One Must Hide

Future perfect

Marko beckoned her forward, his teeth flashing in a grin. "Come on, Robin, you can do better than that." He spread his arms invitingly. "I'm right here."

Robin pushed back the hair that had dropped into her eyes yet again, too occupied with keeping herself balanced and poised to be drawn by Marko's taunt. He'd taught her that much in the first of these sessions, and she had the bruises to keep her memory fresh. She transferred the stick of firewood from one sweating hand to the other, keeping her eyes on Marko, watching for an opening. It came: a shifting of his weight, just a tiny motion leaving him less stable, and Robin lashed out. Marko jumped back, but not far enough; the hefty branch cracked solidly into his knee and the leg crumpled beneath him. Robin reacted with the follow-through he'd drilled into her, reversing the stick and ramming its blunt end up against his chest.

"She's killed you, Marko," Paul observed from the couch where he'd been lounging, watching proceedings.

Marko looked down at the piece of firewood pressing into his chest. Grinning, he pushed it away with a finger. "Not bad, but you're going to have to work on the power."

Robin lowered the stick and wiped first one hand, then the other, on her jeans. "I didn't want to do any damage."

Marko got up without so much as a wince for the knee Robin had struck. "You won't. And even if you did break something, it's not like it'd be permanent."

"Masochist," Robin accused.

"Someone has to be," he said, shrugging. "You look beat. Take a break."

"I'm not exactly Buffy," she grumbled, tossing the piece of firewood back into the basket by the hearth.

"You're not?" Marko exclaimed, and turned to David, who had just stepped into the doorway. "Damn it, David, you lied to me!"

"I never lie," David replied evenly. "Did you kill him yet, Robin?"

"I did just now," she said, "though apparently not enough."

"Yeah, because killing someone a little bit is just going to piss them off," said Paul.

David returned the look Robin cast him with a smile. "Kill him harder next time."

Robin sighed. "I'm getting a drink."

She stepped past David without touching him, though she hesitated half a second, just in case he indicated otherwise. He didn't, and Robin continued by him towards the kitchen.

Perhaps she was expecting too much too soon, but she couldn't work David out. In private, he could scarcely keep his hands off her. In public, Robin might as well have had leprosy. There'd been an uncomfortable moment the first time she'd gone to him with the others present. David had stepped deftly out of Robin's greeting hug, smiling, but with a woundingly sharp flick of narrowed green eyes in her direction that very clearly warned her off. She'd backed off for the rest of the evening, nursing the hurt, right up until David had asked her pleasantly if she was going to sulk all night. That had stung. But later, when David took her back to campus, his tune had changed, and Robin hadn't had time to worry about the snub until after she'd kicked him out of her bed just before dawn.

Robin had learned her lesson after that, even if she still didn't understand David's attitude. The others treated her exactly as they had before, but she didn't believe for a moment that they didn't know, and Kae had been highly conspicuous by her absence.

In the kitchen, Robin filled the kettle from the tap and put it on to boil, then paused by the sink to look out of the window. Bits and pieces of snow had been dropping intermittently from the sky all day. It was cold enough to settle, but the scanty fall had hardly begun to outline the window frames in white, much less cover the muddy ground. She hoped it would warm up by the end of the week.

Robin opened the cupboard over the kettle for a mug and a teabag. She'd asked the Boys to get her some tea after a rummage through the kitchen cupboards had turned up only an ageing packet of Tesco Value. The next night, she'd come in to find every kind of tea under the sun: Tetley, Typhoo, PG Tips; Darjeeling, Ceylon, Earl Grey; round bags, square bags, pyramid-shaped bags, and even something that said 'tea' on the packet but turned out to be some ungodly freeze-dried substance. It was a curious reminder that the Lost Boys weren't just vampires; they were also American. None of them had taken responsibility for creating the tea mountain, though Robin had her suspicions.

The kettle boiled. Robin selected an English Breakfast teabag and dropped it in her mug, then poured hot water over it. She prodded it with a spoon for a bit and then went to the fridge for milk.

"Did you boil enough for coffee?"

Robin spun round, almost dropping the milk. Dwayne was sitting at the kitchen table. "Where did you come from?"

He offered her a small, secretive smile. "You need to pay more attention."

