When they returned to their sleeping place, there were still no other people in the area they’d chosen. Aden settled on his side facing Brody, and pulled the blanket over them. He knew what Brody meant now about being grateful for the airbed. That marble floor looked cold and hard.

Aden wondered what Brody wanted to talk about. He tried not to waste time thinking about his life. There was no point and it was depressing. He couldn’t change the past, only by not being born, the one thing that wasn’t his fault.

“Not been too cheesy has it?” Brody asked.

“It’s been fun. Though maybe not the harp music. She’s good but it’s not my thing.” The woman was still playing. “Tell me she stops eventually.”

“I wonder if it’s like this in heaven.” Brody grinned. “Angels with harps annoying the shit out of everyone.”

Aden swallowed against the lump in his throat. “Do you believe in an afterlife?”

“No. Do you?”

“Yep.”

Brody’s brow furrowed.

“That surprises you?” Aden asked.

“That you’re religious? Yeah, it does given what you’ve said about being such a bad guy.”

“I’m not religious. I’ve never been to church in my life. But recently I’ve come to believe there’s another sort of existence after this one.”

“Why?” Brody threaded his fingers with Aden’s, stroking his palm with his thumb.

“Because we should be accountable for how we live our lives. There has to be a price to pay for choosing the wrong path, a reward for picking the right one.”

“You believe in heaven and hell?”

“Yes. If you’re the best person you can be, then you go to heaven. If you’re not, then you deserve hell.”

“You said you came to this recently, so what happened?”

“Something that made me realize I’d had choices and made the wrong ones, but that it might not be too late to change.”

Aden didn’t want to have this conversation. He shouldn’t have started it.

“Now you’re doing something to put things right?”

“In a way, though I’ll probably still end up in hell.”

Brody tugged him closer. “Does it worry you?”

“It makes me sad for missed chances, wasted opportunities. Maybe if I had parents who wanted me, I’d have turned out different. They set me on the wrong path but it was my fault I carried on along it.” He pulled out of Brody’s grip. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“How did they die?”

An iron fist grasped Aden’s heart. “What part of I don’t want to talk about it do you not understand?”

“What have you done that’s so bad?”

Something unforgivable. Something from which he could have walked away and he hadn’t. Suddenly everything seemed hopeless. He’d taken a life. How was there any way back from that? Yet, if that was true, what the fuck was he doing now, trying to be a better man, thinking he had a chance of a place in heaven?

“Sorry.” Brody wrapped his arms around him and held tight. “I don’t mean to pry. I feel like I’ve bared my soul to you and you still have yours locked away in a box.”

“That’s the best place for it.”

Brody kissed him. A soft sweet kiss that tugged at Aden’s heart.

“You wouldn’t rather have gone to a club?” Brody asked.

“I’ve been to plenty of clubs. I’ve never spent the night in a museum.” Maybe he’d remember this when he and Brody were far apart. A raft to cling to while he endured Dante’s perfect storm. “What did you want to talk about?”

“About you. Me. What happens when the month is up?”

I wish I knew. He opened his mouth then closed it again.

“Can we still see each other?” Brody asked.

“I don’t know.” Aden’s gut churned.

Brody sighed. “That guy Lucian isn’t competing for the same job. You two are nothing alike. Is there even a job? Tell me the truth.”

“Lucian wants me to fail. That’s all I can tell you.”

Brody moved back. “I don’t understand.”

Join the club. “I don’t know what’s going to happen when my time is up and that’s the truth. I won’t make promises I might not be able to keep. I need easier questions.”

“What’s your name?”

Aden laughed. “Aden.”

“Aden what?”

“North.” He wasn’t even supposed to tell him that.

“Did you go to college?”

“I left school when I was not quite sixteen.”

“Tell me the names of some of your friends.”

“Ringo, Tariq, Lee, Big Ken. Guys I hang around with sometimes.”

“Am I your friend?”

The closest thing he’d ever had. “Yes.”

Brody snuggled closer again and slid his arm around Aden’s waist. “Do they know you’re trying out for this job?”

“No. You’re the only one I’ve told.”

“Do they know about the scars on your back and how you got them?”

“No.”

“Do they know why you think you deserve to go to hell?”

“No.”

“Do they know how your parents died?”

“No.”

Brody pressed his mouth to Aden’s ear. “Will you ever tell me?”

Aden hesitated, then said, “No.”

He felt Brody tense.

“Better that you don’t know. It’s my cross to bear.”

“You think anything you’ve done could shock me? Remember what a fucked up life I had with Matt?”

Aden couldn’t make light of it. “Let it go,” he whispered. “Please.”

