CHAPTER TEN
EDEN
“This is not a good idea,” I whisper, my stomach twisting.
“I know,” Fern sighs, “but Kade insisted I take you out—so here we are.” She squeezes my hand and gives me a small, soft smile. “Look, I swear I won’t leave your side. Not for a second. If you pee, I pee. If you breathe weird, I’m breathing weird with you.”
I manage a nod. She means well. She always does.
“We’ll just go to Tappers,” she adds brightly. “Nowhere else. Familiar faces, familiar bar staff. No surprises.”
But the dread doesn’t leave me.
When we get downstairs, Kade is slumped on the couch, staring at the TV but not really seeing it. He flicks his eyes to me for half a second—empty, unreadable—before looking away again.
“We’re off,” Fern announces. Diesel grabs her, kisses her hard, murmurs something that makes her laugh.
Kade doesn’t move. He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t stand. Doesn’t even pretend to give a shit.
I swallow, stepping closer. “I’ll see you later?”
His jaw tics. “If you don’t disappear again.”
The words hit like a slap—sharp, humiliating, and undeserved, but Fern yanks my arm before anything inside me can shatter.
“Come on, Eden,” she says firmly, pulling me toward the door.
I keep my eyes low as we walk past him. Because if I meet his stare right now, I’m scared I’ll break in half.
Tappers is the kind of place you start the night, not end it. Soft lighting, low music, older regulars hunched over pints of lager. It feels familiar and safe, exactly what I need.
I order a bottled non-alcoholic beer and watch the barman like a hawk as he removes the cap. “Glass?” he asks.
I shake my head quickly. “No. It’s fine.”
Fern doesn’t comment when I keep my thumb clamped over the top as we walk to a table. She just watches me with that mix of heartbreak and helplessness she’s worn for weeks.
“I know this sounds mad,” I whisper, leaning closer, “but I think someone’s following me.”
Fern frowns. “Why do you say that?”
“It’s just a feeling. Like eyes on me all the time.”
She sighs. “Maybe it’s something to do with Kade? He might’ve told the guys to keep an eye on you.”
I nod because it’s an easy answer. A comforting one. But it doesn’t feel right.
“Maybe,” I say. “Although he’s really pissed at me right now, so—”
“He still loves you,” she cuts in. “You can’t blame him for being mad. You’ve been… everywhere, emotionally. And you won’t tell him why.”
I swallow, my throat tight. “I’ve agreed to counselling. Martha found someone who specialises in victims like—” The word sticks. I have to force it out. “Me.”
Fern’s whole face softens. “Eden, that’s really good. I mean it. I think it’ll help.”
I nod, staring out the window, letting her words settle somewhere I can’t quite reach.
Then I see movement.
A shadow jerks behind the bus shelter across the road.
“There,” I whisper, pushing my chair back. “There, did you see that?”
Fern jumps up too, scanning the pavement. “What? Where?”
“There was someone there,” I insist, pointing. My pulse is hammering. “They ducked down, right behind the shelter.”
“Eden,” Fern says carefully, “I’m already worried sick about you. All of this about being watched, it’s scaring the hell out of me. Please. Sit down. Drink your beer.”
“No.” Because I know what I saw. I know that feeling, the cold slither down my spine, the twisting dread in my gut. “There’s someone there,” I repeat, grabbing my bag with trembling hands.
“Eden, stop—wait!”
But I’m already heading for the door, pushing out into the night air as Fern scrambles after me.
As soon as I step outside, the figure jerks, pulling their hood up and turning left out of sight.
My stomach drops. Not paranoia. Not this time. So I follow.
Behind me, Fern bursts out of the bar. “I’m calling someone to come get us. Eden—Eden, where are you going?” I ignore her and cross the road; my gaze locked on the fleeing shape. “Eden! Just wait a second!”
But I can’t. If someone’s following me, if this is real, if I’m not losing my mind—I need to know.
I turn the corner just in time to see the hooded figure slip into an alley. I stop, my breath catching.
Last time I went into an alley, my life ended as I knew it.
I swallow hard. I was drugged then. I’m not now.
I lift my chin, reach into my bag, and wrap my fingers around the aerosol can I brought specifically for this reason. Just in case.
“Who’s there?” I call, edging along the wall. My voice sounds thin, shaky. “I know you’re following me.”
The alley seems to swallow the streetlight behind me. Darkness thickens, closing in.
A hand shoots out of a doorway and clamps onto my arm.
I scream.
Instinct takes over and I spray the aerosol blindly into the air in the direction of the grip.
“Fuck!” The man hisses as something metal clatters to the ground. I stumble backward, hitting the pavement hard. Pain shoots up my hip.
“You stupid bitch,” he spits, rubbing his eyes.
My breath freezes in my throat.