"You're as bad as Marko," Robin objected. "Can't you see I'm on my tea break?"

Dwayne unfolded himself from his chair, slipping the slim black volume he'd been reading into a pocket. "He's still trying to teach you to fight?"

"I don't care for your tone, Dwayne," Robin replied, feeling faintly offended.

"Sorry," he said. "But you'd be better off learning to run. Or hide."

"You'd be the one to teach me that," she said dryly.

Dwayne checked the amount of water left in the kettle, then took the coffee pot and can down from the shelf. "That can be arranged."

Robin finished making her tea and sipped appreciatively. She watched Dwayne brewing his coffee, and the book he'd stowed away caught her eye. She'd noticed him reading it on more than one occasion recently. "So what are you reading?"

Reflexively, Dwayne put his hand to the pocket where he'd tucked his book. "Something I picked up in London."

"Is it good?"

"I don't know," he admitted, after a moment. "I haven't translated it all yet.

"Then it's a foreign book?"

"An old one."

Dwayne seemed reluctant to say much about it, even by his own terse standards, and Robin decided not to press him. Instead, she said, "I hope this snow clears up by the end of the week. I don't fancy driving home in a blizzard."

"Has David spoken to you about our plans yet?" Dwayne asked, stirring sugar into his coffee.

"Not in so many words." Having spilled half his life story in one night, David had reverted to his irritatingly evasive self. "You know what he's like."

Dwayne leaned back against the sink, lifting his coffee in one hand and folding the other arm across his chest. "Marko and I are going on ahead tomorrow night to find somewhere to hole up over the holidays. David and Paul will follow Saturday night with half the under-rank. Lucas and the rest will stay here."

"And me?"

"How long will it take?"

Robin shrugged. "About five hours, unless the M1's bad, or it snows properly."

"It won't snow," said Dwayne. "But leave as early as you can. You don't want to be out on your own when the light goes."

Robin raised her gaze to his. Dwayne's black stare offered no comfort. "It's really that bad?"

“It's not your fault," he told her. "But you have to live with it."

"Why now?" she asked. "Why not before I came to York?"

"It's to do with your age," he replied. "You're right on the line between juvenile and adult."

"Juvenile?" Robin asked. "That puts me in my place."

"It's not an observation of your behaviour. But you're at a significant age in our scheme of things."

"Significant how?"

"Only adults can be turned," he said. He looked at her, hard, as if staring right through her, and then glanced aside. "You're on the cusp between the two phases, and it shows."

"My birthday's in January," Robin said. "What happens then?"

"Nothing," he said. "It doesn't happen on a certain date. It could happen overnight, or it could be months before everything settles down." He paused, then added, "I think we've accelerated the process. Especially in the last week."

Robin looked quickly away from him, feeling and resenting the heat that flushed her cheeks, and then to her surprise, Dwayne laughed. "I'm teasing."

"Not fair," she objected. "I get enough of that from the others. I thought I could rely on you."

"You can," he replied simply. "You're more my responsibility than you realise."

"How so?"

He tapped the side of his head with two fingers. "I saw you first."

Dwayne sees the future. The thought sent a weird thrill through her. "You can really tell what's going to happen?"

"Fragments. Not usually the ones I'd like."

"No lottery numbers, I suppose?"

"Only losing ones."

Robin looked into her half-drunk mug of tea. Then she looked up at him. "Do you see me in your future?" The question sounded ridiculous the moment the words had left her mouth. "That came out wrong. What I mean is, have you seen me in the Lost Boys' future? In Santa Cruz?"

"It doesn't work that way," he said. "I get flashes, but nothing to put them in context. It's like I'm seeing the Mona Lisa's little finger. I could describe every last nuance of it to you, but you still wouldn't know anything useful about the painting."

"You make it sound like it's not much use," Robin observed.

He raised his shoulders. "It's been known to cause more problems than it solves, but occasionally it comes in handy."

"Have you ever tried to stop something happening?"

Dwayne sighed. "Yes."

"It didn't work," Robin guessed.

He shook his head. "I don't see possibilities that can be averted; I get warnings of certainties. That's the trouble. Once I've seen something, it's fixed, and nothing I or anyone else can do will change it."

The concept disquieted Robin on some instinctive level. She frowned, trying to puzzle out why she found it so troubling. "Then if you saw me die, there's nothing I could do about it?"

