A/N: Yay, the reviewers are back and being awfully nice so here's the next part. The last chapter was really more filler than anything, a way of moving the plot along so hopefully big explosive things coming soon! This one indulges my interest in the Naomi-Katie dynamic. Please keep reviewing, your country needs you!
FOLLOWING THE TRAIL:
By HeligenaGirl
In the darkness of Bristol's winding city streets, a dim yellow streak burned in the windscreen of the car desperately trying to keep up with it. A ridiculous game of cat and mouse. The Porsche's moves were erratic though, it kept clipping the pavements, only to swerve back into the centre of the road, the horn blaring out once when a pedestrian dared to give the finger.
It took a sudden right turn and Katie lost sight of it's colour for a second. Holding her breath, she jerked the wheel and caught's its glare again at the bottom half of the estate.
"Could you possibly put your foot down and at least keep within a few miles of your ex's penis extension?"
Katie gritted her teeth and clamped her tongue down on the retort that wanted to come out. It was taking most of her concentration just to keep her eyes ahead and her left arm from pushing the irritating blonde right out of the passenger door.
Danny ran right over the painted mini-roundabout ahead of them at speed.
"Seriously, how could you touch that?!"
10...9...8...Fuck it.
Katie's carefully maintained resolve shattered. "What are you, Mary of Nazareth?" She glared at the slanted fairground version of Naomi, trapped in her wing mirror. "Would explain the clothes I guess. Besides, an orgasm is an orgasm, yeah."
"Not that you'd know." She added under her breath.
Naomi knew she was riling her companion, the only person who could actually help her, but she couldn't seem to stop herself. All the things she wanted so deperately to tell Emily, all the things she couldn't tell her before she took her hand by the lockers seemed to be mutating in her mouth, twisting in on themselves and coming out on a slipstream of bile.
Can you catch Tourettes? She wasn't sure anymore.
"He gave you an orgasm. Disturbing." She fell into silence, tenseness overcoming her mouth for a moment.
"Well we can't all lose our virginity to the school janitor, it's just not viable."
Touche, thought Naomi. She let silence envelop the small area inside the car, as it sped along doing nearly fifty five to keep up with Danny's sports car.
"Did he ever make you wear a Bristol Rover's shirt?..." Naomi tried to keep from showing her smile as it came out, in spite of the horrific sense of worry lying in the pit of her stomach.
All too aware that it took all of Katie's reserves to keep her hands on the smooth insides of the car. The curving wheel and gearstick that suddenly felt weirdly inappropriate .
"Sorry... it's a problem I have. I'll stop." Said Naomi suddenly.
That surprised Katie. But, she nodded a tacit agreement while keeping one eye on the lights ahead. Down another street. Another junction. Blinking indicators and revs. It could have been the same road everytime for all she recognised.
The red-haired twin rubbed her eyes, the dim light and the fleeting motion of the streetlamps beginning to wear on them. She watched tiredly, as a man out walking his staff bull terrier got spooked by the revving of the sports car ahead and wondered if Danny even noticed.
Beside her, the blonde swallowed, unsure what to say now that there were new restrictions of politeness. She had no experience to fall back on, was the problem. Emily always knew, the exact thing to say even when her heart was frayed in two. Even through tears and bleeding skin.
I wish you were here, Ems. A part of her hoped that discomfort was the worst thing Emily was feeling, because the thought of her being somewhere, afraid, terrified, thinking that no-one cared enough to look for her made every muscle in her face want to clench.
Katie took a hard turn as the Porsche shot down a side lane, it's exhaust coughing out testosterone and Naomi had to grab her armrest to keep from slamming into the door.
She stared over at Katie, frustrated. "Shouldn't you be keeping a low profile?"
"Shouldn't you be keeping stum?" she retorted.
Naomi shook her head, as the car straightened up again, "Shouldn't you be wearing a seatbelt?"
"Shouldn't you be wearing a fucking muzzle, there's new laws you know, about dangerous pets being unsupervised!"
Katie blew out a stream of hot air, as if that could cleanse the burning in her chest. The warm, salty air inside the car from the two of them.
"I'm worried, ok."
Naomi almost did a double take, in her seat when she heard the quiet words. She'd never heard Emily's sister show much besides disdain and short-temperedness towards her, apart from the odd throwaway shared joke during class. The thought of her worrying about her, as much as Naomi did, wanting her back just so that the world could pulse in it's usual, fascinating way, made the whole thing even more surreal.
"Listen, Katie, I..." Naomi started, unsure what she was even going to say but she was cut off before she had to decide.
"She's always been weird about going out without a bag. It's like a security blanket for her." Katie paused. "Without it...she won't know how to...."
