Sugar & Squall Read online

  I was stupefied by a different kind of pain; that of seeing a fit, active being suddenly reduced to an invalid by my own hand. Saltwater welled in my eyes. It drowned out color and clarity until all I had left was a viscous remnant of what had been right in front of me. I didn’t question him. He needed to conserve his energy.

  It was slow going. To make matters worse, we were forced to skirt around the bottom of the hill because of the heat coming from the inferno above.

  As we rounded out towards the front of the school, I realized I was almost completely dry again with the effort. The rain had stopped altogether.

  I tried with little success to apply as much pressure as I could to Logan’s wound when we hobbled onto the beach. We sank to the sand together as Carver burned behind us. I propped Logan against a rock. Even at this distance you could feel the warmth of the fire. I was thankful for it – for both of us.

  Logan wore the same black jumper. The poncho was gone. I’d felt a wet patch on the back of his jumper when I’d led us down here, but Logan assured me the knife had not gone through completely. He reinforced this by saying, much to my horror, what I could feel was the blood of the jumper’s original owner.

  I was about to settle up beside him and do something about finding a fresh cloth, as even the front of the jumper had become heavy with blood. Instead, Logan looked into my eyes and stammered breathlessly, “Go – try and find – help.”

  I was confused by a moment until I realized by help he meant a way to communicate with the outside world, a radio, phone.

  “The helicopter?”

  He nodded.

  “Go,” he said, brushing me towards the pier. He must have seen the way I was torn there, as if by merely leaving his side some other sinister element would rise from the ocean or earth and tear him from me.

  “I’ll be fine,” he enthused, speaking more steadily. “Get help.”

  With that altruism, I stood and ran towards the pier. I didn’t look at it directly. I didn’t want to think about the guard’s body that was probably still twisted up below it.

  My foot didn’t hurt anymore. My legs, however, felt solid. Pressing them continually forward through the sand almost brought me to tears. I could see the body of the pier, remembering the icy fingers that had clawed at every inch of my body when I’d hit the water that fateful night. It seemed like centuries ago.

  The helicopter was maybe 100 yards away on a small patch of flat ground, invisible from Carver. Although it was some distance away, the fire was creating quite a bit more light, as was the moon now that the storm had passed and the cloud cover had, to some extent, thinned out overhead.

  I climbed up and into the cabin. I could identify helicoptery bits and pieces. There was the joystick and a variety of controls and dials.

  There was space for a radio, but no radio itself. Of course, I concluded. Because these guys were just dying to tell the world what they were up to.

  I saw something on the rear seat. It was a phone alright, a satellite phone perhaps. There was a white box behind it, a first-aid kit, a torch and a blanket behind that. I grabbed everything.

  The phone was a brick-like object, smooth and heavy. There was a long, plastic-covered antenna attached to the top. The screen was bigger than normal and it was physically quite weighty, but apart from that it looked like any other cell. I touched the keypad lightly and the screen glowed luminescent green. There was a picture of a dish in the top-left next to it a grid with three bars illuminated out of six. Better than none.

  Although Carver was some distance out to sea, all the emergency boards I’d read around the school listed the regular three-digit emergency number shared by the mainland. Of course, you’d be screwed considering the only phones were up in the principal’s office.

  I pressed the three numbers slowly, my hands shaking all the while, watching each flicker up on the screen as I did so. Finishing, I hit the large green ‘dial’ button at the top, pressed the receiver to my ear and cupped the other so I was thrown into an eerie cone of silence.

  There were three beeps in quick succession. I was surprised at the clarity. Each was loud and clear. A few seconds later another tone followed I didn’t recognize. I pulled the phone away and looked at the screen. In bold capitals it read ‘CALL UNABLE. TRY AGAIN.’

  Unable? What the hell did that mean?

  I punched in the three numbers again in faster succession and waited, but again, the same tone and message. Once more. Nothing.

  “Shit,” I said aloud.

  Panic slipped over my shoulders like a winter coat. I closed my eyes and attempted to clear my head. Maybe you had to dial out, start with ‘0’.

  I hit ‘0’ and then redialed the number, once more bringing the receiver to my ear.

  The three beeps came as before, but this time there a short dial-tone and a voice.

  “Julia speaking. What is your emergency?”

  The voice was so clear. I felt like I could reach through the phone and touch her face.

  “Hello?” I responded. I hadn’t thought this through. I didn’t know what to say.

  “Who am I speaking with?” the voice said.

  Which name, which name?

  “Kat.”

  “Okay, Kat. What is your emergency?

  “I-, I–” Nothing would crystallize.

  “Kat, where are you?”

  I couldn’t remember the name of the damned island. “The Carver Institute.”

  There was a pause. I heard fingers hitting keys.

  “The boarding school on Centenary Island?”

  “Yes.” She was right. I recalled the name now.

  “Okay. Tell me slowly what’s happened, Kat.”

  “I think there’s been an attack.” The words rolled out too fast.

  “An attack on whom?”

  “The school. I think it’s been kidnapped,” I replied, realizing at once how absurd that sounded, as if the school had suddenly been yanked out of the ground and shipped off in a hessian sack.

