Chapter 72
Kitty and Antoinette’s Airbnb, West Hollywood, Los Angeles
‘Hey, Kits.’ Tor sounds and looks tired when she answers my FaceTime call. ‘How’s it going?’
This is the moment I’ve been waiting for. The moment this whole LA adventure has been for. The moment I can tell my best friend that she doesn’t need to be scared anymore. That the monster under her bed is gone for good.
When I was very little, I was scared of monsters.
I thought they hid under my bed at night, waiting for a chance to slip out and eat me up.
I remember hiding under my duvet, breathing as quietly as I could, hoping that they wouldn’t hear me.
Then, when I heard my parents come upstairs to bed, I’d race across the hallway into their room and snuggle into bed with them.
I believed that they would keep me safe.
They tolerated this when I was a toddler but by the time I was four my father evidently decided enough was enough.
He gave me a spray bottle of water that he told me was a monster spray.
You spray it all over your room and your bed, Kitty, and it will keep you safe from the monsters.
He thought he was a genius but all it taught me was that I had to fight my own monsters now. That I was on my own.
And, of course, as I got older I began to learn that the monsters aren’t under the bed at all. Sometimes they’re in it with you.
I made a promise that I’d never let a woman fight her monsters alone if I could help it. Killing Aidan Ward wasn’t just for Tor, it was for every woman who has had to fight alone.
I swallow hard. What I say next is going to change everything.
‘It’s done,’ I say.
There’s a long beat of silence before I hear Tor breathe out. It’s a breath she’s been holding since she came out of her coma. She closes her eyes as she exhales and I can see the beginnings of a smile dance at the corners of her mouth. She looks like the sun has just come out and shone on her.
‘Are you sure?’ she says eventually.
I nod. ‘Oh yes. I’m very sure,’ I say. ‘Couldn’t be surer.’
And then she beams and it’s like the sun has come out and shone on me.
‘You,’ she says, ‘are a fucking angel.’
‘Thank you.’
‘No, better than an angel. What’s better than an angel?’
I think for a moment. ‘An archangel?’
‘A guardian archangel,’ Tor says. ‘My guardian archangel.’ There’s another little beat of silence. ‘Kitty. I can’t thank you enough for this. I will forever be in your debt.’
‘Shut up,’ I say. ‘It was my pleasure.’ It absolutely was. Wiping that man off the planet was a complete pleasure. ‘Besides, I owed you—’
‘No.’ Tor snaps her fingers. ‘No, you did not. If I’d just listened to you, to your warnings about him in the first place, none of this would have happened.
You wouldn’t have needed to …’ She trails off.
She doesn’t know what I needed to do. Or how I did it.
And I don’t think she’ll ever ask. She shakes her head and smiles again. ‘Anyway. You can come home now?’
I smile back and I can feel it’s huge and goofy on my face.
I’m so excited to go home.
‘I can!’ I say. ‘I absolutely can.’
‘Let me know when you’ll be back. I’m going to arrange a brunch for us.
With Maisie. Even if we have to take it to her house.
Even if …’ She trails off again and moves out of view of her camera.
I wonder what’s going on but then I hear her crying.
Big gulping sobs. The soundtrack of relief.
After a moment or two, she appears back on the screen.
‘Did he know?’ she says, dabbing at her face with her sleeve. ‘Did he know what was happening?’
I nod. ‘Oh yes. He absolutely knew what was happening. And why.’
‘Did he suffer?’
I think for a second. Is she asking me because even though she wanted him dead, she wanted it quick and painless?
Or is she asking because she wants me to tell her that he suffered for every single second of suffering he put her through?
For every minute she was in the hospital.
For every panic attack she had when she came home.
For the physical pain he inflicted on her body.
And the emotional pain that has kept her broken and housebound ever since his brutal attack.
‘He suffered,’ I say. ‘He spent his last minutes hoping for death. Knowing it would be the only relief.’
She beams again. ‘Good,’ she says. ‘I’m glad.’
‘He deserved every bit of it,’ I say.
‘And you’re absolutely sure he’s definitely gone? There’s not going to be some weird encore to this where he pops up again somehow?’
I laugh. ‘You watch too many slasher films. He’s gone. Do you want me to bring you a finger to prove it?’
Now she laughs. ‘Have fun explaining that at customs.’
There’s silence again, the kind of silence you can only ever have with someone who knows you inside and out. Someone who has seen every single one of your flaws and dark moments and loves you, not in spite of them, but because of them.
‘So, have you told Charlie you’re pregnant yet?’
And my world spins off its axis.
‘What? What are you talking about?’
Tor lets out a bark of laughter. ‘Oh come on, Kits. You don’t need to play dumb with me. I’ve been with Maisie day in and day out. I think I can spot a pregnant queen when I see one.’
I stare at her. ‘I’m not pregnant …’ Am I?
But then I think about the last few weeks. The sickness and tiredness I put down to jet lag. The irritability that I put down to forced proximity with a Gen Z-er. The aversion to alcohol. The literal vomiting at a murder scene.
‘Wait,’ I say to Tor and I swipe on my period tracker app on my phone. When was the last time I bled? Shit. I haven’t had a period in almost two months. How have I not realised that? My hand shoots down to my abdomen. Could I be?
‘You didn’t know?’ Tor says but I can barely hear her. This can’t be happening. This isn’t part of the plan. I don’t even know if I want kids. How could I be a mother? I am not a creator of life, I’m a taker of it. No, no, no.
I look at my best friend again, who is staring back at me, her eyes huge with concern.
‘Fuck.’ I say. ‘Fuck.’