by A. S. French
‘You’re going to pay for that, puta.’ He spat on the floor as he spoke.
‘Never underestimate the stupidity of the ignorant,’ Astrid said to Laurel as she did as he commanded.
Cara stopped moving on the swings, watching as Astrid stepped towards Olivia. The kid seemed more confused than frightened. Astrid scanned the area, searching for the nanny, seeing a body on the ground behind the tattooed thug.
‘She was just for practice.’ He reached down to his side and brought up a cricket bat Astrid recognised. ‘Do you remember this?’ A smile crept across his face like a slug slithering through mud. ‘Now get on your knees.’
She strode towards him, concentrating only on her niece. She ignored the tattooed man and dropped to her knees, close to Olivia; she resisted the temptation to reach out and touch her.
‘Hi, Olivia. It’ll all be over soon, and you’ll be back with your parents.’
‘You got that right, bitch.’
The tattooed fascist grunted the words through his twisted mouth, raising the bat high before bringing it down towards her skull. It whooshed through the air, mixed in with Laurel’s scream and the tattooed man’s triumphant laugh. His movement was fast, dropping his arm at a hundred miles an hour, but Astrid was quicker, raising her arm so the temporary cast blocked his attempt to crush her head.
The wood cracked against the cast, which protected her wrist as she pushed her other hand into the ground for stability, fighting back against the vibrations rippling through her body. She used her momentum to move upwards, forcing him back and away from Olivia. They crashed into a tree, tumbling to the ground as she shouted to Laurel.
‘Get Olivia out of here!’
His hands struggled for her throat; her knee pushed up against his chest to keep him off balance, the bat lying half in the shadows and out of their grasps. His fingers gave up trying to reach her neck, looking for her eyes instead. Her arm throbbed with tremors from the blow as she brought her hand into his Adam’s apple, jagging into his throat with her nails. He gurgled, spitting blood and phlegm as she rolled from him.
A gust of wind brought leaves swirling up from the ground as Astrid stood and kicked him in the head, knocking him unconscious with one blow. She held on to her aching arm as she sought out Laurel and Olivia, finding them only a few feet from her. She ignored her natural urge to hide her emotions, stumbling forward to throw her good arm around her niece.
‘Are you okay?’ Olivia said to Astrid.
‘I’m fine, kid.’
Astrid ruffled her niece’s hair, grinning as Olivia smiled at her. All she wanted was to scoop the girl up and get out of the park, but she knew she couldn’t leave yet.
She let go of Olivia.
One side of Astrid’s body ached as if cast in iron, while the rest of her was on the verge of exhaustion. Olivia’s smile sparked her into action, dampening how every muscle screamed out for rest. She imagined the inevitable meeting with her sister, but she pushed that to the back of her mind and strode towards another unwanted reunion.
‘Is this what you wanted, Cara?’
Delaney was motionless on the swing, her gaze focused on the woman who approached her.
‘What sort of welcome is this for the love of your life?’ Cara said with curled lips and flickering eyelashes.
‘I never loved you.’ Astrid said it with enough venom to feed a thousand snakes.
‘I wasn’t talking to you, Snow.’
Astrid froze for an instant before the cricket bat collided with the side of her head, and everything turned dark.
33 Island of Dreams
Astrid’s vision returned in erratic bursts, watching her legs floating effortlessly over grass before she drifted into a troubled dream state. She was on a pirate ship, the Jolly Roger fluttering over her head, Olivia running just out of her reach, laughing and smiling. She chased her niece across a giant treasure map. She clutched at her chest as Olivia sped across a rickety wooden bridge; it swayed close to the jaw-snapping crocodiles leaping from below. Pain rippled through her bones, her skin sparkling with anxiety.
The two of them ran into the jungle, Astrid struggling to catch up with Olivia, the words refusing to leap from her throat and reach the attention of her niece. An icy dagger clutched at her chest as green-skinned monsters lunged at them. Two bald doppelgangers with orange teeth charged at Olivia, but she dodged them by jumping over their claws. A sword appeared in Astrid’s hand, the weight of it hurting her wrist as she swung it in an arc and decapitated the twin beasts in one go. Olivia made it out of the jungle to the other side, Astrid’s invisible voice failing to catch up with the kid.