The lights went out and chattering in the cavernous hall fell to whispers.

“I won’t let you go,” Brody murmured in Aden’s ear.

But I have to let you go. Aden’s heart had hurt more in the past week than it had for years. He’d thought he didn’t care about anything and he’d been wrong. He’d become involved in Brody’s life. The need to keep him safe burned inside Aden’s chest like a speck of phosphorous. Each moment they spent together enmeshed them further. It was too late to just walk away. The damage had been done. Now Aden had to put things right before he went up or fell down.

Tim, the guy who’d stood with him in line, had said heaven was everything you hoped for, a place where you could be with friends and family who’d died. Aden had interrupted him, but he thought Tim had been going to say that each person’s heaven was different, tailored to their wants and needs. But Aden had no one. There would be no one to keep him company. He hadn’t much cared whether he lived or died and now he did.

“What are you going to do about Matt?” Aden whispered.

But Brody had fallen asleep, his steady breathing warming Aden’s cheek. When Aden was sure Brody was deeply unconscious, he carefully extricated himself from the guy’s hold and pushed to his feet. He picked up the flashlight and walked away from the entrance hall.

When he reached the section with the dinosaurs, he sat on a bench and leaned against the wall. Whatever he did in the twenty-one days that were left wouldn’t change his future, but would affect Brody’s. Despite Aden’s warnings that he couldn’t stick around, he knew he’d hadn’t got through to Brody. The longer Aden spent with him, the more he didn’t want to leave.

He’d disappear from Brody’s world and Brody wouldn’t understand why. That seemed cruel, but if Aden told him this had run its course and he’d had enough, that was cruel too. There was no explanation for leaving that Aden could give and not hurt Brody. Gaining knowledge of love, assuming it was possible, shouldn’t be at Brody’s expense. Why hadn’t Raphael seen that? Aden couldn’t believe he hadn’t. So what was Aden missing?

He wondered whether he could manipulate Brody into telling him to fuck off, doing something that pissed the guy off so much that he pushed Aden out of his life. It doomed Aden to hell, but maybe that was the price he had to pay for this brief period of happiness. Not love but the closest he’d ever get.

For the time being, he could do nothing. Matt still lurked in the shadows and until he was no longer a threat to Brody, Aden wouldn’t leave. He wasn’t going to sit around waiting for Matt to make a move. Aden had to find him. Neutralize the threat by one means or another whatever the consequences as far as Aden’s future was concerned.

 

         “Sorry we can’t stay for the full breakfast,” Brody said as they walked out of the museum. “The practice doesn’t usually open on Sundays but we’re on the rota for emergencies once every six weeks.”

“No problem.” They had coffee to go and Aden had picked up a couple of muffins from the breakfast buffet.

“I can take you back to the cottage before I go to work.”

“It’s fine. I’ll come with you. I can read the paper, stitch up a hedgehog or two. Though I draw the line at neutering dogs.”

Brody laughed. “Sure it’s not because Des will have you shoveling shit if he spots you?”

“You can see through me already?” But that wasn’t it.

“Want to call in at your place before we leave London?” Brody asked as he drove through the capital. “You could pick up some of your things. I know you’re not allowed to go home but I could go in and get stuff for you.”

“I had to surrender my key.”

“Where do you live?”

He hesitated. “Deptford.”

“A flat?”

“Bedsit.” That he’d never see again. “Have you decided what to do about Matt?”

“No.”

“What do you want to happen?”

“For him to leave me alone.”

“You think he ever will?” Aden didn’t.

Brody’s knuckles whitened as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “You have no idea how much I’d like to say yes, but I know him. He won’t give up. He might leave me alone for a while, but then he’ll come back. He won’t accept I don’t want him anymore. It’s beyond his comprehension.”

“He’s sick in the head.”

Brody let out a choked laugh. “Because he wants me?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah I do. Narcissistic personality disorder, I suspect, though I’m no expert. Matt’s arrogant, cocky, manipulative, vain and self-centered.”

“Fuck-a-duck, that sounds just like me.”

“Except you can laugh at yourself and be okay with others laughing at you.”

Aden huffed. “I’m still smarting from when I mounted My Little Pony and almost slithered off the other side.”

“If Matt had done that, he’d have blamed the horse, the person holding it, the one who saddled it and if anyone had laughed, he’d have gone ballistic.” Brody accelerated as the speed limit changed. “Part of me thinks it’s my fault he’s the way he is.”

“That’s crap and you know it. If he needs someone to blame, you’re the obvious target.”

