CHAPTER 40
Ella
Jude!
Her name hits me as my eyes snap open. My cheek stings against the firm, cold surface. I reach my fingers to help me up and they stop, mid-air, hanging unnaturally behind my back. Chains rattle, my wrists handcuffed to a large metal ring attached to the bare wall.
“Uuughhh.” I work my knees up under my torso, pushing when I get enough traction. A searing pain shoots across my right shoulder thanks to the angle.
Where am I?
The back of my skull thuds, and I’m sure if I could touch it, my fingers would come away with blood.
The room is dark, cold and empty but small. If I wanted to, I could reach the other side in a few strides. There’s a window at the far end that is barely big enough to fit your head through, and a door to my right which is sure to be locked.
Where am I?
“Ella.” Jude’s voice is broken, cracked
The room swirls again. If I felt bad, then Jude looks worse. Her cheek is split open and dried blood encrusts the wound. There’s a bruise forming on her arm and her jawline. Her lip is bulbous.
“You look like shit,” she croaks.
My laughter sends a spike of pain up my rib, likely a bruise forming.
“H–how did you get here?” I say. Everything hurts. I shift my weight and push my bottom back towards the far wall.
“Jude?” I prompt and she blinks at me.
“I got to Immi’s and the back door was open. I was worried, so I went in.” She shakes her head. “There was all this stuff in her study, El. This macabre shrine to you and your brother.” Jude’s voice dips low.
“Nate?”
Jude nods. “Pictures of you, clippings, printouts. There was everything.” A silence falls, the gentle hum of something overhead. A heater?
“Everything?” My voice is too loud. The chains cut into my wrist as I lean forward.
“Of you. Of the stuff at Househill. Of Nate. Just endless information about you and your family. It was… horrible.” Jude’s gaze drifts away.
I blink back at her. Was Immi there when Nate died? Did she kill him?
The last thought catches a sob in the back of my throat. I swallow it away. “How did you get here?”
“I turned around and Benji was just there. I thought he was coming to help. I thanked him right before his fist hit my face, again and again.” Her voice is so low, I strain to hear her.
A thud overhead makes us jump, the chains clanking into the silence. I glance up, tendrils of fear creep across my chest. I was at Benji’s house but a thick haze pulls at the memories as I try to piece it together.
“Benji is helping her?” I say finally.
“Her? No, just Benji. How did you get here? Did he find you, too?”
I shake my head, my heart sinks. She doesn’t know.
“I was in Benji’s house, looking through his stuff. I broke in.” My mouth stops, the picture of Immi flashing up. “It’s Immi,” I say. “Immi is Robbie’s cousin. There was a picture with her and his uncle when she graduated. She looked different, calmer even.”
Before the money and the status. Before the need to destroy me. A dull ache forms behind my eyes as I try to draw out memories of who she once was. They fade away before they can splutter to life. I breathe in deep, trying to focus.
It’s the day of the trial. I promised myself that I’d be brave.
But as I stepped into that building, my bravado faded.
The lawyer had run me through what I had to say and how to behave when I got to the stand but I couldn’t stop worrying at the edges of my sleeves, and my lips felt stretched across my teeth.
Dad laced his fingers through mine as we sat in the lobby, the warmth from his palm grounding me.
Mum was there but she wasn’t present, her eyes glazed, and she kept ducking off to the bathroom every so often, leaving a lingering smell of sweet sticky booze.
Robbie’s family came, though. I knew it was them from the red eyes and drawn-out faces.
His dad was the spit of him, but chunkier with a buzzcut haircut that made his ears point wide from his face.
Robbie’s mum was a tall woman who seemed to fold in on herself.
But it was the young girl, the girl I had only seen a handful of times, who I couldn’t take my eyes off.
And throughout my entire time on the stand, she was all I could see.
Those unwavering blue eyes under thick dark lashes that didn’t once look away.
“What? Immi is related to Robbie. The boy that Henry killed?” A heavy frown pulls Jude’s brows down, a crest of blood stiffening her skin.
“She’s… she hated us, I knew that back then. She was so angry that Robbie died.” My eyes scan the room, the realisation feeding the panic.
“We have to get out of here,” I whisper.
“Do you think you can reach those boxes?” Jude nods towards a stack at the far end of the room.
