I kept my back flush against the side of the wall, and I watched. I watched him put out his cigarette and light another only minutes later. All the time, he stayed rooted to that spot; looking up at our house and my window, but never taking a step into the moonlight that might illuminate his features and give his identity away.
I knew it was him, though. It had to be.
This figure had the same build and emanated the same macabre aura.
I should’ve known he wouldn’t be able to stay away. Evil always did return to the scene of the crime. They lived off the grief and fear of their victims, and that’s what he thought I was.
A victim.
Like a demon feeding off the weak, he’d come for sustenance, but he wouldn’t get it. I wasn’t weak and I’d never be his prey. He might have gotten to Brodie, but I was still alive, here to fight back. I’d always fight back when it came to him.
I heard shuffling coming from the hallway and then the bathroom light came on, bathing the back garden in a blanket of light. The orange tip of his cigarette hit the floor fast and he faded into the thick set of conifer trees, slipping into the darkness to become one with the shadows. I heard Dad finish up in the bathroom, then the light went off again, but he didn’t come back. The dark figure from my waking nightmares was gone.
But he’d return.
I knew that much.
And when he did, I’d be ready for him.
I didn’t sleep much that night. Thoughts of revenge consumed me and made my mind whirl with the possibilities. In the light of day, I knew I needed to speak to Jensen and the others. My own strengths were limited, and when it came to Brandon Mathers, I’d need more than a sharp mind and a grudge to beat him. I needed power too. Knowledge and power. That was something I felt sure the Lockwood brothers could give to me. They had enough dirt on Mathers, and when the time came, I knew I’d need everything I could use against him. I needed a fully loaded arsenal.
I managed to drag myself out of bed, shower, and change. I felt proud of myself for making the effort, but I had to. If I stayed in bed all day crying, it wouldn’t do any good. I needed to keep myself busy. Wallowing wouldn’t bring Brodie back, but action might help to stop me from staying trapped in the well of despair I was currently locked into.
I headed downstairs to the kitchen where I could hear Mum and Dad chatting over their morning coffee, discussing the wake and how proud Brodie would’ve been. Mum started to cry, and when I walked in, Dad was holding her. When she saw me, she pulled away, trying to paint on a fake smile.
“You don’t have to pretend with me, Mum. If you want to cry, cry.” She reached over to me and pulled me in for a hug.
“You were so brave yesterday. We will get through this. It might not feel like it now, but someday… a long, long way off, we’ll heal. We’ll learn to live again. It’ll never go away, but we’ll get better at dealing with it. At least, that’s what Doctor Meredith says.”
Mum had been seeing a counsellor since Brodie died. Doctor Meredith O’Neill was her lifeline most days. Mum had her number on speed dial and used it readily.
“You should come with me today. I’m seeing her at two. She could help you too, Harper. It helps to talk.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t ready to talk to anyone about what’d happened, least of all a complete stranger.
“Thanks, but no thanks. I have work.” Both of my parents scoffed as soon as I spoke.
“You can’t go to work. Not today. You only buried your brother yesterday. They won’t expect you in,” Dad said, and they frowned at me, but I wasn’t going to be swayed.
“I can’t sit around here all day moping either. I want to go to work. It’ll keep me busy. I love my job.” I gave a weak smile that didn’t reach my eyes and my parents huffed out their annoyance, but surprisingly, they dropped the subject.
“At least let me make you breakfast.” Dad sighed, opening the cupboards and pulling out a frying pan.
“I’m good, Dad. Fruit will be fine.”
I picked up an apple from the fruit bowl and bit into it, wincing as the sourness hit my taste buds and the juice ran down my chin. I wiped my face with the back of my hand and then I headed for the patio doors that led out to the garden. In the distance, I could see the conifers swaying in the breeze, and I felt a tug of curiosity, willing me to go down there. I needed to know how he’d got in. Did he scale the fence? Or was there some other more perverse way that he moved around? Like a demon in the dust, appearing and disappearing on the gasp of his victim’s breath.
I left my parents to their hushed conversation and made my way outside. The morning was fresh, and when I stepped down onto the grass, I took a deep breath in to try and fill my lungs with the goodness of the day and suffocate the bad.
I wandered down to the bottom where my night-time reaper had stood. When I got there, I noticed a small collection of cigarette butts on the ground. Fucker couldn’t even pick up his shit. He’d left it all there like a sick calling card.
I pushed my way through the trees to get to the high fencing that ran around the perimeter of our property. I couldn’t see any signs of forced entry. The fencing panels were all intact, and apart from some disturbed ground right by them, you wouldn’t have known anyone had been here. He’d obviously scaled the fence to get in, and it crossed my mind to get Dad to install barbed wire at the top, but in a twisted way, I didn’t want to. I wanted him to get comfortable coming here. When you’re comfortable, you let your guard down. An unguarded, vulnerable Mathers was a weakened one. One I could manipulate and destroy, with a little help from my friends.
