Blood by K. J. Wignall Read Free Book Online Page B

sitting on the edge of the step, rubbing her head.
    â€œI think you banged your head.”
    â€œCute but dumb, just my luck.”
    â€œSorry?”
    â€œNothing. I know I banged my head. What I mean is …” She sounded incredulous as she said, “Did you beat them up or something?”
    â€œNo, not really,” he said, relieved that she hadn’t seen most of what had happened.
    â€œSo I don’t owe you anything?”
    â€œOf course not, nor would you if I had fought with them.” He remembered the items in his hand and held them out to her. “He took these from your bag. He took a book, too, but he threw it in the river.”
    One of the items was an oddly-shaped metal pendant on a leather strap, the other a piece of plastic. She looked massively relieved to see them and for the first time let her guard down, laughing as she took them from his hand.
    â€œThank! God! I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d lost this.”
    He imagined she was talking about the pendant and said, “Perhaps if you wore it?”
    She looked puzzled for a second, then laughed again and said, “No, not the necklace, the memory stick.” She held up the piece of plastic. “It’s got all my stuff on it. Seriously, my whole life is on this thing.”
    Will nodded, guessing that there had been an alarming technological revolution since his last period of activity. “How’s your head?”
    She dropped the memory stick and the pendant into her bag as she said, “I feel a bit groggy, but I think I’m okay. It’ll probably hurt in the morning but …” She stopped abruptly and said, “Sorry, I should have said before, thanks for helping me. My name’s Eloise.”
    Eloise—at last, someone with a name he recognized.
    â€œYou’re welcome. I’m Will.”
    â€œHow old are you?”
    â€œSixteen.”
    â€œWhen are you seventeen?”
    â€œMy birthday’s in March,” he said, carefully not answering the question.
    â€œOctober, so technically, you’re older than me, but girls mature quicker.”
    â€œTrue,” he said, and left it at that. Not only was he much older than her, he was also like an insect trapped in amber. Eloise was heading towards her seventeenth birthday, eleven months from now, but his would never come. One day soon she would be a grown woman. She would marry and have a family and grow old, and he would still be the sixteen-year-old boy she saw before her right now.
    â€œYou look sad,” she said.
    â€œI am, a little, but it passes soon enough.”
    Eloise nodded, but then looked full of mock suspicion and teased him as she said, “Were you spying on me, Will? It’s pretty convenient that you happened to come along just when I needed a rescuer.”
    â€œI did just happen to walk along at the right moment, but I was coming here to see you.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI don’t know. Why does anyone want to get to know someone else?”
    She looked taken aback by the directness of his response, perhaps realizing that he was more mature than the average boy she encountered. She almost looked in danger of being won over, but as if remembering her former frostiness, her face hardened.
    â€œThat’s a nice thought, and I’m really grateful to you for seeing off those …” She struggled to think of an appropriately awful word to describe them and eventually gave up. “The thing is, Will, I don’t need any friends right now. I’m here because I want to be on my own. I don’t want to know people.”
    â€œI understand,” said Will, and took a step back, but he hadn’t given up just yet. “There was something else, too. Someone who just died gave me a notebook—it had your picture in it.”
    Eloise looked intrigued, but not enough to be won over. Even so, she said, “Was it the Big Issue