Perfections (29 page)

‘No,’ he whispers, horrified. ‘Not you, Antoinette, never you.’

‘You scared me,’ she says. ‘The way you looked . . .’

‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I would never hurt you, not in a million years. I’d sooner cut off my own hands.’

‘I know that,’ she tells him. ‘I do. It’s just–’

The doorbell chimes and Antoinette jumps yet again, swears beneath her breath. She’ll be lucky to get through this day without a heart attack, or a restraining order, considering the daggers Loki is throwing towards the front door right now, and please please please let it be a Jehovah’s Witness, or some student touting for the power companies. She’ll sign anything, she’ll buy every copy of the
Watchtower
they have, just don’t let it be–

‘Come on, Ant,’ Paul calls out. ‘I saw you pull up. I know you’re in there.’

Loki takes a step forward.

‘Don’t,’ Antoinette whispers. ‘Please, just wait in Jacqueline’s room. I’ll get rid of him, okay?’

‘He can’t come in here. I don’t want him in here.’

But at least he goes, disappearing into the room which she supposes belongs to him these days as well. Loki and Lina sharing a bed for more than just sleeping now, to judge by the noises she sometimes hears, and really, how does that do anything but make the whole bloody mess even worse?

You need to make a choice. You can’t keep them both.

Paul rings the bell again, gives the door itself a few solid whacks with what sounds like the flat of his fist. ‘I just need to talk to you, Ant. I’m not going to leave until you open this door.’

Antoinette takes a deep breath and does just that.

— 20 —

‘So much for the flat in St Kilda.’

The first words out of his mouth, accompanied by the most unpleasant of smirks, and she stares at him for a second, thoroughly confused. Oh, but of course: her idiotic impromptu face-saver that night on his front steps – how does he even remember? – and she scrambles for recovery. ‘Yeah, the flat. That, ah, fell through.’

‘I’ll bet.’

‘What do you want, Paul?’

‘Not to have this conversation out here, for a start.’

He doesn’t force his way in as much as simply push past. Like he has the right, like she’s the one at fault for not stepping quickly enough out of his path, and though the idea of shoulder-checking him has definite appeal, Antoinette’s only too aware that she sorely lacks the muscle for any kind of follow through. Physical is the very last thing she wants to get with Paul.

Contenting herself with sarcasm instead, ‘Oh no,
please
,’ as she trails him down the hall to the living room. ‘Do make yourself at home.’

‘Holy crap,’ he laughs. ‘It’s like an episode of
Hoarders
in here. How the fuck has Little Miss Perfect put up with you for so long?’

Antoinette surveys the boxes lumped around the room, half of them open and spilling their guts because Loki packed everything willy-nilly and without care for labels, so whenever she needs to find a clean blouse or a box of tampons or a tube of work-friendly lipstick, it’s pretty much a case of search and destroy. Add to that the plastic bags filled with rejects from Jacqueline’s wardrobe and the stacks of second-hand books that Loki has been accumulating – mythology and folklore, a complete Brothers Grimm, and even some quasi-historical account of the Golem of Prague – and yeah, okay, it’s a bit of a mess.

But, really, fuck Paul.

Fuck him for coming over here, for shoehorning his judgemental arse into their home – hers and Lina’s and Loki’s – and making her feel like some disobedient brat who refuses to clean up her room.

‘Well?’ She folds her arms across her chest. ‘What is it?’

Paul takes a book from the couch, flicks through the pages. ‘You know, I could deal with you sneaking back in to get your shit. You don’t want to see me, fine. You swap a few photos around, set fire to some rose petals, even the thing with the jacket – which rated pretty damn high on the psycho-meter, Ant, let me just say – but, okay, whatever.’ He snorts. ‘Better than coming home to find a rabbit boiling on the stove.’

‘I didn’t do any of that.’

But she wonders. The photos reduced to blank paper, the roses rendered to ash: Paul said that happened the very first weekend – the weekend they broke up, the weekend she made Loki – and Antoinette now knows far too much to believe in the Coincidence Fairy. She needs to talk to her mother.

Paul tosses the book back towards the couch. It falls short, bounces onto the floor. He doesn’t bother to pick it up. ‘As far as revenge goes, that shit is kind of pathetic, but again, whatever. Imagination never was your strong suit.’

