60. Millie
Millie
Millie stared at the path leading up the cliff. Rocky shards stuck out in haphazard ways, and at every angle, she imagined a painful and bloody death.
Beside her, Randolph paced, throwing his hands in the air as he talked about Hugo ruining his plans. “He’s as thick as pig shit. He forced me to beat him as a child. Sometimes, I locked him in a cupboard.” He cackled. “He’s going to hate his jail cell.”
She remembered Strike giving her brother a future and getting him into rehab. A sob rose in her throat, but she pushed it down.
She must give herself a chance to get back to Strike.
“I have to exist around idiots. Strike doesn’t like me. He refused to be my bodyguard on foreign trips. In South Africa, he nearly walked in on me paying a kid for drugs. I told him the lad had tried to mug me. So fucking gullible.”
“You’re clever,” she said, fiddling with the things in her pocket. All she had was the squidgy stress ball and a broken fidget tool in her royal jumper. She hadn’t worn this hoodie since the shooting at the police station.
She dug the sharper edge of the fidget tool into the stress ball.
The ball contained a weird foam, like a combination of flour mixed with water and something else.
If she could make a hole in the rubber, she could shove the weird, gloopy concoction in his face.
It wasn’t toxic, but it would delay him.
And if she was lucky, it would go in his mouth and he’d suffocate on it.
“You’ve climbed the ladder in the government.”
He leaned back. There were flashes of the man she’d seen lead political debates. “You have no idea. I’ve spun stories about drugs and criminals for years. And offshore, I’ve got money to live off. I was this close to being Prime Minister.”
He held his shaking finger and thumb millimetres from her face. She continued to work the toy into the rubber, trying not to cheer when she felt it give.
Slowly, she ran her thumb over the ball, her heart hammering. The innards oozed out.
“Just tell me one thing,” she said, lowering her voice as the increasingly aggressive wind howled in her face.
Randolph leaned closer. With a snap of her wrist, she grabbed his shirt collar with one hand and yanked the ball from her pocket.
Triumphantly, she squeezed the wet foam concoction directly in his eyes. “Why don’t you go fuck yourself?”
She darted up the hill, but rain fell in thick drops, dogging her progress. Her dragging feet were soaked from where seawater sloshed through her trainers.
Waves bashed the rocks below the cliff, and the wind roared around her.
Her knees were sore from her fall at Randolph’s house the day before, but she forced herself to keep moving.
Terror laced through her veins as she snagged her foot on a rock.
Her eyes flicked back and forth between the path and the edge.
Randolph shouted at her, roaring his rage. He was faster than her, but she was logical.
The cliff edge jutted in, and she nearly fell. She held her glasses against her face, terrified that one trip and she’d lose them into the water.
Bushes and small bumps were in front of her. She could hide behind something and wait. But then there was the town.
In her panic, decisions crowded her mind, making it impossible to decipher her choices.
The wind pushed her toward the edge.
Heavy rain clouded her vision as she fought the elements.
She knew not to look behind her, yet Randolph’s sudden silence offered her hope he’d fallen.
She swiped a glance over her shoulder.
He was metres away! Even in the driving rain, the whites of his eyes pinned her.
“I’m going to fucking kill you, you little bitch.”
Thunder sounded in the distance.
A crack of lightning was so intense that she caught her foot on a stone. She stumbled near the edge, falling to the ground, banging her head. Her hands stung from where the rocks littering the path dug into her skin.
She dragged her weary body upright. Her head throbbed, and she touched it. Blood covered her fingers. She wobbled as she tried to drag her feet forward.
She tripped again.
Her breakfast climbed up her throat, threatening to splash over her clothes.
Her pulse was rampant, and dizziness made it nearly impossible to see clearly.
Randolph loomed over her. Lightning struck again, highlighting his wide eyes and sneering mouth.
“I’d prefer to do this with a shotgun and watch your brains splatter all over this cliff, but I’ll have to use my hands instead.” He dragged her up by her hair, ripping out strands, making her cry out.
“You’ve been a meddling bitch, fucking up my life,” he snarled. “But not for much longer.”
His hands slipped in the blood oozing from her head and the gashes in her hands.
Millie kicked at his shin, and with a snarl, he fell to the ground.
She stumbled, unable to see beyond her hands. Blood soaked her hair, and it hung down her face. She wanted to cry, but that wouldn’t save her.
Her whole body shook as rain stuck her clothes to her body.
Her chest stung from the cold air, and she flinched at every flash of lightning.
“Fucking bitch,” Randolph roared.
She turned and ran headfirst into a solid figure.
“No!” she screamed. He must have had backup.
Strike grabbed her shoulders and pulled her to his chest.
“I’ve got you. You’re safe now,” Strike hollered against the wind. “Take her while I sort him out.”
She sobbed as he turned her.
“No one hurts our Millie,” Elsie shouted.
“I’m going to fuck him up,” Joyce warned as Merryn held her back before wrapping a shaking Millie in a coat.
She watched as Strike slammed his fist into Randolph. Blood splattered as his head twisted from the force of the punch. Strike swiped him again. Even with the rain beating down, she heard the crunch of the blow.
Randolph sank to the floor, and Strike flipped him, kneeling on his back. Swiftly, he wrapped his belt around his wrists, hooking it around his ankles, too, hog-tying him.
He snarled something in his ear and kicked him a couple of times in the ribs before walking to Millie. As he stared at her, he kept a taser trained on Randolph.
Spittle flew from the Deputy Prime Minister’s mouth as he bemoaned the little bitch and her friends.
“I will fucking end you,” Strike roared at Randolph as he held Millie tight. “I thought I’d lost you for good. Shit, you’re bleeding,” he shouted as lightning lit her face. “Please, get her to the hospital,” he told the three rescuers.
“On it,” Elsie replied, taking the lead.
“We heard a stranger in town was looking for you, and we had to come and find you. That’s when we bumped into Strike,” Merryn explained, but Millie could barely take it all in.
“Keep me updated. I’ll call the lads and police,” he added.
Millie shook as she walked closer to Randolph. She loomed above him. He raised his eyebrow and attempted to stare her down.
Her wooziness made it tricky to focus.
She took a breath, gritted her teeth, and gave Randolph a swift kick to his side like Strike had. “And that’s for treating me like a girl. I’m a fucking woman, you prick.”
As she gripped Elsie’s hand, her legs wobbled, and her knees gave way. Hands reached for her as she fell to the ground and blacked out.