Page 41 of Hot Ghost Summer

“No, um, it only just happened. I’m locking Bridge inside now, and I called you first. I think she’d like a biscuit. I might have promised her.”

“In the cupboard, Theo. Did you get a look at them? I wonder if it’s the same ones who’ve been vandalising…”

“Vandalising? What vandals? Why am I only learning about this now?” On autopilot, I walk through to the kitchen to fetch the biscuits.

Jayne’s aggravated sigh rubs me the wrong way. “It wasn’t much at first: the odd tag on a wall that I could wash off, or a flat tyre here and there. Sometimes the gate would be open when I could have sworn I’d left it closed. But I don’t have CCTV, so it took me a bit to put it together. Over the last couple of months, though, things have changed. I’m pretty sure Isobel didn’t fly away.”

“The gander?” I clarify, rummaging about in the freezer for the bag of frozen peas Jayne keeps to feed the ducks.

“Yeah.”

My fingers tighten into fists around the bag of vegetables. “What’s been done about all this?”

“Nothing, Theo. That’s why I’ve not mentioned it to you. The police can’t do much besides log it.”

I press the peas to my hurting face and wince.

“Also, if I’m being truthful, I haven’t logged every instance.”

“What? Why? I’d rather wash graffiti off a wall than find one o’ the animals gone one day.” My words sound slurred, but it’s the swelling in my lips.

“That’s the other thing,” Jayne adds. “Every time there’s an incident with an animal, I have to file a report with the council, and too many endangerment reports puts the farm on a watch list. I could lose it, Theo.”

“What? How’s that fair?” I snatch a bag of oat biscuits from the cupboard and make my way back to Brigid.

“It’s not, but I’m lucky to have this place, and I don’t want to lose my community licence over false safety and animal welfare allegations because of these punks.”

I grit my back teeth, but it sends pain shooting up the side of my head. “I’ll stay tonight, t’ look after them.”

“No, Theo, you’ve done enough already, I promise. Thank you. I’m already on my way. Go home.”

fourteen

Toxic Proximity

Hollis

Ishouldn’t be here.

Pale blue water streams from the showerhead onto the back of Theo’s overheated neck, carving cooling tracks in bright green over the bare skin of his tattooed shoulders. My gaze follows down the divot of his spine until… I cut myself off.

He doesn’t know I’m here.

Isn’t aware that I can now build a three-dimensional view of him using electromagnetic radiation, and that the electricity in the lightbulb and shower unit is what allows me to determine the heat of his blood from the cool setting of the water he stands under.

His muscular arms are braced against the tiled wall in front of him. Stained by the red of his blood, purple water drips from his nose, chin, and lips—an injury that I haven’t yet seen the full extent of.

He kept his thumb over the camera lens of his phone on the walk here, as if he knew I was watching. When he opened his flat door, he pulled the visor of his cap down low and instantly disappeared into the small bathroom.

I should leave him.

I should have left him already, but I can’t.

Research on technomancers might be scant, but it’s clear. I should excel at hacking networks and manipulating machines. Yet, yesterday in the laundrette, I’d not been able to affect anything beyond that immediate location.

Transferring out of my phone and into the appliances had been easy—evidence of my growing strength—but I hadn’t been able to do more. I’d tried so hard to breach the electricity supply that I’d triggered a power surge and activated all the localised safeguards, yet the moment Theo had stepped foot outside the building, it’d been as if I were magnetised. An overwhelming force had sucked me back into the only item of technology he possessed: my phone.

My prison.