She increased her speed, desperate to catch up. Leaving the jungle, she saw Olivia frozen in time, staring at the glowing golden city in front of her. Astrid relaxed as she reached forward to put her hand on her niece’s shoulder, the sword having mysteriously vanished. As she did so, something swooped from the air and snatched Olivia from the ground. Astrid’s heart ached as the kid screamed and the creature swung back around, snakes protruding from its body like poisonous hairs. A giant yellow-skinned serpent rested where its tail should have been and on its shoulders were three enormous skulls. The beast headed straight for her, as Olivia struggled inside its claws. The faces of the three heads, two female and one male, glared at Astrid; she recognised each one: Cara, Laurel and Lawrence. They grinned as they bared their teeth, breathing poisonous fumes in her direction. She stretched her mouth wide to scream as the darkness crashed down on her again.
When she woke, cold metal was pressing against her skull. She didn’t need to see the length of the gun caressing her skin to know she could be dead without anyone hearing.
‘It’s amazing the things people will ignore so they can stay safe in their little bubble, never realising until it’s too late how terrible isolation is.’ Cara’s voice slipped into her ears and brought Astrid back to consciousness. ‘We hauled you here while Laurel held on to the cricket bat and I dragged the kid behind me, and not one person batted an eyelid.’ The wind caressed the water, so it rippled in the dark. Astrid found herself on the small island in the middle of the lake. ‘Do you remember the first time you brought me here? You liked the danger of outdoor sex then.’
Cara stepped backwards, moving the gun away from Astrid’s face. Astrid pressed her hands into the dirt as she pushed up.
‘Where’s Olivia?’
‘I sent Laurel off to dispose of her.’ Astrid’s breath froze inside her. ‘It’s for the best, really, for the kid. She’d only end up heartbroken when she discovers you never really loved her.’
‘Laurel wouldn’t hurt Olivia.’
Bitterness dripped out of Cara like water from a leaky pipe. ‘You think you know her because you’ve rolled around a few times?’
‘You did all this because I broke up with you?’
The sneer matched the scorn in her voice. Cara peered at her victim, pressing the barrel of the gun into Astrid’s cheek before pulling it away.
‘You give yourself far too much credit, Snow. You were the trigger, of course, but what I am now was already inside me. I just didn’t know it.’ Cara smirked as she swept the damp from her lips with her free hand. ‘You still have to pay for what you did to me, though.’
‘Why don’t you kill me and get it over with?’
‘Because you have to suffer as I did. You won’t die, but you will feel pain.’ Cara fired the gun before she’d finished talking, the bullet flashing into Astrid’s shoulder. She fell backwards, pain spreading through her like hot lava eating at her insides. She froze on the ground, unable to move or breathe. ‘My veins are full of other people’s diseases. My parents and brother; the extended family; so-called friends; work colleagues; the woman who said she loved me. I’ve had to clear out the ailments of others before they overwhelmed me. It’s been cathartic, allowing me to find my true love in life.’
Astrid crawled through the grass as a thousand piranhas ate through every part of
her. She couldn’t let it overwhelm her, focusing on getting up and finding Olivia. She needed to keep Cara talking, hoping she wouldn’t fire the gun again.
‘You mean Laurel?’
‘God, no,’ Cara said with a raucous laugh ripped from an asthmatic hyena. ‘Inflicting pain on others is what I love; it’s the only thing I can thank you for teaching me. Laurel is a means to an end. I’ll admit I had some pangs of jealousy when I saw the two of you together, but I dismissed them when I appreciated how little she means to me.’ Astrid glared at Cara, hoping to find a relic of the woman she’d once shared a life with. There was mania behind those eyes, making her unpredictable. ‘I’ve discovered I enjoy killing people.’
Delaney’s calm voice belittled the obsession pouring from her eyes. She ripped the long blonde wig off and tossed it into the lake, revealing the short black bob Astrid had always loved. There was a tinge of grey which hadn’t been there before, surprising for a woman her age.
