The Black Coats(24)

“Catch me,” yelled Sahil.

Thea rested her hands on her hips. “Really?”

Sahil beckoned to her and gave her a wicked smile. “If you can.” Then he darted out into the field.

Thea flew after him like a bullet from a gun, her muscles hard at first but gathering warmth as they moved, heat expanding with each step. Then with an amazing surge, they shook off their sleepiness and propelled Thea forward, away from the house. The field blurred beneath her feet as her adrenaline released. Her steps fell into a pace, moving faster and faster, becoming automatic. With each breath, her brain disconnected from her body until she was one with her legs, with her speed and rhythm. Her vision tunneled until everything else was pushed away, and then it was only her and the hard ground and Sahil, tearing away from her through the trees.

God, I love running. She had forgotten the thrill of the chase, the sense of competition that forced her body to rise out of herself and overcome physical pain as she came ever closer to her goal. It was as if she were watching herself from above.

An old dead tree with branches crumbling like bone lay in her path. Thea vaulted over it, her sneakers sending whirls of dirt into the air. Sahil was now only maybe a hundred feet in front of her but moving fast. He was really fast. She closed her eyes for a brief second before they entered a swath of trees, loving the warm air rushing past her face. She forced her legs to keep their furious sprint as she shot into the forest, her anticipation at catching him growing. Closer now. Her feet thudded across the ground, her mind reaching for something she had intentionally pushed away, a memory that she had locked up inside.

She is running. It is late October, and yellow leaves are filtering down to the ground in lazy circles. She is eight years old. Natalie, two years her elder, is ahead of her, always ahead of her, her hair bouncing behind her as she laughs gaily. “Chase me, Thea!” she screams. Like a ghost, she flies through the grass, almost floating in her pale pink party dress now splattered with mud. “Chase me!”

Without warning, Natalie comes to a screeching halt and Thea runs square into her back, sending them both tumbling forward.

“You okay?” Thea asks, giggling.

“Yeah.” Natalie sits up, a branch stuck in her frizzy curls. “Ew, Thea, look!” They carefully crawl over the leaves to where a dead bat stares at the sky. Its wide eyes are pulling back into its head, and its rubbery wings are outstretched, like some sort of macabre sacrifice. Tiny insects are buzzing around its feet. Natalie is fascinated and pokes it with a stick. Thea is scared.

“Let’s go home, Natalie. Come on!” She yanks at her arm, but Natalie turns to her with wide eyes.

“But, Thea, he needs to be buried!”

Thea is scared, though, and she runs away from Natalie, leaving her alone in the woods as she runs for the house.

Thea blinked. She was back in the woods now, the trees passing overhead, their spindly arms reaching for her. She ducked under a low-hanging branch, Sahil no more than fifty feet away from her. She pressed out from her core, pushing the memory far from her, pressing only her legs to move faster. Catch me, she heard Natalie whisper. A hill rose in front of her, and she crested it easily, soaring over the dry clumps of leaves that littered her path. Sahil was now at the bottom of the hill, so close to her. Thea plunged recklessly down it, her brain connecting a second too late: I’m going too fast. I’m going to crash! He was right there in front of her, and she reached out, brushing Sahil’s collar with her fingertips. He stepped quickly aside. Moving too fast to stop, Thea’s legs cycled and turned and suddenly she was flying through the air, her body gathering momentum as she rolled down the hill. Something violently slammed into her side as she rolled over a rocky outcrop, and her face punched into a thorny bush. Head over heels she rolled three times before her body came to a wheezing stop, her heart racing so loud inside her chest that they could probably hear it at Mademoiselle Corday. Thea rolled over and gave a painful groan. “Oh God. That hurt.”

Thea brushed off her bloody hands, which were pricked with pieces of dirt and the occasional thorn, and pushed up to her knees. She felt a blush rise up her face and wasn’t sure what hurt more: her aching side or the embarrassment at going ass-over-teakettle in front of Sahil, who was now crouched above her. He wasn’t even breathing hard. Asshole.

“Thea, are you all right?”

With a shaking hand, she reached out and wearily patted his shoe. “Tag. You’re it.”

He grinned. “Here, have a drink of water.” He handed her a water bottle, and Thea accepted it gratefully before taking a drink and climbing shakily to her feet. Both knees were dripping blood as she handed back the water bottle. Sahil reached into his pocket and pulled out a white cloth. Thea smiled. “It’s white. Of course.”

He shrugged. “Of course. I must be set apart from the Black Coats in a visual way. I am a part of them, but not one of them. Here, sit down. Let me tend to those wounds.”

“I don’t think you need white to set you apart, exactly. You’re the only male in the whole house.”

“This is true.”

Thea accepted his outstretched hand and let him lead her over to a narrow tree stump. Thea sat down with a sigh, flexing her long legs and rotating her ankle. “I think I’m okay.”

“It is still important to treat wounds as they happen.” He crouched before her and traced his hand gently over her shin and under her knee. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of Band-Aids. After putting two little ones over her bleeding wounds, his hands traced again down underneath her shin, squeezing her muscles, kneading them, checking her knees and ankles.