“I admired him. No, more than that. I hero-worshipped him.” Brody spoke so quietly Aden only just caught what he was saying. “I thought he was the most brilliant person I’d ever met. I encouraged him to think he was too good to be teaching chemistry in a comprehensive school, that he deserved to be rich and famous. He couldn’t cope with criticism so I never criticized him. Whenever I did…”

“He hurt you and made you believe it was what you wanted.”

Brody glanced at him. “He’s always scared me a little I think, but I convinced myself, or he convinced me, that it was the intensity of our relationship that was sometimes overwhelming. When you said he tried to kill you, I didn’t want to believe it, but I do believe you. I should have gone to the police nine months ago.”

“You should have gone to the police when you were fourteen. As a kid you were easy to mould and he’s had all this time to twist you to what he wants.”

“He needs help.”

He needed stopping. Aden thought of how Matt’s hands had held him under the water. Brody talking to the guy wasn’t going to end this.

 

By the time Brody pulled up outside the practice, Aden hadn’t come up with any concrete plan of what to do about Matt. The only thing he was determined about was that Brody not go and see the guy on his own, but he knew even managing that was fraught with difficulty. He couldn’t be with Brody every minute of the day.

“You sure you don’t want to go home?” Brody asked.

Home?

Brody must have noticed his reaction because a faint flush coloured the guy’s cheeks. “I can call you a taxi. Or maybe Des or Karen would fetch you.”

“I’ll sit in the waiting room and read the paper.”

Brody had bought the Sunday Times when he’d stopped for fuel.

“Want another coffee?”

“I’m fine.” Aden climbed out of the car.

The practice was a smart new building, long and low with dark wood cladding, a grey slate roof and a lot of glass at the front. Aden followed Brody inside.

“Hi, Maria.” Brody waved to a pretty brunette who sat behind the reception desk. “This is Aden. He’s going to hang around until I’m done.”

“Hi.” She smiled at him.

Aden nodded and headed for the most comfortable looking chair in the empty waiting area. When Brody had asked him what newspaper he’d like, Aden had shrugged. He never read the paper. He had three hours to read this one.

The waiting room quickly filled up with people and their pets. A lady carrying a dog wrapped in a blanket came and sat next to Aden after she’d registered at the desk. The dog, a little grey thing, looked sick and listless. The woman, who was in her forties, kept stroking him but he didn’t respond.

“What’s wrong with him?” asked a small boy on her other side.

“He can’t walk. His back legs have stopped working.”

“My rabbit’s broken his foot.”

“I’m sure the vet will make him better,” the woman said.

A cat that had been hit by a car was carried in and taken straight into a consulting room by its distraught owner.

“Could you do me a favour?” asked the woman next to Aden. “I need to use the bathroom. Would you hold Riley for a couple of minutes?”

“Sure.”

“Thank you.” She lifted the dog and blanket onto Aden’s lap.

Aden stroked him. “Hello, Riley. You not feeling so good?” The little dog quivered under his fingers.

Sitting in the waiting room gave Aden a renewed admiration for what Brody did. Hard enough for human doctors to diagnose illness, but an animal couldn’t tell you where and how much it hurt. Aden tickled the dog behind its ears and he gave a wag of his tail.

“She’ll be back in a minute.”

He kept stroking the dog until the woman emerged from the bathroom. She’d no sooner retrieved her pet from Aden’s lap than her turn was called.

The boy with the rabbit put the carrying case on the empty chair next to Aden. A ball of white fluff with a pink nose pressed up against the grill.

“What’s her name?” Aden asked.

“Chewy. It’s a him.” The boy didn’t look much older than Des’s kids.

Aden put his fingers through the grill and petted the rabbit. “How did he break his foot?”

“Dad stepped on him.”

“Accidentally,” said the man with him.

“I know you didn’t mean to.” The boy leaned against his dad and the man kissed his son’s head. “Chewy knows too.”

Aden kept stroking the rabbit as he thought of his father. It was a good thing Aden had never been allowed a pet. One annoying incident, his father would have snapped and that would have been it. Even when there’d been a chance to bring the school pet home for the holidays, Aden had never put up his hand. Everyone else clamored to look after hamsters, fish and stick insects. Not Aden, even though he desperately wanted something to take care of.

The woman who’d been sitting next to him came out walking Riley on a lead, a smile on her face. Henrik stood at the consulting room door watching her and the dog that now looked perky and alert. Henrik’s gaze slid to Aden and he gave a small nod to acknowledge Aden’s presence.

