Chapter Thirty-five

Chris and James spent most of the day in the tent. Much of it resting—or at least trying to. The rain had been torrential during the night, battering the canvas so incessantly that it had felt like being under attack. Even in the sleeping bag, with the warmth of James beside him, Chris had found himself shivering from the force of it, never quite able to fall properly asleep. He had spent a lot of time staring at the raindrops on the outside of the tent, some of them clinging stubbornly to the taut material, others trickling down it like tears.

It reminded him of Alan's house—the room with the broken-down wall and roof. Whenever it rained, the water spattered down in there.

Why don't you have it repaired?he'd asked once.

Alan had smiled sadly. Because some things can't just be fixed like that.

Dawn had brought a gloomy gray light only barely distinguishable from the night just gone. The side of his thin pillow was soaked through and cold, but Chris had hugged it anyway. There was nothing worth getting up for right then. Better to remain in a state of suspended animation as much as possible. To attempt to ignore the bursts of wind that still shook the tent, and the endless rattle of rain against it.

By the middle of the afternoon, the weather had cleared a little.

But God, he was still so tired.

He unzipped the front of the tent, crawled out into the dismal daylight, and then blinked as he looked around.

Along with so many others, they were camped on a vast square of driveway, enclosed on all sides by abandoned office blocks from which black, broken windows stared sightlessly down. This had been a parking lot once, he remembered, and the buildings surrounding it had been bright and full of life. But now the offices were empty—the workers having long ago moved on to new, brighter premises—and what had once been a parking area for cars had been colonized as one for human beings instead.

A sea of tents stretched out around him, with webs of guy ropes crisscrossing the narrow pathways leading between them. The colors of the tarps were drab and all but uniform in the weak light. He registered a few figures. Some were standing and stretching out their backs at the side of their improvised homes. Others were sitting half outside their drenched tents. A few were moving about, wrapped up in waterproof coats like fishermen. Here and there, steam rose from boiling kettles. Everyone was frozen and bedraggled. But they were carrying on.

That was what people did, after all.

Chris stood up and stretched out his own back. Then he heard a rustle behind him and twisted at the waist. James, equally groggy, was emerging from the tent.

"Throw me my coat?" Chris said.

"What for?"

"Because it's cold." He looked ahead again. "And I'm going to the shop."

There was a café a couple of streets away. Coffee available from the counter; rows of cheap sandwiches wrapped in cellophane in a lonely fridge humming against one wall. The bell rang as Chris walked in. It was nobody's idea of a fancy place, and yet he immediately felt the guy behind the counter's gaze following him, the expression on his face a familiar one.

Because even just one night on the streets was enough.

This is all you'll ever be.

Chris did his best to shut the voice down. It wasn't true. After finding the note from Katie in the art studio, he had decided it wasn't safe for him and James to stay there anymore. If she could find them there, then someone else might. The tent was only a temporary refuge though. This was not his life again. If everything went to plan tonight, he and James would have enough money to stay wherever they liked from now on.

Why was Katie looking for him?

That made no sense, and the question nagged at him. Whenever he thought of his sister, there was a sense of shame so deep it was almost fathomless—a terrible and hollow emptiness that he could fall into forever. When they'd seen the message she'd left, James had suggested calling her, but that was impossible for Chris to contemplate. Even the thought of doing it had caused a visceral reaction inside him. All his life, he had been a failure. He had let people down at every turn. If there was ever a hope of reconnecting with Katie—and there isn't, he reminded himself; there absolutely isn't—then it could never begin like this, with him begging her for help the way he had always needed to.

Even so, he had stared at the message for a long time.

I love you.

Written out of duty, of course. Or worse, out of pity. He refused to allow himself to believe she could possibly mean it—and if she did, she shouldn't.

Not after everything he had done.

He picked up a couple of sandwiches and took them over to the counter.

"A black coffee as well, please," he said. "Large."

The man just stared at him, waiting. Chris fought down the anger inside him. He found his wallet, picked out the money required, and put it down on the counter between them.

The man looked at it, then back up at Chris.

"A. Black. Coffee," Chris repeated slowly. "Large."

James was sitting half in the entrance of the tent when he got back, wrapped up in his own coat and hugging his knees. Chris handed him one of the sandwiches and the coffee.

"Here you go," he said.

"Thanks."

James shuffled over to make space for Chris to sit beside him, and then they both ate in silence, occasionally passing the coffee back and forth between them.

"Now what?" James said.

Chris screwed up the empty sandwich packet. There wasn't much they could do yet, but it felt important to take charge. James's spirits were down, which meant his needed to be up—that was one of the secrets to making a relationship work. They were like seesaws that way.

"Now," he said, "we get ready."

Most of the belongings they'd brought with them had remained packed away in their waterproof backpacks, but it still took them half an hour or so, either through lethargy or out of some desire they both had to keep themselves occupied. If you were busy, you didn't have to think.

Outside, he started removing the poles from the canvas.

"The tent too?" James said.

"Yeah."

"What about tonight?"

"We're not going to need it anymore, are we?"

James didn't reply.

As they worked, Chris noticed how nervous James was. Not just nervous, but frightened—scared for both of them, but especially for Chris. The arrangements for tonight were simple. Chris would be meeting the buyer alone. James would be waiting nearby with the book, close enough to bring it if Chris decided he trusted the man. It was better for them not to be together if things went wrong. After all, it was the book the man wanted. That would give them control over the situation.

A little extra leverage.

James didn't like the idea, and Chris hadn't expected him to. If the situation had been reversed, he would have felt the same. But for him, it was non-negotiable. It was he who had taken the book in the first place—he who had gotten them into this—and so he would get them out. Which wasn't to say he wasn't nervous himself. His chest was growing tighter the whole time they worked. But he was doing his best to ignore it.

James said something.

"What?" Chris said.

"We don't have to do this."

"We don't really have any choice."

"Of course we have a choice."

"We'll be fine," Chris said. "I promise. And who knows—after tonight, maybe we'll even be able to afford a coffee each from now on."

That got him half a smile, at least.

"Let's never go that far," James said.

"All right. Deal."

Chris continued collapsing the tent. Because they wouldn't need it again. Everything was going to be fine.

But even so, James's mention of choice made him think about Alan Hobbes.

All the steps are there at once.

Beginning, middle, and end. They're all the same.

All the conversations he'd had with the old man came back to him then. Cause and effect. Fate and destiny. And as he carried on packing, Chris couldn't quite shake the sensation that there were cogs turning below the surface of the world. That events had been set in motion and were now continuing along inevitable paths that had been there all along.

And that however much he tried to reassure them both, he had no real control at all over what would happen next.