  “Men came and kidnapped the students,” I clarified. “Maybe by boat.”

  God, you sound stupid.

  I waited for laughter or the flat-line of a hang-up, but Julia was the epitome of composure, repeating the information back to me.

  “You’re saying someone has kidnapped the students of the school. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many were taken?”

  “Everyone.” That one word made the seriousness of the situation sink in.

  “Are there any teachers with you?”

  “No. They took them too.”

  “When did this happen, Kat?”

  “I’m not sure, three days ago maybe?”

  “Are you on the island?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is there anyone there with you?”

  “Yes, another student,” I clarified.

  “Are you injured?”

  “No, but Logan, the other student, is. He’s been stabbed.”

  “Kat,” the voice said, with a motherly drawl I associated with bear hugs and fresh-out-of-the-oven cookies. “I’m just getting more help. Stay with me, okay?”

  “Okay,” I replied, my voice growing bolder.

  There was silence, some background noise.

  “Kat? Are you there?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have notified the Coast Guard and they are on their way.”

  “The boat they used,” I remembered. “I think it has ‘Lotus’ in the name.”

  “The boat the kidnappers are using?”

  “Yes.”

  “Lotus. L-O-T-U-S?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, I’ve got that. Now, I need to kno–”

  The line went dead.

  A battery symbol was flashing on the screen. All light and life had vanished from the device. It was dead.

  Frantically, I started stabbing at the keypad, flipping the phone over and looking for some kind of on/off switch or somethi
ng to jolt it back into animation.

  I rifled around the cockpit. There have to be batteries here, I told myself. They must be somewhere, but all I found were clothes and a canteen. I kept pressing buttons, but it was futile. I knew that.

  Screw it, I thought. She said they were sending someone out. She sounded like she believed me. I couldn’t leave Logan alone. I just couldn’t do it, so I headed back.

  I switched on the torch and found it was effective. Its strong beam illuminated a wide radius. Things became significantly clearer.

  I could see now a low mist hung over the landscape with the rain gone. The ground was pock-marked in places where water had pooled together, cowering away from the storm that had for hours bullied the sky.

  When I reached Logan I foolishly shined the light directly into his eyes. His head snapped away.

  “Sorry,” I started, pointing the torch out to the ocean and assembling the contents of the bundle on the ground. “Help’s coming. I got through.”

  “Radio?”

  “Satellite phone, I think.”

  Logan nodded silently, before adding, “Did you bring it?”

  “It’s dead, and I couldn’t find any more batteries.”

  I was furiously sorting through things. The first-aid kit offered some mental respite until I realized it wasn’t really of much use unless you actually knew first-aid. I lifted Logan gently from the rock and laid the blanket over his shoulders.

  The torch was small enough to fit in my mouth, so I clamped it between my teeth as I started rummaging through the contents of the kit. I knew help could be hours, maybe days away. Something had to be done about Logan’s wound, and fast.

  He lifted himself up. “Bring it over here.”

  I took the kit to him, top open. He picked through it, every so often pulling something free and adding it to a growing collection on the opened lid. Satisfied, he looked to me.

  “I’ve got to suture the wound.” He was definitely speaking stronger, but his voice was still weak.

  Stitching sounded like an awfully primitive and slow solution. “You can’t just burn it like in the movies? You can’t,” I searched for the word, “cauterize it?”

  “Cautery is no good for a wound this deep. This isn’t MacGyver, you know.”

  “Mac-who?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Look, there’s a hemostat there in that white sachet on top. That will control the bleeding. Just pour it onto the wound.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes.” He was being short with me. He had to be.

  I was skeptical. “Jesus, are you sure?”

  He locked his hand around my wrist. His eyes searched mine. “I know what I’m doing. Trust me.”

  “Okay,” I replied.

  I picked up the packet and tore off an edge. Some of the contents were picked up by the wind and whisked away, so I angled myself back to the wind and hovered above the wound.

  Logan drew the jumper up and away. The torch shook unsteadily against my teeth, scratching against the enamel. It threw light on and off the wound.

  It wasn’t a pretty sight. The cut was thinner than I’d thought, but it was long. Black, insipid blood oozed from the edges.

  “Pour it right onto the wound,” Logan instructed, “all of it. It’s going to burn, but don’t worry.”

  I nodded and began to pour. There was a sizzle where the dust collected with flesh. Logan stiffened. His face balled up as I continued to pour the entire contents of the satchel out.

  An acrid, pungent odor rose up and I had to turn away. I threw the packet to the side once it was empty and closed my eyes, pinching my nose together and breathing deeply.

  I avoided the wound site altogether when I turned back to him. “What now?” I asked.

  “Pass me the saline.”

  “The wha–”

  “The clear bottle there. In a few minutes I’ll wash everything clean and start the sutures.”

  I didn’t ask him if he knew what he was doing again. His medical knowledge and confidence had actually unnerved me if anything.

  I passed the bottle to him. The whites of his eyes shot out at me in moonlit monochrome.

  “In the slim packet there’s a needle. I need you to take the lighter there and heat up the tip until I say so.”

