Page 57 of Star Struck

‘Whoa, now that would never have come from the Skye I knew! What is it, atonement you’re after, lover? You think if I make you suffer it’ll make me feel better — well, sweetie, I’m here to tell you that nothing will make it better. Nothing will bring her back. So that’s what I’m going to do — nothing. Because I want you to remember every day, you smashed something that you could never afford to pay for.’

‘She was my friend.’ I put my hand up to touch his fingers where he held my face. ‘Whatever she and Michael did, she was still my friend, and I wouldn’t have had it end like this for anything.’

For a second I saw the façade crack and a glimpse of the old Felix, my Felix, peeping out. ‘Oh, Skye . . .’ His fingers brushed mine, twined, joined over the screaming ruin that was my heart. Then fell away. ‘But are you really different? Can anyone really change themselves that much?’

‘The old me is gone. Wiped out by going through a windscreen at sixty miles an hour.’ I tried to make a joke of it. ‘It’s amazing what it does for your personality, having your skull opened up on an operating table.’

He shrugged again and turned away, his shoulders lowering in tired defeat. ‘I dunno,’ he said, rocking slightly. ‘It’s just words, Skye. It’s just words.’

I watched him ricochet through the crowd like a large-scale bagatelle game, making his way towards the exit. The party was beginning to break up now, the tighter knots were starting to move towards the bar for a night’s solid drinking; I watched the Thulos contingent stagger arm-in-arm through the door out into the night, seeing Jack just beyond the circle of light, a shadow watching me.

I needed fresh air. Needed Jack. Surely he must have finished his cigarette by now? I moved towards the open doors to the outside, cannoning off the now somewhat deflated Dalek, whose eyepiece was drooping carpetwards. Saw, over near the band, Felix similarly bouncing off one of the pair of Skeel boys, catching him off balance and sending him toppling backwards under the weight of his ‘carbon dioxide’ cylinder. It was so heavy that it pulled itself free from the harness that kept it on his back, performed two long bounces and then vanished into a corner. I had just begun to move towards Jack again when the whole place went mad.

First was the noise. A huge, deep sound like a giant sneeze followed so quickly by the blast that I nearly didn’t have time to register it. The force was vast, like a hot fist in the chest. It was dark, then white light, then a red-toned blackness, with the silhouettes of chairs rising into the air as I fell backwards, caught and carried by the explosion, tumbling amid the debris. I was bowled along the floor with wood splintering around me; I couldn’t breathe, the air was burning, too hot to swallow and my lungs felt like they’d been punched. A noise like rain falling and blows to my head and my back as I carried on rolling; felt something give way and then I was outside being scuffed by sand along the length of my body.

It went on forever and for no time, and then there was silence. My ears felt bulgy, as though the quiet air was full of feathers, and then the crying started. Distant, underwater crying, and the regular flick, flick as flames took hold and grew somewhere behind me. I clambered to my feet and took a step forward but my balance was gone and I fell, catching myself on something soft, which turned out to be one of the fur coats that the Shadow Planet people had been wearing.

It was wet, and when I pulled my hand away I saw the red smearing my palm and the sky above me rocked.

Breathe. I pulled air in and blew it out, concentrating on keeping the rhythm steady, not letting the shakiness get the better of me. All the exercises I’d learned to help manage the stress cut in and took over, count your breaths, concentrate on something, drop your shoulders, relax your muscles.

‘For God’s sake, someone, help me!’

The cry echoed through into the here and now, jolting me into reality. People were hurt.

I turned around slowly so as not to overbalance again.

The diner still stood, bulging into the desert as though the motel had suddenly acquired a pot-belly. The three standing walls were convex, the roof had partially collapsed, and the dusty sand in front now shone with millions of glass fragments. In the far corner a fire flicked lazy tongues from the wreckage of the kitchen, and the ground was littered with people lying or half-sitting amid the ruins of their clothing. Breathe.

