enduring. If not for her, he would have given in a thousand times over.

Thirst clawed at the inside of his throat, stripping it bear with sharp talons, lacerating him inside, all the way to his gut. He was given a drink, a heavenly drink that quenched the thirst. It was thick, slightly metallic, rich and satisfying in a way no other drink had ever been before.

Another injection. More pain. More screaming.

How long had he been in this purgatory?

He was given more of the delicious nectar and his body stirred. A woman moved over him, doing all the work, as he was still strapped down. She rode him until he exploded.

Injection.

Pain.

Drink.

Sex.

The pattern kept going over and over and over again, endlessly repeating the cycle of pain and pleasure. And through it all was the face of the woman, the one Scott somehow knew was his and his alone. Whoever she was, she was his reason to exist. If not for her, he knew he would have succumbed and let go of his life. She stayed there with him though, urging him to fight, to breathe, to live, because she needed him as much as he needed her.

She was his comfort, his guiding light; his heart and soul.

His Natalie.

* * *

Last one I think, Mr Carling, a man said beside Scott, his expression one of compassion controlled by his commitment to end the curse that had attacked all those in his care. Best brace yourself. It’s always the worst.

The needle pressed against the bare skin of Scott’s chest, scratching as it punctured. It forced its way through the pectoralis major muscle, eased between his ribs, pierced his heart.

Scott screamed, the sound ripping apart his vocal chords yet again, only for them to heal in moments.

Yes, it sounds like you’re nearly done, the man added, his voice tinged with the guilt he could never escape for inflicting this agony on another living creature.

Why do you do this to them, Dad? a young girl asked, knowing it was her fate to do her father’s job one day. She hated coming to work with her father, but never passed up an opportunity to do so. There was something macabrely fascinating about seeing the birth of a new creature. Though the girl was dreading the day she would be the one giving these injections, she also felt a strange excitement too. Just as soon as her medical studies were done. Before that, she had to finish school. This job her father did was her vocation, had been for generations of her family, going back nearly two centuries. Maybe she would be the one to discover a true cure?

Because it’s all we can do, Patricia. They can make a new life, start all over again. Search for their mate. It’s this or death, the man answered over Scott’s endless, ear-splitting screams. "Come back when Mr Carling is settled with his mate and ask him if he would rather suffer this all over again and then mate, or if he preferred to die, and I can tell you exactly which answer he will give you. That is why I do this, Pat. That is why you must do this when you’re qualified to work alongside me.

"Our family has dedicated generations to this work. It is in our blood, as much as the infection is in Mr Carling’s. This is why we exist: to minimize the effects of the infection and return these unfortunate victims to a life they want."

The doctor paused for a moment and contemplated the expression on his daughter’s face for a moment, seeing her fascination conflicting with her repulsion. "Perhaps it is time you went to see Lady Victoria. She will make you see why we must do this work."

She was the first, wasn’t she? the girl asked. Shouted, trying to be heard over the screams in the room. The noise echoed off the walls with nothing but the bed to muffle them.

Yes, Pat. Lady Victoria was attacked when she was suffering from a severe mental strain following the death of her only child. She spent decades here after her treatment. Ask her if she would give that up for peace in a grave, or suffer it all over again to have her mate at her side and she will choose her mate in an instant. The doctor tightened the straps holding Scott down. Now, let’s leave Mr Carling to ride out the last of this in peace. He is close to the end now. It should be over by tomorrow.

* * *

Welcome back to the world of the living, Mr Carling.

Scott watched in wary silence as the doctor loosened and removed the straps holding him down. He recognised the voice of the doctor and associated it with pain. It made him hurt just to hear it now, made him remember how much agony it was to have the huge needle pushed deep into his chest.

My name is Dr Lindsay. From now on, I will be the only doctor you will ever need to have contact with.

Where am I? Scott croaked, feeling as if his throat had been reamed out with a particularly course file. He didn’t recognise his own voice and gave a careful, experimental cough to see if it would work a bit better in a moment. The pain in it was easing already though. After a couple more seconds, everything felt normal again.

London. You will stay here a little longer, until you get your bearings and get your cravings under control. Then you can decide what to do with your future. If you wish to return to Sheffield, that is entirely your choice.

Released from the restraints, Scott pulled himself upright, the aching and bone-deep weary feeling dropping away the moment his muscles flexed. What does that mean?

It will all be explained in time, Mr Carling. For now, I should imagine you want to concentrate on more physical needs. There is a shower through that door, and clean clothes. Dr Lindsay nodded to a door on the other side of the sparsely fitted room. Other than the bed, there was only a window. "Once you’re clean, you will need to feed. Someone will come to go through the procedure with you. She will be available to satisfy all your needs and has a great deal of experience in doing so. But I must ask you not to look her directly in the eye."

Scott rolled his loosening shoulders back a few times, relieved to be free of his restraints. A shower sounded like heaven right now. An explanation certainly wouldn’t go amiss either.

