Chapter Eighteen

"Claire.." Dougie called.

"I told you. I'm on the toilet." I yelled back, having only moments to think about what I would be doing next.

He's not going to see this. I won't let him. Too much has happened in one day. This was definitely the unforgettable sixteenth birthday. Unforgettable for all the wrong reasons. The elated feeling I felt this morning was overshadowed by the most recent events. I shouldn't have opened my mouth when I'd said I knew things were going to be okay.

I flushed the toilet, the sound covering up the folding up of papers as I hastily shoved them in to my pockets. Just in time for Dougie to snatch at the folder from my hands when I opened the door again. His face fell when he discovered there was nothing inside it.

"Sorry." He mumbled guiltily. "I thought you were being weird with me."

"No." I shook my head, forcing a grin as I slipped my hand in to his. "I'm just a little shook up. Today just burnt out." I winced as soon as I'd made the remark. "I didn't mean it like that… I… Oh… sht. Sorry."

Dougie didn't say a word. I half expected him to turn and walk down the stairs. The other half of me thought he might take offence and yell in my face. I hadn't predicted that he'd pull me closer and slam his lips against my own. It was safe to say that it was highly unexpected, and I was rather taken aback by his sudden movement. His lips moved slowly with mine, sorrowful as his tongue seemed to move with the same feeling. I could sense all his hurt in that one moment. And by God there was a lot of it.

His hands moved from my waist down to, and past my hips, reaching my back pockets on my jeans. I cringed, the sound of rustling paper resounding in my head. I pulled away, looking at Dougie, wide eyed and a little scared. His stern expression told me everything. He knew I'd hidden the contents of the folder. I'd lied.

I took this moment to run down the stairs, as anyone would in my situation, taking the folded papers from my pockets, running with them tightly in my grip. Dougie was following closely behind me, gathering speed.

"Give them me!" he yelled whilst giving chase. He was faster than I was. He'd already grabbed me by the arm as I reached the front door. "Claire, come on." His fingers walked up my top, where they rested on my stomach for a few moments before tickling me hard.

"Dougie!" I squealed with laughter, stammering with giggles, the giggles causing pain as he continued the torture. "You… You won't… Like it." I collapsed to my knees, feeling the document ripped from my hands, my body being released from his grip momentarily. I sat on the driveway now, Dougie sitting behind me, me in between his legs.

I refused to lean back in to him as he opened out the folds, his eyebrows knitted together with confusion. I watched as his eyes read the page over again twice more before he looked up at me. My face had begun to glow. I could practically feel the heat radiating from it. Red had never really been my colour, now was no exception. He didn't say a word, instead, pulled me in to him, wrapping his arms around me. I didn't dare ask what he was thinking. His silence seemed to speak a thousand different things.

"We should move on soon." Harry remarked. He stood in the open doorway at the front of the house, observing the four of us that were actually sat on the driveway. He was exhausted. Emotionally and physically. The pressure was slowly wearing away at my brothers character, his good nature, his soul. "We can't stay here anymore."

"The neighbours have rung police." Danny spoke up, his eyes set on a woman talking to another across the road, her own eyes flickering to the house every so often. "We have twenty minutes." These words seemed to pull everyone to their feet. Harry ran back inside to warn Tom, who was still examining Patricia's body, and to call up to Nat and Sheena that they should hurry. Dougie grabbed hold of my hand tightly, pulling me back in to the house.

"What are you doing?" I shrieked as he scrambled around his bedroom, pulling a large hold all and a smaller one from underneath his bed.

"Take this." He thrust the smaller bag at me. "Get as many books as you can from the library. Anything that might help us later on. Historical records and stuff. How to.. books." He turned to his own bag. "I'll pack up our sht."

I wandered from his bedroom, not at the pace I should have been venturing at. I guess now wouldn't have been the best time to ask his views on the documents he's found. Although perhaps he, like me, didn't know what to make of them. I know I'm thoroughly baffled. How in God's name would some one know when a child is to be conceived. It's not as if it's pre-arranged on a calendar for when the sperm and egg meet for tea and crumpets. The creation of life is not predictable.

Is it?

I concluded that I liked the smell of Dougie's library. The smell had never been noticed by me before, but something told me this would be my last visit here. I needed to savour this. The sight of all the books neatly placed in shelves, all in order. The silence that was always blissful in this room. And the musty scent of old pages from books penned hundreds of years before me. But with so many books to choose from, how will I ever decide which to take and which to leave behind in so little amount of time?

I placed the bag on the table and looked at the books already on there. All the information about past binding ceremonies Dougie and I had been looking at. That was a keeper, just so Harry could continue his mad love of tradition. I moved around the room now, section by section. A – Z. 'Atlas of clans around the world', to 'Zengor: The art of prediction'. Closing my eyes and pointing blindly was the method of elimination I eventually resorted to. How very efficient and accurate.

'How to name your baby." I opened my eyes, seeing my fingertip pressed against the cover. How ironic. What was a book like this doing here? I picked it from the held and turned it over in my hands, reading the blurb. Ah. 'How to name your baby with the best vampyric meaning suited to your child.' How convenient. I went to shove the book back in to place hastily, frustrated with myself, stopped when Dougie's hand placed over my own, taking the book from my grip.

"We might need that." He grunted.

It wasn't long before Harry was ushering us all outside of the house. I wanted to know what the plan was to be. Surely we couldn't just run from the police. They're like the law. What surprised me about the surroundings, was Sheena. She was leaning casually against the fence around the garden, twizzling her hair in between her fingers as she spoke to a dozen neighbours who seemed to be engrossed in what she was saying. Smiling sweetly, speaking politely and batting her eyelashes. That was not the Sheena I knew.

