by Nikki Ashton
“Oh, the great number seven pulled some strings for me, well like I fucking care.”
I stared at him, not recognising the affable, cocky lad who I’d grown up with. His usual white toothed smile wasn’t there, there were no laugh lines around his eyes; just hatred.
“What the hell is wrong with you? What the fuck did you do it for when you knew what she was beginning to mean to me?”
“Because you fucking dropped us like hot turds,” Ellis yelled in my face. “We’d done all sorts of crap for you for years, and then she comes along and all of a sudden you decide you want to be Mr Nice Guy, and we’re not good enough for you. Well it’s too fucking late, Adam because like I said, you started all of this.”
“I told you to leave her alone.”
“You told Kirk to find out her secret, and when he couldn’t, I did.” He actually looked pleased with himself and patted his chest with his palm.
“Even when you found out what my dad did to her?” I asked, amazed. “You still thought it was okay?”
The pounding in my chest was so hard and fast I thought I might be having a heart attack. I couldn’t comprehend what he was saying to me. I’d always thought him and me were tighter than anyone.
“Are Kirk and Tyler in on it?” I asked full of dread.
“Are they fuck, do you really think I’d bring that pair of dick heads in on anything. No, this was all me with the help of Mackenna.”
“Mackenna?”
Ellis smirked. “Why else do you think she’s been hanging around like a bad smell trying to split you up. That’s why she told Sarah you’d left your hoodie.”
“Fuck the blue hoodie.” Ellis and I both owned the same hoodie, which was why Lori had written my name in mine with her loopy childish handwriting. I’d come home in Ellis’ once, with his phone in the pocket and Lori had found it really funny for some weird reason.
“I have to admit it was her idea to dress like Sarah. I was as surprised as you at that one,” he added.
Staring at him, I tried to take it all in, unable to believe what they’d done just to come between me and Sarah. This wasn’t the Ellis I knew. This Ellis was a fucking bastard.
“You brought a rapist back into her life,” I cried as I gripped at my hair. “Didn’t you think what that would do to her?”
“He fucking denied it and everyone else said she was lying,” he cried, holding his arms out to his sides.
I took a step towards him with my fist clenched, when my bedroom door flung open. I swung around to see Roger in my doorway, with my mum hanging on to his arm.
“Roger no,” she cried.
Roger shook her off and looked angrier than I’d ever seen him.
“Ellis, I think you should go,” he said more calmly than I’d expect with the rage he was evidently feeling. “We need to talk to Adam.”
“No problem at all,” Ellis muttered and went past me, barging his shoulder into mine.
“We haven’t finished, Ellis,” I warned. “I’ll be coming for you.”
“What’s happened?” Roger asked as my ex-best friend stamped from the room.
“He’s a fucking prick.”
I knew that he and my mum were in my room for something serious because Roger didn’t say anything about me swearing in front of my precious mother.
“What’s going on?”
“Tell him,” Roger demanded of my mum as he strode to the window, both his hands linked at the back of his neck.
“No, it’s not important.”
Mum turned to leave the room, but Roger must have had some sixth sense, because without even turning around he barked at her, “Don’t you dare leave, Elouise, and just bloody tell him.”
I looked at my mum who was gnawing at her bottom lip, her eyes darting between me and Roger.
“Elouise.”
“Mum, for God’s sake what?”
She swallowed and then rubbed a hand across her brow, all delaying tactics, but there was no way Roger was going to let her get away with whatever it was.
“Mum, just tell me.”
Whatever it was I needed to know, because I had to get out of there and find my dad and tell him he had to leave Maddison Edge. Sarah was more important to me than him, I knew that without a doubt. The sooner he went meant the sooner I could beg Sarah to take me back.
“Adam, I’m so sorry. I just thought it was for the best, that I was protecting you.”
I sighed. “If you’re going to tell me you knew where Dad was all this time, then don’t bother. I guessed that one a while ago.”
“Oh no,” Roger scoffed turning back around and raising his arms in the air. “If only it were that insignificant.”
Looking between his crimson angry face and Mum’s pale worried one, I had no clue how she was about to tilt my world on its axis.
“Tell me.”
“I can’t, Roger, you do it.”
“Will someone just fucking tell me what the hell it that is so important. I need to go and see Glen, or fucking Joshua, whatever his name his.”
“No,” Roger snapped and dropped a hand to my shoulder. “I don’t think you should go.”
I shrugged him off. “Well tough, because I am.”
“You can’t,” he replied shaking his head. “That’s what we have to tell you.” He looked at Mum who was doing her usual weeping and wailing routine she always did when she didn’t like a situation. “Well, I suppose I have to tell you. What he did to Sarah, he did it before, when you were little.”
24
Adam
“W-what do you mean.” My blood ran cold and my legs felt like jelly as I staggered over to my desk and dropped into the chair. “He didn’t fucking touch me did he?”
“God no, son, no.” Roger knelt in front of me and pulled my hands between both of his. “Your mum caught him in the house with a fifteen-year-old girl. She used to babysit you from time to time.”
