19. Heather
19
HEATHER
“ F ucking Bill.” The voices from the front of the van keep going on about Bill Ross and what they did to him, which is horrifying to say the least. I’m definitely in the middle of a nightmare here and I can’t wake up no matter what I try. “What a little asshole. I’ll tell you what, it felt so fucking good to put that bullet in his goddamn brain. I needed that shit. He has been yanking us around for much too long, getting into deeper and deeper debt. There was no way he was getting out. Especially with his bitch in jail.”
“Thank fuck Sticks told us about her .” I just know that they’re talking about me. “Now we have a lot of options to get our cash back. Maybe not all of it because fuck me, Bill owed us a goddamn fortune, but something. Better than nothing.”
“You thinking we should whore her out?” a third, more awful, voice rings out, sending a horrible chill down my spine. “We keep doing that for years and we’ll recuperate a lot. Could even be good for getting us more trade for the stash, you know.”
“Nah, it’ll take too long,” the first voice replies. “I don’t want to wait for my money. I would rather sell her. Those sketchy guys who spend half their life down by the port would be good for it. Since she’s clean, we’d get something good. But I think it’s very important to remember what Bill told Sticks. This bitch has a cop for a father. Buchan, of all people. So, we could slice her to pieces and send him bits of her. It wouldn’t get us any money or anything, but it would certainly give us some laughs. Ain’t that it?”
“True, that’s very true. Since it’s taken us forever to get ahold of this bitch, we should make the most of it. Finger by finger.”
As the men discuss the different ways in which they could rip me apart to torture my father whom they obviously despise, I force my eyes closed and try to block my ears. I don’t know if this is what they actually intend to do to me or they just want to upset me, but I don’t care either way. I don’t want to hear it. By this point, I would rather not know. They fucking killed Bill. Much as what he did to me was awful and I hate him for it, I don’t like the idea of his being dead. It’s just a lot. He’s still the man I knew growing up. He’s still Landon’s father. Sure, he’s a lot more too, but those thoughts are there. Killed by these animals because that’s what they are. They’re way worse than anything I’ve ever encountered before. Roger Caine and Bill Ross are clearly small-time criminals, and these people are completely ridiculous. I can’t get my head around their actually existing.
There is a brief moment where my eyes pop open and the first thing I see is a gun waving around in front of me. It could even be the gun which was used to kill Bill. I snap them closed once more and block the world out. It’s better here in the blackness.
“This will be a good lesson for other assholes who think they can not pay us too.” But some of the words filter through my brain. I can’t seem to stop them, but I can’t figure out who’s talking anymore. All the voices have blurred into one. “We don’t want to have to go down the same road we did with the Kelley twins again. That was fucking brutal. I still don’t know if they’re buried deep enough to never be discovered. I know the cops here are pretty useless, but one day, it might happen.”
Fucking hell, two more people are dead. Kelley is a name I’m going to have to remember just in case I ever do get out of here. They might be some missing people on a list somewhere with families wanting to know what happened to them. Which reminds me, just like the moment I was in Bill’s cupboard, I’ll have to try and leave some DNA and fingerprints here. These criminals might well be higher up the ladder and better at what they’re doing, so this van might be cleaned after… well, whatever happens to me, but I have to give it a try. I have to see what I can do, so I touch my fingers over everything that I can get ahold of.
“Did they ever find Axel? No, of course not. Don’t fucking worry about it. He’s still deep in that well, never to be seen again.”
Axel, Kelley twins. Bill Ross. This only gets worse by the minute. I wonder if Landon even knows about his dad. Oh, God, this is only going to get worse as time goes on and more people die, isn’t it? Soon, I might be added to that list.
“Fuck, I keep thinking about what we’re going to do to this bitch, to her father.” One of the men laughs. “It’s going to be hilarious. But I do keep thinking that we could use her for ransom instead. Do some like, kidnapper video shit and make her father pay up. I know that isn’t the sort of shit we normally do, but it could be fun, right? It could be a way to branch out.”
“You want to end up in jail, bro? Fucking hell, you are talking some crazy shit there, Greg. I don’t know what has gotten into you. We have Buchan’s kid, and we can do some real shit here which doesn’t put us in jail. I’m not about to have my ass thrown in the slammer for anything. I’ve spent too much time there and I ain’t keen to go back. No fucking kidnapper video.”