"Her gift." Danny explained, noticing my stunned expression. "She has the ability to charm whoever she pleases. Ironic really. That she's the sadistic bitch that she is." I snorted involuntarily at these words. Danny really did have a way with phrasing certain things. "She can make them forget if she pushes it. She hasn't ever advanced far enough though."

"Time to go, I think." Harry stated to us all. "Gabz and Tene are meeting us in the park, opposite the club entrance."

I watched as Dougie followed on from Harry without so much as one word to me. I take it he's not talking to me then. It's really not my fault that Patricia had those papers. I thought for a moment that I might call out to him, get his act together. I didn't. I was silent as I trailed behind the group. Even Sheena had caught up, and was walking alongside Natalie and Tom. Well, it's not as if I haven't been alone before.

I could understand why no one else seemed to notice I existed at that moment. Harry was up front, walking as fast as he could without losing the rest of us, so he could see his expectant girlfriend as soon as physically possible. Tom and Natalie were too engrossed in each other, not surprising really. Jessi was still being comforted by Danny, who was just grateful for her allowing him near her. Dougie had dropped behind Harry now, blatantly still not talking to me. And Sheena, well, she has nothing to say to me usually anyway.

Social status just hit a big fat zero again.

Head down, hands shoved in pockets, gaze fixed to the pavements I was walking on, I failed to notice Dougie had stopped walking altogether. Only realising when he pushed his cold hand in to my jacket pocket, locking his fingers with mine, walking in sync with me. I looked up and he smiled, a nervous tug at the left hand side of his mouth as a drop of rain ran off his nose. Something else I hadn't taken notice of. It was raining.

I shivered uncontrollably. I'd never liked the cold. The rain. The snow. They seemed to rip in to me quickly, the effects leaving moments afterwards and the unpleasant feeling was gone. But it was the first few minutes I loathed above everything else. A jacket was flung over my shoulders. It was warm. I pulled the hood over my head, noticing out of the corner of my eyes that Dougie's arms, now covered in goose pimples, were bare.

"Thank you." I mumbled as I linked my arm with his, tightly gripping as we continued on through the heavy downpour.

"Harry." Tene breathed, smiling as he sat next to her on the park bench, pulling her on to his lap immediately. "The baby kicked. Kicked for the first time, Harry." She beamed whilst moving his hands to her stomach. The bump just noticeable underneath the baggy sweatshirt she was wearing.

"I missed it?" he stroked at the material of the jumper affectionately before sliding his hands under the top and pulling her further in to him.

"But the baby missed you." She pouted, kissing him.

I noticed how Dougie's hand had become clammy in mine. Or was it the other way around? I avoided all eye contact with him as much as I possibly could. This was not the most comfortable of situations considering the current circumstances. And then I felt my heart drop. Dougie slipped his hand from my grip again, silently sauntering away to another bench, a few metres away from where everyone else was sitting or standing.

"For f-cks sake." I mumbled to my shoes, sitting next to Harry and Tene who seemed to have noticed the lack of communication between me and Dougie. The guy who only hours previous had shown me all the love I needed. Harry went to question me, his hand moving from Tene's to mine, squeezing gently. I shook my head, signalling I didn't want to elaborate. Not yet anyway. I needed to sleep on this, because I couldn't even begin to comprehend what this all meant, let alone try and make Harry understand. Although, perhaps…

No.

This is just between Dougie and myself.

"Claire?" I looked up from my laces, seeing Dougie staring back up at me expectantly, patting the wooden space beside him. I loosed Harry's hand and got up, a little light-headed as I started to walk across the grass to him. "What do you want to do?"

"About what?" I asked as I sat, his arms immediately snaking around my waist and shoulders.

"This baby… If.. When.. I don't know." He stammered. I shrugged and glanced down at my hands before twiddling my thumbs. "Because I don't think there's much we can do." He spoke without feeling, emotion, warmth. This was not what he wanted. I didn't need to read his mind to know that. "Here." I felt the sheets of folded paper forced in to my hands before he got up and stood with Jessi.

Alone once again.

I may as well have just stayed at Peachings. No one likes me there, but at least they acknowledge that I exist. Why in God's name am I standing for his crap anyway? As I already argued with myself, this isn't my fault.

"Dougie!" I called, standing up, standing my ground. He ignored me. "I swear, if you don't come here right now…"

"I don't want to talk about it." He turned to face me, snapping back at me. "It's bullsht. Bllocks."

"I just want to understand what these mean!" I waved the papers as I walked closer to him. I'd decided against allowing myself to look back at everyone else who had stopped what they were doing the moment this disturbance of the peace had occurred. "I never asked Patricia to have them. It's not my fault!"

"Why try and hide it from me? Why the big fuss over this piece of sht?" He yelled, snatching the documents from my hands. I was speechless. Never had he ever raised his voice at me. I backed away as he began to walk me backwards. "This isn't real. There's going to be no baby. Okay?"

Moments previous he'd been so inviting. I didn't recognise him right now. I watched as he tore up the paper in to two. A deep slash formed across my middle, sending a searing pain through my abdomen, a slash across my stomach for each time he'd torn the paper. I screwed my eyes shut, hugging my stomach, the last thing I'd seen was Dougie's alarmed face as I fell to my knees in the indescribable pain. How could the ripping of paper cause me to bleed?

Wait.

Why was I bleeding?

Why were the cuts bleeding?