I left the devil’s hiding place and made my way back up to the house. I wasn’t going to tell my mum and dad about our unwelcome visitor. They had enough on their plates, and I needed to digest everything and form a plan myself. I couldn’t do that if they were scared out of their minds about our crazy murdering stalker. I needed space to think and clarity of mind. But that wasn’t the easiest thing to get. Not after Brodie’s death. My mind was like a thick fog weighing me down. That’s why I knew going to work would be good for me. I needed some degree of normality to my day.
I pulled into the carpark of Sandland Primary School just after eight-thirty. The children were starting to filter into the building already and parents were dotted around the playground, chatting and doing a really shitty job of managing their offspring as they climbed on every surface they could find. I guessed being on the school premises meant a lot of parents switched off, seeing it as our job to police their little hellions. I saw Izzy, one of the teachers, standing at the door, and when she saw my car, her eyes went wide.
I grabbed my bags and made my way through the playground towards the building, feeling like I was encased in a bubble. The sounds around me were distorted and I couldn’t quite focus on anything other than the ground ahead of me.
A few of the younger girls ran over to hug me and then didn’t come up for air as they prattled on about their pets, games, T.V. shows, and anything else they thought I needed to hear about. I gave them the appropriate amount of oohs and ahhs to keep them happy and make it look like I was paying attention. I wasn’t. But they didn’t need to know that.
I’d always loved my job as a teaching assistant. Every day spent with the kids made me smile. I liked to think I made a difference in their lives, even if I wasn’t their main teacher. I got all the fun parts without the stress. I was the one who’d take them out of class and spend quality time with them, helping them achieve the goals they wouldn’t reach if they were left to fend for themselves in an overcrowded classroom.
“Harper, what are you doing here?” Izzy asked in an exasperated tone as she held the door open for me and ushered the over-enthusiastic girls away to play. “We can manage just fine. You need to be at home. Concentrate on you and your family. We’ll still be here when you’re ready to come back. School isn’t going anywhere.”
I understood what she was trying to say, but my mind was already
made up.
“But I’m ready now. I want to be here, Izz. The kids will help take my mind off things and I know we have a ton of stuff to do. We’re short staffed on a good day.”
Izzy nodded, but the way she bit her lip told me she didn’t agree. She wanted to argue but didn’t want to upset me either.
“How are you?”
I hated that question just as much as I hated people saying how sorry they were. It was a weak response to a catastrophically awful thing that’d happened in my life. Sorry was something you said when you bumped into someone or forgot something trivial. When people said it in regard to Brodie’s death it set my teeth on edge, but I was getting better at not biting back.
“I’m okay,” I answered, keeping the statutory ‘fine’ for the next person who asked.
“I really don’t believe that, but I’ll let it slide.” Izzy gave me a smile filled with pity and then relented. “Well, I’m happy to see you. I have been worried. But I’m not giving you Tommy and Scott today. Those two have been shockingly bad this week. You can work with Stevie, and Abigail could do with some help with her phonics.”
“Izz, I can take my usual groups. You don’t have to mollycoddle me.”
She sighed but let it go. I wasn’t there to be treated differently. I already got that at home. I just wanted a day to be Miss Yates, business as usual.
However, my day got progressively worse from there on in. It was one of those days where I was pulled from pillar to post; dealing with sick children, classroom problems and not having a minute to come up for air. In the last lesson before lunchtime, I was taking a small group in the library area, and I could feel myself starting to struggle.
“I hate reading. I’m not gonna do anything you say.” Tommy was pushing his luck and refusing to even open the book we were working on. Usually I’d have some strategy I could call on to deal with him, but my well had run dry. I had nothing.
“Open your book and sit down, Tommy. If you don’t, I’ll send you to the head teacher.”
I was shaking, trying to keep the rest of the group on task as Tommy swung the chair around dangerously close to the others and smirked at me. I took deep breaths, but it did no good. His outburst just made my anger escalate.
“My mum said your brother was a thug and he deserved to die. I hate you,” he spat back, throwing the chair across the library, narrowly missing Alice who sat close by, and making her cower and silently start to cry.
“I hate you too,” I said without thinking, and as soon as it was out, I knew I’d lost control.
Instantly, Tommy started screeching. “You’re the worst teacher in this school. I hope you die like your brother.”
He flung his arm across the bookshelves, emptying them of the books, and then picked them up to throw them at me.
“GET OUT!” I shouted, grasping the edge of the table with my fists and shaking with anger. I gasped for breath, struggling to fill my lungs, dizzy and lightheaded from the effort it took to breathe.
Tommy laughed and went to work on the rest of the library, shoving the books from the shelves and wailing in a high-pitched scream. The other children froze, glancing from Tommy to me in horror. And I just squeezed my eyes shut and started to rock back and forth, begging this nightmare to be over. I wanted to be anywhere but here, dealing with this shit. Right now, I felt like I wasn’t even in my own body. Complete mayhem was happening around me, but all I could do was pant and rock, pant and rock.
“What on Earth is going on here?” the head teacher, Mr Farnsworth, shouted. His voice bellowed over the noise of the library, but I didn’t look up. I couldn’t. “Children, go back into class. Miss Boot, will you take Tommy to the nurture room? I’ll deal with him later,” he said to one of the other teaching assistants that must’ve been walking past at the time. “Miss Yates, you need to come to my office. Now.”