‘You might be surprised what I can imagine.’

‘Oh? You stealing another novel? Pretty sure that doesn’t count.’

‘Fuck off, Paul. I don’t need to listen to this.’

‘Yeah, actually, you do. Because I draw the line when you start trying to sell your shit to my friends.’

‘What the hell are you on about?’

‘Whatever you’ve been telling Greta, it’s working.’

‘Greta? I haven’t spoken to her for weeks.’

‘Really. That’s why she won’t talk to me, is it?’

‘This might come as a shock, Paul, but my life doesn’t revolve around you – not for a while now. Maybe Greta finally woke up as well, maybe she sees you for the pretentious wanker that you are.’

He glares at her. ‘Funny bitch, aren’t you? As far as I remember, it was
me
who dumped
your
whiny, fat arse.’

Antoinette wonders just when it was that he changed, when he turned into this pathetic, venomous prick she can’t imagine wasting even one chamber of her heart on loving – except that, no, he was always like this, wasn’t he? Always at the ready with a nasty jibe or droll serving of snark. The only difference is that now the venom is being directed towards her.

‘You need to leave,’ she tells him.

‘And you need to stay the fuck away from my friends.’

He moves towards her in a measured, square-shouldered way she supposes is intended to be menacing, but she stands her ground, gestures a hand in the direction of the door. ‘After you.’

‘If you think that . . .’

Antoinette’s never been fond of the phrase,
you look like you’ve seen a ghost
. It’s always seemed too empty, too imprecise – for a start, most of the people she once hung around with would likely have been thrilled to spy a spectre or phantom of any stripe – and yet those very words seem the perfect description of the expression that now seizes Paul’s face. His widening eyes, the incredulous gape of his jaw, and as she turns to follow his gaze, her stomach sinks.

‘You were asked to leave,’ Loki says. He stands motionless in the hall just outside the living room, hands clenched to fists by his sides.

Paul shakes his head. ‘Who the hell are you?’

‘You shouldn’t be here.’

Loki moves forward and Antoinette steps in front of him, tells him to stop, to please just let her handle this, and behind her Paul is asking his question again, voice pitched high and shaken as he demands to know who the hell this guy is, what the fuck is going on, and then Loki is grabbing her by the shoulders, hands moving her aside like a parent might guide a wayward toddler out of harm’s reach, and she wriggles from his grasp, so
sick
of being treated like some kid who doesn’t know any better, who can’t look out for herself.

‘Loki,’ she snaps. ‘Will you just wait a second?’

The two of them, Loki and Paul, now less than an arm’s length apart, and Paul straightens himself, slaps fist onto palm in a show of such stupid bravado she almost wants to punch him herself. ‘Better listen to her, mate,’ he says without much conviction. ‘I will fuck you up if I have to.’

Loki smiles, lean and dangerous. ‘You’ve never hit anyone in your life.’

‘Yeah? And what would you know about–’

The first blow catches Paul in the guts and, as he crumples over with a hard and breathless
oof
, the second lands right on his jaw, propels him sideways and onto the ground. All of this happening in a matter of moments, and Antoinette yelps in surprise, lurches herself forward even as Loki grabs a handful of Paul’s hair and pulls his head back, fist raised and–

‘No!’ Shouting at him, taking hold of his arm and this time there is nothing gentle in the way Loki shakes her off, shoves her so violently from him that she stumbles and trips, foot sliding on a stray book and knee connecting with the corner of the coffee table as she falls. Tears smarting in her eyes, she rolls over to see that Paul has managed to wrestle himself from Loki’s grip, wrestle or maybe land a stray punch of his own to judge by the way Loki is rubbing the side of his face. He staggers to his feet, retreating with two fists held unsteadily before him as Loki grins again, savage alpha dog smile, and closes the distance between them.

‘Loki,’ Antoinette calls. ‘Loki, please.’

He glances around, sees her down there on the floor, rubbing at her kneecap, and that awful grin slides away. ‘Antoinette? What are you . . .’