She couldn't finish the thought, and slammed the walls of her brain down, before the tears spilled out. Driving, just driving. First things first.
Naomi's body flushed cold. She didn't know why but the seriousness of what they were doing slathered over her skin as soon as Katie had spoken. She looked over gravely, "Did he ever try and..."
Katie flinched, eyes ahead. Only slightly but it was there. "Not really."
"I was really hoping for a definitive no." Naomi scrunched her eyes shut to try and pre-empt the image of Emilystruggling under the weight of some disgusting, plastered guy.
"When he's been drinking, he get's a little...handsey, you know." The red-head blew a curl of hair out of her eyes. "It was only once. I just hit him on the back of the head with a lamp."
Naomi smiled but it didn't reach her eyes. "The universal man's off switch."
They indicated, following the blinking side lights of the sports car as it circled at least three times around a roundabout and then headed back towards the outskirts of the city.
"Not in a hurry is he? Do you think that's good or bad?"
"Don't know," said Katie honestly.
The sinking sensation at the base of her neck was getting worse the longer they cruised around after him. He clearly wasn't worried about Emily making a break for it, why was that? She had the fleeting idea that she was tied up in the boot of his car and he was doing all this to show off to her, but Katie knew that was a fantasy. The boot could barely hold a rucksack let alone a person. Not a person. Emily.
Her twin.
"Maybe he's got her in there..."
Katie Fitch was momentarily thrown by the similarity of Naomi's thought and smiled sadly.
"Not enough room."
"Tried it have you?"
Damn, Naomi cursed the slip but Katie just ignored it, showing unusual graciousness. Kept her eyes tripping along the road.
"When we get her home, we need to find her someone kind, who sees how amazing she is."
The decisiveness in her tone made Naomi's face burn and she shifted in the fabric of the seat. Her brain screamed, Tell her. Why you're so upset. Why you agreed to go to Pandora's party when you knew they would all laugh at you. How her eyes shine when you smile at her.
Naomi sniffed loudly, but held herself together, in the darkness. Tell her, she deserves to know.
She willed her brain to shut the hell up but apparently anxiety made it brave.
Tell her what you felt when she left you the note.
"Katie..." she spoke first of all to break through the whirlwind of taunts. "I..."
Tell her, how you reached over and kissed her. The spark on her lips.
"Maybe we should..." Tell her how you watched her sleep, on a rug, in the dirt, with her arm slung over her face to hide the smile.
The car jerked a little.
Give her all the details on how you meant to walk away but the fake bruises on her face, made you want to kiss them better.
She felt a little dizzy. "Katie, I really think we should..."
Brown, confused eyes stared at her, waiting for some clarification to the rambling.
Her own eyes only flicked to the road momentarily but what she saw made her blood freeze.
""Brake!"
Before Katie could put any pressure through her foot, something solid and unstoppable slammed into them headfirst, crushing the bumper and engine into a single mass of plastic metal. Naomi felt her forehead slam into the side window and something trickle down past the corner of her eye before the car began to spin. Katie's neck snapped back next to her and her body slumped down into the middle of the car motionless as it turned and turned.
A maelstrom of sound and grating parts.
All lights went out, inside and out of both cars; just winked and died, then there was only blackness. Groaning metal buckled further as the car came to a complete stop on a small side road, Naomi's sense of balance wrapped up in nausea and dull pain.
She jerked her shoulder, with angry results.
"Katie?"
Her voice had it's own echo in the dust and the silence.
"Katie?"
She couldn't bring herself to reach over to where her friend was stationary and wilted, and her voice was about to crack in half. She could see from the slant of her seat that she was breathing though, that had to be enough didn't it?
Pushing at her door, with livid tears, Naomi crawled out of the wreck, almost overwhelmed by the feeling of confusion and desolation. She stumbled to the other vehicle that had rolled on it's side a few metres away.
A smashed up skeleton, shedding yellow parts. Expensive yellow parts.
Oh God.
She suddenly realised who had hit them . And using up her last reserves of fear and rage she scratched wildly at the warped door and the body of the man inside. Levering it open with a bent piece of metal from some designated part of the Porsche, she unclasped his seatbelt buckle and dragged him out of there, out of his prized possession, his status symbol.
Out of the skin that everyone admired.
"Wake up, you bastard. Wake up!" She let him drop to the floor, and nudged his shoulder with her aching foot. There was no response but she knelt down anyway, slapping him hard in the face. "Danny!"
Seeing there was no reaction, at all, not even a flicker of a blink, Naomi couldn't help herself, she burst out crying , there in the road.
------
She didn't hear it but a few miles away, Emily Fitch screamed as the entire wall of the locked room burst into flame.