Soul Beach

effect she has on people. Maybe she wasn’t always like this. Maybe what she did to Triti killed off what little humanity she had.
    I shiver, then look down at myself. I am dripping wet. We all are. ‘I think we’ve heard enough,’ I say. Though, of course, I can’t be certain till I’m back on the Beach.
    Lewis looks reluctant to let her leave. ‘Really? You sure you’ve got everything you need?’
    I hear fast footsteps behind me, and as I turn a woman’s voice calls out, ‘What in God’s name do you think you are doing to her? Stop!’
    ‘Miss Jacobs?’ Demi cries out. ‘Miss Jacobs, they’re robbing me!’
    We look around to see a middle-aged woman in a Mac rushing towards us. Behind, the third girl, the one we thought we’d scared off, is standing in the shadows. She must have run to fetch a teacher.
    How much did the teacher hear? Enough?
    Lewis moves back, and Demi slumps against the wall, then he grabs my sleeve. ‘Let’s go.’
    I do as I’m told, but as he passes the teacher, who looks too gob-smacked to try to stop us, he presses the mobile phone into her open hand. ‘This is what you need. This is what Demi did. Read it all, listen to the audio recording I’ve just made of her confession, and then make sure it never happens again.’
    The teacher just stares, and then I feel the pull on my arm again, and we march away, our trainers squelching and throwing out water. I hear sobbing behind me, and maybe it’s not nice of me, but I feel bloody glad that Demi might finally have realised what she’s done.
    Even though I suspect she’s not crying for Triti.
    We wait for almost an hour in a park before daring to go back to the school to pick up the car. After all, we couldn’t get any more soaked. When we reach Keyes again, there’s a police car on the drive.
    ‘For us, or for her, do you think?’ I ask Lewis, when we’re finally back on the road.
    ‘With any luck, for her. If they’ve bothered to read the data.’
    ‘Can’t believe you sacrificed your phone. That was your good deed for the day.’
    He smiles at me. ‘Oh, no, that’s not my phone. I’d prepped an old fake Smartphone with the emails etc., and cleaned off all my own data so I could hand it over to someone once she’d confessed while I was recording.’
    ‘Ah. You thought of everything.’
    ‘Couldn’t let her get away with it, could we? Not after we went to so much trouble. Plus there was no way I was taking my pride and joy on such a dangerous mission. Demi wasn’t worth risking my iPhone.’
    Lewis continues to amaze me. ‘You’re a genius,’ I tell him. ‘I’m going to call you Mastermind from now on.’
    He smiles. Then silence takes over and I feel relieved and do nothing but watch the outside world. The sky doesn’t clear as we drive back. The rain clouds just get darker and dusk comes and goes, and then it’s night.
    ‘Did it help you , Alice? What we did?’ he asks me, when we’re back on the motorway.
    ‘I don’t know yet.’ I shrink down in my seat. The knowledge of what happened to Triti – and of the petty envy, or whatever tiny dispute triggered Demi’s hate campaign – feels like a burden now. ‘Do you think we should tell Rafi, and the rest of her family?’
    Lewis sighs. ‘If I had a sister, I wouldn’t want to know how she suffered if there was nothing I could do to change it.’
    ‘I guess not . . .’ Except I might just have changed everything. Is Triti’s ordeal over now?
    Red brake lights blur in front of us as the car picks up speed, and the wheels cut through deep puddles on the carriageway.
    ‘. . . but in the future, maybe, you know you can tell me. If it’ll help.’
    I suddenly realise Lewis is still talking to me and I haven’t been listening. ‘Sorry. I was miles away.’ I think of Javier’s joke. Light years away . Where my sister is. Where Danny is waiting for me.
    ‘I was just saying, Alice, that I hope you know by now that I wouldn’t pry. But if you do want to share what’s troubling you, any time, I promise I’ll listen and I won’t judge.’
    I turn my face away. It’s dark enough that we can’t see each other properly anyway, only the black-orange-black-orange flicker of the motorway lights.
    He deserves to know the truth after all he’s done, but I am trapped. ‘ I won’t judge .’ Hmm. I bet that if I did tell him the truth, he’d be running in the opposite direction as fast as those dirty trainers could carry him.
    ‘Thanks.