Page 70 of Two Kinds of Stranger

‘Move your bitch-ass—’ said the woman behind her.

Elly swung round and punched the woman, hard, in the face.

Her momentum sent her off balance. She had never hit anyone before. A shooting pain bit into her wrist, she fell on top of the woman and they both ended up on the ground.

Cries and howls and whoops went up from the other women in the house. The woman began to claw at Elly’s back andgrabbed her hair just as the doors banged open and the COs rushed in.

One moment Elly was on top of this woman and, the next, two men, either side of her, had picked her up by the arms and legs and were hauling her out of there.

Elly was panting, the adrenalin coursing through her veins robbing her of breath.

‘Solitary twelve,’ she heard one of them say as they slammed the house door closed behind her.

It was the only way.

Outside the house, in the corridor, the COs placed Elly on the ground. One of them flipped her over, face down on the cold painted concrete floor. Their hands were hard and strong on her wrists as she was shackled, and she knew there would be bruising, but she also knew that she was out of that cell for tonight.

Kate’s words echoed in her mind.

Elly, the communal areas of your detainment house are constantly monitored by security cameras. If one inmate launches a violent attack on another, then that inmate is removed from the house and placed into solitary confinement. . .It is unlikely that the victim of the assault will co-operate with authorities, because they don’t want to be seen as a snitch.

Elly would spend the next twenty-four hours, at least, in solitary. A small bare cell with a bed and a toilet, and nothing and no one else.

For some, it was torture.

For Elly, committing that assault had probably saved her life.

24

Logan

Logan sat in his rental car outside the clinic, waiting for the man to come out.

He took out his phone and opened the photo album.

It was a picture of a refrigerator door, with bills and final demands pinned to it with magnets. The photo had been taken last night, in Grace’s apartment. Rent, tuition fees and electric–Grace was behind on everything. She had come back into the kitchen after using the bathroom and they had enjoyed a coffee together.

It had felt awkward. Logan liked Grace. Last night, sitting beside her on her old couch, he knew what could happen next. It was a question of who would make the next move. Logan had felt sweat on his forehead. His heart rate was up. His stomach churned, and not just from the bad coffee.

She was beautiful, sweet and somehow remarkably innocent. Something in her eyes captivated him.

Logan had felt confused on that couch. Not about the situation. This was an internal conflict.

Sitting there, listening to Grace talk about her love of books, he couldn’t help but wonder what she would look like in bed, asleep, with the morning sun’s first rays falling across her face. And yet another part of him wondered whether her eyes would still have the same glow after he had strangled the life from her body.

Sitting on that couch last night, he had blinked and cleared his throat, as if this might help clear his mind.

It didn’t work.

Images flashed before him.

The two of them in bed. Grace’s soft hair on his shoulder, her breath on his cheek and her fingers stroking his bare chest. He could almost feel the softness and the warmth of her.

And then the image was replaced by one of shock on her face as Logan grabbed her throat and squeezed.

He shook his head, as if he had been trying to dislodge that last image from his brain.

‘It’s funny, you know?’ said Grace. ‘Where I grew up, I could walk for a mile and not see a single other person on the road. Here, I’m just surrounded by millions of people, but the difference is at home I never felt like I was alone. I never had that feeling until I came here.’