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“We were fucking fourteen! Still kids! And we had no fucking choice!” Loki, the calm playful one of us, suddenly roars. He's gotten up in Ash's face again, squaring off against him, and at least he’s shed some of the hopelessness, even if he’s replaced it with rage. I can see Ash bristle, his fists clenching by his sides.
“Well, go on then,” Ash says in a deadly calm voice, that lets me know he's close to losing it. “Go upstairs, and tell her that we're murderers too. I fucking dare you.”
“We had no choice,” Loki bites back, and I can see that they're moments away from trading blows.
“Doesn't matter. We still killed a man, the rest is semantics,” Ash counters in that same unemotional tone.
Just as I think Loki is gonna go for him, and I’m wondering if I’m going to need to stop him, Jax gets between them.
“Enough,” he says in that gruff voice of his, placing a hand on each of their chests. “Us fighting doesn't help anything.”
“Well, what do you suggest,big guy?” Ash asks Jax scathingly, his eyes narrowing to slits. He's lashing out because he's hurting. It's how he copes with pain. And he’s had more than his fair share of that over the years.
“We give her time,” I say simply, but loud enough that everyone hears and turns to look at me. “She'll come around.”
“How do you know?” Loki asks me, voice small and uncertain, yet there’s a shred of hope in there. A dim light in his eyes.
“Because she needs us as much as we need her,” I reply, hoping with my whole being that I’m right.
Chapter Twenty-Four
LILLY
Idon't sleep at all that night, tossing and turning, covered in sweat with visions of blood soaked hands, and monstrous devils plaguing my dreams.
I'm still reeling from the news the guys shared with me. About what they are forced to do for their company. What the hell kind of company expects that from its own children?!
How can I get past the fact that these guys, my guys, have hurt people so brutally?
The fact that they've spilt blood...it's barbaric. I'm suddenly awash with anxious apprehension all over again, bile touching the back of my throat.
A piss. I need a piss. And a shower. Definitely a shower. I'll think about this all later.
I head to the en suite, gently shutting the door. I don’t want them to know I’m awake. Not yet.Hurts Like Hellby Fleurie plays on my phone that I’ve left on the counter. It suits my somber mood, and the searing pain in my heart at the thought that I've lost my guys, lost parts of myself that I didn’t know were no longer inside of me.
After taking care of business, I turn the shower on, setting the temperature to scorching. It’s another walk in, all singing and all dancing affair, like showers back at Highgate. Stepping under the hot spray, I hiss, yet I feel the tension in my shoulders begin to ease. I stand there, head bowed, torn between my feelings for these guys, and what they've done. What they will continue to do.
I drop to the floor of the shower, curling my arms over my knees and sob, tears mixing with the water as it cascades over me.
The song switches toLovelyby Billie Eilish and Khalid, and I'm instantly transported back in time, gasping as I’m sucked into the horror of finding my mum carved up and bleeding all over our kitchen floor.
The scent of copper surrounds me. I'm drowning in it as I gaze at the ruin before me. Her face is untouched, still so beautiful. Her hazel eyes are unseeing, but forever open, staring through me. Her body is unrecognisable in the carnage of blood, and parts of her are exposed that never should have seen the daylight.
I blink, coming back to the here and now. Some time after her murder, I read a newsletter article that said she was stabbed forty-seven times, the number filling me with horror at what she'd gone through before her last breath left her.
Just as I think the flashback is over, that fucking song keeps playing, like it did that day on the radio, sending me hurtling back into the nightmare.
I'm kneeling beside her, her blood on my clothes, covering my hands, and staining everything with her lifeforce. Lifeforce that had spilled its vitality and essence all over the tiled floor, like a dropped glass of juice.It's true what they say, 'there's no use crying over spilt milk.’ And I don't cry. I can't cry.
I come back to the present with a gasp this time, my eyes searching for a handhold, something to keep me here, but it's no use.
I'm blinking, my eyes scratchy and sore, to see a hospital room, a strange man and woman standing before me, talking in hushed tones.
I sit up, confused, and catch their attention.
“Lilly,” the woman says gently, taking a step towards me. “My name is Carol, and I'm your social worker.”
Social worker? Why do I need…my thoughts are cut off as memories of blood come flooding back, and I hear a keening noise, only to realise it's me as I curl up into a ball on the bed.
