Chapter 46
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
DRAKE
The air whooshes out of me as I hit the ground, flat on my back, staring at the heavens as lightning streaks across the tumultuous sky. My brain issues messages. My body ignores them.
Not standing.
Not even raising my torso… or my head.
Precious seconds tick by, and shock holds me immobile. Blinded by the pelting rain. Deafened by the horrendous wind that howls through the gap between the house and the cliff, turning it into a gale-force tunnel.
Cadence’s scream jerks me back into focus.
I concentrate and the internal order to move connects, letting me sit upright, my hands exploring for damage.
But there’s nothing.
Just the insistent ring of tinnitus in my left ear, louder than the storm. The only pain is from the impact from the fall, my feet having slid out from under me at the perfect time.
With slow movements, I lever myself to my feet, swaying with the gusts of wind, turning in time to see Cadence fighting across the yard towards me.
I wave, gesturing her back towards the house when all I want is to hug her, hold her, reassure myself she’s safe. She’s alive.
But not until I’m finished.
When I turn, Arnold is nowhere to be seen and my stomach drops, spinning in a circle, my nerves winding tighter with each degree turned until panic threatens to dominate my responses.
I force my eyes closed. Inhale. Exhale.
The path is the likeliest escape route, and I face the battering rain, each drop hitting like a buckshot pellet, head lowered as I fight my way to the iron railing and grab hold, only then gazing down the steep-cut slope leading down to the beach.
My first sweep misses him.
The second catches sight of his left hand, clinging in desperation to a jutting rock near the top of the path.
Or rather, where the path used to be.
Torrents of water cascade along the edge, doing more damage to the loosening shale with every passing second. The tiny slip where Cadence almost fell all those weeks ago, now gone as a larger landslide carves a new path down the side of the cliff. This one heading straight down.
Kickback from the blast must have pushed him back far enough that the ground gave way under him.
And the idiot still clings to the shotgun with his right hand, the threat of violence more alluring than a handhold.
“Drop the gun!”
Between the roar of thunder, the hammering rain, and the crash of the ocean, I don’t think he hears me. I’m not sure he even understands I’m standing above him. His gaze moves between his handhold and the rocks waiting to claim him below.
I’m scared to move closer. There’s no way to tell if the rock he clings to is secure enough to take my weight.
Lightning streaks across the sky. A strobe light picking out everything in jagged detail.
Arnold sees me. His mouth opens in a shouted plea.
“Drop the gun!” I repeat, pointing to the weapon.
For seconds, he doesn’t move. Preferring to risk his life rather than accept my help and be at a disadvantage. As though hanging off the edge of a cliff is a power move rather than a last gasp at life.
Then he points it towards me.
Even knowing it can’t be loaded—he didn’t have time—my heart leaps into my throat.
Then he opens his fingers, and it falls, bouncing off the cliff face, lost as it hits the beach below, disappearing into the soft rubble of the recent landslip.
I drop to my hands and knees, self-preservation screaming as I edge closer, extending my right arm for him to grab.
He reaches for it, fingers slipping in the streaming rain, and I rub my hand against my jeans, drying them as best I can. Trying again.
His mouth moves, shouting something the wind snaps away from me, keeping its secrets.
Terror creases deep into the wrinkles of his forehead, drawing jagged lines across the face I’ve spent the past year resenting. But I hold as tight as I can, pulling with all my might, angling my body back to use its weight to advantage.
Inch by inch, he rises until I can take his elbow, supporting him until he’s on his hands and knees on the solid rock. The rain eases, allowing me to make out an expression of gratitude.
Like he truly believes I would save his life after what he’s done.
My head fills with images of the pharmacist. A man who helped me even while I was accusing him. Then they morph to thoughts of my mother. Kind, strong, dependable. A woman who made sure I never felt the lack in my childhood, even as she struggled to provide.
Finally, they switch to Cadence, the girl I love, sitting in a lake of fire.
My lungs seize, refusing to cooperate as my head returns to the moment I tore the safety seal off the extinguisher, not knowing if it would work. Terrified I might lose her forever.
Arnold struggles to get his feet under him, hands still clinging to the rock as he plants them wide apart for balance. Finally, straightening enough to take a step.