I push forward, inching my feet away from the wall, ignoring the shooting pain. I’m close, but not enough, my feet swiping out and missing the boxes.
“OK, let’s think. Is there a way to get out of chains?” Jude says when I return to her, her eyes wide as she looks behind me. All I can think of is Immi, the way she looked after me, the way she cared for me. How, in all that time, I felt like I was chosen to be in her life.
“Let me see what’s cuffing your wrists,” Jude says.
I turn, offering a better view of my back as she assesses the binds.
She reaches forward, but without the use of her arms, there’s not much more she can do.
I lean back, using the strength of my feet to push my body back into the wall, hoping the force of my body and the resistance of the wall will crack something.
Yet all I do is add another rush of pain, the metal connecting with the right side of my lower back.
I turn, watching Jude do the same, her movements slower.
“The police! I called them just before I was knocked out. They could be on their way?” I can hear a childlike hope in my voice.
Jude shakes her head at my naivety. “But where are we? And when was that? I was here before you for a while, a few hours maybe?”
We’re not close enough to reach each other, so we try, in silence, as many options as we can.
Finally, we stop. It takes all my energy not to cry.
A memory of Mum’s voice cuts into the darkness: “It won’t last.” Her voice appears to come from the corner of the room, tinged with hate. “Whatever is making you smile won’t last, it never does.”
I remember the feeling of watching her say those words.
The anger that ripped through me and left my fists shaking, the anger that I learnt to hide better.
I stood up for myself that day, my fingers trembling against the pale blue dress that Dad had bought me to celebrate, and then cried that evening as Mum burnt it.
Perhaps she was right, though.
“We have to get you out of here.” I turn to Jude, my jaw tight.
She’s busy wriggling her shoulders, but I know it won’t work. She stops and looks over at me.
“I need to get you out of here,” I say.
Jude stops. “If I can get out, then so can you,” she says simply.
But that’s not true, we both know it’s not. Immi only wants one of us and I’ve dragged Jude around as collateral for long enough.
“Jude,” I say, waiting for her to stop wiggling and look at me. “I’m going to get you out of here, OK? I promise you. Before you know it, you will be home with Marcus.”
Something slips across Jude’s face. Determination?
“We’re both–”
“Please. This is between Immi and me,” I say. Jude tugs hard on the chains, the metal visibly digging into her flesh, grating at it.
There is a gentle, ominous knock at the door, my heart drops, and we both turn. Time slows as the wooden door creaks open.
Benji steps through, dressed in a simple black V-neck and jeans, his trainers dark and his hands clutching a small plate of bread. Jude recoils but I straighten up, bracing myself for the inevitable. Instead, he places the food down, close enough for us to reach it but not close enough to touch us.
I lunge, not knowing if the chains will give me enough room or what I can do if I get to him. But I can’t sit around and wait to die.
Not again.
Benji simply steps back, tutting as he does. I land on my side, my shoulder screaming at me. My face scrapes the bare floor.
“Now, now, Ella, or do you prefer Elsie? Don’t do anything stupid,” he says.
I blink up at him, questions flying, but it’s Jude that speaks.
“So, you know?” she says.
“You really are stupid for following along with this scum. Now you’re both going to die.” He spits on the ground, his lips stretched thin. But his eyes are different, vacant and moving slightly. He turns away from us.
I scream, none of it making sense.
“How are you OK with this? Why are you helping her kill us?” I say, pushing myself back as best I can. My shoulder is torn, a hot ache pulsing through it and leaving my skin clammy.
Benji blinks, looking between us. His jaw is set. The anger ripples across his face, but his words remain calm: “She only wants justice.”
His hand runs over his face, pushing his hair back.
“She’s told me to release one arm, so you can eat. You need to promise you won’t attack me. There’s not much you can do, anyway, and if I’m hurt, you’ll both starve to death down here. So, be smart about it.” Benji speaks slowly, practised.
Jude and I share a look, knowing that we need to get out but we also need to survive. We nod.
Benji leans down, unclasping Jude first, then me. As he does, his sleeve rises and I see the telltale sign of rope marks on his wrists.
“Benji,” I breathe. The fights Immi and Benji had, the constant power struggle, the days she’d turn up dishevelled and hurt and Benji would disappear. I always thought it was him.
Benji tugs down his sleeve, blinks and turns on his heel.