Chapter 41
Ellie felt a creeping hopelessness steal up through her veins as she watched the suburbs grow up out of the ground like a spreading fungus.
She’d been in Gold Hill for less than two weeks, but somehow the beauty of the forest and the peace of the tiny town had stolen its way into her bloodstream.
By contrast, the rapid rise of concrete and metal felt like an assault on her senses.
This was the first time she’d seen Estella drive.
The woman in the driver’s seat beside her was quiet, but her foot was heavy on the accelerator.
Perhaps she, too, just wanted this journey over with, now that the end had been called.
Ellie felt sullen, a creeping anger swelling inside her chest amongst her sadness, as if this looming loss was something she badly wanted to blame Estella for, rather than accept responsibility for her own pain.
She gazed sideways at Estella, torn between wanting to savour the last of her presence and the desire to tear off the Band-Aid and have this drawn-out goodbye over.
Estella was in her very best mob boss designer dress mode, but she wore sneakers to drive in, her heels waiting in the back footwell.
Her lipstick had been chewed off along the drive, the only outward sign that she was feeling anything at all.
She looked tired, beautiful, trapped between two worlds.
Ellie couldn’t help herself; she reached out and lay a hand on Estella’s thigh.
It took a few seconds, but eventually Estella’s spare hand came down to rest atop of hers. Ellie’s chest ached at her touch.
Eventually, they hit a snarl of traffic coming down the Western Ring Road and slowed to a crawl.
Outside the car, the sun beat down, oppressive.
The blue sky felt relentless, pinning them in amongst the mass of buildings like a dome.
Ellie missed Harry’s garden like an ache.
When she couldn’t stand the silence between them for another second, she reached out and turned on the radio.
Vapid pop music filled the car, the lyrics about love and heartbreak sounding catastrophically stupid in this context.
She replayed the night before over and over in her mind.
Hope’s words: she’s in love with you, and so you know where we are, when the time comes.
Estella’s caginess, her decision to fuck Ellie, rather than give her any answers, a choice that Ellie had let her make, more than once as they’d tumbled back into the little green bedroom, one last time.
She could still feel the ache inside her, from the intensity of Estella’s fingers, and the memory throbbed.
She remembered again, Estella’s adamant declaration that they had no future and huffed out a sigh at the shocking waste of the two of them.
By this morning, asking any questions at all felt pointless.
She could feel the answer she’d get in the sadness in the air between them: it was over.
The song faded out into the jingle for the hourly radio news, and Estella reached out and snapped it off.
For a second, Ellie let silence reign, content to let her eyes drift over the woman beside her, knowing she might not get the luxury of looking at her again.
But then, her eyes narrowed. Estella had a slight pallor to her cheeks, her eyes fixed sharply ahead, her posture rigid.
Ellie frowned at her, then, a sudden suspicion grabbing her by the throat, pressed her finger back on the radio button.
“Ellie—”
“No—” Ellie held up her hand as the newsreader’s voice entered the car.
“…in the escalating gang war between Melbourne rivals. Two bodies were found this morning in Kingsville, while a third man is now in the Royal Melbourne Hospital in a critical condition.”
Estella was almost white, two spots of red on her cheeks, as she snapped off the radio again.
“Don’t!” Ellie snapped it on again, her fingers swatting Estella’s away from the dial.
“….advise residents to steer clear of the area, however, reassure the public that there is no ongoing threat. Victoria Police released a statement saying that all victims are known to the police and are believed to be associates or members of the Florelli crime family.”
Ellie’s ears were ringing, a sick sensation swirling in her stomach as the news reporter concluded the story, with the words of a Detective Senior Sergeant Yolanda Markos speaking calmly into the cool interior of the car.
“Victoria Police are following a number of leads, however it is clear that this was a targeted shooting. At this stage of the investigation the motivation for the attack is unclear, but members of the public can rest assured that those responsible will be apprehended.”
Ellie was the one to snap the radio off at that.
Silence rang. She had no words at all. Her hands were shaking.
Estella kept driving, the crawl of the stop-start line of traffic on the off-ramp torturous now, each cycle of brake-accelerate-brake making Ellie motion-sick.
She wanted to claw off her own skin. Estella didn’t say a word, didn’t open her mouth, didn’t even try. Finally, Ellie snapped.
“You killed two men over me? Shot three human beings? Over a concussion, Estella?” The words were absurd, Ellie feeling like she was floating above her own body. People were dead.
“No!” Estella’s voice was vehement, but her eyes were evasive.
“I don’t believe you!” Ellie yelled. “Tell me the truth, for once!”
“The truth isn’t yours to have!” Estella gritted out. “For god’s sake, Ellie, you don’t get to demand something like that, just because we—”
“What? Because we what?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Estella declined to give her even that.
Ellie could barely breathe she was so angry and afraid. “I never asked you for this. You don’t even know who did this to me—”
“Of course we know who did this to you! Don’t be absurd.”
“You’re admitting it then? You literally shot three people?”
“I didn’t shoot anyone, Ellie! I was with you!”
“Oh, please. You ordered this.”
Estella fell silent again, and Ellie wound down her window, needing real air.
Heat flooded into the vehicle along with exhaust fumes, but the sound of the traffic felt like a relief from all the words Estella wasn’t saying.
