Bad Justice by David Bussell & M. V. Stott

Author:David Bussell & M. V. Stott [Bussell, David & Stott, M. V.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Uncanny Kingdom
Published: 2018-10-31T16:00:00+00:00

12

It was nighttime by the time I got back to Brighton. I don’t remember the drive, I was on autopilot the whole way there, replaying what I’d been through in Other London. The sight of the place. The way it felt. The things Carlisle had told me.

Magic had been used.

On me, on him. Magic to rob us of our memories. To erase the things we’d seen. To protect the identities of whoever had done the meddling.

To do that to me was one thing, I was just a little girl when it happened, a nobody. But to do it to Carlisle? That felt important. That was a big risk, a bold swing. Messing with him meant something. Why did they need this thing hidden so badly that they’d risk corrupting the memory of someone as powerful and ruthless as Carlisle? And who else might they have done the same to? How far did this thing go, whatever the hell this “thing” even was?

And what did any of this have to do with my baby brother?

I only realised where I was when the automatic doors of the hospital sighed open and I was bathed in the harsh striplights of the reception area. My first thought was to stop, to get out of there. To get back in the stolen car I’d parked outside and head home for some rest.

But my feet wouldn’t listen.

So I found myself in the intensive care unit, stood outside the door to a private room, sweat prickling my forehead.

I took a breath, opened the door, and stepped inside. The room had that hand sanitiser alcohol smell that reminded me of those chocolate liqueurs you get at Christmastime. My mother was laid out in the room’s only bed, sound asleep next to a vase of flowers and a box of Maltesers, her favourite, still untouched.. The room didn’t have a window to let any outside light in, so it was dark inside. The only light came from a dim lamp and the various life support machines that surrounded her, bleeping and purring, monitoring her heart. The same heart I would have listened to once, before she brought me into this world. A world I was barely a part of anymore, thanks to her.

I felt for a chair and sat down beside the bed, watching the dark shape of my sleeping mum as her chest rose and fell. This was the first time I’d shared a room with her in… I couldn’t even remember how long. Years. Years and years. Part of me wanted to grab a pillow and hold it over her face until her body went still. Another part wanted to curl up on the bed and fall asleep beside her.

‘I went back there, Mum. Back to the place you told me didn’t exist. The old-looking place. The secret streets. The place they took James.’

The dark hump in the bed muttered and shifted before falling silent and still.

For a moment I thought she’d woken up, and it felt like someone had reached into my chest and grabbed me by the heart.

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