ELEVEN
AMELIE
I had lived with Adam my entire life, and we used to be close, until the beatings started.
Once our father began using his fists, things in our house changed.
At first, our mother had intervened, throwing herself between them.
But when her husband turned his brand of lethal on his wife, she backed down, became numb to it and wilfully blind.
Her coping method: if I ignore it, it never happened.
I always wondered whether my brother blamed Sophie and me for forcing him to step up as a man when he was still a boy.
There had been several instances when he’d taken the brunt of Jacob Thorn’s fury, an attempt to take the heat away from his weaker siblings.
He’d never said as much, but his silence spoke louder than words.
Gone was the boy I used to be able to laugh with, and in his place was a tall, withdrawn stranger.
He would remain in his room for days, and when I tried to help him, he’d lash out.
Not physically, but verbally. Saying how I needed to stay away from him and how I didn’t know what he was capable of.
‘Like father, like son,’ he’d once whispered through the split lip one beating had given him.
Nervous energy knotted my insides at the thought of seeing Adam again after such a long period of silence.
The last time I saw him had been the night I had ratted our dad to the police.
Would he be mad, even though he’d played an integral part in what had happened that night?
The fact that my brother had disappeared without a trace for weeks still made my insides clench.
Why would he cut Sophie and me out of his life suddenly?
It made no sense, unless he did harbour that ill feeling I spoke about.
As Cameron pulled the car onto the street where the garage was located and where Adam worked, he glanced at me in the rear-view mirror. His concerned eyes were probing as he asked, “Do you want us to come in with you or wait here?”
I worried my lip, Adam would probably feel ganged up on if we went inside together.
That made up my mind. “No, thank you, I should speak with him alone first.”
“We’ll be right here if you need us,” Vanessa added as she unclipped her seat belt and turned to face me. I shuffled forward on the backseat, a dart of annoyance shooting through me.
“Why would I need you? He’s my brother, he isn’t dangerous.” My tone was sharper than I intended, and it forced my aunt and her husband to exchange a look.
My shoulders dropped. “Sorry, I’m just nervous.”
“We totally understand, darling,” Vanessa said, moving her hand through the gap between the seats to squeeze my knee.
“Thanks,” I whispered, managing a stiff smile.
I shuffled away and opened the door. As my feet hit the pavement, I straightened my clothes.
I hadn’t dressed fancy on purpose. I’d left my hair loose and wore black jeans, a grey hoodie and my go-to white shabby trainers.
Vanessa had said many times that I should throw them out and get new ones, but keeping them and wearing them reminded me of where I had come from.
The breeze swept through the trees noisily, and I felt a drop of rain hit my cheek.
The weather had been as unpredictable as my mood.
Straightening my hair, I took a deep breath, turning back towards the car.
My aunt and Cameron were watching me, their faces drawn and worried, and I felt another twinge of remorse for my rudeness.
The moment I stepped beneath that raised, rusted shutter, the fumes hit me. It was a suffocating mix of aerosol chemicals, stale cigarette smoke, and the heavy, metallic tang of old engine oil. I swallowed as it coated the back of my throat.
The floor was dirty, blackened by decades of spills, slick enough that my tatty shoes struggled to grip.
Everywhere you looked, there was clutter and car body parts.
A radio was on in the background, blaring up into the tainted air, and I could hear drilling and knocking.
Those sounds were proof that people were busily working.
Taking a deep breath, I scanned the area, looking for my brother.
Skeletal car frames hung suspended from the ceiling on heavy yellow lifts, their mechanical guts exposed to the harsh, buzzing glare of fluorescent strip lights.
Air tools shrieked in sudden, deafening bursts; the noise forced my shoulders to bunch tight around my ears.
I felt instantly too clean, glaringly out of place, a trespasser in a kingdom of iron and grease.
There were a couple of men towards the opposite end to where I had entered, concentrating on a car with the bonnet up. Luckily, they didn’t see me as I skulked closer to a man with his back to me.
“Er, excuse me, do you know where I can find Adam? Adam Thorn?” When he didn’t reply, I saw he had ear defenders on, so I tapped his shoulder.
He was a large, beefy man, dressed in dirty overalls.
At my touch, he turned around, sliding the ear defenders down onto his neck.
His initial reaction was annoyance, probably due to the interruption when he was reading the newspaper on the side.