Boiling hot tears bubble at the back of my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. Not right now. I’m not trying to lose myself into tears while I have a job at hand, and that job is attempting to leave as much of myself behind as I can. I even spend some time trying to injure my wrists further to let some blood spill out. I only manage to get a couple of drops out, but it’s better than nothing. If this van doesn’t end up getting thoroughly cleaned, then my father might be able to track me down.
“Okay, so if no kidnapping video, then what? Where are we going? Because I’m fucking starving.”
“Hungry for human flesh or actual food? Because we all know that you are a goddamn animal.”
I wish there were a back window in this van so I could look out into the world. One to see if Landon has managed to follow us, not that I can imagine he has at this speed, but also so I can get a clue as to where we’re going. I would love to be able to have a plan just in case I could get out of here. Just in case there is a chance for me to run the hell away. If I have the opportunity, I’m going to run like the wind, I’m going to move so fast that they won’t be able to see me, but I would prefer to know which way I’m going. I don’t exactly want to end up running into even more danger.
Eventually, when I feel happy that I’ve left a lot of evidence behind, I lie back and rest my head on the van floor. It isn’t comfortable, but it’s better for me to close my eyes and to allow myself to connect with my mother in a way that I never have before. To be honest, I’ve never tried because I haven’t felt a need to, but now it’s almost like she’s with me. I can feel the same fear that she must have, although probably to a lesser degree right now. I can feel the knowledge that I’ve done the wrong thing, just like she did, the sensation that I’ve let everyone down just like she must have, at the end of her life too.
Mom, I think to myself as I desperately try to connect with her on yet another level. Mom, I wish I had known you. I wish I could remember you. I wish… I wish that you had listened to Dad and were still alive, and that I had too.
I can’t stop the tears from coming then. I don’t stand a chance. By the time my eyes pop open once more, my face is absolutely covered in tears. I’m soaking wet, but I don’t even bother to mop them up. I simply let them keep on coming. Fuck this whole situation. It’s absolutely terrible. I just wish… I wish that I were still at my father’s place, waiting for him.
I need something, Mom, I beg her silently. I need some kind of clue that I’ll survive this, or maybe a warmth to help me through it. You must understand that, you must have needed it too. I don’t want to be alone in all of this.
But I get nothing. Nothing but a horrible, icy-cold sensation that runs all the way through my body. I curl into myself, holding onto my knees as the sadness rockets through me. All the faces in my life, the ones I really want to hold on to, flood me. Mom, from the one picture that I’ve seen of her, and Dad too. Then there’s Landon. Of course, there’s Landon. The teenager I fell in love with so many years ago, and the man he’s come to be. The man whom I still adore even now.
It was a love story, wasn’t it? A while back. It was a dream come true when we were younger, a fairy tale, a fantasy that the rest of the world couldn’t seem to understand. We were torn apart and the world came to an end, but somehow, we managed to find our way back together, which was everything, wasn’t it? It was the best thing to ever happen to me. I was honestly starting to think that I was like the lead in a rom-com movie and living the dream, living the sort of fantasy that I always wanted but never dared dream could be for me, the sort of love that every girl wants. I thought that it was finally happening for me, and even if things weren’t great with my father, I was having a happy ever after anyway. I needed that, I wanted it.
Yet seeing him there on the side of the road just before I was whipped away from him… that was almost the best memory ever. It would have been the grand finale in the movie, wouldn’t it? The best ending ever. Instead, I was yanked away and now, I’m in the fucking horror film about to be buried in the fucking forest. Along with Axel and the Kelley twins. Never to be found again.
This isn’t even because of me. It’s because of my father. Because of Landon’s parents too. How crazy is that? We’re being punished for what our parents have done like it’s some kind of old-fashioned time in England where those crazy rules applied. Children bearing the burdens of the parents is insane, yet here I am, suffering everything…
Oh, my God. I bolt upright into a sitting position. Is that the van stopping? What the hell is going on?
My heart stops beating. I feel like I’m going to be sick. Whatever is going to happen is going to go down right now.