The Girl With Nine Lives, The Girl Who Bit Back, The Girl With Ten Claws 3 Book Boxset (The Adventures of Benedict and Blackwell Series)

by E. Earle

  “So it appears.”

  I rolled my eyes at him and turned to walk away. His hand on my arm stopped me in my tracks.

  “I was serious when I told your mother I would look after you,” he said, his voice cold, his eyes hard as he stared into mine, demanding that I back down. “And that’s what I’m going to do.”

  I was utterly confused. I didn’t usually have trouble like this doing what I wanted. Even Calloway couldn’t stop me from acting on my impulses.

  Yeah and you got shot last time, I thought wryly.

  “Fine,” I said, pulling my arm away. “You do that. But right now, I’m out enjoying myself, ok? I’ve had dickheads like that ruin my life before- I’m not going to let them affect me this time.”

  I walked away, knowing that I was going to pay for that in the morning.

  The next morning, I was to pay for my disobedience. Brynn had me up bright and early to deal with a delivery of beer. It was seven and I had only had a few hours sleep. I had spent the rest of the time puking my guts up, Jessica holding my hair back for me. I remembered that I had given my lunch to Old Marley so had been drinking on an empty stomach. Smart move.

  I didn’t complain when Brynn got me to take the rest of the drinks order to the cellar. He was testing me, wanting a response and I refused to do it. Sweat dripped from my clammy forehead as I walked up and down the stairs, transferring boxes of juice, cola and bottles of wine whilst he dealt with the kegs.

  I didn’t even complain when he asked me to take a load of crates from the attic to throw out. Mostly because I was dying to throw up somewhere he wouldn’t see.

  I washed my mouth out, downed a glass of water and brushed my teeth for the third time that morning. I always have to brush my teeth after throwing up. Staring back at my teary red eyes I shook my head.

  Ben was outside in the garden, pouncing on random insects and pretend mice. I think he was practising his hunting skills. Finishing with the third journey from the attic to outside with the last of the crates, I sat down for a moment.

  I didn’t mind doing all this; I could do with the workout. But what was the last straw, was when Brynn asked me to clean up several dead mice Ben had left as a present.

  I just made it to the bushes before I threw up again.

  What a day.

  Old Marley came in later on, which I was surprised about. He didn’t seem that drunk this time, but his body was still shaking. Ben sat on his lap like before and I passed the old man the Stephen King book he had been reading the previous day.

  I watched Brynn have a quiet word with him and frowned. They both nodded, Brynn patted him on the shoulder and walked out with some customers for a surfing lesson.

  Feeling charitable, I made him a cheese toastie and put it in front of Old Marley, my nose wrinkling at the smell of food. “You ok?” I asked, holding back a heave.

  He fixed overly pale grey eyes on me and stopped his stroking of Ben momentarily. “Good cat,” he mumbled.

  I frowned and wondered whether I should sit down or not. “Yeah he is,” I finally said, feeling incredibly awkward all of a sudden. “His name’s Ben- Benedict if you want to get on his good side.”

  He started stroking him again. “Ben…”

  After shuffling around a bit more I left him to it.

  Old Marley came in again for the next three days, sitting there with the same book with Ben on his lap.

  It was a Friday when the two thugs came back.

  Unfortunately, this was a time when I had volunteered to cover for Jessica. She was going on a date with Jack, and I felt as though I could do with a distraction. There weren’t many customers in that night and Brynn had popped out to pick us up some more supplies for the kitchen. We always brought in more food each week, but we always ended up rushing off to the nearby stores to pick up extras. Business was picking up good and people were buzzing to get in on Brynn’s surfing school. I wondered if I would have to hire more staff for the festival season.

  It was when I was daydreaming about this when they both walked in.

  Ben immediately started to hiss, making me jump. I clenched the glass in my hand so hard I thought it would break.

  “Well, well, well,” Thug#1 said looking around. “It is a bit empty tonight, isn’t it?”

  I glanced at the small table of three old men playing a game of dominoes and tried to look as though I wasn’t bothered. “Yeah, so?” I said, wiping the glass dry with a towel and putting it on a shelf. “It’s a Thursday. Always a pub quiz at Delayneys on a Thursday that the locals like.”