I tried to stand up, but I couldn’t. My brain and my body weren’t fully aligned. Inside, I wanted to shrivel up and die right there on the spot. I could feel my muscles compacting, my limbs freezing up. My body felt heavy, empty, devoid of the energy it took to even move. In my head, there was a sea of emotions I was drowning in. I had no control. I couldn’t even deal with a wayward child. I had totally lost it. Every thought was like a tumbling mess, a waterfall of confusion. I couldn’t think straight, and I felt like I was dying.
Suddenly, the weight of warm, strong arms around me and voices telling me it’d be okay broke through the cracks in my soul. Female voices that were soothing and giving me the gentle encouragement I needed to lift myself up off the chair I was slumped into.
“I’ll make a cup of tea. You shouldn’t have come in today, love. It’s all too much.” That was Sue, one of the older teaching assistants, who everyone saw as the mother of the school. Along with Grace, a learning support assistant, she led me into Mr Farnsworth’s office then scuttled off to make the strong tea she said would make me feel better. I took a tissue from a box on the desk to try to clean myself up, but inside I was hollow. It was as if I was stuck in a dark well with no chance of escape. There was no rope to pull me out and no light of hope, only darkness.
A few minutes later, Sue reappeared, clutching a mug of steaming hot tea, and Grace followed with a packet of chocolate biscuits that she told me she’d kept hidden in her locker for emergencies like this. If only my problems could be solved by tea and biscuits. I smiled and thanked them, knowing I wouldn’t be touching any of it.
“Thank you, ladies.” Mr Farnsworth came in and stood at the door as they fussed around me then took the hint and left.
He closed the door behind them then pulled a chair over to sit opposite me. I couldn’t look at him. I probably wouldn’t have been able to look at myself if he’d put a mirror in front of me. I was a shell, an empty vessel. Here in body, but my mind was checking out.
“I think it’s best if you take a bit of time off, Harper. A leave of absence. You’ve been through a trying time, and as a school we want to support you. But we can’t have what happened just now happening again. I have to think about the welfare of the pupils as well as the staff. You aren’t fit to teach at the moment.”
My head shot up. All I heard was, you aren’t fit to teach.
“Are you firing me?”
“No. But I am going to refer you to the occupational health team. I think they’re best qualified to assess whether you’re fit for work. They offer excellent counselling services. Take some time out to get yourself well again. You’re no good to us if you’re like this.”
I shook my head. He was firing me. He wanted me out. I’d made a mistake. One fucking mistake in all the time I’d worked here, and he was forcing me out.
“You can’t do this. I love this place. I live for this job.” I couldn’t stop crying, rocking on my chair and sobbing hysterically. The thought of losing everything was all-consuming. My whole life was crashing down around me and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
“I know how hard you work. That isn’t in question here. But you’re not well-”
“I’m fine. Please…”
I wasn’t fine. I was the furthest from fine that I’d ever been. I was broken, and I didn’t know what to do. I was lost.
“Harper, let me call Janice in the office and see if she can give you a lift home. I’ll speak to occupational health and get someone to call you today to talk about your options.”
I jumped up from my seat. I didn’t want to hear any more. I knew the children would be spilling out of their classrooms in five minutes, heading for lunch, and I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want them to see my tear-soaked face or witness my breakdown.
“I’m fine. I can drive myself.” I opened the door to leave, still quaking as I sobbed.
“Please, Harper. Let me get someone to take you home. You can’t drive like this.” He went to follow me, but I turned, walking away and calling over my shoulder that I’d be fine.
Fine.
Fucked up more like.
I’d lost my brother, my job, and now my sanity. I didn’t know how many more knocks I could take before I gave up altogether.
I raced through the corridors, past the office and out to the car park. Once I was in my car, I slumped onto the steering wheel and let it all out. I cried so hard and so loud, but I had to. I had nothing now. Nothing but the wreckage around me. Somehow, I had to piece my life back together from all of this and I had no clue where to start. Rock bottom was cold and lonely, and I wasn’t sure I’d survive.
I don’t know how long I sat in the armchair in the living room, staring out towards the trees in the garden. The cup of tea I’d made myself when I got home was still full to the brim, but it was stone-cold. It gave me something to hold, but I couldn’t stomach the thought of eating or drinking. My mind that’d been so noisy and overwhelming this morning was blank now. A dark hollow cave of nothingness, just like me.
My phone buzzed with another text message from one of my colleagues. No doubt I’d been the hot topic in the staffroom at lunchtime, and as word got round, they were texting to offer their support. I didn’t want to message back. They didn’t want me there, so why should I waste my energy?
I heard the front door open and then Mum and Dad’s voices as they bustled into the kitchen, carrying what sounded like shopping bags.
“Harper, you’re home early. Is everything all right, love?” Dad had seen me sitting in the living room as he walked past, and he backtracked to come in and talk to me.
I went to speak, but my throat constricted, and I couldn’t stop the floodgate holding back my tears from opening up. How the hell was I supposed to tell them what a monumental fuck up I was, and that I couldn’t even manage a session teaching six children in a reading group?
Tortured Souls (Rebels of Sandland Book 2) Page 3
