Chapter 10
TEN
KAT
Why can’t I grip my knife?
Every time I squeeze, it slips out of my hand, leaving me scrambling to find it. It’s so dark in the woods; I shouldn’t have come at night, but I have to check that they are still there.
Creaks and snaps follow me through the tree trunks, all stripped bare.
My knife is missing.
I pat the ground, searching through dead leaves and sticks for it. So many sticks. When I drag my hand to my face, it’s not sticks I see in the low light; it’s bones. Piles of tiny bones.
Tears hit as I abandon my search and run for the well, needing to see the cement base. Needing to know that Liam and I are still safe.
The moss-covered stones scrape my palms as I peer down into the gloom. It's too dark to make out the bottom at night.
There’s a foul stench sweeping around me. I’d hoped the concrete would keep the decay inside. I need to tell Liam. Maybe we need another layer of cement.
His hand lands on my shoulder, and I sigh in relief before turning towards him.
Except it isn’t Liam behind me.
It’s Sam.
I scream as he grabs my throat and pushes me until I’m bent, teetering over the edge of the well.
‘Sam, stop!’
His face breaks into a smile, and the skin on his cheeks cracks and sloughs off, pus and juices leaking. My stomach turns as the decomposing liquids drip onto my face. Into my mouth.
Fear grips me as my hair dangles into the chasm beneath me, and crushes me when Sam shows me my curved knife. A large chunk of his face separates, dropping past me into the void beneath as I scream.
‘You did this to me. Now it’s time for you to join us.’ His voice is twisted and corrupt, winding around my insides and tightening.
‘I’m sorry,’ I sob. ‘I’m trying to fix it.’
‘You’re a monster, Kat. Just like your lover. Just like the men who hurt me.’
‘I’m not like them.’
Sam pushes harder, and I lose my footing. He laughs as he holds me up only by my throat. Sharp pain ekes into my chest as Sam carves into me with my curved knife, drawing bloody patterns in my skin.
‘Stop,’ I cry.
Sam tilts his rotting face and shrugs. ‘Okay.’
And I’m falling.
F
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Until I wake, slamming my head into the bedside table.
‘Fuck,’ I say under my breath. I’m dripping with sweat and tangled in the sheets, panicking until I get myself free.
My first instinct is to seek out Liam, my heart still racing and my need for comfort rising. He’s there. Sleeping soundly in my bed. His beautiful face the most relaxed I’ve seen it in a long time.
Waking him would be cruel.
So I grab my phone and head to the sofa, wrapping myself in one of my insanely thick, cosy blankets. It doesn’t quite compare to Liam’s touch, but it’s pretty sweet.
My pulse still feels like it’s trying to escape from my throat, so I put on the TV and cuddle down into the squishiness of the fabric, hoping it will lull me into a less intense sleep.
The nightmares are getting worse. More visceral. Laden with guilt night after night.
Reggie appears in a ball of orange floof as some late-night comedy show from forty years ago comes on. He takes one look at me, and I can almost feel his judgment as he decides I need some TLC. Still, he climbs into my lap and flops onto his side, presenting his stomach for me to rub.
‘Well, look at you, little Sir. Taking pity on me by letting me stroke your majestic belly.’ Reggie gives a grumble of allowance and twists to give me full access to that belly of his. He’s still a big boy, but far healthier than when we catnapped him.
‘Oh Reggie,’ I whisper, ‘what are we going to do?’
Reginald, of course, doesn’t give a flying fuck as long as we’re bringing home his food. Fill the cat's belly, and his world is good.
The news comes on, covering the day’s highlights. I’m not really paying attention, too busy smooshing Reggie’s adorably grumpy face. The TV is background noise. Something to drown out Sam’s creepy voice, which still bounces around in my skull.
Until a snippet of a story tickles my ear.
‘Police continue to appeal for information regarding recent disappearances in the area. Three local men have disappeared without a trace in the past few months. While police continue to deny any links between the men…’
Oh fuck.
It’s no surprise they are investigating, but I can only hope they haven’t found any links between the men. Liam and I couldn’t find any social links between them, nor anything professional. Hopefully the police won’t either, though their search powers will extend far beyond ours.
The footage cuts to a press conference: a tired-looking officer with sharp, beady eyes stares out at the viewer, and his gaze feels as keen on me as Sam's did in my dream.
‘Retired detective Richard Ashworth has been brought into the investigation to bring his years of expertise to the individual cases on a consulting basis.’
That name.
Shit, it can’t be?
‘Police continue to appeal for any information regarding the recent disappearances, which the police now believe may be connected.’
Shit a brick.
Richard Ashworth is on our list.
Which means he knows what links these men.
He knows the people who might have a grievance against them.
He can find us.
And we need to kill the man leading the investigation into us, without being caught doing so.
Crap on a cracker, we’re fucked. I think I’m going to blow chunks. Reggie looks at me like he’s concerned I will too.
‘Kat?’ Liam comes into the room, rubbing his face and squinting at the TV. His hair sticks up in the most adorable way, and he’s wearing low-slung grey joggers, which in any other circumstance I’d be planning to leave lady juice stains on. ‘Why are you up?’
‘Nightmare—’
‘You should have woken me up for a cuddle.’
‘Liam, look.’ I point at the screen and wait for him to catch up with what’s going on. His dark eyes widen when he sees Ashworth’s name plastered across the screen.
His leg jumps as he processes the information.
‘Is it the same one?’ I ask, hoping that there might be two. After all, we’d been told PC. A police constable isn’t a detective.
‘It’s him.’ There’s pain in his words. While the news story sends me into a panic, it hits Liam in a much more historic way, filled with dark memories and trauma.
I take his hand in mine and kiss the back of it.
‘What do we do?’ I ask. He looks down at me, sliding his hand up and caressing my chin.
‘We make him a priority.’
‘He’ll be waiting. It won’t be like the others. He’ll have cameras, or security, or something.’ Panic threads into my words, and Reggie bumps me with his scruffy head.
‘Even a careful man slips up sometimes.’
The statement doesn’t calm me at all. Because the same could be said for us.
I tug him down into the blanket nest, much to Reggie’s annoyance, and the three of us wrap up in each other until daylight hits.
Daybreak brings me no closer to figuring out how to make this work.
Neither does Reggie’s fluffy backside in my face.