Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
ABIGAIL
Ihad spent years fighting my demons. The fact that they still had their filthy claws in me made me angry, indignant, and scared that I’d never be free.
What was supposed to be a primal game of cat and mouse had twisted my brain, making it a fight for survival. The voice that shouted hadn’t been a voice I recognised at first, and then, as my mind started to play tricks, it became his voice. Not Isaiah’s.
The beating rain and the flashes of lightning fucked with my senses. It had rained that night too. I’d never forget how it pelted my skin as I tore through the woods to get away.
And then there were the threats.
The things they were going to do to me.
Not Isaiah.
Them.
Isaiah carried me away from it all. He brought me into a room that was light and bright, a lot warmer than the halls I’d run for my life through. And when he stroked my hair and told me it was all going to be okay, I believed him. He brought me back.
He didn’t use his bike to take me home. He had a small car parked nearby that he used. I was thankful for that. I just wanted to curl up in the seat next to him and try to will the ghosts away.
When we got back to my apartment, he followed me into the bedroom and sat with me on my bed.
“I think it’s time you opened up to me a little, don’t you?” he said, placing his hand on my knee and stroking delicate circles with his thumb.
“I feel scared to talk about it,” I said truthfully. “Like putting it into words will make it real again. And I don’t want it to be real.”
“But it is real,” he stated. “And the only way to destroy the monsters haunting you is to face them. Trust me, I know.”
I knew he was right. And this was a story I hadn’t told a soul.
It’d stayed in my brain where I’d tried to bury it.
Especially from my family. But for over ten years, it’d festered like a putrid infection that’d been left to marinate, slowly poisoning me.
I wished I could cut it out of my mind. Perhaps telling him about it would go some way to doing that.
It had stayed hidden for too long. I needed to step out of the dark web this secret had tethered me in.
Shake off the shameful regret and take a chance. A chance at moving forward.
I stood up and went to my dressing table, without uttering a word.
I knelt down and reached for the box I kept hidden behind the air vent.
Isaiah didn’t speak. He let me do what I had to do.
And I carried the wooden jewellery box back over to where he sat, sat down next to him and placed it between us.
“I’m going to speak, and I need you to just sit and listen,” I said. “This is going to be hard for me to get through. I can only do it if I start and I don’t stop.”
“Okay,” he replied, and I could feel the heat of his stare as he looked at me. His hand back on my knee as I took deep breaths.
“When I was thirteen years old, my best friend went missing. I told my dad, and he said he was sure the authorities were looking into it, but nobody seemed to be doing anything. Weeks went by, and everyone was acting strange, like her disappearance was completely normal. Like she’d never existed, but she had. She’d gone, and I wanted to know why.
“So, one day, I went to the home where she lived to find out what’d happened...”
I hadn’t seen Stacey for almost a month.
It wasn’t like her to take time off school.
She loved school. She was reluctant to leave most days, and no one seemed bothered about the fact that she was gone.
I asked the teachers, and all they said was she’d moved on.
Her name was taken off the register, and everyone acted like it was completely normal.
But I knew it wasn’t. I could tell. I had a bad feeling about it.
I kissed my mum goodbye and walked the short distance to the bus stop for school, but when I got there, I didn’t stand at the stop going in the direction of our school, I crossed the road and stood on the other side.
“What you doing, Abs?” one of the boys from my class shouted across at me.
“She’s bunking off,” another shouted, and the group they were standing with started to clap and holler at me.
They thought I was being a rebel, and they were congratulating me. But I wouldn’t tell them where I was going. I’d let them think I was skipping school to go into town. It was none of their business.
The bus I usually took to school pulled up on the opposite side, and I watched all the other kids get on. As it pulled off, I felt a strange relief that I couldn’t back out now, that it was too late to change my mind. Not that I would’ve.
The bus heading into town appeared in the distance, and I took out my bus pass, ready to board. I wasn’t going into town, though. I was going to find my best friend, or at the very least, get some answers.
Fifteen minutes later, I was standing at the end of the path that led to the children’s home where Stacey lived. I glanced up and down the street, but there was no one around, and feeling a swell of bravery in my stomach, I pushed the gate open and walked up to the front door.