Please, have patience, Mr Carling, Dr Lindsay added, as if he knew exactly what Scott had been thinking. Everything will be explained in time. The first thing to deal with once you’re ready is your mate. This Natalie. Once you have satisfied your most immediate needs, we should try to establish if she is someone already treated or from amongst your previous acquaintances. Of course, it may be you haven’t yet met her.

Chapter three

One year later

Waking abruptly from another of the strange dreams she kept having, Natalie sat up and rubbed her eyes, glancing across to the window to reassure herself the curtains were properly closed. She always asked her father to double check them before he turned out her light, often more than once, just to be sure.

Mouth gaping around a wide yawn, she reflected on why the strange dreams seemed to stave off her desire to end her life. They felt so important, but they were always too hard to grasp hold of when she woke. She tried once more to close her mind around the elusive images, and failed again. All she knew was that as long as she kept having them, she couldn’t take an easier way out.

Opening and closing her mouth on the tackiness of sleep, she remembered only the black eyes that had held hers. They were full of an intensity she didn’t understand. But she liked the darkness of them. They made her think of being completely safe, tucked away in a place where none of the things could ever reach her.

Deciding she needed a drink of water before she tried to get back to sleep, Natalie slipped out from under the heap of blankets she had been burrowed into and reached for the red dressing gown that always lay across the foot of her bed. The sleeves were too short for her arms, hovering at least an inch from her wrists, and the bottom hem brushed half way up her shins. She knew she wouldn’t get a replacement until she could no longer force herself into it. This was the only dressing gown she had ever had and, at the rate she grew, it was doubtful she would ever have another.

Natalie crept out onto the landing, hearing Robbie snoring and Danny mumbling in his sleep in the bigger bedroom they shared. Her own room might be tiny, but at least she didn’t have to suffer her brothers’ noise at night. Stretching her short legs to get over the creaky top step, she tiptoed down the stairs, feeling that tiny hint of triumph that had never left her at overcoming the creak, and slipped into the dark kitchen. By the sliver of light coming in from the hall, she found the plastic beaker her father had half-filled for her before bedtime still sat beside the sink. Now she just had to get the cold tap to work. She could pull a chair over to the sink, but she wanted to reach without, to prove to herself her body did grow a little bit.

In the sitting room, she could hear her parents talking to someone.

We owe you our lives, Alex said warmly, gratitude apparent even to Natalie. She didn’t understand what it meant so she concentrated her attention on the difficult tap again, balancing on the tips of her toes like a ballet dancer to reach it, her fingers only just curling around the four spokes on top.

We’ll give you what you need, Joan added in a strained tone. Natalie knew that tone well. It was the one her mother kept for when she wanted to say the opposite of what was coming out of her mouth.

Thank you. That voice made Natalie quiver with happiness, though she hadn’t heard it in what felt like a very long time. Far too long. That voice was everything.

The tap finally gave up resisting Natalie’s grasp and water burbled and gurgled through the pipes. As usual, it ran out of momentum just as it reached the tap, spluttering a bit before trickling out at a pace that seemed to say it was too tired to travel any further.

Shh! That was Natalie’s mother.

The bare bulb hanging from the kitchen ceiling flicked on and Natalie blinked from the sudden glare assaulting her pupils, contracting them to pinpoints. Natalie clutched her beaker that had taken so much effort to fill.

What are you doing up? Alex demanded, glaring at his daughter crossly. What if she had heard something? He didn’t want her to know anything about what he had just learned. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know any of it himself, but the relief Scott was alright pushed all other concerns aside for now.

Confused by why getting a drink of water warranted being shouted at, Natalie took a sip of it before replying nervously, Nothing.

Alex smiled then, wishing he hadn’t snapped when Joan did it quite enough for both of them. He went to take Natalie’s drink and put it on the table, then lifted her into his arms, perching her above his beefy wrist. Relieved he didn’t seem to be angry anymore, Natalie hugged his neck tightly.

Steady on, Natty, Alex chuckled. Natty was his special name for her, one he only used when Joan wasn’t about. Natalie loved to hear that name because it meant, at that moment, she had all her father’s attention. I still need to breathe, he added.

Natalie released his neck and snuggled into the expanse of his chest, the one place she always felt warm and secure.

As Alex carried her from the kitchen, flicking the light off behind them, Natalie got to see who it was visiting her parents and her heart did a happy little dance in her chest.

Scott stood in the sitting room doorway. Affecting a bored, indifferent pose, he crossed his arms over the black shirt covering his chest and leaned on the doorframe. Natalie’s eyes were fixed on him, excitement fizzing through her because he was finally back. Scott scowled in her direction and raised black eyes up to hers. Natalie smiled as he finally looked at her properly. Scott didn’t. At first he scowled. Then he looked confused. Natalie thought his eyes were so black they made the coal in the scuttle look grey. All those shades of deepest dark drew her in, making her think of the safety of hiding under her blankets, the place she always felt safe from the things. Natalie no longer mentioned the things, knowing no one believed her.

