Above the Vaulted Sky - Page 124

                  Graham screams in pain. The sound comes from nowhere.

                  He tries to talk but can only open his mouth to emit more cries.

                  I run my hands through my hair, pulling on the ends to try and focus myself with the sharp sensation.

                  ‘I’ll do it,’ I say. ‘It’s my fault.’

                  I cross to the laptop.

                  ‘No,’ Elle says. She bats my hand away from the enter key. ‘You ain’t the boss of me, we decide this together.’

                  ‘We have no time, Elle!’ I cry. I raise my voice and she steps back.

                  ‘Look, Easton,’ she says. ‘We have to decide this fairly, we draw straws.’

                  Before I can reply, there’s the whirr of the building of energy, and then a squeal as it’s released.

                  We both turn to the laptop and see Yates standing beside it.

                  He looks like a child caught with his hand in the biscuit tin. ‘We had no time to argue,’ he says. ‘You wanted me to do things with my life.’

                  I open and close my mouth like a fish. ‘But you didn’t know him!’ I say. I look between them. ‘Neither of you did.’

                  ‘Friendship isn’t measured in degrees,’ Yates says. ‘I’ve had precious few in my life, and I wanted to do something for the people who have helped me.’

                  Graham quietens down. He emits a final groan and passes into what appears to be unconsciousness.

                  I spot a chair under the desk and collapse into it. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ I reply. ‘It won’t be forever, we can’t leave him dead anyway.’

                  I close my eyes and reach out to my friends. Elle’s body looks like the surface of a stormy sea finding calm again. The anger that was pulsing through her fades to nothing in a second. I wish I could control my emotions so easily.

                  Yates looks nervous. I see the black dot of his demons, shrinking to hide away, still not gone; always threatening to return. But there is a contentment there too, a slow, easy rhythm of happiness.

                  And then Graham, and I can see he’s no longer alive. I think for a second and wonder how we can look more alive once we’ve passed to this side. When we live, we block everyone else from seeing deep into ourselves. When we die, we leave nothing secret. It calms me  as I sit in the madman’s lab with my friends.