by Daniel Hurst
He got me off that yacht because he didn’t want me to die without me knowing that he is still alive. But once I knew that, then he would have killed me. I was supposed to die on this island. The world would think that I died on that yacht but really, I would have taken my last breath here, on this small stretch of sand and jungle, in the middle of the Caribbean Sea.
I walk inside the outhouse and look down at the small boat that I need to drag out of here and all the way down to the shoreline. I see the two oars hanging on the wall that will help navigate me away from here. And I see the fish-hooks hanging beside them, almost suggesting to me that it would be a good idea to take one or two of them with me in case I need to try and catch a fish while I am out at sea.
Or in case I need a weapon to fight off anyone who might be waiting to attack as soon as I leave here.
I suddenly feel the overwhelming urge to cry again. To drop to my knees and bury my face in my hands. To beg for help or forgiveness or mercy from some higher being who might be looking down on me now and watching with puzzlement.
But as I fight the urge to cry, a strange thing starts to happen. Instead of tears there is laughter. I suddenly can’t help it. I am laughing, the crazy, maniacal laughter of a woman who is on the verge of a mental breakdown. At first, I don’t know why I am laughing. I’m just glad that I’m not crying. But then I realise why.
I have spent my whole life trying to get out of my small town and out into the world, to live a life of adventure and unpredictability. Now I am standing here alone in a tiny ramshackle room on a deserted tropical island thousands of miles from where I was born and I am looking at fish-hooks like I can use them to kill a man that I already thought I had killed.
This is crazy.
Because in some weird, fucked-up way I am living my dream. Life couldn’t possibly be any more adventurous and unpredictable than this.
Eventually I stop the hysterical laughing and pull myself together. A sombre silence returns to the outhouse and I know that now would be a good time to actually cry.
But I don’t. Because I have work to do. I need to get this boat down to the water and get off this goddamn island. Then I need to lie low while I find out as much as I can about Sebastian and anyone else who is still working for him. And then finally, when enough time has passed and there is no doubt in anybody’s mind that I am dead and gone, I will return and I will take down Sebastian once and for all.
This time there will be no chance for survival.
This time it will finally be over.
I will get revenge for Ryan. I will get revenge for Mason. I will get revenge for everybody else who was on that yacht.
And I will get revenge for myself, because I am the one who got myself in this mess, so I will be the one to get myself out of it.
Enjoy your second chance at life while you can, Sebastian, and I will try to do the same.
Because one thing is clear. There isn’t room in this world for the both of us.
One of us must go.
And it sure as hell isn’t going to be me.
Coming October 2020...
INFLUENCED
The final part of the Influencing Trilogy...
The whole world thinks Emily Bennett is dead. Her mother is preparing for her funeral. Her followers are mourning her online. Her PhoGlo account lies dormant, never to be used again...
But Emily is alive, having escaped from the people sent to kill her, the same people that murdered her boyfriend and best friend. Now she wants revenge, but it won’t be easy. She must remain anonymous, for her and her mum’s safety, while she makes her plan for revenge.
She will continue to let the world believe she is dead for now because it’s safer for everybody that way. But eventually she will be forced to step into the light and when she does the whole world will be watching.
As comebacks go, this one is going to break the internet.
Turn the page for the first chapter...
In loving memory of our dearest
Emily Bennett
1997-2020
The Bennett Family invite you to join them for a funeral service for their beloved Emily.
The service will begin at the chapel at 11am and will continue in the social club where we will be gathering to share some of our favourite memories and celebrate a wonderful person who is truly missed.
Emily’s favourite colour was purple and so feel free to wear that colour and bring as much life and energy to the day as Emily did to all our lives.
RSVP to Liz Bennett.
Friday 16 October 2020
Billericay Chapel 11am
Billericay Social Club 1pm-5pm
#WorstDayOfMyLife
Liz Bennett
Today is the day that I bury my daughter. It is surely the worst experience that any parent can go through. She should have been burying me, when I was old and grey and she was a middle aged woman with a family of her own. But not this. Not with me still in my middle age and her gone. She was only twenty-three. She had her whole life ahead of her. I’m sure I’m not the only parent to think the same thing on the day of their child’s funeral but I’d give anything to swap places with her. I would rather it was me in that box than my precious, baby girl.
Except it’s not. I’m the one still here standing outside my home watching the black hearse ambling its way down my street. Behind me my house is cold and empty, just like my heart. When today is over then I will return to this street and I will go back inside my house but I might as well be walking on the moon. That’s how unrecognisable my home is to me now without the rest of my family to share it with. I lost my husband last year and I have lost my daughter this year. Three have become one and all I keep asking myself is why am the one left behind?