No. No, no, no.
“It’s… you?” My voice is barely a whisper.
Liam steps forward, face twisted, eyes watering from the spray. “What the fuck did you spray in my eyes?”
My pulse hammers so hard I can taste metal. I scramble backward, putting as much distance between us as the narrow alley will allow. My gaze drops to the ground where a knife lies by his feet.
A knife.
He spits on the ground, then snarls, “I asked you a question, Queenie.”
Queenie.
The word hits me harder than anything else. My lungs seize. My throat closes. The alley seems to close in.
I lunge forward and grab the knife, clutching it so tightly the handle bites into my palm. I scoot back again, trembling.
“Why were you following me?” My voice shakes so badly the question barely sounds like me.
He grins. The same grin he wore that night. The same grin from my nightmares. “Because I was hired to.”
Far away, muffled like she’s a million miles away, I hear Fern calling my name. “Eden?”
But I can’t look away from him.
Liam smirks, leaning against the wall like he owns the world. “Your old man hired me. He thinks you’re up to no good.”
“Eden! Where the hell did you go?” Fern’s voice echoes off the brick and metal.
I turn toward her voice for a second.
That’s all he needs.
Pain rips at my scalp as Liam grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks me backward. I scream, but his hand clamps over my mouth and smothers the sound. My back hits the wall with a sickening thud.
I grip the knife tighter. He hasn’t noticed I picked it up. Good.
“And he’s right, isn’t he?” Liam breathes against my ear, hot and foul. “’Cause you did cheat on him.”
I shake my head frantically, eyes stinging.
“I know you remember.” His tone turns gleeful. “How’s Kade gonna feel when he finds out his precious Queenie spread her legs for a guy like me?”
“Eden?” Fern yells again, but her voice sounds even further away now, as if she’s calling from way past the alleyway.
Liam laughs, low and sickening. “Once was bad. But twice?” His hand slides from my mouth to my throat, squeezing just enough to steal my air. “I’ve dreamt about that pussy every night since.”
No. No. No.
He fumbles with his jeans, pinning me to the wall with the weight of his body. My knees buckle. My chest burns. The panic rising inside me deafens and crushes me. Blinding me to the world.
Not again. Not again. Not again.
The knife handle brushes my thigh.
A gasp tears from my lungs. Pure instinct and survival.
Before I’ve even thought it through, my arm swings. I plunge the knife into his thigh. It sinks in with horrifying ease. Like cutting juicy fruit.
Liam’s face contorts with shock, then rage, then pain. He grunts, clutching his leg, blood soaking through his jeans.
“What the fuck!”
His grip on my throat loosens.
“I did not cheat on Kade,” I hiss, raising the knife again and driving it into his shoulder.
He screams, stumbling back, blood spurting hot across my hand.
“You crazy bitch!” he wheezes.
“For the record,” I snarl, stepping toward him, “if you have to drug a woman to have sex—”
I stab his arm.
He yelps, collapsing onto his knees.
“—you’re the crazy one.”
His eyes widen. He scrambles back on the ground, palms slipping in the spreading pool of his own blood.
I don’t stop.
I can’t.
I push the knife into his stomach. He tries to grab my wrist, but his fingers slide off; too slick.
“You make me sick,” I whisper, voice shaking with fury and terror and something else. Something akin to power.
I bring the blade down into his chest.
This time a wet, awful gurgle fills his throat. His eyes glaze, pupils blown wide. I twist the knife—and the handle snaps in my hand.
“Eden?”
Fern’s voice is closer, running toward me.
I straighten slowly, breathing hard, staring down at Liam as blood bubbles at the corner of his mouth.
Fern skids to a stop beside me. “Holy crap.” Her eyes flick from the body, to the blood on my hands, to the broken knife. “Eden…”
I stand there shaking, chest heaving, staring down at what used to terrify me, and what I’ve just destroyed.
“I think he’s dying,” I whisper.
“No shit,” Fern mutters, staring as Liam wheezes twice, then goes completely still.
A strange, hollow quiet drops over the alley.
“For the record,” I add, voice flat, “he was about to rape me. Again.”
Fern’s whole expression changes to fury, fear, and loyalty snapping into place in an instant. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she says, already moving, already thinking. Then she glances at me, at my blood-soaked hands, my ruined clothes. “But not like that.”
She whips out her phone.
“Hey, Maddie. SOS. Girls only. Bring Eden fresh clothes. Old school emergency. And tell Rabbit he’s no longer needed. I’ll ping you my location.” She hangs up.
“Old school emergency?” I repeat, numb. “What does that mean?”
“It means exactly this,” she says darkly. “The men have their codes, and we have ours.”
Ten minutes later, tyres screech at the end of the alley and Maddie, Lucy, Darcie, and Orla appear like a strike team.