Page 44 of The Quarterlands (Dark Water #4)

He raised his hand and imagined trailing a brush across his canvas.

Should he get up and find his art stuff?

But he was so comfortable here. The stone was cool beneath his aching flesh and the sky so very pretty.

Maybe he’d stay here and imagine painting it instead.

He tried very hard to do that, but he was so tired.

He closed his eyes and drifted back in time again.

The Dark Horse was always packed for Sunday lunch but a table was immediately found for Charles Lytton. Lunch took ages because people kept coming over and congratulating him. Charles barely touched his meal. Food, like sex, held little interest for him when his drug of choice was on offer.

After lunch, his mother disappeared. Alex found her outside, puffing away on a cigarette.

“Mum! They’re illegal,” he scolded.

“Oh, darling, don’t be such a killjoy. Everyone still smokes, including you.

Don’t think I don’t know.” She offered him one, and he took it, grinning.

“Please don’t tell your father,” she begged, although he sensed she didn’t really care if he did or not.

She just liked inventing these little dramas to spice up her life.

“I won’t.” He opened his wallet, found a strip of matches, and lit both their cigarettes.

“Thank you. It’ll be our little secret.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek, leaving a bright red mark from her lipstick. As he put the matches back in his wallet, he saw the tab of croc he’d stashed there months ago, that he’d never quite been able to bring himself to throw away.

Charles was still making his way through a throng of admirers. So he went to the toilet, feeling low again for some reason. Today had been such a weird rollercoaster of emotions.

Our little secret.

He felt suddenly impatient. His mother was smoking, drinking, cheating, and deceiving their father – why shouldn’t he?

He wanted that croc so badly. Fishing it out, he tapped the contents onto the back of his hand and inhaled, then threw his head back, breathing deeply.

Oh, yes… there it was… that beautiful, mellow high. God, how he’d missed it.

He was feeling much happier when he returned to their duck. Charles was already sitting in the back, his gold medal glinting in the sun. Isobel was in the front seat, gazing at herself in the mirror as she reapplied her lipstick.

“Are you ready, Alex?” she called.

“Yes – coming.” Wiping away a sprinkling of crocodile tears, he climbed into the duck beside her. They waved cheerfully to the crowd of people who’d come outside to see them go, and then they set off.

He’d only been driving a few minutes when the flow of tears down his cheeks became a flood. That was when he realised he’d taken too much. He felt fantastic, but he could barely see the road. He slowed down, blinking furiously.

Isobel turned in surprise. “What’s the matter… Oh.” She saw the tears running down his cheeks. “Alex!” she chided. “You said you weren’t going to use croc again.”

“Oh, please. You’re lecturing me about drugs, given what you feed to Charles?”

“That’s different. Pull over!”

He’d virtually stopped anyway, his vision completely blurry. He nudged the duck onto a grassy verge, bringing it to a halt.

“Charles, you’ll have to drive,” Isobel ordered, turning to him. “Your brother clearly can’t.”

“Do I have to?” Charles was so obviously enjoying sitting in the back, waving when they passed through villages as if they were on a royal tour.

“Well, I can’t drive,” she said. “So it’ll have to be you.”

“Fine.” Charles climbed out of the duck and hauled Alex out of the driving seat. “Come on, you silly old croc-head.” He gave an easy, cheerful laugh.

Alex jumped into the back, and Charles turned to grin at him.

“Ready?” He gave a manic laugh. “Then let’s go !”

Isobel screamed with laughter as he slammed his foot down hard and the duck sped off.

The croc high soon returned, and Alex joined in their happy chatter. Finally – finally! – he was on the team.

Charles’s shirtsleeves were folded back to the elbows and he was careening around the bends of the twisty little lane like a motor racing pro, chortling when their mother screamed and held on to the door, berating him for going too fast. Then suddenly, in the blink of an eye, he changed, as if taken over by some demon.

“Charles, stop! It’s too fast.”

“Calm down, Mum. I know what I’m doing.”

Another bend loomed ahead and, still laughing, he sped up even more, approaching it at high speed…

Alex felt a sudden lurch, then a wrenching, churning, and tumbling that jarred every bone in his body. Over and over he went, and all he could hear was the screeching and tearing of metal that continued for an eternity before it ended abruptly with a loud bang.

Everything was suddenly, shockingly, quiet.

He lay there dazed, his body aching. Blood was streaming down his face and his thigh felt wet.