I knocked, but no one answered. So I knocked again, louder this time, and I heard a voice call out, “Okay, okay, I’m coming.”
The door flung open, and an older lady stood in front of me, a grimace on her face like she was beyond annoyed that she’d been disturbed and had to open the door.
“What do you want?” she asked, sticking her nose in the air, and I was sure she was moments away from slamming the door in my face.
“I came to see Stacey,” I said, and the grimace on her face became more pronounced as she furrowed her brow.
“We don’t have anyone here called Stacey,” she replied, and went to shut the door, but I shot my foot forward to stop her.
“Stacey used to live here. Stacey Reed. Do you remember?” I pleaded, and from the irritation on her face, I knew she did, but she didn’t want to talk to me.
“Oh. That Stacey,” she remarked, sniffing like I was a bad smell lingering on her doorstep. “She left a few weeks ago. Moved to another residence across the country.”
“But she didn’t tell me.” I glanced at the floor, feeling the sting of disappointment as I moved my foot from the doorway.
“Maybe you weren’t as good friends as you thought you were,” the woman snapped, and as she moved and went to close the door, I noticed Stacey’s school bag and coat hanging at the bottom of the stairs.
“Wait!” I called out, but it was too late. The door had been slammed in my face, and even when I started to knock again, she didn’t answer.
“Dammit.” I turned and walked back down the path, stopping to glance up at the building, and as I did, I noticed the net curtain in the window of one of the bedrooms upstairs moved, and a sick dread filled my stomach.
That was Stacey up there. They were keeping her locked up.
I knew trying to get in through the front door was useless, but there was a backyard. Maybe I could get in that way, sneak into the house and get to Stacey.
I walked to the alleyway that ran along the back of the houses and ducked down it, running until I came to the gate for the children’s home. I tried to push it open, but it was locked.
I did a quick scan of the alley and saw a wheelie bin a few metres away. I ran down to it, dragged it up to the fence running around the perimeter of the home, and I climbed on it, using it to lift myself up and over the fence.
I didn’t make the most graceful landing. I tumbled onto the grass, tearing a hole in my school skirt and staining my knees with dirt. But I got up, dusted myself off and ran across the unkept lawn towards the side of the house.
I reached the back door and tried the handle, but that was locked too.
What was my next move?
What should I do?
There were bricks on the floor. I wondered whether I should pick one up and smash the glass.
I was pondering my predicament, trying to devise a plan, when I heard voices coming from inside the house.
I started to run back towards the garden. I had to find a hiding place. Standing at the side of the house, I was exposed, and I didn’t want to get caught trespassing.
But it was too late.
“What the bloody hell...” I turned and saw the woman from the front door with another lady, striding towards me as I stood like an idiot in the middle of the garden.
I didn’t know what to do, and my legs had stopped working.
Fight or flight turned into a stunned state of frozen shock.
“Who’s this?” the other woman asked.
“She just knocked on the front door, asking for Stacey.” Then she turned to glare at me. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you?”
I shook my head, words failing me as I gasped and spluttered. But when they grabbed my arms and started to pull me forcefully towards the house, I started to shout, “No. Please. Let me go.” The sick feeling inside me had turned to complete and utter dread.
“You’re a little fighter, aren’t you,” the front door lady snarled, and I hissed as their bony fingers dug into my arms.
“Let me go,” I shouted. But they weren’t listening.
“Let’s not take her upstairs,” front door woman said, and she gestured to a wooden door, like a trap door, that was on the ground, just beside the house.
“Good idea,” the other one remarked with a hint of evil in her tone. “I think he’ll like this one.”
I struggled in their grasp, trying to break free, and they both cursed me for it, as one of them shouted, “Doris, come and help us open the hatch.”
Another woman appeared from the house, coming straight for us and leaning down to open the hatch.
“We might need help restraining this one,” she was told. “She’s a feisty little thing.”
“Do you want me to get Carrie or Penelope?” Doris asked, but she was told, “No. We should be able to manage it between the three of us.”