She’s grown, Scott said in a voice that bellowed disinterest, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the child’s.

Natalie was sure she could feel a tingle in the air around Scott, a bit like that she felt from the things, only not scary. It wasn’t like the terrifying tingle that crackled around her during a thunderstorm and made it feel as if the things were trying to break into the house. It was a nice tingle, one that made her feel alive.

Not much, Alex responded ruefully, wondering if Natalie would ever have a growth spurt like her brothers did. Danny was already towering over his older sister, making her seem as if she was the younger of the two rather than being over a year his senior.

Carrying Natalie back up to her bedroom, Alex let her drop from his arms and bounce a few times on the mattress before lifting the bedding heap to pile up on top of her. He would have to come in and wake Natalie up before he went to work in the morning so he could make her bed, otherwise Joan would shout at her daughter about making unnecessary housework. Alex’s life at home seemed to have shrunk down to just standing between his wife and his daughter. Now Scott was back, Alex would have someone around to keep him company when he escaped Joan for an evening. The fact Scott was no longer what he had been didn’t matter, he was still Alex’s friend. He had proved how much of a friend that dreadful night when Alex had last seen him.

Pulling the blankets down for a moment to grin at her father, Natalie tipped her head towards the window. Suppressing the urge to sigh at this irrational and excessive fear of the dark, Alex went to tug at the edges of the curtains to reassure her they were as overlapped as they got, wondering if maybe he should bring in some clothes pegs to clip them shut with. Then he switched the light off and pulled the door almost shut behind him, leaving a crack of light creeping in from the landing, he headed back downstairs to hear more of Scott’s bewildering explanation of where he had been for the last year.

As Natalie listened to the comforting murmur of voices below her, she thought about how nice Scott’s black eyes had looked, how nice it was that he had looked at her directly. Though, now she thought about it, she was sure his eyes used to be blue. Maybe she just remembered him wrongly and they had been black all along.

Then she remembered the dream that had woken her in the first place.

Black eyes.

They had been in her dream. Not just any black eyes, but the ones she had just seen for herself. She knew they were the same ones with the same certainty that she knew her name was Natalie.

Natalie drew the blankets over her head and let the murmur of Scott’s voice soothe her as she shut her eyes. It kept her calm, made her feel relaxed and happy. Her muscles loosened and she slipped into a heavy slumber long before the visitor had gone.

* * *

Scott all but staggered out of Alex’s house; nauseated shock roiling in his gut, making him want to vomit. If he did that, he would bring up the blood Alex had given him. Happily given, actually, as if Alex was relieved there was something to give in return for what Scott had done for them.

Scott had done it for Alex, not that bitch Joan. Alex was the one Scott cared about, cared for as if they were brothers.

He had come here tonight to explain and to ask for them to donate their blood so he didn’t have to accept the supplies from Dr Lindsay. Alex had agreed instantly, as Scott knew he would. Joan had been more reluctant. Scott almost grinned at the way Alex had boxed her into a corner, giving her no choice about volunteering. Though Scott wasn’t all that sure he wanted to be dependent on that bitch for anything, there was a certain pleasure to be had from seeing her forced to agree.

Scott had done everything he was told to: explained just what was necessary, not made direct eye contact, answered their questions with as little detail as he could possibly get away with for now. It was too much for anyone to take all at once, Dr Lindsay had told him. The Real World needed to be introduced slowly. No one could take the news that nearly every myth was real, not in a single hit.

And it had all been going so well, right up until Alex’s damn daughter had woken. Scott had felt her stirring, felt her coming down the stairs. If he could feel her, it meant she was somehow part of the Real World too. That shouldn’t have been such a big surprise really, not when Scott had always sensed there was something odd about her. Now he had more idea about what he had been sensing, though not what the girl might be, unless it was simply because of what Scott now knew about her. Now he knew precisely what she was, in one respect, and he wanted to vomit.

He had looked her in the eye deliberately, hoping to scare her enough to stop her staring at him in future. Fuck if it hadn’t backfired on him, in as spectacular a way as it possibly could.

Scott had been tempted to say that until that point it had been going perfectly.

But instead of being terrified of his eye contact, that kid had just smiled. Fucking smiled!

Scott shuddered, sickened, frightened even, by the effect a seven year old little girl had on him. There was nothing right about the rush of blood to his groin, the throbbing erection it had given him. He hadn’t ever experienced anything like it just from a small smile, and certainly not when that smile had come from a child.

It was sick, perverted.

Though hardly the most paternal type, Scott had been as horrified as the rest of the country by the wicked crimes of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley when it had been all over the news a few years back. It was a shame they had missed out on the death sentence. That would have been the best thing for the sick bastards. With a bit of luck, someone will get at them in prison and do the world a favour, he thought.

Was Scott now to view himself with that same revulsion? Was he now one of those depraved monsters that got his kicks only when kids were involved?

The only consolation was that the images that had slammed into his head, giving him such