Why not my wonderful husband who still had so much life to live? Why not my daughter who was living her dreams and inspiring millions of people around the world to live theirs? Why me, just a standard suburban woman that didn’t follow her dreams lie her daughter or didn’t make people laugh like my husband? Why do I deserve to live if they don’t? Why didn’t you take me instead of them?
These thoughts are no different to the ones that I’ve been having all week, ever since I learned about my daughter’s death at a yacht party in the Bahamas. Since then there have been daily news updates about the incident that claimed her life and the explosion that in total took over 200 other people off this planet. There are rumours and suspicions of false play and the explosion being more than just a bad accident and while I want to uncover the truth about what happened as much as anybody, I also know that doing so won’t make any difference to my daughter. She is still dead and I am still going to her funeral today.
I know there is no chance of my dark thoughts leaving me today, even though I tried my best on the invites to make this funeral seem more like a celebration of Emily’s life. People have been encouraged to wear purple because Emily loved that colour and I know it will help add some colour and life to a day when people just usually dress in black. People will also be encouraged to talk about their best memories of Emily, from her childhood right up until the time she became a global social media celebrity. I will tell anybody who is near me today about the times she would sneak back downstairs after me and my husband had put her to bed as a young girl and try to get some snacks out of the kitchen cupboard without us catching her. And how even though we could always hear her little footsteps on the stairs, occasionally we would pretend that we didn’t and allow her a happy moment to think that she had managed it successfully. We wouldn’t even remark on the crumbs that we would find in her bed the morning after from all the snacks that she had eate in there after getting back from the kitchen. Because we loved her and we wanted her to have those little moments of happiness, even when she should have been sleeping and not snacking.
I’ll also talk about more recent memories of her, like how one of the first things she did after making it as a social media influencer was to make me quit my job
in the supermarket and put my feet up because she wanted to pay me back for all the sacrifices I made while I was raising her. She had been perfectly entitled to live her life however she had wanted to once she had everything she had ever wished for but still she had remembered her dear old mum and made sure that I was taken care of before spending any of her new found wealth on herself.
And of course I will also talk about the fact that Emily pursued her dreams despite the fact that I regularly told her she was being unrealistic and foolish with her time. If she had listened to me then she would never have made it as an influencer and she would never had been on that yacht in the Bahamas when it exploded. She would most likely still be alive today, still living at home with me and shuffling off to whatever dreary job I had forced her to get to pay the bills and make something of her own life. And it would be easy for me to wish that she had listened to me and not followed her dreams because then she would be with me now and none of the things that are happening today would be happening at all.
But it is selfish of me to think that way. It is selfish of me to try to hold somebody back from doing what they have always wanted just so I can have some company and not be alone now. Even worse, it is selfish of me to stop somebody from chasing their dreams just because I never chased mine. When I told Emily that her ambitions to be an influencer were unrealistic that was only because I had deemed my own aspirations to be unrealistic and so had settled for a mediocre life doing none of the things I wanted to do as a child, I had played it safe and so I believed that Emily should play it safe too. Because in a way it scared me to think of her achieving her dreams because I hadn’t even attempted to achieve any of mine.
Then came the day that she told me she was going to be an influencer and that somebody was going to pay her money to travel the world and post updates to her PhoGlo account. I told her it sounded too good too be true. Even then I was subconsciously holding her back because her success was reminding me of what I never accomplished. But once I had got past those feelings then I realised how amazing it was that my daughter had reached her goals. The first Bennett to escape the 9-5. The first Bennett to escape Billericay.
The first Bennett to be a millionaire.
As the hearse moves closer to me and I catch my first glimpse of the brown coffin in the back window of the vehicle I comfort myself with the thought that Emily died doing what she had always wanted to do. Living life to the fullest. It doesn’t get much better for a twenty-three year old to be on a yacht in the Caribbean surrounded by other celebrities and partying under the blue sky. It sure as hell beats any day that I ever had when I was her same age.
The driver in the black uniform brings the hearse to a stop right outside my house and I know it is time to go. The other people standing with me, Emily’s family members and my closest friends, all shuffle forward down the driveway, either heading for the hearse itself or their own cars that are parked nearby. They have all come here this morning to support me through this difficult time and I am glad they did because I never would have been able to get out of bed without any of them here, never mind get myself dressed and ready to leave. But now for just one moment I wish I was alone. Because I know these next few hours are going to go by in a blur of tears, sermons and free alcohol and then eventually it will all be over. Everyone else will go home and back to their lives, commenting on how it was such a shame to lose Emily but that it was a lovely service and the buffet was nicer than expected. Then they will turn on their TVs or open their books or even just go to sleep and all will be okay in their world again. But not for me. When today is over then I will be left with nothing but the memories of the daughter I have lost, to go along with nothing but the memories of the husband that I have lost.