And then there are keys rattling in the front door, and the door opening and slamming shut again, and Jacqueline calling out anxious
hellos
and
are you theres
as she hurries down the hall. When she gets to the living room she hesitates, eyes moving in quick appraisal over the three of them – Loki and Paul and Antoinette who is just now making a grab for the couch to pull herself upright – and then nods, reaches into her bag for a tissue before marching across the room to Paul.

‘Here,’ she says.

He stares at the scrap of white in her hand like it might explode.

‘You’re bleeding,’ she tells him. ‘Your lip.’

He takes the tissue, presses it to the corner of his mouth and winces.

‘Now you need to go.’

Paul shakes his head, manages to resurrect a slim, scarlet-stained sneer. ‘Not until someone explains
him
to me.’

A cobra couldn’t strike as fast as Loki. He has Paul flattened against the wall in less than a second, the sound of skull meeting plasterboard so loud Antoinette is amazed that one of them hasn’t cracked, his hand squeezed tight around Paul’s throat as he leans in close, whispering, whispering, and it’s not just a ghost her ex-boyfriend is seeing now, oh no, nothing so harmless as that.

This isn’t what Paul looks like when he’s scared.

This is what Paul looks like when he’s utterly fucking terrified.

‘Loki.’ Jacqueline rests a palm between his shoulder blades. ‘Stop now. Enough.’

‘He can’t be here,’ Loki says to her.

‘I know.’

The hand around Paul’s throat relaxes, drops. Paul reels away, coughing like his lungs are about to burst and when he catches Antoinette’s eye she sees in him such a confusion of hatred and doubt, it chills her. She doesn’t know this man at all, doesn’t know his doppelganger either, that creature over there beside her sister, still so full of malice it all but boils from his skin.

‘Don’t ever come back here,’ Loki says to Paul. ‘If you come back here again, you won’t get to walk away.’

And Paul at least has the good sense to say nothing this time. Merely glares and coughs and spits a bloody gob onto the carpet before backing from the room. Antoinette follows him down the hall. Reaches for his arm as he reaches for the doorknob. ‘Paul, wait. Are you okay?’

‘What do you care how I am?’

‘I just–’

‘Who is he? He knew about . . . shit he shouldn’t know about, shit
no one
knows about.’ He wipes his mouth on his sleeve. ‘I should go to the cops, is what I should do. This is assault.’

‘You do that,’ she says. ‘Tell them how you met yourself. Tell them how you let yourself get beat up. By yourself. I’m sure they’ll be fascinated.’

‘That’s not – he’s
not
me.’

‘Go home, put some ice on your face. Pretend this never happened.’ Antoinette retrieves her keyring from the bowl on the side table and removes the two keys to her old flat. ‘Here, I kept meaning to drop these off.’

He shakes his head. ‘I changed the locks. Got sick of
someone
sneaking around the place while I was out.’

‘I’m sorry about that. I told him to stop.’

‘He’s a fucking psychopath, whatever else he is.’

‘No,’ she says. ‘He’s just . . . new.’

Lina frowns, mulling over her sister’s words. Ant is obviously still upset by what happened between Loki and Paul. She wishes she could have reached the apartment sooner.

‘So this
transfer
, from her to you. It’s a simple procedure?’

Ant shrugs. ‘Mum hasn’t told me exactly how it all works yet. Just that we have to try or else . . . you know.’

Or else Sally Paige will take Lina with her. Yes.

‘And the bond, the energy link. That’s the reason I’ve been having my, ah, health problems? Because
she
is dying?’

‘It’s connected,’ Ant says. ‘Whenever the pain got too much, she would sort of
drift away from herself
, was how she put it. Some kind of hardcore meditation, I didn’t really understand it. She said she felt the link drift with her, but didn’t realise it was actually having a physical effect on you until I told her how you were fainting and so on.’

‘She was sucking energy from me back to herself.’

‘That’s not how she put it, but maybe. She switched to stronger pain meds a couple of weeks ago, said they helped. And tomorrow she starts on this hydromorph–morph something, I can’t remember. It’s meant to be really strong, like five times stronger at least than the tablets, so . . .’

There’s something Ant is holding back. Lina can tell.

‘What if she’s lying?’ Loki speaks up from his chair across the room. ‘What if she doesn’t want to simply hand over Lina? What if she wants to take something from you as well?’