  “Is that so?”

  I avoided their eyes and tried to look nonchalant as I silently searched for my phone. Damn it! I had left it upstairs whilst I was getting changed. I had been trying to make the garden a bit more presentable and had gotten filthy much to Brynn’s amusement.

  “Can I help you?” I said in a cold tone, snapping my eyes up to theirs finally.

  “Depends,” Thug#2 drawled coming up to the bar.

  Thug#1 was taking off his long coat and dumped it on a chair. He wore a plain shirt beneath, no tie, a small stain from coffee near his collar.

  “Where’s the old man?” snapped Thug#1.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Obviously not here.”

  Thug#1 suddenly slammed his fist on the bar. “Don’t play silly buggers with me, girl,” he snarled, small veins starting to pop out from his face. “We want to know where the old man is and now!”

  I glanced at the three pensioners who still hadn’t even noticed the two men. I didn’t know whether it was a blessing or not- one, because I was glad that they wouldn’t get dragged into this, two, I didn’t want them to not come back, but three- it would have been nice to think one of them had Brynn on speed dial.

  “I have no idea,” I admitted. “Now you better get out now before I call the police!”

  We stood there for a few seconds evaluating each other. I shrugged and then reached for the phone, but not before Thug#2 wrenched it from the bar and pulled the cord from the wall. I stared at him, aghast and then picked up two pint glasses.

  “You guys better piss off now before I start throwing things,” I snarled.

  They laughed. “Oh, we can do a lot worse than that, sweetheart,” Thug#2 said, leaning forward across the bar, as if daring me to smash that glass into his face. “We can destroy this place and everything in it if you don’t tell us what we need to know.”

  I glared at him, feeling incredibly sick. “I don’t know where he is because I’m new in the area,” I said slowly. “Or haven’t you heard about that?”

  They exchanged glances, telling me something valuable. They weren’t local. They didn’t know the people here.

  “Can’t you tell from the accent?” I pushed, as if they were stupid- which they were.

  Thug#1 pointed a large finger in my face then. “You tell the old man, that he better sign the forms, ok? He’s got two weeks!”

  I gripped the bar hard. “Get. Out.”

  Pausing for a few seconds whilst my knees were shaking uncontrollably, they stared back at me, their animalistic grins flashing.

  Sneering, they finally turned away. “See you later, sweetheart,” Thug #2 said, grabbing his coat. Ben hissed at him as he passed, and it was only then I realised with alarm Ben had moved. I held my breath as the two men opened the door and left.

  It was ten seconds later when I realised I was sitting on my backside.

  “You might want to lock the door,” Ben said, sitting in my lap, rubbing his head on my arm.

  “Why?” I said shakily. Tears were itching behind my eyes. God, don’t cry, please, don’t let me cry!

  Ben hesitated.

  An image of Thug#2 picking up his coat flashed in my mind. “Ben, you didn’t…”

  Ben meowed.

  “Shit!”

  I was up within a moment, tripping over my useless legs and locking the door- never mind the old guys playing dominoes- they’d have to stay over- I was never
unlocking the door.

  “I was marking our territory-”

  “-You were having a dump in the mafia’s coat!”

  Paranoia is not my best friend. I ran around the house locking windows, Ben on high alert to get a whiff of the guys if they came back. He apologised afterwards, but I got a sense that he didn’t regret it- he never regretted anything that he did.

  The old men managed to persuade me to let them out, and soon I was on my own. Jessica and Jack still weren’t back and I was getting a sinking feeling that they had gone back to his caravan.

  My body had started to shake and my gunshot wound was itching. I started to cry suddenly and stopped at the bar. The wood was warm beneath my hand as I clutched onto it, pulling my sanity back to me. Ben was there immediately.

  “I hate feeling like this,” I sobbed, clutching his fur.

  “I know,” he meowed softly. “It’ll be ok. Be brave.”

  I dragged a huge intake of breath into my lungs, the silence so loud it was humming in my ears. I had tried calling Brynn but he wasn’t picking up his phone. He never answered when he was driving, and I hoped he would hurry up.

