Run To Earth (Power of Four) (2 page)

“You’re being unreasonable, Kate,” Michael warned. “It’s not like you can hide this from him forever.”

“I don’t need your advice.” His mum’s strict tone cut through the air. “I’m doing what’s best for my son.”

“By keeping him in the dark?” Michael asked.

Something clanged loudly, as if his mum had slammed something into a steel pot.

“It’s been a year!” Kate hissed furiously. “And nothing! He’s done
nothing
, not even in the
slightest
.”

Aaron pulled a face. How could his mum say that? He had done plenty in the last year. His studies were non-stop. In the last three months alone he had completed seven projects.

“Do you know why?” she continued. “Because we’ve been keeping him away. Aaron’s not reacted because he’s not been near anything that might provoke him.”

“You can’t do that forever,” Michael argued. “He is what he is. He
will
react – you can’t prevent it.” There was a pause before he continued in a quieter voice. “It’s not right, Kate. You can’t keep him locked up. He didn’t ask for this.”

“No one asked for this,” she replied. Her voice was quiet, but Aaron could hear the underlying anger.

“Aaron’s a good boy,” Michael said. “He listens to you, does what you ask, but even good boys rebel if you push them too far. The harder you suppress him, the further he’ll jump to free himself.”

A long, strained pause filled the room, then Aaron heard the metallic clang that proved his mum was mixing something vigorously in a pot.

“I disagree. The longer I can hold him back, the better,” she said in a tight and cold voice that suggested the end of discussion. “I can’t change who we are, not forever, but I’ll take as long as I can.”

“Kate–” Chris started.

“No,” she cut him off and Aaron could hear the growl in her voice. “Don’t. Don’t you
dare
tell me it’ll be alright. You know damn well it won’t!”

They quietened after that. The only sound Aaron could hear was the faint bubbling of whatever it was his mum was cooking, and his own thudding heartbeat.

***

Aaron jolted awake, blinking in the darkness. It took him a moment to realise he was in his bed, drenched in sweat. Had he been dreaming? Possibly. But the dream was escaping his memory, like water from a cupped hand. No matter how hard he tried to grasp it, the dream faded until nothing was left, nothing but a faint suspicion that he had been dreaming about the boy with the vivid green eyes again.

That in itself was no longer unusual, but when Aaron awoke tonight, he knew with sickening certainty that something was different. Something was
wrong
. He felt strange, jittery, with a racing heart but his body was heavy and sore. Every part of him was tender and burning, like he had a fever. His fingertips felt weird, tingly, like they were suffering from pins and needles. He clenched both hands into fists and then opened them again, repeating the action, pumping blood back to his hands. He was always getting pins and needles in his fingers, especially over the last year.

Slowly the ache died away, leaving him feeling tired and weak but no longer sore. He turned to his side, trying to get comfortable, but as tired as he was he found he couldn’t sleep. He glanced at the bedside clock and saw the red glare read,
12:15.

He smiled to himself. It was past midnight. The first of November. He was fourteen. Maybe now he would be treated differently – less as a child and more as a young adult. He scoffed at his own thoughts. His mum would probably still treat him like a child whether he was fourteen or forty. Isn’t that what she said? That she would hold him back as long as she could? The strange conversation he had eavesdropped on spun in his mind, failing to make any better sense to him now than it did when he’d heard it. He closed his eyes, breathing out a long slow sigh.

Clink.

Aaron opened his eyes.

Clink.

He sat up in bed and reached over to switch on the light. Squinting in the harsh brightness until his eyes adjusted, he scanned the room but didn’t find anything suspicious.

Clink.

He got out of bed. Padding across the room to the window, he looked out to see Rose and Sam throwing pebbles at his window. The glow of the street lamp illuminated their grinning faces. Aaron unlatched the window and pushed it open. Leaning over the sill, he grinned at them, ignoring the night chill that washed over him.

“What are you guys doing?” he asked, careful not to speak too loudly in case it woke up his mum in the next room.

“Getting your lazy ass out of bed,” Sam answered with a grin.

“Don’t just hang there,” Rose scolded, “get down here.”

“We’re taking you out, celebrating in style,” Sam said. “Hurry up, birthday boy.”

Aaron grinned. He held up two fingers, gesturing he needed two minutes to get ready. He pulled back and closed the window.

***

Two and a half minutes later, Aaron crept past his parents’ room. His dad might have been on a night shift but he was careful not to wake his mum. Aaron sneaked downstairs, across the hall and into the kitchen. Quietly, he pulled the back door open and slipped out. He hurried down the path, grinning at the twins waiting for him.

“You sleep like the freaking dead!” Sam admonished. “We threw enough pebbles to build a mountain.”

“Here’s a little tip,” Rose said. “Charge that thing you pretend is a phone so when we call, you can answer it.”

Aaron grinned and ran a hand through his dishevelled hair. “Sorry. How was I supposed to know I’d be getting midnight surprises?”

“You
should
know,” Rose replied. “If your parents aren’t going to give you a party, then we will.”

“A party?” Aaron asked with wide eyes. “At this hour?”

“This is the hour for parties.” Sam grinned.

Aaron looked from one twin to the other, his eyebrows raised. “What place is going to be open now that’ll let me in?”

“The same place that’ll let two sixteen year olds in,” Sam replied.

“It’s only the Blaze,” Rose said. “Halloween party may be over, but the place is still open till three in the morning.”

“Which means we’ve not got all night,” Sam said. “Come on.” He started walking down the street.

Aaron and Rose walked alongside him. Rose had her long brown hair bunched up on either side of her head. Her soft brown eyes were still marked with remnants of gold glitter.

