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“Come!” I said. “Please, Phoebe, you have to get to me! I can sort this, I swear to God I can sort this!”
And with that there was nothing but the dull tone of call disconnected.
I called straight back but there was nothing but her all too familiar voicemail waiting.
I choked on my own tears as I dashed back towards campus on unsteady feet. The twinkling sky wasn’t nearly so magical with my heart in my throat and my pulse in my ears as I raced to the meeting spot.
Please come. Please.
My mantra was nothing more than a hiss with every step. A pathetic chant to the ether.
My rushing proved pointless, there was no sign of her when I arrived at the south entrance sign and backed into the perimeter wall.
I caught my breath slowly, eyes fixed on the empty road as the minutes ticked by, but still nothing came.
It didn’t matter.
I’d wait here all night long if I had to.
The chill of the air wasn’t so welcome after standing out in it for thirty minutes.
I’d called her voicemail ten times over. Sent an undelivered text message repeating my instructions in case she hadn’t heard me on the terrible line.
I was freezing. Aching. Petrified for my sister and desperate for my bed all at once.
I was considering sitting down on the tarmac for the long haul when the orange glow of headlights turned the corner up ahead.
There was nothing in this world that would have held me back from running up to it like a crazy and yanking open the door to the backseat.
And there she was, my sobbing sister. A bundle of shaking limbs on the leather seating.
Thank the mercy of the universe.
I shoved a couple of banknotes at the driver without even checking their value, and they must have been more than enough since he reversed out of there with a screech as soon as I’d pulled my sister clear of his car.
She huddled against me, a wreck of bony limbs worse than mine as I tugged her onto the campus after me.
“I’ve got you,” I told her, and she sobbed against my shoulder.
“They’re gonna kill me,” she cried. “I’m all out of time.”
“No,” I said. “We’ve got this. We’ve got each other!”
Even in the dead of the early hours I kept my eyes up at the windows for onlookers. I kept us close to the wall this time, deep in the shadows and away from prying eyes.
The journey to my dorm block was arduous this way. I was crying along with my sister as I opened the door to our building.
“We need to be quiet,” I sobbed, for my benefit as much as hers. “We can’t let people hear us inside. Not tonight.”
She managed a nod and held her breath as I eased my key in our apartment doorway.
I’ve never moved so softly along the hall space as I did that night. We were mice under cats’ noses, struggling to avoid a clawing.
Once my bedroom door was closed safely behind us I took the deepest breath of my whole fucking life.
I gestured Phoebe to my bed and she perched on the edge, hands gripped tight in her lap.
It was when I flicked on the main overhead light that I first got a proper look at her.
It knocked the life right out of me.
Her left eye was almost swollen shut, purple and bleeding from the corner. Her lip was cracked down the middle, her teeth crusty with dry blood. And her cheek. Her cheek was bruised black and blue, colours mixed like ink blots and sweeping down towards her chin.
“What the hell happened?!” I whispered.
Her face crumpled before she could answer and I fell down beside her, tugging into my arms and holding tight.
Finally, for once amidst the months of worrying like crazy about her and having barely a text in return, she held me tight right back.
“I’m sorry,” she breathed. “I’m so fucking sorry, Paige. I shouldn’t bring you into this.”
But it was far too late for that.
“I’m all the way in,” I said, my voice nothing more than a rasp in her ear. “I swear to you, Phoebe, we’re in this together. We’ll always be in this together, no matter what.”
It pained my heart when she shook her head against me. “No,” she said. “You can’t be with me, they’ll kill you too. It’s too late. It’s all too late.”
It was my turn to shake my mine right back.
I was careful not to touch her bruises as I reached behind me for my handbag, but was long past giving a shit about mine.
Her eyes were saucers when I pulled the bundle of cash free and held the full grand up to her. Her mouth was open wide when I fished under my bed for my shoebox and pulled out the other two.
