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“You’re kidding, right?”
“No.”
“It’s a fucking yo-yo,” Ally snapped. “How can you not know what a yo-yo is?”
“Where’s the on button?” Josh flipped it over. “Where do you put the battery?”
“Christ.” Ally hissed. “I’m going to find a coffee machine.”
Josh collapsed into the seat beside Chad, still holding the yo-yo like a foreign object.
“You’ve never seen a yo-yo before?”
Josh shot Chad a crooked smile, slipped his middle finger in the string, and rolled the yo-yo off his hand. “Of course I have. Look. I’m walking the dog.” Josh rolled the yo-yo along the floor before tugging it into his palm.
Chad snorted. “You love winding her up, don’t you?”
“She loves winding me up, too.”
“Match made in heaven.”
Josh shoved him. “She’s old enough to be my mother … grandmother even.”
“Don’t let her hear you say that. She’ll wrap that yo-yo string around your throat and strangle you to death.”
Josh rolled the yo-yo off his palm, and they listened as it spun. It smacked back into his hand, and he sighed, “I don’t doubt that for a second.”
****
Chad’s nose twitched with the faint smell of sweetness. The scent of chloroform wasn’t one he’d ever smelled in day-to-day life, but it wasn’t repulsive, just different.
A tacky sugar like scent, that irritated the back of the throat.
Tate picked at the sheet over his legs, not looking at any of them. An oxygen mask hung from his ears, wedged beneath his neck. Every few minutes his mum reminded him to put it over his mouth and nose and take a breath.
Shawn had curled up on the armchair by the window, head resting on the arm. Josh crossed the room, pulled off his jacket, and then settled it over the sleeping Shawn.
“I’m DC Fuller. We met last week. Do you remember?”
Tate didn’t answer. He closed his eyes to block Chad out.
“You need to talk to them.” Eleanor said. “You can help stop this from happening to someone else.”
“I know who you are,” Tate whispered. “We spoke when I was with Cleo.”
“That’s right.” Chad said. “DC Hancock was there too.”
Josh didn’t have a chair and stood by the door. He nodded towards Tate, but Tate didn’t open his eyes. “I was there about Damian and Justin.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Ally leaned forward in her chair beside the bed. “Can you tell us what happened tonight?”
Tate opened his eyes and looked at her, before sliding his gaze away to Josh leaning on the wall by the door. Tate’s eyes skimmed over him and fixed on the window. “Why are there officers outside, too?”
Eleanor took his hand. “To keep you safe.”
“To keep me safe?”