  But what if John had asked him to come over? What if he had gone back to his place to pick up some things? Oh God- Oh God-

  My knuckles hurt. I rubbed them absently, the sweat of my palms seeping into open creases. The sting brought my awareness back momentarily.

  Back muscles cramped as I leant forward and started searching in the dark for a weapon, my vision blind to anything but Rino’s face. A door slammed from outside.

  An ejaculation of adrenaline swamped my body almost making me buckle over. I opened my mouth to try and ask Ben who it was, but no sound came out but a croak.

  They’ve come back…

  Each sound ground on the knuckles of my spine as I listened to the footsteps coming nearer- crunching over the gravel at the side of the building. Dust gathered in my mouth as I ground my teeth, my nails digging into the bar.

  A shadow passed the window.

  I stared at the doorknob. The ornate detail was lost in a sea of black flaking paint and a thousand decaying handprints. I could almost hear the metal hum with the vibrations of the intruder’s footsteps.

  I could feel my eardrums beating from it.

  A sudden cramp in my stomach took hold. Fear and exhaustion twisted the muscles within, as if from an invisible force. Black panic forced its way into my lungs, stealing all breath. I looked up to the ceiling, sure that it was shaking with the pressure. Turning behind, my eyes searched for the window- I needed to get out.

  I took a step, hearing the rattle of the doorknob behind me. Ben’s meowing echoed loudly in my ears, threatening to drown out even the sound of my own heartbeat. The next thing I knew I was on my knees, head swimming, and heart pounding. My knees refused to move, my hands unable to gain purchase to pull myself up. Sound was sucked from my ears as my senses began to leave me and all I could do was wish the shadows would hide my trembling body.

  Realisation that the intruder was inside the room hit me, their shadow crooked as it lay across the floor. I turned then, the familiar throb of my gunshot wound ready to greet its maker.

  Brynn’s face was lit up with concern from the faint light outside.

  “Ellie?”

  My consciousness slipped away at the sound of his voice.

  I was cold. The mud from the barn soaked into my clothes, my head throbbing from the blow. Emily was lying in the corner, lifeless. I opened my mouth to try call out to her but nothing would come out of my mouth.

  I needed to get out. He would be back. I could hear him outside talking to his friend. I shuffled closer to Emily.

  It was my fault she had been caught in this. My fault that she had been used against me. She would have been safe if she had never had met me.

  The place suddenly stank of petrol, and then I knew that he had soaked the place, the old thrown away items that filled it more jagged and dark than I remembered them. They seemed to hide eyes in their shadows.

  Suddenly Rino was standing before me, dark, handsome and evil. His face was twisted in sadistic enjoyment as he watched me. His mouth was moving but no sound came out.

  “You’re mental,” I found myself saying.

  His self-pleased smile fell. “Yeah? And what have you ever achieved? You’re lying here in the muck about to have your brains blown out.” He hit me then. “Then I’m gonna torch your body. Watch you burn. No one’s gonna be able to tell it’s you by the time they hose this place down and drag your corpses out!”

  He flipped open his lighter, blood turning his smile red.

  I opened my mouth to scream as he dropped the lighter, and as the fire starting eating away at my skin, he pulled out his gun.

  And shot me.

  “Ellie!”

  Arms held me down as I thrashed to be free from Rino. Oh God, I was bleeding, I had to stop the bleeding!

  I pushed the arms away from me and clung to my side, rolling up my shirt to see no blood, no nothing- just a shining scar.

  “Ellie! It’s ok! You were dreaming!”

  I looked up, sweat dripping from my face to see Brynn staring at my face, and then at my side.

  “Shit,” he breathed, looking at Rino’s handiwork.

  Breath heaved into my lungs as my arms locked into place, unable to pull the fabric back over the evidence, unable to cover my face from the shame, unable to wipe the sweat that was dripping down my neck.

  “Oh God…”

  Brynn knelt at my side and pulled my shirt from my useless hands, back down and hiding the scar. “It’s ok,” he said, his voice low and soothing.

