Killing Woods by Lucy Christopher

Damon,’ he says, his voice loud near my ear. ‘I mean it, he’s . . . he’s different to what you think.’
    This makes me bristle, how he sounds just like Mum, how Joe thinks it’s OK for him to follow me into the woods but not OK for me to meet Damon there. His arms grip me tighter than usual.
    â€˜You’ll break my spine, Joe!’
    â€˜Eat something, then!’
    He hesitates at the top of the stairs like he’s going to saysome great speech, but all he says is, ‘My mum cooked you guys a shepherd’s pie. It’s in your kitchen.’
    He lopes down the stairs, goes out the front door before I can even say thank you. In the kitchen I unpack the pizzas and put them into the freezer, chuck the shepherd’s pie in the oven. I feed Florence, bending down to stroke her behind the ears in the spot she likes. I don’t look at the kitchen table. If I did, I would still see how Ashlee’s arm trailed down from it that night.
    When I take the heated-up shepherd’s pie in, I expect Mum to maybe apologise for earlier. I expect a smile: we always used to joke that this meal was named after us. But I don’t think she even notices it’s not the pizza; she doesn’t apologise for anything. She just takes the meal on her lap and continues to yell answers to another of her quiz shows.
    Madagascar!
    The Prince of Wales!
    But she does eat. Maybe to her, each bite doesn’t taste like charity.
    When she falls asleep, I take the plate from her chest and watch her breathing. The skin around her eyes looks wafer thin; I can see veins under the surface. Perhaps she’ll sleep talk; perhaps, like that, we can finally have a proper conversation about Dad. I turn off the telly as it switches to a wildlife documentary, the kind of thing Dad used to watch, and I wonder whether he can watch television where he is . . . whether he’s watching this. I get the blanket that now lives permanently on the arm of the couchand place it over Mum, switch off the lamp next to her and find my own bed.
    I don’t read the psychiatrist’s notes again, or even look at Dad’s uniform. I don’t look at the photos on my wall. Tonight, none of those smiling faces will make me feel any better. Dad’s smile is a ghost’s smile, and Joe’s face is too close to the camera. The face I want to – need to – think about isn’t there anyway.
    Damon.

16
    Damon
    L ying in bed’s the worst, these hours I don’t sleep. This is when I remember Ashlee: how she’d kiss me, bite my neck, press her teeth to my shoulder blades . . . how she’d tease to go further. This is when I touch myself and pretend it’s her doing it, then feel sick about it straight after. Because what kind of loser imagines his dead girlfriend’s fingers on him? I remember how, one night, we’d been pressed against each other on the forest floor, listening to the Game go on around us; she’d loved that Charlie was on the bike trail nearby and couldn’t see us in the dark, she’d started kissing me pretty hard, her fingers moving over my hips.
    â€˜Where’s the fun if you don’t take risks?’ she’d whispered.
    She would’ve done it with me right then if I hadn’t stopped her. ‘Charlie might see!’
    â€˜That’s the risk!’
    I shouldn’t have stopped her.
    It was that night she’d told me about the bunker. ‘That creepy war vet hides out there,’ she’d said. ‘You know, that one who was in the papers for killing someone?’
    And now he’s in the papers again , I want to tell her. For killing you .
    â€˜We should try to find that place,’ she’d said. ‘We should do it inside . . . right in the middle of the Game when everyone’s looking for us!’
    It’s like being in a maze once I start thinking these thoughts. The only way out is to think about hurting Jon