She wanted to leap from the car, do anything to get her away from the nightmare she’d found herself embroiled in.
They arrived at Zara’s house simultaneously: Estella and Ellie in one car, Zara and Arthur deposited at the curb by Vera.
The division of cars had felt right when they’d left Gold Hill — a final stolen moment with Estella — but now, all Ellie wanted was to get the hell away from her.
Estella had barely pulled up when Ellie leapt out of the vehicle and grabbed the small duffle bag of things Zara had packed for her.
She felt her sister’s eyes on her as she fled past them to the front door, only to remember her keys had been lost that night on the street.
She squeezed her hands into fists, not wanting to stand there and be seen like this, dying to run in and hide. She could feel Estella’s eyes on her back.
“Head’s up!”
She turned, as Zara tossed her the keys, her sisterly senses twitching.
Ellie fumbled them, but managed to get the door open and strode into the house.
Inside it was overly warm, the air seeming baked dry in their absence.
She made her way through the house to the back door and flung it open for air, making it all the way out onto the wooden porch before she crumpled to sit, her feet in the grass, as far away as she could get from Estella Grant.
“In your room, kiddo.” She heard her sister’s voice down the hall, vanquishing Arthur who grumbled. Ellie heard a door slam, then murmured voices before her sister wandered out to find her.
“We need to talk,” came the voice from behind her and Ellie whirled around, infuriated. It wasn’t just her sister, she’d brought Estella along with her.
“No.” She jumped to her feet, backing away. “We don’t.”
“I don’t care if you hate me,” Estella said, her voice tight like maybe she fucking cared a whole lot. “But it’s my fault you’re in this situation in the first place—”
“I mean you don’t need to let her completely off the hook,” Zara chimed in. “She stalked you in the first place.”
“Christ, Zara!” Ellie glared at her sibling. “Thanks for having my back! Why are you letting her in here in the first place?”
“Because I’m trying to keep you alive!” Estella had her hands on her hips.
“By killing people?” Ellie cried. “I never want to see you again! I don’t want your version of protection, I never did.”
“You killed the people who did this to her?” Zara demanded, turning to stare at Estella, her eyes wide.
Ellie felt rotten to the core for bringing this world into her sister’s homely, overgrown little backyard.
Estella didn’t respond, instead just sucking in a long slow breath.
Ellie nearly put her teeth through her lip as she watched her sister throw her arms around Estella. “Oh my god, thank you!”
“What the hell, Zara—” Ellie’s world flipped upside down. Zara drew back, then stood, shoulder to shoulder to Estella.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Ellie! These are bad people! They’re dangerous criminals who beat you bloody and left you for dead. My fourteen-year-old son had to flee his home to stay safe, and now you’re mad at Estella for getting rid of the threat?”
“Can I be clear, here, you’re condoning fucking murder, Zara?”
“I’ve had enough!” Zara yelled into the still suburban air.
“The man who raped me, what did he get? Fucking nothing. He’s out there, living his life, police practically fist-pumping him on the way out the door, all he said, she said, no consequences, live your life, let’s move on.
What about the teenage boy who took my virginity back in school like it was a fucking prank — barely consensual — what happened to him?
What about his mates cheering him on? Fucking nothing!
He’s a goddamned lawyer now; did you know that?
Probably turn out to be a judge. The older man who refused a condom cos it felt better for him, then got me pregnant and did a runner?
Fucking nothing. Our dad, making mum crazy, then walking out and never giving a shit whether we had food in our bellies, or an adult around to look after us?
Fucking nothing! I’m sick of it, Ellie!”
Silence rang as even the neighbourhood songbirds hushed still to listen.
Zara was blazing red, every word like a razor and Estella Grant stood by her side, in perfect silence.
Ellie’s world was blurring, the up from down, the right from wrong and she couldn’t get a grip on it. She sucked in a breath anyway.
“We can’t just murder men, Zara—”
“Why not?! They murder us all the goddamn time! What do we get to do about it? Cry and march together in the street, and nothing fucking changes. At least they’re fucking terrified of Estella! She’s getting shit done that no one else will do.”
Ellie was speechless. Everything Zara was saying was insane.
Giving Estella carte blanche to kill any man who transgressed was a nightmare world, and not one Ellie wanted to live in.
“But… what about Arthur?” she heard herself saying.
Zara went rigid, but she forged on. Someone had to.
“He’s going to be a man one day. You really want to argue for vigilante justice if he’s ever accused of anything?
You wouldn’t want him to get a fair trial rather than just straight to execution by a mob boss? ”
Zara’s face was bright with fury. “There’s no such fucking thing as a fair trial, Ellie. Not under these rules. And if I knew Arthur was going to end up like one of those men, I’d smother him with a pillow right now myself.”
She stalked away into the house, Ellie’s eyes stinging with distress. She tried to take a deep breath, but it was like there was a band around her chest, restricting her lungs. Estella didn’t turn away, and Ellie couldn’t cope with what she saw in her eyes. It looked a lot like grief.
“Don’t—” Ellie put her hand up to stop the words. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Your family is safe.” Estella said quietly. “And so are you. For now, anyway. I’ll let you know if that changes.”
She waited for Ellie to say something, but Ellie had nothing left. She sank down on the porch step, gazing out at the unmowed lawn and tried not to cry until finally, finally Estella left her alone, this time, forever. And then, she wept.