"Nothing at all," Dwayne replied.

"Have you?" The question rushed out before she could stop it.

"I wouldn't tell you if I had."

"That doesn't help much," Robin complained. She brooded on the thought for a bit, then asked, "Any long-term predictions? Things that haven't happened yet?"

"Several," he said.

"Any to do with me?"

"You'd think the world revolved around you, the way you are tonight," he said, but indulgently. "One or two."

"Go on," Robin implored. "Give me a hint."

"I already have," he told her.

She blinked at him, then cast her mind frantically back over their conversation. "Have you?"

"It's not going to snow."

"Is that it?" she demanded. "Michael Fish could have told me that!"

"Michael Fish?"

Robin shook her head. "Never mind. Can't you do any better than that?"

He regarded her thoughtfully. "You're going to come off a motorcycle and scrape all the skin off your left forearm."

Unconsciously, Robin grasped her wrist with her right hand. "Really?" she asked, dismayed. "When?"

"I don't know," he replied. "Pretty soon, and from my bike or Paul's, because the one you come off has Pirelli tyres; David's and Marko's are on Continentals." He raised his eyebrows. "You see what I mean?"

"So if I just avoid getting on your bike or Paul's, I'll be okay," Robin said, and then answered her own question. "But I can't avoid it, can I? It's only a matter of time before I have to ride with one of you for some reason, and then it'll happen."

"Yes," he said. "If you want, we can go outside right now, and you can get on my bike and fall off and scrape your arm and get it over with. But I don't recommend it."

"It's not really my idea of fun, either," Robin said glumly.

"That's not why. When you know something about your future, you know you're going to live long enough for it to occur. The certainty protects you. There was a time once when, under any other circumstances, I would have been convinced I was going to die. I was surrounded and outnumbered. But I'd already seen past that night. I knew I couldn't die then." He smiled. "The certainty got me out of that situation. I took risks I wouldn't usually have taken. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have escaped. Knowledge is power, Robin, and foreknowledge most of all. Never underestimate the advantage you gain in knowing what to expect."

It was the longest speech Robin had yet heard Dwayne make. "You must scare other vampires shitless with what you know," she said.

"Sometimes," he admitted. "If I hold it over them as a threat."

"But not if it's a shield," Robin realised. "That's what you do with the others, isn't it? What you know protects them."

"Like it protects you," Dwayne said. "But at a price. Every time I look ahead there's the chance I'll see something I don't want to, and once I have, there's no getting away from it. That's the risk we run."

Robin set down her empty mug. A few stray leaves had escaped the teabag, forming a smudgy pattern on the bottom of the cup. "David's given me until the New Year," she said. "To decide if I'm going to stay here or go to Santa Cruz with you guys." She looked up from her tealeaves. "Would you look ahead for me?"

"The decision is yours to make," Dwayne said slowly. "I won't make it for you."

"I know, but." Robin cast about for the right explanation. "Leaving my family.it's not something I can just.do. Not without good reason. I know, I know; every vampire in the northern hemisphere can feel me growing up." She let herself smile at the idea. "But you might be able to teach me enough to protect myself. I might not have to go with you."

Dwayne studied her for a long moment. "You know what David wants."

"I think I do, but." She shrugged helplessly. "I don't understand him, most of the time. It's not like he's. He's not my boyfriend, is he?"

Dwayne's expression betrayed a flicker of sympathy. "No," he said, almost gently. "He isn't."

Feeling suddenly and unaccountably wretched, Robin looked down at the floor. "Then there has to be something else," she said. "I'm not throwing in my life for someone who's not even my boyfriend."

The seconds ticked by silently in the wake of her awkward declaration. Slowly, Robin looked back up at Dwayne. He was staring into nothing, and she wondered if he were looking ahead; incongruously, she noticed his lack of reflection in the kitchen window, her own hazy mirror image. Finally, he said, "Give me your hands."

She hesitated a moment, then held her hands out to him, wondering if he was going to read her palm. But Dwayne just took her hands in a firm grip and stilled, the tiniest furrow of concentration between his brows. He didn't move or blink; so perfectly focused on the future he even stopped breathing, and Robin had to force herself not to copy him. She tried to feel what he was doing, but either it was too subtle or she wasn't sensitive enough; she felt nothing but the steady pressure of Dwayne's fingers on hers. Then, abruptly, he released them, snatching his hands back as if burned, and catching himself against the edge of the sink.