I tried to think back to any girl that might have looked after me, but no one came to mind, apart from vague recollections of a girl with blonde hair who had one of those huge sheepdogs like those from the paint advert.
“There was a girl who used to let me go for a walk in the field with her and her dog,” I said, as sketchy images flashed through my head.
“Angela,” Mum said, venom rich in her voice. “The little bitch’s name was Angela.”
Roger gave her a disdainful look and then turned back to me. “He did the same to her, raped her while you were playing in your bedroom. Your mum came home and found the girl crying in the corner of their room, while your dad was… shall we say, getting dressed.”
Everything in the room went hazy. Roger’s face swam in front of my eyes. The curtains at my window looked like they were blowing in a breeze. The floor moved up and down like a rollercoaster and my body felt chilled to the bone despite the fine sheen of sweat covering it.
“I feel sick.” I gulped in some air and looked at Mum. “What did you do?”
My hands were shaking even though they were trapped inside Rogers and I could feel his grip tighten as my tears splashed onto his skin.
Mum shook her head and clamped a hand over her mouth. A movement that couldn’t have been more symbolic if she’d tried.
“What did she do, Roger?”
“She.” He drew in a deep breath. “She didn’t do anything. She told the girl is was her word against both of theirs and she’d give your dad any alibi he needed.”
“Fuck.” My gaze shot to my mum. “Please tell me you didn’t.”
She nodded as she cried silently.
“You let him go,” I whispered and looked at Roger, who seemed to have lost that adoring look in his eye for my mum. It was replaced with a hardness as his steel grey eyes flashed to her and then back to me.
“I threw him out,” Mum protested.
“I can’t be in the same room as her,” I said to Roger, my voice anxious and breathy. “I need to leave; I need to find Sarah.”
Ro
ger kept a firm grip of my hand and looked me directly in the eye. “I think you should stay here, and I’ll call the police. I know how hot headed you get, and you’ll go straight round to his place and then he’ll run.”
“Sarah,” I croaked out. “I need Sarah.”
Roger pulled me up with him and dragged me into his arms. My arms wrapped around his waist and I dropped my forehead to his shoulder.
“Please, Roger, let me call Sarah. I need her here. I need to know she’s okay.”
“Okay, son,” he whispered soothingly. “Let’s call her and see if her mum will bring her over.” He blew out a breath. “I’m so bloody sorry.”
“Adam, sweetheart.”
When Mum started to sob, I pulled away from Roger and turned on her.
“Shut up, I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want any excuses from you. You helped him get away with rape and then he raped Sarah. You’re as bad as he is.”
She gasped loudly and staggered backwards.
“I think you should leave him alone, Elouise,” Roger said quietly, his head bowed. “Go and see to Lori.”
“But I—”
“No,” Roger commanded. “For once in your life just do as I damn well ask.”
She whimpered for a few seconds, but neither Roger nor I said anything as she slipped from the room.
“How could she have done that?” I asked, swiping at my eyes with the heels of my hands. “He’s a fucking monster and she let him go.”
Roger exhaled slowly. “I don’t know. There’s a lot of things your mum does that amaze me, but this,” he paused to scrub a hand down his face. “This is just about the limit.”
Something inside of me wilted as I thought of Roger leaving our lives. I hadn’t realised how much I’d warmed to him over the last few weeks. How much I had realised that he was the one who had parented me for the last two years or so, despite everything I’d done to push him away.
“You’re leaving her,” I stated, acceptance in my tone.
Roger tilted his chin up and shook his head. “No,” he said determinedly. “As much as I can’t stand the sight of her, I love you and Lori. I won’t abandon either of you, but your mum…well, I will never forgive her for this.”
With his shoulders hunched and his back stooped, he looked destroyed and defeated. My mum had done it again but this time she’d managed to lose a good man. The fact that he said he’d stay for us, for me and Lori, made him my fucking hero. As for Mum, I had no sympathy for her whatsoever.
“Roger, I’m so sorry.”
He patted my shoulder.
“There are only two people to blame for this shit, Adam, and you’re most definitely not one of them.” Rubbing his bald head, he sighed heavily. “We’ll try and make things as normal as possible for Lori’s sake, but me and your mum are finished. I knew she had Glen’s contact details all this time, but to find out she… well, that’s unforgiveable.”
“But I—”
“Adam, mate your mum let me up.”
Kirk came bounding into the room his face was pale and his hair was messed all over the place as though he’d been running his hands through it.
“I don’t want to talk about Ellis,” I groaned, as I wiped the residue of my tears away.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He stopped dead in front of me and grabbed both my upper arms. “I was listening on the police radio—”
“Kirk, lad, you’ll get into trouble for that if they catch you,” Roger sighed. “You boys, I don’t know.”
“No, Mr Crawford, really I need to tell you this.” Kirk’s chest heaved and he was looking at me as if my dog had just died.
“Nothing else, please,” I groaned.
“You need to hear this,” he insisted.
“Okay what?”
“They’ve found a girl’s body in the park. She’s drowned in the lake.”
