Soul Fire

more deaths to answer for. They should have made Zoe talk
to them, found the photos, searched her emails. It only took Lewis a few seconds to find the one that Tim sent on the day he died, the one where he told Zoe things were getting better.
    At least I have Lewis. It’s the geek and the teenager against the world. But we care. And maybe caring will be enough to help us succeed where the rest of the world has failed so far.
    It’s the least Meggie, Tim and Zoe deserve.

51
    Lewis is already at the hospital. I hadn’t expected him to be there.
    ‘I got here first thing. In case. I’m the only one with any Spanish, after all.’ He takes us up to the right floor in a lift. ‘Her parents just got here. They’re
with her at the moment.’
    ‘Have you spoken to them?’ Sahara asks.
    He shakes his head. ‘Thought that could wait.’
    ‘So how did you persuade the staff to tell you where she was?’ I ask, when the lift stops and the others get out.
    ‘I told them I was her cousin,’ he says, and when I pull a face, he raises his eyebrows. ‘You’ve taught me everything I know about making up stories to get what you want.
Remember how you were Triti’s school friend ?’
    ‘That was different.’
    ‘If you say so.’
    No one seems in the mood for conversation. I sit down opposite Lewis. Ade and Cara sit next to each other. Sahara paces.
    What a mess.
    After a few minutes, a couple step into the corridor from a side room. The man carries a holdall. He’s tall and as pale as the white walls. She’s plump and has bright red hair, but
her jutting chin is identical to Zoe’s.
    Ade walks steadily towards them. They look up, faces frozen, expecting a doctor, perhaps.
    ‘Mr and Mrs Tate, I’m Adrian. A college friend of Zoe’s. We were all visiting her this weekend.’ He waves at the rest of us, and we stand up, keeping a respectful
distance. ‘We’re so sorry.’
    Mr Tate shakes Ade’s hand. Mrs Tate doesn’t move.
    ‘You were there ?’ Zoe’s father asks, and I hear her voice in his. The same brusqueness.
    ‘We didn’t see it happen,’ Ade says. ‘There were a lot of people around and we all got separated and—’
    ‘Not what I’d call friends, then, are you?’ Zoe’s mother snaps. ‘Or maybe this is what counts as friendship these days.’
    ‘Eve, please.’ Zoe’s father turns back, touches his wife’s arm. ‘They’re not to blame.’
    ‘Her friends should have stayed at her side. She’s vulnerable.’
    ‘Love, we let Zoe come here because we didn’t want to wrap her up in cotton wool.’
    ‘We should have done, though, shouldn’t we?’ his wife cries.
    She looks at us properly for the first time, and her flat grey eyes accuse me. Why does she look so familiar? I’ve never met her before. Then I realise, it’s not her , but her
desperation I recognise. My parents were the same after Meggie died.
    ‘We should go,’ I whisper to Lewis. He nods. Sahara is already halfway to the lift. It’s not like her to avoid a drama , I think, so why doesn’t she stay? Unless she’s feeling guilty at coming face to face with what she’s done.
    ‘We’ll go. But we would really, really appreciate it if you could tell us anything about how she is,’ Ade says.
    Zoe’s father sighs. ‘She hasn’t woken up. They say it’s too early to know, that it’s better we keep her in this . . . limbo for now. But they also said that the
first twenty-four hours are the most important. Now it’s been, what, nineteen hours? She should be responding by now.’
    Mrs Tate makes an odd choking noise.
    ‘We’ll be thinking of her,’ Ade says, and we nod and back away.
    The lift is musty, full of stale air and misery. When we get to the ground floor, I have to run outside. The sun shines brightly. A little boy runs past, a yappy dog at his heels, and the kid
laughs as he throws the ball and the dog tears after it in a blur.
    I’m desperate to be back on my Beach. And back home.
    In that order.
    At the airport, we go from check-in to security to departure lounge like zombies, glad of the tedious queues and rules that stop us thinking.
    The security people give Lewis a slightly harder time because he has two laptops, but no one in our group seems to remember that he arrived with just one. Ade and Sahara disappear without saying
where they’re going. Cara goes shopping, even though she has no money left.
    That leaves Lewis and me to find seats in the far end of the departure lounge, where