  “Where’s Ben?” I demanded. “Ben!”

  “It’s ok, Ellie, calm down-”

  Relief was a painful jolt just then a ginger ball jumped onto the bedside table and onto the bed.

  “What the-”

  He then proceeded to drop a dead mouse on my lap.

  I stared at its bloody corpse, freshly hunted and killed- for me. Ben meowed and pawed at my face. Brynn shook his head in disbelief and put a hand over his mouth so he wouldn’t laugh or swear.

  Shaking my head, I gingerly picked up the tail of the dead mouse and lifted it into the air away from me. Ben licked his mouth with interest.

  “Next time, Ben, bring me chocolates.”

  The next hour I spent explaining everything that had happened to Brynn. It was now nearly one in the morning. He had said that after I had passed out that he didn’t want to wake me straight away. He had literally gone downstairs to get me a glass of water when he heard me shouting.

  To my knowledge I had never shouted out in my dreams. I would have to ask Ben about that later.

  Brynn scowled and swore when I told him about the two thugs. We discussed about calling the police in, but we both agreed that it probably wouldn’t help anything- they hadn’t done anything to be put away for and would be released shortly after even if we did get them arrested.

  “What is the deal with them and Old Marley?” I demanded as I motioned Ben that he could have his mouse. Ben took his prize and skulked out the room- he knew how I felt about him hunting animals- they always gave him a gippy tummy but he wouldn’t be told.

  To my surprise he came back almost straight away and I feared whose door he had hidden it under. Brynn and I would have to sort it out later. Good thing this was the staff floor.

  Brynn sighed and looked tired suddenly. “Old Marley is a nice old man,” he said. “He used to own a museum a mile from here- it’s still there, but just locked up.”

  I frowned. “Locked up?”

  He shrugged. “Old Marley’s wife died and he turned to drinking. Shut up the museum and just wasted away.”

  I sat back in my bed and thought on that. I remembered us passing an old building near the sea on the way to Brynn’s- that couldn’t be it, surely?

  I asked and he nodded.

  “It comes with a bit of land as well,” he said, scowling
suddenly. “I think that’s why his brother is onto him.”

  “His brother?”

  “His brother is one of the biggest hoteliers in the country,” Brynn explained. “He’s been after Old Marley’s plot of land for years. Now all of a sudden, he’s determined to get the deeds signed over to him.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Brynn shrugged, looking exhausted. “He’s made it no secret that he believes his brother has wasted the place.”

  I rubbed my face, trying to hold back a yawn. “And what do you think?”

  “Honestly?”

  Ben meowed, as if saying yes himself. I threw him a warning look. I nodded to Brynn instead and held Ben in my lap.

  “I think if his brother has it, we’ll be out of business within six months.”

  The next day was our busiest- the festival was starting but Brynn wanted to take me down to Old Marley’s museum to see what had been the big problem. He wasn’t happy that Jack and Jessica had gone on the date, but I snapped at him not to be so silly. We could hardly expect the Old Marley’s pursuers to turn up like that. I suppose Brynn felt bad that he hadn’t been able to defend me, despite what he had told my mother, but if anything, it was probably a good thing.

  It was strange to think he was so serious in keeping his promise to my mother about looking after me. I didn’t know how it made me feel still, I had always prided myself in being self-reliant- I had never needed a man to look after me. Least of all Brynn O’Connell.

  We worked well together, but our scowls were frequent. I didn’t like asking for help, and Brynn thought I was an idiot not to ask. I felt like I needed to prove myself to the team, and weirdly, most of all towards O’Connell. I needed to prove that I was capable, despite the gunshot, that I wasn’t some addled poor little girl who had panic attacks. Each time one came, I took on a bigger workload, as if to make up for it. It annoyed Brynn, and his annoyance in turn frustrated me.

  Feeling depressed I stared out of the window at the sea as we drove down a bumpy road. Ben was to come of course- he wouldn’t leave my side, and I couldn’t tell whether Brynn was actually bothered about it or if he was actually ok. He had opened the door expectantly for the ginger cat, as if thinking no less that Ben would decide to come with us.