Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
KAT
I’m so cold.
The hard iciness of the concrete floor is the first thing that filters into my awareness.
Seeping through my clothes and into my bones, my hip aches where I lay on my side.
The thumping in my head is hard enough that I verge on the edge of vomiting.
The air is filled with the smell of damp and metal, and an acrid chemical scent beneath.
My wrists are so heavy.
I force my eyes open, but it takes a while to adjust enough to take in my surroundings.
There’s a distant light somewhere above and to my left.
A bare bulb on a long cord, swinging enough to make the shadows it casts move.
The ceiling is too high to see; it sinks into the gloom.
From what I can see, everything from the walls to the floor is grey concrete.
What looks like abandoned metal machinery lines the walls, and broken pallets.
There’s a metal post at my back rising up into the blackness, rigid and cold against my spine.
Dark shackles ring each of my wrists, and seeing them sends a bolt of pure terror into me.
Two thick chains wind their way from the shackles to the post, secured with a padlock.
The chain is long enough that I can pull myself into a sitting position and have some freedom of movement.
My head screams as I hold onto the post for support. I remember the sack over my head. And being slammed into the wall. The car boot… That’s all.
‘Liam,’ I whimper.
My voice is dry and broken.
To my surprise, I hear a soft groan behind me.
I turn, and there he is, chained in the same way as me to another post. His back is against it, but his head droops forward onto his chest. There’s a long red gash at his temple, and the thought of this fucker giving him yet another scar stirs up rage in me.
The rise and fall of his chest is the sole assurance he’s still breathing.
‘Liam,’ I call, louder.
He doesn’t stir.
I crawl as far as the chain will let me, and I can only just nudge him with my foot.
‘He’s going to be out for a while,’ a voice says, making the hair at the back of my neck stand.
Snapping my head around, I hunt for its owner.
There’s a man sitting on a metal chair, his elbows on his knees. His body is relaxed as he watches me. Narrowing my eyes, I focus on his face, but with the swinging light, it’s hard to make out details.
Then the light swings true.
Dark hair. A wiry frame. And a face I know.
‘Sam?’
Ellie’s coffee shop beau.
Sam gives a slow, wide smile that freezes me to the core.
‘You don’t know me,’ he says.
‘I do. From the coffee shop,’ I say.
‘Mhmm.’ He nods. ‘But not from before that.’
My pulse is thumping behind my breastbone. ‘Should I?’
The chair squeaks as he leans back.
‘I was there,’ he says. ‘That last afternoon. In the woods behind your parents’ house.’
The cold that moves through me has nothing to do with the concrete floor. We were right. We just hadn’t seen past his geeky barista cover.
‘I don’t know what you—‘
‘Don’t lie to me,’ he screams, ripping across the floor. ‘I’ve been waiting fourteen years for this conversation, and you don’t need to start with a lying fucking mouth.’
I clench my teeth so hard it hurts.
He crouches a little way from me, I assume out of reach.
‘His father used to take me there sometimes. Under the guise of spending time together, man to boy. But sometimes, he’d let the men pick me up and take me for the day.
Or the night. You know what the cottage was.
I saw you watching, once. You know what happened there. ’
‘Yes,’ I admit.
‘I was taken there a few times that summer.’ His jaw tightens. ‘I was only nine. I didn’t know how to make them stop. My dad threatened to whip me with his belt if I told anyone, and that no one would believe a stupid boy even if I did.’
He looks up at the dark ceiling. ‘And then that day, he came for me. And I prayed to a god I didn’t believe in to kill the man.
To find a way to stop him from hurting me.
But when we got there, he couldn’t find Liam.
I was told to stay in the house, but after a few minutes, curiosity pulled me toward the voices outside. ’
I close my eyes, remembering the way Liam’s dad yelled.
‘I saw everything,’ he says. ‘I saw him catch you, and I saw the boy hit him, and I saw you push him into the well. I heard him crunch. And after Liam and you ran, I went and stared at his body. Hell, I pissed down that well, so sure that finally the pain and humiliation were going to end.’
Beside me, Liam hasn’t moved.
‘I waited for a long time in those trees, and when no one came to save me, I called my dad. I wanted to call the police, but I’d seen the officer with the handcuffs doing the same things my dad did.
’ He pauses, swallowing hard. ‘So I went home, and when I told my dad what happened, he beat me so hard I pissed blood for a week. I waited for the police to come. I waited every fucking day. I thought you’d tell someone. That you wouldn’t leave me to rot.’
‘I tried,’ I say.
‘Not hard enough,’ he says. ‘You knew what was happening in that cottage, you watched what they did to me. And you just went on living your posh little life like we didn’t matter.’
‘I was just a kid…’
‘I waited six months. Believing every day that the next knock would be someone to save me. I thought Liam would tell. He couldn’t live on his own.
Surely someone would notice the man was gone and ask the boy, and the boy would tell them.
’ He looks at Liam. ‘But he never spoke. Not even to save the rest of us from the same pain he knew.’
‘I told him not to tell,’ I say. ‘I told him it had to be a secret.’
‘Then I was fifteen, and I found a public computer, and I searched, and I found the missing persons report. No body found. No investigation.’ His mouth twists. ‘One fewer bad man in the world and nobody cared.’
‘He deserved what happened to him,’ I say.
‘Yes,’ Sam agrees, standing upright and looming in the low light. ‘He did. They all do. Every single one of them who ever came to that cottage deserved the same thing. But so do you. Because your inaction caused me years more fucking pain. A childhood knowing nothing but hate. You did that.’
‘I was eight!’
‘I don’t care how old you were.’
‘Then why—’
‘Because I need someone to pay. I tried to move on. For years. But then you showed up in the coffee shop, and I recognised you. And you were so fucking happy. Always giggling with Ellie and acting as if you belonged with her light, when I knew the truth. That you were a killer.’
The shadows move as I swallow.
Beside me, Liam groans in a long, low way.
His head is moving slowly as he comes back to consciousness.
‘Liam,’ I say, hope welling as he wakes.
When I look back, Sam is watching us.
His expression has changed from that of a boy mourning the past to that of a man intent on enacting his revenge.
‘Kat, you’re okay,’ Liam croaks, before tugging at his chains and letting out an enraged. ‘What the fuck?’
Then he zones in on Sam.
‘The coffee fucker?’ he breathes.
‘Hello to you, too,’ Sam says.
Sam turns back to me and says. ‘I need you to understand that I’m not a monster. You did this. You made me do this.’
‘We were kids,’ Liam says.
‘I know,’ Sam says again. ‘You more than anyone should have known the life you were leaving us others in. You felt the grief and pain, the embarrassment and hate. Our bodies hold the same scars, except I’d never choose to leave a kid in that situation.
No matter what. So it doesn’t change what happens next. ’
The shadows dance as Sam turns and walks away, leaving Liam and me chained in the cold, damp building.
I crawl to him, and he meets me in the middle, our chains long enough to let him cradle me in his arms.
And again, I find myself in tears against his chest.