Free Bones in the Nest by Helen Cadbury

careful now, taking the bends at a speed that the little Fiat can manage.
    ‘I saw it. His tag,’ Chloe finally says. ‘He was going up the steps at the Minster.’
    ‘I see,’ it comes out very quietly. ‘Did Emma see it?’
    Chloe can’t decide what to tell her. ‘Don’t know.’
    ‘I’m going to pull over, I need to think.’
    She swerves into a gap on the grass verge. They come to a standstill with the bonnet of the car inches from the gate to an empty field. Taheera turns off the ignition and they sit listening to the ticking fans cooling the engine.
    ‘I met him when I was teaching in a prison,’ she says slowly, as if each word must be selected and checked before she usesit. ‘Nothing happened, I mean, nothing then. I decided to leave my job after he was released. The hostel job came up and I had the right skills, the right background. I mean, it’s not like he’s one of our residents,’ she hesitates. ‘I don’t think it’s against the law, but … Oh God, it’s really messy. I could be sacked if anyone found out and my parents—’ Taheera’s voice wavers and Chloe can see she’s trying not to cry. ‘I haven’t been able to talk to anyone about it.’
    Chloe decides to leave her to it. She can’t believe she cared for this silly girl, with her shiny new car and wealthy parents. Someone who has all that, a degree and a job, and risks it all for a boy; it’s ridiculous. She gets out and walks to the centre of road. They are in the middle of nowhere, on a country lane raised up from the flat fields either side. Heat shimmers off the road. She feels the huge space all around her and holds out her arms, as if she could touch it. Someone knows she’s out. It was there on the front cover of the newspaper. If she’s lucky it’s just one local paper, not the nationals. But she doesn’t feel very lucky. Her arms fall by her sides.
    Across the fields, the cooling towers of a power station fill the sky, soft cotton wool clouds of steam, hanging in the air around them. She looks up and sees a figure, balancing on the rim and falling into the steam cloud. She wants to call out to him. Jay! But her ears are filled with the roar of the wind, as if she’s the one who’s falling. Someone grabs her arm and pulls her back.
    ‘Chloe!’ Taheera screams above the sound. They thud against the side of the little cream car and Chloe feels her elbow crack on the metal. ‘That truck nearly hit you.’
    Dust clouds billow around the rear wheels of an empty skip lorry, chains clang against its frame and the sound of an air horn hangs in the air, as it disappears out of sight.
    ‘What the fuck were you doing?’
    Trying to die, Chloe thinks, but she says nothing. She closes her eyes for a few seconds and when she opens them again, she thinks she sees a blue BMW following the skip lorry, disappearing in its tail-cloud of dust. She blinks and it’s gone, as if it was never there.
     
    They sit in the car outside Meredith House. Neither of them speaks. Chloe feels a bead of sweat run down between her shoulder blades. It was cooler when the car was moving but now the heat is rising. Taheera breaks the silence first.
    ‘Don’t tell anyone.’
    Her tone has changed. She’s not confiding in Chloe any more, it’s an instruction.
    ‘I won’t,’ Chloe says.
    ‘And I won’t tell anyone where we went.’
    That’s the final deal on the table. Chloe watches her own hand reach for the door catch. Thin and white like the bones of dead birds.
    ‘See you,’ she says.
    ‘Yeah, see you,’ Taheera replies without looking at her. She starts the car before Chloe has shut the door.
    Chloe tries to go straight to her room, but Emma is coming down the stairs.
    ‘Hiya! Tough day?’
    Chloe wonders how she can possibly know about her day.
    ‘Takes a bit of getting used to, doesn’t it?’ Emma carrieson. ‘I know I was on my knees after my first day at work. Got used to it, mind.’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘There’s an IT