  I did as he said. I took the needle out carefully knowing that losing it would be dire. As he’d said there was also a regular cigarette-lighter in the kit, which seemed odd. You were hardly going to light up a smoke or set yourself aflame in a situation like this. I thumbed it to life and held the tip of the needle over the flame, my eyes and the torch between my teeth all focused on its end.

  The tip started to turn black. Could you burn metal? I wasn’t sure. I looked down to Logan and he nodded, telling me to keep going. “It’s just carbon,” he said.

  Eventually, he told me to pull the flame away and pass him the needle. I snuck a glance at the wound and realized he’d cleaned it while I’d been occupied with the needle. It was now little more than a thin red line running down his abdomen, winking gently with every intake of breath. He already had the thread in his hand.

  I passed him the needle and he worked away at it for a while before painfully pinching together the wound with his thumb and forefinger. The needle hung there, an inch or two away from the skin.

  “If I pass out,” he said. “You have to wake me up. Okay?”

  I nodded again. It seemed that was all I could.

  I heard Logan’s teeth mash together when the needle went in. It poked out the other side cleanly, thread trailing behind it. A wave of cold ran up from my feet, but I held strong. I watched his face distort with every pass of the needle, and all I could do was weep as he sewed himself back together.

  #

  He never did pass out.

  “All done.” He’d pulled the jumper back over the wound, but he was now pressing a bulge against it I assumed to be part of the blanket.

  I scooted closer beside him, lifting his hand up and replacing it with my own. I added downward pressure and he winced, so I backed off slightly.

  A few nights ago he’d been the one out here saving me when I’d fallen into the water. He’d saved my life and I’d stabbed him in return. Some girlfriend I was turning out to be.

  He seemed at ease. Nonetheless, I began to realize the only reason he looked so peaceful was because all the blood had drained from face. I reached around and held his hand in order to reconnect physically, pass energy between us.

  “I’m fine,” he said, attempting to placate my worry.

  “I know,” I replied, staring into his eyes. “How did you get away from the school?” I knew it was best that he didn’t speak, but I had to know.

  He breathed in, filling his lungs. “I found the rifle and fired a shot out of the window. I didn’t know what it would do, but I hoped it would give you a chance, a distraction, anything to buy you a chance to escape. Did it work?”

  I recalled the shot when the Eagle and I had fought at the rat’s nest. “It did.” I pressed his hand tighter.

  “After that, I started after you. I couldn’t move fast. It took me ages to even get outside, and then I saw you, coming up from the chapel. As you came into range I saw the Eagle had his gun raised, so I fired. I think I got him in the shoulder.”

  I remembered the way the Eagle had been thrown back, the thunder.

  “I went to fire again, but you were running towards him. It was too dangerous… But you did kill him?”

  I realized then what I had done. “Yes.”

  “What happened down there, at the chapel?”

  “I shot him in the cave, but he was wearing a bulletproof vest.”

  Logan nodded, as if he’d been expecting it all along.

  “But what about the explosion?” I continued. “Why would he want to just blow up the school like that?”

  Logan shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, honestly. I’m just glad you weren’t in there when it went up. I’m glad I wa
sn’t in there.”

  I changed the subject. “I still can’t believe Dad sent you here to look out for me. You’re really not Secret Service?”

  “I am, but I’m not, not officially at least. I guess you could say I’m in a special branch.”

  “What, the babysitters’ club?”

  Logan laughed, gently. “Not quite. He wanted me to stay out of the way, you know, your father. He wanted me to be completely undercover, act like a regular student. He said you needed ‘controlled freedom’. His words, not mine.”

  I put a face to the anger, the face of my father, for dragging Logan out here only to have me cut him up, for this whole life-scarring episode. But then I realized how things would have turned out if he hadn’t, if I’d never met Logan, which only complicated my feelings.

  “I’m sorry,” Logan said.

  “No,” I replied. “It’s fine. So Logan’s your real name?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re older than me?”

  “Just a little.”

  “I didn’t know they let teenagers into the Secret Service.”

  “They don’t, but it wouldn’t be the Secret Service without secrets, would it?”

  I recalled now where I’d seen him before, in the background, that gala, in Spain, across the road, at the front of my old school, watching…

  “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”

  He laughed. “I’ve been assigned to you since your father became president. That’s how I know you. I mean, I don’t know you, but yes, I’ve watched you from a distance, studied your files.”

  “I have files?”

  He rolled his eyes. “A lot of files.”

  “Oh.”

  He laughed again. “I probably sound like a stalker, but it was you, you were different. I know it’s against protocol, and I’ll probably get a real good ass-kicking if anyone ever finds out, but it just happened. I fell in love with you.”

  “When you said you were here because you became too involved with a girl, were you talking about me?”

  He nodded. “I asked for this assignment. Begged for it. Anything to be near you.”

  A tear rolled off my eyelid. “Why didn’t you tell me who you were sooner?”

  He breathed in again, steadying himself. “I didn’t have any reason to. I thought this would blow over, so I kept cover. I was caught between my job, my duty, and you. That’s why I was cold at first, and I’m sorry about that.”