I won; be comforted by how nice the service was or how tasty the buffet was or how nice it was to have a free bar at something like this. I won’t be so lucky as to find a bit of escapism in a TV show or a good book even through sleep, because to do any of those thing requires a quiet and peaceful mind and that is not something I seem to possess anymore. I’ll lie awake in my bed tonight, just like I have done every night this last week, and I will think about every little moment in my life that led me to this point right now and who I am right now.
A grieving childless widow.
Being born in Billerciay. Going to the school that I did. Meeting Dave. Falling in love with him. Having Emily. Raising her to be how she was. Being utterly use to help when David was diagnosed with cancer. Being just as useless as he passed away shortly afterwards. Allowing Emily to go out into the world and be an influencer. And finally now, being alone and going to another funeral where the whole town will be talking about me and saying how awful my luck is, whilst all secretly thanking their lucky stars that they aren’t in my shoes.
I feel a gentle hand on my shoulder and turn to see it Patrick, my brother and Emily’s uncle. He is wearing the traditional black suit that a man would wear at a funeral except he is also wearing a garishly purple tie as a tribute to the niece that he lost so tragically a week earlier. He tells me that it is time to go and of course I already know that. The sight of the black car with the coffin in the back was enough to tell me that.
But he knows I need a little help and encouragement and so he takes my hand and he walks with me as we make our way down my driveway towards the vehicle that will deliver us to the chapel where the rest of the mourners are waiting to pay their respects.
As Patrick opens the door for me, I can’t help but take a glance at the coffin in the back. It’s nothing but a symbolic gesture because there was no body to be put inside it. The explosion took care of that. The coffin is empty except for Emily’s favourite childhood toy, a small brown bear called Lucky, which I gave to the undertaker yesterday to put inside for me. That’s all I have left to remember my daughter by. There is no body to kiss goodbye. No hair to tuck back into place on her head. No hand to squeeze and hold for one last time. Just a bear. A bear with a name that I don’t even know the meaning of anymore.
But as the doors close around me and the driver begins the final part of his journey towards the chapel I think more about the name that my daughter gave to her bear when she was a child. She told me and her father that she named him Lucky because she felt that she was lucky. Even when bad things happened to her like when she fell off her bike and fractured her arm or when she left her school bag on the bus and lost all of her work, she still considered herself to be lucky. Even when we took her on holiday to warm and sunny countries and she saw places that were way more exotic than Billericay, she still considered herself to be lucky. And even when she lost loved ones, like my her grandparents and my parents, she still felt herself lucky to have known them and to have so many good memories with them.
There had even been one night when she was seven years old and Dave was tucking her in to bed, when she revealed the real reason why she had called her favourite bear Lucky. Because she was lucky to have a mum and dad like hers.
When Dave had come downstairs and told me what Emily said shortly after that then my spirits had soared and I couldn’t take the smile off my face. Because as a parent there is nothing better than hearing that your child considers themselves lucky to have you. Because it means you are doing a good job of parenting them. Even when it doesn’t feel like it.
And so as I use a tissue to dab away a couple of the tears that have been escaping from my eyes since the car ride began I tell myself to put on a brave face and make this the best celebration of Emily’s life that I can. Because she considered herself lucky to have had me as a parent. And I consider myself lucky to have had her as a child.
Today is all about Emily.
And today I get to tell the world how lucky I was that she was a part of my life.
I was very lucky indeed.
About The Author
Daniel Hurst is the author of the bestselling 20 Minute Series, the psychological thrillers that readers have called “addictive” and “original”,
as well as the Influencing Trilogy.
His online home is at www.danielhurstbooks.com and you can connect with Daniel on Facebook at www.facebook.com/danielhurstbooks or on Instagram at @danielhurstbooks
He is always happy to receive emails from readers at [email protected]
Books By Daniel Hurst
Have you read them all?
THE 20 MINUTES SERIES
20 MINUTES ON THE TUBE
20 MINUTES LATER
20 MINUTES IN THE PARK
20 MINUTES ON HOLIDAY
INFLUENCING TRILOGY
INFLUENCE
INFLUENCER
INFLUENCED (October 2020)