The way he was looking at me, I just knew.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “You don’t fucking know that.” I scrambled across the room, pushing Roger out of the way to get my phone from my bed.
“What?” Roger asked. “What’s going on?”
As I stabbed at my phone to get to Sarah’s number, Kirk’s voice lowered to a worried quake.
“She was blonde and.” He took a deep breath. “And they said she was around seventeen and had one blue Converse missing.
It was then that the phone dropped from my hand the last thing I remember the thud of it landing on the floor.
25
Adam
Roger was holding my head up while Kirk wiped a wet flannel over my face when I came around. As soon as my eyes regained focus, embarrassed, I tried to stand up, sending Kirk flying onto his arse.
“Just hold on a minute,” Roger said, pushing on my shoulders to keep me down. “You need to be sure you’re okay first.”
“I’m fine, I need to find out what’s happening. I have to know if it’s Sarah.”
“Okay, okay.” Roger patted my shoulder. “Take it steady.”
As quickly as he’d let me, I got to my feet and then held my hand out to him to help him up. He breathed in sharply through his nose and momentarily closed his eyes and in that moment, I knew he would always look out for me and my sister, no matter what happened.
“I’m so sorry, mate,” Kirk said as stood up. “I wish it hadn’t had to be me to tell you, but—.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s not her, I know it isn’t. I’d feel it in here.” I slammed my closed fist against my chest and took a deep breath. “I would fucking know.”
Kirk nodded and instinctively knew not to say anything else.
“If I can’t get hold of her, can you go home and carry on listening?” I asked him.
He looked at Roger and then back to me. “Well, yeah if you want me to.”
“I need to know for certain. Where’s my phone?”
Roger passed it to me, his eyes grave and concerned. “Adam if it’s the worst news, I think you should be at home.”
“I need to find her. It’s not her.” I tapped on my phone and then lifted it to my ear.
It felt like it had been ringing forever when her voicemail kicked.
“Hi, you’ve reached Sarah Danes, please leave a message and I’ll call you back.”
Shit she sounded so bright and alive and I hoped with everything inside of me that she was okay.
“Hey Sarah, please call me as soon as you get this message… I… please, babe, just call me.” I pocketed my phone and then snatched up my car keys.
“Adam, I’m not sure—”
“I have to Roger. I have to find her.”
He nodded once and then stood to one side. “I can come with you, if you’d like me to.”
I thought about it but knew that if for one minute I thought my dad was involved in the fucking nightmare, or that he’d even looked in Sarah’s direction, I’d want to pummel him until he begged me to stop. Roger wouldn’t allow that.
“I’ll be fine. Stay with Mum and Lori and make sure Lori doesn’t find out. She loves Sarah.”
Fuck she wasn’t the only one, that was something I was sure of.
“I’ll go back home and see what I can find out.” Kirk ran a hand over his head, and I could see apology and pity in his eyes.
“Thanks, mate. I really appreciate it.”
“Least I can do.”
As I followed him down the stairs, it was strange to realise how wrong I’d got it about him. I’d always thought Ellis was the one I could rely on, but Kirk was the one who had worried about me and yet again was willing to help me.
Once in my car I went to put the key in the ignition, but my hands were shaking too much.
“Come on, pull yourself together,” I muttered to myself.
I took a deep breath and finally managed to get the key in and start the car, speeding off towards Sarah’s house. I had no idea what I would find there, all I knew was I had to make sure she wasn’t
the blonde girl who would never draw another breath. If it was her then I wasn’t sure how I could continue to draw my own; I loved her that much.
26
Sarah
As my feet pounded the pavement towards our house, I knew that Mr Mills was close behind me. I could almost feel his breath on the back of my neck.
There was a certain sense of inevitability deep inside me that knew he’d catch me, but I would do everything in my power to try and make sure he didn’t. The house was in sight, if only I could get there before Mr Mills gained on me. I wanted to shout for help, but no one was around; even for a Sunday it was quiet. No kids were playing in the street, no one was washing their car or walking their dog, it was deserted.
The carrier bag of chocolate wasn’t heavy, but it wasn’t helping me to run, so I threw it to one side, glancing over my shoulder as I did. Mr Mills was almost within touching distance of me, his arms and legs pumping in unison.
“You can’t run from me for long, Sarah.”
His breathless voice reached me over the air rushing past my ears as I tried desperately to outrun him. With the house only feet away, I reached into my pocket for my key and had it pointed ready, even though I wasn’t sure I’d make it.
Reaching the house, I pushed the key in the lock and before I’d even got it open my hair was grabbed, my head pulled back and then crashed hard against the door.
The pain zigzagged through my head as my body jerked and then slammed forward, with my cheek pressed up against the door.
“Open it.” Mr Mills’ voice was quiet and menacing as his breath whispered against the bare skin of my neck.
“My mum will be home soon, you can’t do this,” I managed to gasp out.
Mr Mills laughed. “No, she won’t, she’s at that meeting for fucking women and don’t even try and tell me she’s not. I know. I also know you are more stupid than I thought,” he sneered. “You really should have run to a neighbour instead of here where no one’s home.”