At first, he thought he couldn’t move, and when he tried it hurt so much that he screamed.

His cries filled the air, but nobody answered.

Nobody came. Where was his mother? Where was Charles?

He forced his eyes open and sunlight flooded in.

He was lying on his side in the wreckage of the duck.

It was still a beautiful, sunny day, and overhead, trees were swaying gently in the breeze.

His arm was caught but he managed to pull it free.

His shoulder ached, and his back, but his thigh…

his thigh hurt the most. He looked down and saw blood pouring through his torn clothing.

“Mum? Charles?” he cried, but there was no reply. Looking around, he took in the enormity of what had happened. The back of the duck was still largely intact, but the front was completely caved in from where it’d smashed into a huge tree .

Where were they? They’d all been wearing seatbelts, but given how the duck had tumbled over and over, it was entirely possible that Charles and his mother had been thrown out of the open roof. At least, he hoped so, because nobody could still be alive in the mangled wreckage in front.

He forced himself to sit up, his head pounding, his leg aching.

Kicking his way out, he fell onto the grassy verge.

Crocodile tears were still flowing freely from his eyes, but now his vision was stained a blurry red as they mingled with the blood trickling from the cut on his head.

He wiped his sleeve across his eyes to clear his vision…

and that’s when he saw her. She was lying in the road, her body twisted at an unnatural angle, her lips still perfectly red from when she’d reapplied her lipstick in the pub earlier.

Her eyes were wide open, gazing at him sightlessly.

She was so obviously dead, but his brain struggled to process it all the same.

“Mum?” he whispered.

There was a sound behind him, little more than a whimper.

“Charles?” He forced himself to stand and turned around, dreading what he’d find. Charles was lying a few feet away by the side of the road. For a big, strong man, he looked somehow small and diminished, his body crumpled into a heap. He wasn’t moving, but he was groaning. Alex limped towards him.

“Charles, it’s okay. I’m here.” He crouched down, ignoring his aching hip, found Charles’s hand, and held it tight.

Charles’s eyes fluttered open. “Alex… what happened?”

“There was an accident. The duck came off the road. It’s okay. You’ll be okay.” There was blood on Charles’s arm, and his face was scratched. “Let me help you sit up.”

“I can’t,” Charles whispered. “I can’t feel my legs.”

Alex froze. “What?” He looked at his brother’s legs, but they appeared uninjured. He touched one, gently. “Can you feel that?”

“No.”

He prodded harder, but Charles shook his head. “Okay, just concentrate on breathing. I’m going to call for help.” He found his nanopad, miraculously still in his pocket. The case was cracked but it was still working. Shakily, he called for the emergency services .

“How many are injured?” the call handler asked.

“Two,” he whispered. “Please… hurry.” He was able to give a precise location, but it was fairly remote, so he doubted the ambulance would be here soon.

There was a tug on his arm as he finished the call.

“Two? What about Mum? Is she hurt?” Charles asked.

He tried to move his head to look, but Alex blocked his view. He didn’t want him to see their mother like that, with her neck twisted at that terrible angle. He stroked Charles’s hair gently; he was panting, his skin clammy and deathly pale.

“Mum…?” he asked again. “Please, Alex… where’s Mum?”

Alex screwed up his face, not wanting to say it because that would make it true.

“Alex?” Charles asked urgently.

“She’s gone, Charles. Don’t look. Please, don’t look.”

Charles began sobbing uncontrollably, and Alex held on to him, stroking his hair gently, trying to be strong for him.

Suddenly, he was aware that Charles had gone limp in his arms and his eyes were closed.

“Please don’t let me lose them both,” he whispered, pressing his fingers to Charles’s wrist. He couldn’t bear to be alone on this road with the bodies of his mother and brother. Then he felt the thrumming of Charles’s pulse beneath his fingers, thready but strong, and sighed with relief.

Charles’s eyelids fluttered open. “Hurts,” he whispered. “Why can’t I move?”

“I don’t know.”

He was still in that same crumpled position, but Alex didn’t want to move him in case it caused more damage.

“Alex…” Charles reached out and tugged on his ripped shirt. “They’ll test me.”

“What?” Alex frowned. What on earth did he mean?

“For drugs. They’ll test me because I was driving. If they find out…”

“You can’t worry about that. You must only think about pulling through this and getting better. ”

“If they find out, they’ll take my medal away. Please, don’t let them take my medal.”