So due to today's (entirely justified) tube strike, I couldn't get into work and thought I would use my free time constructively i.e. a brief update.

Thank you for all your lovely comments for the previous chapter and to everyone who wished me well with the move. You're a considerate bunch aren't you? It all went off hitchlessly (word?) ta for asking :)

(A few notes (which I'm a bad person for not usually doing): Thank you to my-other-ride-es-tu-madre for dutifully going back and reviewing every chapter. Your patience astounds me *astounded* (and also makes me smile)

Pollastre – architectural you say? Interesting ... that may just be my profession. Very deductive :)

Hyperfitched - Insight. 'Tis one of your gifts :D

And total-freedom. I'm a huge fan of profanity, complimentary or otherwise. Keep it coming.)

And generally just thank you EVERYONE for reading and reviewing and maybe even enjoying? Would love to hear your thoughts on this one!

Chapter eight

'Fine.'

Naomi was scowling, a glower that she let linger bad-temperedly upon Emily for a few seconds before walking off quickly in the direction of the plant room, her wet shoes squeaking irascibly on the linoleum floor.

Emily glared at her retreating back for a few moments before following. What right did Naomi have for making her feel guilty? The more time Emily spent with Naomi, the more she recognised of the person she had known, like she was growing back out of the ground she had been stamped into.

It didn't take them long to find Naomi's handy-work. The camera had been taken down from its perch near the ceiling, a long black fibre of wire trailed from where it rested on a table and back up into a wall, like someone had ripped a body from its spine. The screwdriver stuck out almost comically from the camera, not quite buried to the hilt, its handle coloured a brilliant and incriminating red. Next to it was a roll of polythene bags with zip-openings, several pairs of latex gloves and an assortment of tweezers. To Emily it looked like some kind of bizarre operating table.

The stake through the heart of the camera looked like it had been shot from a bow. The sort of long-distance injury that had devastating power but no accuracy. Emily looked at the hands responsible for the fatality as Naomi tried to pull the implement free from its victim.

'What are you doing?' Emily asked, watching the stringy tendons in Naomi's hands rise and strain beneath her skin as she flexed and clenched her fingers around the handle of the screw driver.

'It's fucking stuck isn't it?' Naomi grumbled, lifting the camera up by the screw driver and wiggling it in the air to illustrate her point.

'You're going to get fingerprints all over it!' Emily told her in exasperation. It was like looking after a child. A criminally inclined child. And before Emily had time to properly proofread what she was about to say the words fell from her lips: 'Jesus Naomi ... no wonder you ended up in prison.'

The words rand loudly around the deserted room.

The second they had escaped her mouth Emily's hand shot up to clamp around it, as if rushing to put them back in.

But she couldn't.

Naomi turned slowly round to face her.

Emily's face was scrunched with shame.

'Your precious Sam tell you that?' Naomi snarled eventually, after fixing Emily with a harrowing stare.

Emily looked at her guiltily. 'She mentioned it, yeah,' regret colouring her words.

'Not much for police confidentiality, huh?' Naomi asked.

Emily's guilt transformed seamlessly into irritation. 'We don't have secrets,' she snapped.

'Well you do now, don't you?'

Maybe it was then that Emily was hit by the full force of how irrevocably involved she was in Naomi's chaos. Because as Naomi's mouth moved into the shapes to form the sounds of those spiteful words, she could see the whole sequence of events unfolding with startling clarity.

But maybe the clues had been there the whole time. They had been there from the moment she had stumbled into the plant room to find Naomi raking her fingers through electrical cables; they had been there during the phone call where she was convinced against her will to take the job alongside Katie; they had been there when Naomi had refused to leave her room or answer any of her calls after they were called into the station to make statements after Freddie's body was heaved up from the earth of a suburban garden; and they had been there in the irregular heptagram of the blood that leaked onto the floor from Sophia's skull. But she had been too close, she didn't know what she was seeing. It was like she had been staring at a single, abstract dab of paint: out of context and irrelevant until you've zoomed out to see the whole picture.

Emily blinked vacantly at Naomi, who's unrelenting stare just reinforced everything she'd just realised. And she knew Naomi knew it too.

A distant tapping snapped Emily back into the present, and she glanced nervously around the room.

The inquisitive beam of a torch flashed excitedly across the wall next to her, and before she knew it there was a violent clatter next to her and Naomi had dashed away from the table and squeezed herself behind a door that she pulled tightly towards the wall.

'Emily!' she hissed urgently.

Emily turned her dim gaze to the thin sliver of Naomi she could just make out from behind the door. 'I told you there would be a fucking guard!'

Emily's eyes widened as the tapping became more than an isolated disembodied sound, growing shoes, and feet attached legs and eventually legs that were attached to a full grown person with a badge and a baton and a uniform.