A dachshund on the other side of the room suddenly lunged away from its owner and ran to Aden, jumping at his legs to be picked up. Its owner rushed over, full of apologies and Aden picked the dog up and tried to hand it over. Aden and the owner both laughed as the dachshund did its best to cling to Aden and lick his face.

“Sorry. He’s not usually so affectionate with strangers.”

“Don’t worry.” Aden stroked the dog’s head and finally the owner was able to pull it away.

The boy with the rabbit went into a different consulting room and Aden returned to the paper. There was an article on the massacre at the Octoplex in the review section. Aden read it carefully, but it was as if he was on the outside looking in, as though he’d never been there. Nothing flashed into his memory. He pored over the stories of those who’d looked for relatives and friends, lovers searching for their partners, people who’d had narrow escapes from the gunmen, tales of those who’d not escaped told by others. There was a page of photos of everyone who’d died. Aden wasn’t among them. He examined each image to see if he remembered anyone, but he didn’t.

“Sorry,” said a guy who’d nudged his paper as he sat next to him.

The dog he had with him was holding up a front leg.

“Lie down, Sylvie. Good girl.” He turned to Aden. “Been waiting long?”

“I’m not in the queue.” The dog shifted so that she was lying on Aden’s foot.

“Sylvie. Move.”

“She’s fine.” Aden reached down to pet her. “What happened to her leg?”

“Caught it in a hole when she was running after a rabbit. I’m pretty sure she’s broken it.”

The dog pressed her muzzle into Aden’s hand. He wasn’t usually so attractive to animals. Maybe because they were hurting, they were looking for reassurance. Or maybe it was eau de dinosaur.

“Aden?”

Brody was beckoning him, and Aden pushed to his feet.

“Five minute coffee break?” Brody smiled at him.

Aden had just reached him when he heard a loud exclamation and spun round.

“You little fraud!”

The guy with Sylvie was staring at her as she trotted across the floor toward Aden, no sign of any problem with her leg.

“What was all that about then? Fear of the vet brought on a miracle cure?” The man laughed and scooped the dog into his arms.

Brody frowned. “Don’t leave without us checking her out.”

The guy nodded and Brody ushered Aden through the door and into an open area with tables and sinks, other rooms behind glass partitions and closed doors.

“This is where we do most of the treatment,” Brody said.

At the far end, behind a glass screen, Henrik and two nurses were working on a cat. Aden wondered if it was the one that had been hit by the car. He followed Brody in the opposite direction to a room with a coffee machine and easy chairs and Brody poured them both a drink.

“You don’t let owners in the back?”

“Not usually. They get stressed, which stresses the animal and makes everything more difficult.”

“You need any dogs walked?” Aden asked.

“Finished the paper? I did warn you that you’d be bored.”

“I feel like I need to help. Christ, I can’t believe those words came out of my mouth. I must be sickening for something.”

Brody grinned. “I’m sure we can find one or two you can walk. Or you can sit in a cage and cuddle those that aren’t allowed out. There might even be a puppy that needs feeding. You told me you were good with puppies.”

Aden sipped his drink. “Everyone’s good with puppies.”

“And spiders?”

Aden winced. “I just don’t kill them, that’s all. I catch them and drop them out the window.”

“Me too.” Brody finished his coffee and put the mug in the sink. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to Cindy.”

A few minutes later Aden found himself dressed in scrubs and sitting in a cage with a sick dog called Odin. The Great Dane draped itself over his thighs and Aden gently petted its back, careful not to touch the IV line in its front leg.

“Good boy,” Aden said. “You not feeling well? You just lie there and dream about all the things you’ll do when you’re better.”

He caught Cindy’s eye and she pressed her lips together and shook her head. Ah.

“You like running, Odin? Or maybe lying in front of the fire on a cold day.” He kept stroking the dog and talking to it quietly.

Aden had moved into his third cage when he looked up to see Henrik crouching in front of him. A Staffordshire bull terrier with pins in two legs was snoring on Aden’s lap.

“Were you just in with Odin?”

Aden extricated himself and climbed out of the cage. “The Great Dane. Yeah.”

“My dog.”

Shit. Had something happened? “I was with him for a bit.”

“What did you do?”

Aden straightened. “Nothing. I just petted him and talked to him. Why?”

“Because he’s on his feet for the first time in a week and wagging his tail. Thank you.” Henrik beamed at him. “Plus, Brody has a smile on his face this morning. I don’t want to thank you for that because I wish it was me that had put it there but…yeah well, it wasn’t. I’ve been worried about him. You’ve only just met him so I know you weren’t responsible for the bruises.”

“I’d never hit him.”

Hurt him yes, but not hit him. The longer Aden stayed with Brody, the worse he was making it.