Chapter Thirty Six
The sea swallowed the road. That was all I could see as the minibus rolled out onto the causeway in darkness, headlights stretching ahead across nothing but black water and reflected moonlight.
No barriers. No streetlights for long stretches.
Just a ribbon of tarmac disappearing into the night like we were driving clean off the edge of the world.
Nobody spoke much anymore. Even Tori had finally stopped complaining somewhere around Bamburgh.
I sat pressed against the cold window, watching waves glimmer silver beside us while the wind buffeted softly against the side of the bus.
It felt unreal. We’d left normal life behind somewhere back in Newcastle and now we crossed into somewhere quieter.
Holy Island appeared slowly out of the darkness ahead.
Scattered lights first. Then shadows of cottages and stone walls and the outline of Lindisfarne Castle growing against the sky in the distance.
The Island was sleeping; deserted streets, the orange glow in the odd window.
The minibus wound deeper through the tiny streets, squeezing round one-way systems on roads little bigger than one car’s width, until finally we stopped outside a row of cottages near the edge of the island.
The door of the gable-end house stood open, soft yellow light spilling out onto the street, a woman bounding out before the minibus had even come to a stop.
“Well, it’s about bloody time!” she boomed as the minibus door slid open and we piled out into the night. “You lot took so long I was about to assume you’d all drowned on the bloody causeway.”
Emmie laughed first. A real laugh. The first I’d heard from her in days.
“Grace,” she breathed before being immediately swallowed into a hug.
“Oh pet,” the woman in paint-splattered dungarees and thick wool socks shoved into old boots, muttered.
The children burst from the minibus next, and suddenly Grace’s attention shifted completely.
“There’s my bairns!” she announced loudly as Emmie’s kids launched themselves at her legs.
The entire atmosphere changed. Warmth poured from the little cottage on the smell of wood smoke, paint, and something baking. Behind me, Mamma Dot climbed carefully from the minibus, with Suzy following. The second Grace spotted her face, her entire expression softened.
“Suzy,” she whispered, like the ocean air had stolen the boom from her voice. “Suzy,” she said again, and then the petite blonde woman was lost in the baggy, grey knitted embrace of Grace and her cardigan.
Behind them, Mamma Dot waved instructions at the driver as he pushed suitcases and holdalls inside the cottage, and Tori, last off the bus, looked around disapprovingly.
“We’re all fitting in there?” she asked flatly.
“We’ll have a shake-down,” Grace had already turned back to Emmie’s kids. “It’ll be fun.”
“What the fuck’s a shake-down?”
“Mattresses,” Lily answered her, gripping her teddy tightly to her chest. “Grace covers the floor with cushions and mattresses. It’s just like camping.”
“Fucking hate camping,” Tori muttered, but nobody seemed to listen as the little cottage swallowed them whole.
Grace’s eyes swept across everyone as they filed in, like she was ticking each one off as present on her list, her gaze lingering a second too long on Tori before finally landing on me. Recognition flickered instantly.
“Ah,” she said quietly this time. “You’re Sophie.”
A statement, not a question, but I nodded anyway. For one long second, she just looked at me. Really looked. Then a smile spread slowly across her face, warm and knowing and somehow sad all at once.
“Well, lass,” she announced suddenly, clapping her paint-covered hands together, and I jumped slightly. “Let’s not stand here and freeze our tits off, eh? There’s soup on that stove and it’ll be gone before we get any if we’re not careful.”
I watched Grace step inside, and for a moment I stayed on the doorstep, the smell of warmth, onions and garlic stuttering on cold, salty, sea air.
In the distance, the shadow of the castle loomed up into the night, an outline of black against the silvery light of the moon reflecting on the waves and lining the edge of the clouds.
There wasn’t a single vehicular noise in the night, only the roar of the waves and the sound of them breaking on the beach.
My shoulders loosened without my meaning them to.
The constant tightness in my chest easing as the sea air filled my lungs.
Behind me, laughter drifted softly from the cottage, while somewhere out in the darkness the tide rolled endlessly against the shore.
And for one fragile moment, the world felt far away from us.
*****
There was a buzz in the little cottage the next day. Tori sat in the corner scrolling through her phone, glancing up every now and again before rolling her eyes and saying nothing to anybody. Grace bustled around, and everyone had a job. Everyone but Tori.
“She’s Grace’s ex’s ol’ lady,” Ciara muttered as we stood outside the little cottage.
The wind had picked up, icy with the cold sea air behind it. Ciara’s fingers trembled as she lit the cigarette, took a drag, and pushed it towards me. I shook my head.
“Sorry. Forgot, you probably see all the people that this sort of shit kills, huh?” the Irish in her voice purred against the crash of the waves along the shore only eighty metres away.
“I do. But that’s not why. My dad always smoked. Cigarette after cigarette after cigarette. Stress of the job, I guess. I just never wanted to be like him.”
Ciara nodded like she understood. “Fair enough. I’d fucking quit. Until they came after Demon. Can see why your dad felt he needed these just to cope.”
We stood together in silence, and somewhere beyond the waves was the rumble of a motorbike. I was tuned into it now. Every tiny rumble in the distance and my ears pricked up like a dog waiting for its owner to return.
“Tori?” I prompted Ciara.
“Aye. Well, the old president, Ste. Indie’s dad. That was Grace’s husband once.”
“And Tori was also his ol’ lady?”
Ciara nodded. “Yeah. Up until he died. Think Grace is coping fucking remarkably letting her stay here with us all. Don’t think I’d have been able to do that.”
A rumble again. Closer now. Ciara glanced at me, her cigarette poised in front of her lips.
“You hear a bike?” I asked.
“I hear multiple bikes,” Ciara answered, pushing off the wall and straightening up.
The sound surrounded us now, and the ground vibrated underneath us.
They came from both sides. Two of them rode the wrong way up the street, and then from behind Grace’s gable-end cottage another two.
Big black bikes snarling and chrome shining.
They weren’t our men. The colours on their cuts blood red and white.
“Fuck,” Ciara cursed, the cigarette dropping from her hand, falling to the little pavement still lit.
They rolled into the tiny street one after another, headlights flooding over the cottages before cutting dead in front of Grace’s cottage and us.
Ciara went rigid beside me.
“Fuck,” a whisper this time.
Men climbed slowly off the bikes. Leather cuts. Hard faces. One stepped forward from the middle, broad shouldered and heavily tattooed, his gaze locking onto us instantly.
“You two,” he instructed. “Back inside. Quietly.”
Ciara lifted her chin, a hardness setting over her face. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
The man smirked and pulled his cut aside just enough for the handgun tucked into his waistband to catch the light.
“Someone suggesting you do exactly what I just said.”
My stomach dropped. Behind him, he jerked his head towards the others. “You two stay out here. Watch the bikes. No one comes out.”
“Aye, Thrash.”
Ciara’s fingers locked suddenly around my wrist. Tight.
“Inside,” she muttered under her breath. “Now.”