"Dwayne?" Robin asked, concerned; but he didn't respond, pressing the heel of his hand hard to his head. "Are you okay?"

"Give me a minute," he said thickly, and Robin fell silent, watching him anxiously.

After several minutes, Dwayne took his hand away. He looked no different, with only perhaps the hint of a grimace, but he sounded tired when he spoke. "It's painful, sometimes, when I try to force it."

Robin winced. "I'm sorry, Dwayne. I didn't know it was going to hurt."

"How could you know?" He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I didn't tell you."

He didn't volunteer anything else, and Robin wondered if she should even ask. It seemed inappropriate. Still, she couldn't suppress her fierce curiosity. "Did you.see anything?"

Dwayne turned an unreadable stare on her, not angry, but so knowing that Robin couldn't suppress a shudder. "Nothing I want to share."

The finality in his voice was not to be contradicted. "Are you always this reassuring?"

"Hey you guys, coming into town?"

Robin and Dwayne both turned. Marko was shrugging on his coat by the kitchen door.

"I'm going to sit this one out," Dwayne said, and Robin noticed how his hand strayed back to the book in his pocket.

"You're coming, though, aren't you, Robin?" Marko asked, at his most persuasive.

She shot one last look at Dwayne, meeting his implacably dark gaze, and then resolved to put him out of her mind. "I'm coming. Where are we going?"

"Ziggy's, I think," Marko replied, holding the door for her.

"Oh," said Robin, without enthusiasm.

Marko let the kitchen door bang shut behind them. "Has Dwayne been giving you the Miss Cleo treatment?"

"Miss Cleo?"

"All the 'woo, I've seen your future and I'm not telling' stuff."

"That's one way of describing it," Robin agreed.

"Thought so. Take some advice. Dwayne's a great guy, but if you let him go all spooky on you, he'll freak you out. No one's meant to know the shit he knows. He's used to dealing with it, but you're not. Hell, I'm not, and I've had fifteen years' practice." Marko threw an arm around Robin's shoulders, leading her away. "So don't go asking him to see things for you. It's like when you eavesdrop on a conversation: you only ever hear bad stuff. What you don't know can't hurt you, and besides, it gives him nosebleeds."

"He got a headache just now," Robin volunteered, feeling a bit better.

"Well, it gives him an excuse to cosy up to that book of his a bit more," said Marko, laughing.

"What's in it that he's so keen to read, anyway?"

"Dunno. He has a lot of books like that back home; old stuff that mentions vampires, or might mention them. That's how come he's such an expert and all. Yeah, and that reminds me." He put on his most serious face, which still wasn't really very serious. "Gotta check your car over. You okay for me to take it tonight, drop it back to you tomorrow after sunset?"

Robin had already lost track of the number of times Marko had 'borrowed' her car and brought it back with something working that hadn't before. "Yes. Thanks, Marko."

"All part of the service," he replied, grinning. "I guess you're going to want me to find you a stick shift to drive in Santa Cruz."

"Um." His blithe assumption left Robin groping for an answer. "‘Manual', Marko, not 'stick shift'. 'Stick shift' sounds perverted."

Marko threw back his head with a great shout of laughter. "And 'manual' doesn't?"

"Only when you say it," Robin said.

He grabbed her jacket off the banister of the staircase and handed it to her. "And you'll be wanting to drive on the other side of the road."

"It's not my fault that the rest of the world gets it wrong!"

"Wrong? We drive on the right!"

Marko was very good at lightening situations. Robin wondered if that was his role in the rank. She shrugged on her coat as David and Paul came out of the living room.

".just want to make a circuit before I join you." David stopped and looked at Robin. "I have some things to do. One of the boys will give you a ride."

"My pleasure," Paul suggested, holding out his hand.

"Er." Dwayne's warning was still fresh in Robin's mind. "I'll go with Marko, if that's okay."

Marko sniggered at Paul's faintly offended expression. "Busted, bro!"

Robin just walked out with him to the garage, feeling the night air on her face, and the invisible protection of Dwayne's foresight hovering over her: intangible, inflexible, invulnerable.