Chapter 60
The little girl shivered in the room’s cold air, but her mam was walking around in a T-shirt and leggings.
Lily Clarke could not remember having spent this much time so close to her mother in, like for ever.
It was a bit overpowering, if she was honest with herself.
And shocking when her mother had stumbled into the room to sit beside her.
No explanation. No nothing. Lily gave up trying to rationalise what was going on.
‘I’m missing school,’ she said, the tremble in her voice unrecognisable. ‘I’ll be way behind in all my work and I really need to keep up.’
‘Will you stop your whingeing?’ Sadie turned on her, not for the first time in the few days they’d been locked in there together.
‘Can’t you give me a little peace? Don’t you think it’s about time you grew up?
You have to realise that the real world is not all unicorns and Taylor Swift. It’s dark and ugly and menacing.’
Was her mother trying to frighten the life out of her?
Lily was already scared shitless. She couldn’t help a small smile, despite the terror.
Her mam would go totally apeshit if she heard her darling daughter swear, even though Lily didn’t class shit as a swear word.
But she didn’t voice the swear aloud. In a way, she was a little frightened of her mam now, as well as the circumstances in which they found themselves.
The thing was, Lily had never seen her mam like this.
Then again, they’d never been in a situation like this.
Captured. Kidnapped. Abducted. All words to describe their predicament, but Lily didn’t know why.
Why would someone take her and then her mother?
It made no sense. None of it made any sense.
‘Mam?’
‘What now?’
‘Will Daddy find us?’
‘That eejit wouldn’t find his way out of a paper bag.’ Sadie glared at her, and Lily thought her mother’s eyes were red, like a demon’s. It was the bad light, wasn’t it? Casting eerie shadows on the dim walls. Sadie turned away.
Lily would love to know where they were being kept. It felt like someone’s house. An abandoned house? Did that mean they’d never be found?
She started to cry. Loud, ugly sobs broke from her throat, having welled up for days in the pit of her stomach, and she shivered uncontrollably, earthquake-like aftershocks.
Would it ever stop? She wanted her mother to wrap her in her arms, comfort her.
Through her tears she saw Sadie standing with her back to her, staring at the wall, apparently oblivious to her daughter’s distress.
Such was her shock at her mother’s indifference that Lily stopped crying.
‘That’s better,’ Sadie said, without turning round. ‘Now I might be able to hear myself think.’