Panic crept up from the ground like ice, curling up and around her legs in single, sinuous tendrils, freezing her where she stood.

Naomi snaked an arm out from behind the door and made a series of urgent but elaborate gestures.

Emily flicked her head left and right, her hair whipping round, snapping back against her face.

'Emily!' Naomi whispered. Desperation now. The room smelt of it.

The tapping grew louder and Emily finally managed to seize control of her frozen limbs for long enough for them to lead her staggering awkwardly from side to side, contemplating where on earth they could possibly run to.

Naomi was keeping silent, but her gesticulating got more frantic. Emily could almost hear the swishing of the air around her. Unable to understand, Emily merely tangoed blindly back and forth under the near-hysterical waving until, casting a terrified look over her shoulder directly into the beam of light she dashed across the room, forcefully slamming herself against the soft body that cowered behind the door.

She felt Naomi clutch at her, pulling her tighter against her as the guard swung the beam of light into the far corner of the room, scaling it up and along the back wall then into the following corner, finally dragging it back to where the camera lay motionless on the surface of the table. Next to the bags. Next to the gloves. Next to the tweezers.

The rate of Emily's heartbeat was beginning to scare her. She thought briefly of the rabbit her and Katie had kept when they were younger, and how she could feel its heart beneath the tiny, snappable bones of its ribcage when she insisted on lifting it up and carrying it into the living room to introduce it to her toys. Its heart had beat so fast beneath her palm that Emily had wondered how it could possibly still be alive. She had the same fear for herself in that moment.

She tilted her head back slightly to look at Naomi. Her steely gaze was focused on the slowly retreating circle of light that trailed perilously close to their feet along the floor. Her breath sounded heavy and laboured as it puffed hotly across Emily's face.

Emily couldn't remember the last time she had felt this scared.

Or angry.

It felt ... good.

Naomi felt good, all pushed up hard against her, so close she could see the pulse at the base of her neck and the beads of sweat as they materialised upon her skin.

Naomi's gaze flicked from the floor to Emily, her eyes unbearably intense, her hair slicked across her forehead with sweat. Emily felt the rhythmic bumping of Naomi's chest against her own as she heaved in ragged, nervous breaths.

The hands Naomi had instinctively slid around her waist clutched against the material of Emily's clothes, and Emily felt her gaze drop fluidly, imperceptibly, to her mouth.

Naomi bit her lower lip softly before releasing it back from beneath her teeth.

Emily swallowed.

A sharp bang made them both jump, and Emily's sprang back from Naomi out into the dark room, the guard and his torch light lost within the shadowy recesses of the building.

'Em – '

'Don't,' Emily silenced her as she walked briskly back over to the table. 'Let's just get what we came for and get the fuck out of here.'

She heard Naomi sigh and sidle up to her. She could've sworn that she also heard her mutter 'Yes ma'am.'

...

They had spent the first few minutes of the journey back in a flat-out sprint. The cold air that Naomi gulped greedily back into her lungs stung her throat and froze her chest. The sound of four feet splashing through the dark puddles on the street, and the puffing of jerkily exhaled breath was the only sound that Naomi could hear.

She felt the slow muscle burn clench around her thighs and stomach and her pace slackened, shuddering clumsily to a halt. She exhaled heavily, bending over and stretching her arms so that her hands slid down her thighs to her knees. She watched Emily do the same next to her. She chanced a small smile in her direction that Emily didn't return.

...

'So what do you fancy doing tomorrow night Em?' Naomi asked as they wandered back. The rain was cold and hard, tapping hollowly on the shoulders of Naomi's jacket. 'How about we rob an off-licence at gun-point? Or ... knock over some grannies or something – '

'No Naomi,' Emily interrupted, stopping in the road and turning to face her. 'This is it. Seriously. I can't see you again.'

Naomi stopped walking then. Not deliberately. Her legs just stopped working.

'What?' she asked. But I've just found you again. ''Cause I didn't mean it about the grannies – '

'Naomi,' she could feel Emily trying to silence her, like the very words she was speaking physically hurt her. 'I'm going home now. I suggest you do the same,' Emily told her.

Naomi stood beneath the pelting rain, each drop highlighted in the sickly orange glow of a sodium street lamp. Emily stared at her, unmoving, like a waxwork. Her face was smooth, not crinkled or tugged by any lines of emotion. She was blank.

Something that should be alive. But wasn't.

'Emily,' Naomi found her lips moving. They were moving because they had no choice. Because Emily didn't mean it. Not really. They would always stumble blindly back towards each other.

'Bye Naomi,' Emily's mouth moved, but Naomi couldn't understand what it was staying.

Then she turned and moved off.

Naomi lost sight of her almost instantly through the rain and against the night.

If the rain hadn't been beating down so heavily at that moment that it felt like it was cutting down to the bone, Naomi could've sworn she had been rendered entirely numb.

...