“Let me guess,” Aaron said, looking Rose up and down. “You dressed up as a gold digger again?”

“It’s a killer outfit,” Rose said. “Makes sense to reuse it.”

Aaron turned to Sam. “Did you go as Facebook again?” he asked.

“Please,” Rose said, scowling. “Wearing your normal clothes and sticking a book under your arm with the word
FACE
on it doesn’t make you Facebook.”

Sam gave her a sideways look but didn’t argue. “This year it was Twitter,” he told Aaron.

“How could you go as...” Aaron paused. “Never mind. I don’t wanna know.” They walked a few steps before Aaron asked, “So you’ve had this party planned?”

“We’ve lived on the same street as you for, like, forever,” Rose said. “We had a feeling you’d be having your usual family-only-celebration.” She shrugged. “We figured we’d give you a proper party.” Then with a sly grin, she added, “And if you look
really
hard, you might see other faces you know.”

“Who?” Aaron asked at once.

“You’ll see,” Sam said. “We might have invited a few extras at the last minute.”

“Like?” Aaron asked.

“Like...Becky, for example.” Sam grinned

Aaron almost tripped. “You didn’t. You...you invited Rebecca?”

“Yep.” Rose chuckled. “And you’d better not waste this opportunity.”

“What?” Aaron exclaimed. “What does
that
mean?”

“It means you ask her out, idiot,” Rose explained.

Aaron threw her a furious look. “Yeah, sure, I’ll ask her out. Where will I take her? Oh, that’s right, the only place my parents will allow me to go:
my house,
which happens to be right next to hers.”

“Nothing wrong with taking a girl to your room, bro.” Sam winked.

“Nice.” Rose glared and poked her brother in the ribs. She turned back to Aaron, ignoring the sputtering of her twin. “Talk to your mum and dad. I’m sure they’d be okay with you taking Rebecca out.”

“Did all that glitter get to your head?” Aaron asked. “You
know
what my parents are like.”

“They’re not that bad,” Rose countered. “You just blow things out of proportion.”

“Rose, they
are
that bad; you just don’t believe me,” said Aaron.

“Come on, mate,” Sam said. “I’m sure they would be okay with you taking Becky out. I mean, you’re neighbours. They know her.”

“You’re also my neighbour,” Aaron argued. “They know you too, but they don’t want me hanging out with you either.”

Sam fell quiet, his smile evaporating. His gaze dropped to the ground as they walked in awkward silence.

“What’s their problem?” Sam asked, betraying his honest confusion. “Why don’t they want you hanging around with me?”

Aaron shrugged, not having an answer.

“I don’t think it’s us,” Rose said. “Your parents are just paranoid. And given your time at Westbridge, you can understand why.”

Aaron groaned. “One incident!” He held up a finger to accentuate the point. “
One
small, tiny incident of bullying and they pull me out of school. How does that make sense?”

“It may have been one incident,” Rose argued, “but Matthews had it in for you ever since you joined our class.”

“That’s ’cause Matthews is a prat,” Sam added. “He just couldn’t take it that you’d been bumped up to his class.”

“He wasn’t the only one,” Aaron grouched. “The majority of Year Three had a problem with me.”

“Come on, Aaron,” Rose said. “You were the seven year old that got pulled up two classes because he was too smart. You were showing up a bunch of nine year olds in their own classroom. Of course they were going to have a problem with you.”

“You say it like it was my fault,” Aaron accused.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Rose agreed, “but nine year olds don’t see it that way.”

“Plus, you were the smallest in class.” Sam said. “It automatically sets off the teasing reaction inbuilt in us humans.”

“So how come you both didn’t join in?” Aaron asked, this time with a smile. “You guys were in the same class. How come you two became my friends?”

Rose and Sam shared a look, wearing identical grins.

“’Cause we’re awesome,” Sam answered.

“And you always brought the nicest treats for lunch–”

A screech of tyres interrupted Rose. The smell of burning rubber was the first thing to register to Aaron, before he even saw what was happening. There was a thunderous crash of metal hitting rock, the deafening roar of an engine, then two bright lights blinded all three of them.

A car suddenly came belting towards him and the twins. The driver must have lost control; as the car was half on the pavement and half on the road, swerving this way and that, with Aaron and the twins in its path. There was no time to move out of the way. Instinctively, Aaron threw up both hands to shield his face – a simple act, no matter how ineffective.

What happened next, Aaron could never have anticipated. The ground under their feet trembled, then shook as if in the grips of an earthquake. All three of them fell to the ground, shrieking in panic. The car was coming towards them but before it could run them over, it stopped and tilted forward – the back lifting clear off the ground. For an awful moment, the car was completely vertical, looming threateningly over them. It seemed inevitable that it would fall on top of them, crushing them to death, but instead the bonnet of the car sunk into the ground. An enormous crash shattered the windscreen. Shards of glass flew in every direction, raining down on the terrified teenagers. The car continued to fall deeper into the ground until only half of it was visible.

Aaron’s gaze went from the car to the ground and he stared in utter disbelief. The ground had cracked open –
literally
open. A tear zigzagged from the pavement to the middle of the road, splitting the tarmac wide enough to swallow the front half of the car.

Aaron and the twins shakily got to their feet, staring at the sight of the absurd-looking car sticking out of the ground, wedged between the two sides of the road.

Sam staggered forward, approaching the car. “Hello?” he called, his voice trembling. “Are…are you alright?” he asked the unseen driver.

Aaron’s legs threatened to buckle under him but he pushed himself forward. He looked into the car, trying to spot the driver, but all he could make out were the back seats of the Honda Civic.

“Oh God,” he whispered. “He must be dead.”