Inferno

Maybe I am looking at you,’ he whispered. 'Maybe I always have been.

And you’re kind of like a snowflake.’ Oh, Jesus Christ. He masked his fleeting surprise with a quirked eyebrow. ‘Excuse me?’ ‘Nothing,’ I said quickly. ‘I didn’t say anything.’ ‘No, no,’ he said, rounding on me so his face was too close, his eyes too searing, his smile too irritating. ‘I’m a snowflake, am I?

The whole point of being a good friend is being in the darkness. I’ll be your light, until you can be it yourself again.

I guess no one can be painted with just one brush. There is light and shade in all of us, pain and hardship, and some of us rise from it while others are darkened by it.

Maybe you’re not so bad after all.’ He leant across the seat, jabbing his finger in the air. ‘If you tell anyone, I’ll deny it. I have a reputation to uphold, you know.

I must be irresistible. You can’t stay away from me for more than twenty-four hours.

So, you care about me now,’ I said, meaning to make a joke of it, but it came out soft and low and full of something guttural that made me embarrassed. ‘Why?’ “Because I don’t know anybody like you. You’re like … a rare artefact. And it would be a shame if you got broken.’ Amusement spluttered from me in the most unattractive way. ‘Are you really comparing me to an antique right now? Oh my God, you nerd.” He started laughing, and the carefree melody of it swept me up until I was laughing too, and it was absurd because our families were being threatened and murdered and there we were squished together in a hundred-degree heat outside a maximum security prison, and we used to hate each other and now we were laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. He composed himself first, but it took a while and I was left choking my laughter into silence. ‘What I meant was,’ his face twisted into a quiet smile that felt secret and deadly, ‘you’re a bright spark, Sophie. And I don’t want anyone to snuff you out.’ ‘Oh.’ Well I couldn’t make fun of that. Was I supposed to say something back? Wasn’t that how compliments worked? The silence was growing and suddenly his words felt heavy and important and he was so close to me and I was perspiring and panicking, and … and I said, ‘And you’re kind of like a snowflake.’ Oh, Jesus Christ. He masked his fleeting surprise with a quirked eyebrow. ‘Excuse me?’ ‘Nothing,’ I said quickly. ‘I didn’t say anything.’ ‘No, no,’ he said, rounding on me so his face was too close, his eyes too searing, his smile too irritating. ‘I’m a snowflake, am I?’ ‘Shut up. Seriously.’ I pulled wisps of loose hair around my cheeks. ‘Shut up.’ ‘I think you were trying to tell me I was special.’ ‘Icy,’ I said. ‘I meant you were icy.’ I could practically taste his glee. I was floundering, and he was relishing it. ‘And unique, in that you’re uniquely annoying,’ I added. ‘God, you’re annoying.

You didn't care about the .... the name.' 'Not the name.'. He led my gaze, unfaltering, unblinking. 'Just the girl.

One right doesn’t remedy a thousand wrongs.’ ‘You should write a book of quotes.

You don’t really notice how many shadows there are in the world until you start being afraid of them.

Do you ever take a holiday? Like, do any of you just wake up and think ‘Today feels like a pyjama day.’? or is it always, ‘Today is a good day for murdering and stalking.’?

You realize you’ve been staring at me for the past five minutes?

I guess any halfwit could nail a game of ‘Spot the Falcone’. Just look for the shampoo-commercial hair or those I-might-murder-you eyes.

You really are something else.

I never considered myself an idiot until this very moment,’ I said, staring wide-eyed at Eden as we drifted towards it. ‘Really?’ said Millie, blinking heavily. ‘But you’ve done so many idiotic things already.

The way you’re talking right now, you’re aspiring to my fist in your face!’ I yelled over my shoulder. I reached the door but he was there in a flash, sliding in front of me. He was so tall. So broad. So immovable. ‘Move,’ I hissed. ‘Or I swear to every god and planetary system I will hit you in your smug face.

I’m bound by blood, Mom.’ My voice fell deathly quiet. ‘There is no way out.

Maybe I am looking at you,’ he whispered. ‘Maybe I always have been.

What I meant was,’ his face twisted into a quiet smile that felt secret and deadly, ‘you’re a bright spark, Sophie. And I don’t want anyone to snuff you out.

We were a couple of fractured lines, running parallel to one another, stuck in families that wouldn’t ever truly let us go. And I was sorry for hurting him.

Every second seemed to pull him further away from the boy I had thought he was, and I was starting to wonder if I had tricked myself – if the feeling of needing someone, of wanting someone to want me in a world where everyone had turned their back on me, had masked the truth of everything.

Did he know how well I knew his face now? It was burnt into my brain from that night. I knew the length and thickness of his lashes. I knew the ones near the corner of his eye were pale, while the rest were jet black. I knew the line of his cheekbone, and where it curved above his jaw. I knew too much.

I was part of something bigger, a player in a world that lived and breathed passion and danger, and it was wrong, and scary, but it was more than just existing, and now that I had experienced it, it was hard to shut off. It was hard to leave it behind.

The line between right and wrong was a dark, blurry gap, and I had fallen down inside it.