‘What did you do with all the fingers you snipped?’
Astrid’s lids were heavy as if the weight of her past had deposited itself above her eyes. The brown inside Delaney’s eyes swirled around like fresh coffee poured into a human vessel. She shrugged as Astrid wriggled in pain.
‘I might have dumped them somewhere or eaten them. I can’t remember which.’
Her voice was velvet, rubbing against the back of her throat. Astrid was about to faint, but the image of Cara feasting on human flesh shocked her back to alertness. She didn’t believe a word of it, knowing Cara was still playing with her mind.
I have to get inside her head.
It was a low whisper trickling inside Astrid’s skull. She reached deep into her gut and found the last remnants of her strength.
‘You hate me for not loving you, transferring the resentment you feel for your family towards me, and yet you’ve turned into the same type of person. You pretended to care for your brother, used him for your ends, and then killed him.’
Astrid pushed all the pain into one spot in her mind, the corner she’d gone to when she was younger after he’d hurt her so many times.
‘Frank owed me a great debt. He was keen to sacrifice his life so that mine would be better.’ There was no sense of guilt or sorrow in her voice.
‘And now you’ve done the same with Laurel. How did you manage to drag her into your twisted world?’
‘She fell into the Agency and my arms. It was fate.’
‘She was vulnerable, and you took advantage.’
‘Did she tell you what happened to her in the army? I helped Laurel to recover from her ordeal.’
‘You helped by lying to her?’
‘Telling somebody you love them when you don’t? That’s rich, you, of all people, criticising me for that.’ Cara removed a scarf from her pocket, knelt next to Astrid, and grabbed hold of the arm below the bullet wound, the weapon pointed towards Astrid’s chest. ‘I can’t have you dying on me from blood loss.’ She put the gun down to tie the scarf around the wound.
‘You must have spent a long time planning this.’
She ignored the stinging in her shoulder and contemplated throwing herself on top of Cara while the weapon was on the ground.
‘I think I’ve been heading towards this all my life. That moment of realisation that inflicting pain on others is what truly makes me happy.’
‘You’ve turned into your parents.’
‘That may well be true, but I’ll achieve so much more. You did me a favour, Snow, so I’ll grant you a request. Which leg do you prefer? And eye?’ Cara laughed as she moved the gun closer to her victim. Astrid considered the odds of overpowering her while the blood dripped from her shoulder. They weren’t good. ‘I’m going to shatter one of your kneecaps and blind you on one side. I know you’ll come looking for me once this is done, and I’ll need an advantage.’
Astrid tried to ignore the discomfort leaking from her body, ready for a desperate leap towards the woman who once loved her.
‘You’ve lost your mind, Cara. I feel sorry for you.’
‘I’m going to make sure you’re never whole again, dissemble you physically and emotionally, so the rest of your life is in a constant state of despair.’
There was unbridled joy in her voice and a spark behind her eyes.
‘You seem happier than when we were together, Cara; maybe you should be thanking me for starting you on this path to ecstasy.’
The agony in her body was nothing compared to what was in her mind: images of Olivia and how she’d let the kid down. Her brain worked through the distress, computing how to disorientate Cara as much as possible. A sly grin crept across Cara’s face as the shadows dripped from the branches, tipping their fingers into the water surrounding them and searching for the light hidden below the lake.
‘You mean I should thank you for breaking my heart?’ Cara’s laugh was loud and aggressive. ‘Only love can cut so deep,’ she snarled at Astrid. ‘You killed everything good inside me, ripped me apart and then ignored the results. You were witness to my failing sleep, observed the desertion of my appetite, feeding off my pain, increasing your cruelty as I withered away into nothing.’
Cara’s voice fluctuated between weakness and strength. Astrid stared at the woman whose life had descended into such emotional chaos.
The only way she could save herself was by hurting others.
‘You murdered your brother.’
Astrid searched for anything to help her, a weapon to even the odds. The tranquil waters of the lake whispered in the air, urging her to do something soon, to run and find Olivia before it was too late.
