CHAPTER 21 #2
“Left?” I say, the mocking hanging between us. “That’s all you remember?”
Silence follows.
“It’s been ten years, Henry. Tell me the truth,” I say.
I glance through the window, which offers a view of the fields. Somewhere close, Immi and Jude wait for me. Henry stands fast, his right hand in a fist by his side.
“This is the truth! I don’t know where he went. I admit I was angry. I knocked you out, and for that I am sorry. I–I hurt Robbie.” Henry splutters.
“Killed.” My jaw tightens as I stand.
Henry looks down. “Yes.”
Short, sharp inhales quicken my breath. I think of the girl whose life is ready to be ripped apart by this man.
A man, like Colin, who is ready to take what he wants regardless of who is waiting at home.
The torment and torture he has caused Robbie and his family.
The disgusting things he’s done in my home for the past few weeks.
I think about Robbie then. Not the vision of Robbie I always see, pale and lifeless.
But the Robbie that I knew long before I realised he would be a problem in my life.
He sits at the edge of the water with the others, their legs dangling off the dock and leaving little ripples across the top of the lake.
Henry was with us, somewhere in the distance, but all I could see was Robbie, Nate and a young girl we didn’t spend much time with after we grew closer.
I was swimming in the lake, enjoying the anonymity of being away from it all yet getting to watch.
Robbie spotted me and waved, the only one to notice me.
I stuck my tongue out at him, something fluttering in my belly.
I remember buying a new suit to show off for that day and the disappointment when Henry disappeared for most of it.
When I resurfaced, it was only Robbie left.
And so I swam closer, bobbing on the surface, watching him as he watched me.
He said something then. But I didn’t want to hear it yet, so I pushed myself underwater.
Staying down there until dizzy spots appeared.
When I surfaced again, everyone was gone.
The shoreline was bare, and the only thing left was a pile of my clothes.
Robbie was only ever trying to protect me from Henry.
“I’m here. Your horrible letters got me here.” My voice cracks, my eyes on the girl’s picture. It’s not my job to save her, but maybe I should.
“Tell me where Nate is.” I draw my eyes back to him. My jaw tightens.
Henry’s face contorts, his brows drawing in with confusion. The tension that ran across his jaw loosens, and he tilts his head.
It’s almost convincing.
“What letters?” he says.
“Where is Nate? And I won’t tell the police you’re stalking me.” I step towards him, my fingers tightening around the edge of my handbag. The energy in the room shifts, bouncing off the walls. My breathing stays high in my chest, but I will it to slow down. We’re nearly through this.
Henry shakes his head, the wet locks sticking to the side of his head. “Stalking you? You came here.”
“Tell me where Nate is or I will go to the police.” I’m playing this all wrong.
I should be gentle and innocent, and offer myself to him.
Be the innocent lamb, soft and malleable that promises no harm until it’s too late.
I should lower my eyes and tremble at his touch.
I should let him be the saviour he always wanted to be.
My fingers shake as they grip the side of the leather bag, pressing it to me.
I should have found the answers quicker and saved my family sooner.
I should have gone missing instead of Nate.
“What? Why would you go to the police? I’ve not done anything,” Henry says, his cheeks deepening with colour.
I don’t buy it. I roll my shoulders, my neck and jaw muscles tensing so my tongue feels heavy and my cheeks hollow. My breath draws in slowly, but it’s not enough.
I’m tired of all the “should” that I have carried around for years. I’m tired of playing the role they all gave me.
I reach into my bag, throwing the items so they land in a smattering across his floor. The pictures of me through windows or from a distance, the angry threats, the cryptic handwritten letters.
“This is evidence, Henry. And it’ll put you back inside for a long time,” I say.
He bends down, trembling fingers picking up the images, his mouth tightening as he looks at them.
“This isn’t me…” His voice is desperate.
“Where’s Nate?” Each word punctures the thick, angry silence between us.
“This isn’t me!” he roars, stepping forward. He stops short, the papers close to his chest and his mouth hanging open.
His eyes land on the gun pointed at him.
There’s a build of pressure in the back of my skull.
“Woah.” Henry shrinks back, the paper tumbling from his grasp.
“Give them to me,” I say through gritted teeth, eyeing the papers.
He gathers them up, eyes not moving from the gun. He passes them over, and I place them back into my bag.
His left foot rolls from the ball to the heel as though he can outrun me.
“Look, Elsabelle, I don–”
“Don’t!” The word rips from me in a hollow rage, my voice hoarse and pitchy. My fingers tighten on the gun’s grip. A sensation I thought would scare me, and yet it draws my shoulders back and adds a power to my stance. The pressure from my skull rises to my ears, pushing a heavy silence in my head.
Henry’s hands whip up, palms facing me. The world swings.
I am there again. Pressed into the cold, wet dirt, begging for help as the sirens grow nearer.
I see myself clambering to my knees, my clothes stained and ripped.
Old me runs to the door, tugging at it, fingers stained a deep, ruddy burgundy.
I bang at the door, kicking and screaming for someone to let me in until it swings open.
And the stench of the room hits me square in the face.