When he does, I plant both hands in the centre of his chest, meeting his eyes as I shove him with all my might.
He falls awkwardly, clawing at the debris left behind by the landslip, too low to reach the solidity of the rock again.
But his fumbling fingers snag on an old root, part of the felled tree above the path. His lips pull back from his teeth as he glares in triumph, preparing to haul himself upwards again.
And I drop to my butt, scooting close to the edge, stomping down with all my force, feeling when his grip loosens. The scream as he falls lost to the roaring wind.
The extra pageantry is necessary because I want him to die, but more than that.
I want him to know it’s deliberate.
Job done.
The path is more like a rapid stream as I push myself far back from the edge, thunder rolling across the sky, louder than the tinnitus from the shotgun.
Louder than my rapid pulse, my thundering heartbeat.
When control returns, I crawl up the steep path until I’m back on the safety of the concrete platform, clambering to my feet to lean on the iron railing, staring down at the beach below.
It’s hard to find his broken body in the mess of rocks and stones and earth and sand.
Lightning flashes again.
It illuminates his white face, the arm extending like he’s still reaching for help. But another flash shows that’s just the way his body broke. The torrential rain soon pummels it level; a new landslip coats him with fresh earth, like the ground itself is giving him a funeral, tossing the sods on his coffin while his body surrenders to its new resting place.
“Drake!”
I turn and Cadence is there, holding her arms wide in welcome. I hug her until I can’t breathe, needed her comfort far more than I need air, ignoring the pain.
“Is he gone?”
My gaze travels down to the beach, even with a new lightning flash I can’t pick out his body from his grave.
“He’s gone,” I whisper, and although it seems impossible that she’ll hear me above the thunderstorm, her arms squeeze a little tighter.
We move towards the relative calm of the house, the reek of petrol and extinguisher foam enough to turn my stomach as Cadence opens her embrace enough to pull her mother into the hug.
The only time I draw back from them is to reach into my pocket, pulling out my lighter while Cadence frowns in confusion and Raelene yelps in alarm.
“Sorry, just… If I never see a fire again, it’ll be too soon,” I explain, walking onto the back patio.
I throw it with all my might, watching it arc across the sky to drop out of sight over the cliff.
A piece of me my father is welcome to add to his grave.
“Now, where were we?”
Cadence laughs as they welcome me back into their embrace, and it’s the sweetest sound in the universe.
We’re still holding each other tight when the lights of a police car spill over the driveway, reflecting off every large pane of glass in the house.
Two uniformed officers following up on an escaped prisoner, visiting the likeliest place I would run.
CADENCE
Police swarm over the house, poking and prodding and prying, then taping everything off until they can return to poke and prod and pry some more. Mum and I are briefly allowed in our rooms to gather a few possessions, a uniformed officer watching as we pack our bags, checking each item before we’re cleared to leave.
I don’t care how they treat the house. What I care about is that my mother is alive. Drake is alive.
I’m alive.
The police have no respect for happy endings and arrest Drake while I yell, dissolving into large sobs that make communication impossible, clinging to him until they physically pull me away.
Before he goes, he whispers a code in my ear. A password to a cloud service.
Once my mother and I pass our medical check and we’re installed in the bland safety of a hotel room, I use my mum’s phone to check the website.
Hours of recordings from the home security system. My checks blush bright pink when I open one folder to find hours of me in my room, staring out the window, reading, thinking.
Falling soundly asleep while the boy across the hall climbs into her room through the window.
I back out of there, saving those little titbits for later. Already working out the swear words I’ll use to emphasise my point.
But I do what he needs. Copying across the hours of footage after Arnold and I arrived home. Ensuring the world can see Arnold’s depraved behaviour in case it ever asks.
Ensuring it survives any lingering loyalty from the policemen Drake believes Arnold had in his pocket.
The day has been a disaster. The night a torment.
But when I close my eyes, nightmares have never seemed further away.
The boy I love is in prison, now an orphan. My mother will probably take months to stabilise back to her adjusted meds.
There are aches and pains over every inch of my body, and it appears my boyfriend has a voyeuristic streak I never knew about, but all that falls away.
Because most of what I feel is hope.