I fought the urge to be sick with fear and shock and the smell of hot wood and a sweet, unfamiliar gas. Two seconds more and I’d started to run. ‘Jack! Felix!’ I clambered over the remains of the doorway I’d been blown through, with the velvet dress snagging on nails and splinters, and surveyed the wreckage inside. Called hopelessly into the dark, as around me others began to weave and sway to their feet, holding various parts of their anatomy. Knew that Jack had been outside, was probably behind me somewhere. Safe. But Felix had been inside.

I could smell the blood, the metal-sweet tang underneath the smell of burning wood, and had to fight the urge to run back out into the desert again. I bit my tongue and stumbled into a woman, bleeding from a deep scratch across her forehead. ‘Head this way,’ I shouted at her, my voice sounding strained and unfamiliar. ‘You need to get out! The place is burning.’ I grabbed her arm as she circled away from me and shoved her towards where the doors had been. A breeze was coming in from outside, bringing small showers of dust pattering into the shocked quiet. ‘Outside!’

Other figures began to follow her, sheeplike. ‘This way.’ I pushed more of them into line, anyone I came across who was still upright. ‘Come on. Follow me.’ I began to move around the room, collecting little knots of people who fell into step behind me like a giant, bloodstained game of Grandmother’s Footsteps winding through the dark. Some stopped to help others to their feet. Two men formed a cat’s cradle with their hands to carry a girl whose leg was so clearly broken that I had to look away. But I wasn’t just being noble, leading survivors to safety. I was searching.

Two circuits of the room and the remains of the roof were beginning to swing over our heads. Flames had found their way from the kitchen, where small-scale eruptions indicated cans blowing behind the swing-doors, and mouths of fire were beginning to eat into the dust. I seized the man who’d been behind me. ‘Get everyone over that side. Step down through the rubble and get out into the desert. Make sure they all follow you.’

He nodded, a trickle of blood seeping from his nose and dripping down onto a ruined pilot costume. ‘This way,’ I heard him call, as I stepped back into the ringing darkness closer to the door that led through to reception. This was where I’d last seen Felix. It was now a circus of smashed glass; spilled drink made the place smell like an alcoholic’s armpit, but at least there were no bodies slumped in the mess. Felix must have moved just in time to avoid the worst of the blast. So where was he?

‘Felix,’ I breathed. He lay, arms wide as though to push away the explosion, face down on the floor with part of the ruined ceiling on top of him. No reaction. No movement. I couldn’t see if he was breathing under his fur coat, but the pelt was suspiciously spiked, as though a liquid was seeping through. I crouched down, ignoring the sudden heat as part of the wall behind us began to smoulder, worked my hand underneath him, found an area near his ribs and rested my palm against the bone.

Two short, shallow movements and I went weak with relief. He was breathing. I began to clear the debris from his shoulders, whilst being constantly knocked into by people, zombie-like, as they made their groping way towards the starlit outdoors, led by those brave enough to re-enter the building. One figure crashed into me, groped forward and grabbed me by the arm. ‘Go away, I have to get him free.’

‘Skye, it’s me.’ Jack raised his head and the moon caught his wicked eyes. ‘I was looking for you. Heard you shout but . . .’ An arm wiped across his face. ‘Bloody blast was so bright it knocked my night vision right out.’ He glanced down. ‘God, it’s Felix. Is he . . . you know . . . because he’s very quiet.’

‘Fuck . . . right off . . . and die, Whitaker.’ The voice came from beneath the shards of plasterboard. It sounded slight and wheezy, but definitely Felix. ‘Ow. Ribs. What happened?’

Jack sniffed, then he moved his head tracking a scent, like a dog. ‘Acetylene. That sweet smell. Where did it come from?’

‘I think one of the Skeel boys.’ I carried on freeing Felix. ‘Fe knocked into one of them, I saw the cylinder fall . . .’

‘Leave me . . . alone.’ Felix tried to roll away from under my hand.

‘Shut up. I have to move this to get you out.’ I tried to push the rubble more gently off his body. ‘You can’t stay here, the place is on fire.’

‘Maybe I want to. Die.’

His words made the mild night air chill down to near freezing. ‘Fe . . .’

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