My eyes dart to where I last saw Nate, but he’s gone, and Robbie lies in the centre of the room with a horrifying, empty, hollow stare that still greets me in the depth of a cold night. I know then that I can’t save them.
I never had the chance to save them.
My finger itches to pull the trigger.
“Tell me where he is. Or I’ll kill you.” My voice comes from above me.
Henry closes his eyes, a single tear running down his cheek. His chest rises and falls slowly before he speaks. “I went to prison for ten years. Ten years, think about that.”
He steps back, glancing behind him.
“Why would I come out and start stalking you? Look around. I’m finally getting the life that I… that I lost. I did my time for the mistakes I made. I wasn’t a good person then, but things are different now.”
I don’t buy it.
I step forward, closing the distance between us.
“You lying son of a bitch.”
For a moment, there’s nothing but silence and the heavy pressure in my skull.
“Do you even know how to use that?” The facade drops, Henry’s brow rising.
“Tell me where he is,” but the words don’t even make it out of my mouth.
His thick hand slams against mine, knocking the gun.
It hits the floor with a thud, sliding dramatically.
My head whips back as a fist crashes into the right side of it, just above my cheekbone.
The pressure pops, only to be replaced by a pain that sears across my face, my vision swimming and my eyes watering.
I stumble back. I’m knocked off my feet, my body slamming into the floor, my head spinning from the impact.
Henry’s full body is on top of me, his forearm pressing heavily into my windpipe. My mouth whips open. Fuck.
Desperate fingers scramble to get traction, but there’s nothing to grab. He’s two, if not three times bigger than me. He digs his knee into my right arm, stopping it as I try to reach up towards my bag.
“You stupid little bitch. You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” Henry presses his weight in. Blood rushes to my skull, and the air whips free of my lungs. My mouth opens and closes, body convulsing for oxygen.
“I don’t know how many times I need to tell you or your dumb family.
I. Don’t. Know. Where. Nate. Is.” Henry leans over my face, his teeth bared, and the smell of mint and cheap deodorant curls in with every attempt to breathe.
My back arches. The image of Henry blurring as something wet spreads down my cheeks.
Jude and Immi are metres away but I can’t get to them.
“If you’re going to need the gun, don’t go in unprepared.” The memory of Colin’s words as he handed it over to me echoes in the back of my mind.
My fingers dig into the side of my trousers, the concealed pocket working open as my nails scratch at the material.
Henry spits at my face, my eyes squeeze shut. My shoulders press into the wood, trying to leverage even the smallest bit of space between my throat and his forearm.
“And I never sent you any of those pathetic little notes,” Henry sneers, leaning in close so his lips graze the side of my face, my flesh stinging.
The silence is punctured by the regular kicking of my feet on wood, fading as my vision does.
“But I know who did. And I hope they get–” But his words are cut short, replaced with a hoarse scream. The knife landing somewhere in the side of his abdomen.
Henry leaps back, landing with a heavy thud, his body wiggling as his hands reach for his side.
Release washes over my body as my hand grasps at my neck, my lungs filling themselves over and over with air, desperately chugging in as much as possible.
I roll onto my side, my face wet with tears, spit and sweat.
Henry’s voice is loud, but the words are swallowed somewhere deep underwater.
“What the hell?” he repeats, and I clamber to my feet.
The room tilts, my vision swaying with it.
The knife protrudes from his side, small and sharp. My body shakes, my muscles tense, but my legs are weak as I try to take on my weight. I stumble back, leaving him in the middle of the room.
His eyes widen. “What have you done? You stupid fucking cow. Get back here, El, come back!”
My fingers slip on the door handle. I yank, stumbling out into the bitter cold and slamming the door as he screams for someone I can no longer be.
I find myself running. My feet tumbling until my body smacks into the side of my car, grabbing at the handle of the driver’s door. Immi’s smile fades as she takes me in.
“We need to go,” I manage.
Immi moves fast, jumping from the seat and shoving me in.
“What?” Her eyes run over me.
My cheek is searing with a bruising pain. “Get in your car. We need to go.”
The drive home is agony. Jude tries to fill my silence with gentle questioning, light conversation, and then when nothing else works, singing. I worry at my top until the thread comes loose and begins to unravel. I pull and pull and pull.
“It’s over,” is all I can say as our cars sit in my driveway.
“Did he admit it?” Jude asks.
“It’s all over,” I say again, stepping from the car and walking up the gravel.
“We can’t leave you,” Immi says, leaning from her car, her fingers outstretched.
“I just…” My voice fades. What do I need? I feel Jude appear by my side.
“Call us once you get some rest. Well done in there,” she says.
I’m not sure what they think happened in that cottage by the sea. That I told Henry off? That I got evidence? But they let me go. Once home, I am greeted with a familiar silence. Rufus tries for conversation until he realises his attempts won’t garner a result. There’s nothing left to say.
“I don’t know why I bother,” is all he gives me and then he stops trying.
I slip into the bedroom and let time melt away as the worry grows. The sound of Henry’s desperate cries echoing against my hollow, stale breath.
What if I killed him?