‘He deserved it. He should have protected me, but he didn’t. His lack of action brought its consequences.’
The mud slipped through Astrid’s fingers. She searched for the strength to get off the ground, fingers sinking deeper into the slime. The grime and dampness slithered into her skin, sucking the life from her flesh.
‘You couldn’t have done any of this without him.’
A bird fluttered down from the sky and landed near where Astrid knelt in the wet grass. It was searching for food, walking close to her.
Grab the animal and toss it into Cara’s face. You can do it. Move forward. Reach for it.
Cara spoke as the bird crept towards Astrid’s fingers. ‘It was his guilt which drove his dedication to me, a desperate attempt to redeem his soul.’
‘You keep blaming everybody else for your failings, Cara. He was a child in the same household as you, with as much power and influence as any kid surrounded by domineering adults. You used his regrets to manipulate him into helping you murder five people. He didn’t sacrifice himself to help you, but to save his soul.’
Cara strode forward, pulling her foot back before launching it and kicking the bird into the lake. It screeched as feathers flew everywhere.
‘You always did have a knack for rewriting history, didn’t you, Snow?’ Cara raised the gun and caressed the trigger. ‘Is that what you did with our relationship, told yourself it was all my fault and you had to get rid of me?’ Cara lowered her body so she was looking straight at Astrid, the gun pointing towards Astrid’s right eye. ‘Don’t worry; I’m not going to shoot you in the face. When Laurel returns, I’ll use the knife she used when slitting your niece’s throat.’
As the words left Cara’s mouth, the desperation reached a crescendo within Astrid; she tightened her fists as much as possible, fresh mud sticking to her palms and slithering between her fingers. She ignored the pain and lunged at Cara.
‘I’ll kill you, Delaney.’
‘That’s the spirit, Snow.’ Cara moved to one side and laughed as Astrid missed by a mile, hitting the grass with her shoulder. Cara knelt so she was close to her face. Astrid’s breathing came in substantial clumps, along with a desperate desire to bury her head in the ground and sleep, hoping all the agonies would vanish if she only closed her eyes. There was wet mud on her face, the stink of the dirt rushing into her lungs. ‘Th
ink of poor Olivia and how you failed her.’
Cara was enjoying herself, dragging out Astrid’s torture for as long as possible. She was about to lunge at Cara again when a shadow approached them. At first, she thought one of the trees had uprooted itself and was marching to her rescue, branches pointing outwards like bayonetted rifles. Cara stood as the footsteps approached.
Astrid blinked and focused on the woman who strode towards her.
‘Help me, Laurel.’
Cara grinned. ‘This is excellent timing, Laurel, just when I need the knife.’
Astrid’s eyes widened as her former partner stepped forward. Laurel’s arms were outstretched. Olivia’s unmoving body rested there; a gift Laurel laid down next to Astrid’s body, which had taken root in the ground.
A slight drizzle of rain joined them from the sky as Astrid’s tears flowed in waves.
34 The End
Olivia’s frozen eyes cut through Astrid’s heart. All her terrible childhood memories flooded back, images of her battered and bruised face glaring at her through the years.
Drizzle settled onto Olivia’s cheeks while tears swam down Astrid’s. All she saw was her niece’s head, the rest of her covered by the blanket Laurel had wrapped her in. Astrid’s body gave out, her neck hanging low before her hands sank into the shroud covering Olivia. The coldness of the fabric transferred ice into her skin, penetrating deep into her flesh. Olivia was frozen, with icicles of agony piercing Astrid’s chest.
‘In all the years I spent planning this, lost in the times when I pictured this moment, never did I think it would be this perfect.’
Cara hovered over her victims, a malicious dark presence sucking the life from everything in her orbit. Astrid gazed at Olivia’s flawless face, her youthful blonde hair moving in the wind as the rain caressed her skin. She wanted to pick her up, but was helpless both physically and mentally, her fingers digging into the earth in search of something miraculous. She stretched her head up to the moon and wanted to scream.