As his gaze swept over me from the roots of my hair to my toes, a huge, meaty smile cracked open half of his face. His teeth were extremely white against his dirty, smudged cheeks.
“Can I help you, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice raspy.
I smiled and took a small step backwards. “Yes, I hope so. I’m looking for Adam. Adam Thorn.”
He chuckled. “Lucky boy.”
Before I could respond, he turned his head to one side and belted. “Adam. You’ve got a visitor.”
“I’m assuming you’re Laura?”
My nose scrunched up. Who the heck was Laura? “Err, no, I’m Amelie.”
His smile dropped, and he looked uncomfortable. “Oh, sorry. My mistake,” he added, rubbing the back of his neck.
And then someone appeared in the corner of my eye. Adam. His face paled as he saw me.
“Adam?” I said hesitantly at first. He was wearing a dirty vest top. The overall bottoms covered his legs, but he’d taken his arms out of the top section and had tied the sleeves around his waist. He looked so much bigger; that boyish face I remembered so well now belonged to a man.
Throwing a quick thanks to the man standing before me, looking back and forth between my brother and me, I threw myself into his path, arms open, desperate to hug the hell out of him. His sharp, intense gaze tracked my movement a second too late.
“Ames, what the hell—hey, steady, I’m covered in oil,” Adam muttered, lurching backwards. Hearing him use my nickname sent a sudden, sharp ache of relief straight to my chest. God, I had missed him.
“Thanks, Mike, I need to take 10.”
“Take as long as you need for me, mate,” Mike replied, grabbing his paper off the side and walking past us. “Listen for the phone, will you. I’ve got to drop the kids off.” The euphemism wasn’t lost on me.
Adam moved past me with a roll of his eyes, and I dropped my arms as he grabbed a grease-stained rag off a tool-strewn workbench.
“He thinks you're my girlfriend.”
My mouth hung open in shock, “You have a girlfriend?”
Huffing, my brother turned towards me and leaned back against the wall. “What are you doing here?”
I refused to let the distance last, thoughts of girlfriends forgotten. I closed the space between us again, my voice trembling. “Is that really all you have to say to me? Where the hell have you been?” My voice trembled as I raised it, and Adam’s head tilted as he regarded me with a wary look.
After taking in my appearance and missing nothing, he spoke. “Money looks good on you,” he said, almost to himself.
“Have diesel fumes gone to your head? I’ve been worried sick!” I stuttered, and his nostrils flared as guilt crawled across his features.
“I’m sorry, okay?” he shot back, clearly flustered.
I took in the breadth of his shoulders and the muscles in his arms; he’d clearly been going to the gym or something.
Adam glanced away, focusing entirely on scrubbing the black sludge from his knuckles.
Tattooed knuckles I might add. “I’ve been busy, OK? ”
Folding my arms over my chest, I levelled him a look, “Too busy to check on your sisters?”
That got his attention as he discarded the cloth with an irritated huff. “Yes—no. Look, I knew you were okay,” he stammered, finally still. “I kept tabs on you. I came to that massive house the first night you moved in there. But I needed to get away, Amy. Clear my head.”
I stepped closer, taking in the strained lines of his features. He looked so much older than his nineteen years. “You should have returned my calls, Adam. I’ve been going out of my mind.”
“I didn’t get any calls, Amy. I threw away the phone that social services gave me. They kept calling me every day, and it was pissing me off. I’m an adult now.”
I stared at him as my hurt turned into frustration. “Why would you do that? That was the only way I could reach you.”
“I wanted to cut ties with them,” he snapped, his stubborn jaw tightening.
“Did you want to cut ties with us, too?” I batted back, folding my arms over my chest. I wasn’t usually so quick to temper, but I could feel my anger start to simmer.
The question hung heavy in the oil-scented air. Adam winced, his defensive posture cracking for just a fraction of a second. “No, of course not. Look, as I said, I knew you were safe. That’s all that mattered to me.”
“Well, I am safe, and so is Sophie,” I said, tightening my arms against the chill of the workshop. “But that doesn’t mean we’re okay with not knowing where you are.”
“How did you find out where I was?”
“Social services tracked you down.”
“Great. I just wish they’d leave me the fuck alone,” he grunted, scratching the scruff on his jaw.
“They have a job to do, Adam.”
“Yes. A job working with minors. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not a fucking boy anymore.” His arms flexed as he tightened the sleeves that were tied around his waist.