AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Mr. Everhert, we need to get her into her own bed. You need to rest, to recover,” Nurse Louise states, briefly flicking her gaze to Allie. They’ve tried to move her since I was placed in this bed, but she’s thrown a fit every single time, so to keep her calm, they let her stay—against their wishes. It feels like we’ve been here longer than an hour.
She’s tucked into my side, fast asleep. She hasn’t stopped clinging to me since it ended, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I need her next to me as much as she needs me next to her.
“She’s not going anywhere.”
She sighs. “The police would like to speak with you.”
My heart sinks. “Because I killed him?”
She glances away, messing with the machines they’ve got me hooked up to. “I couldn’t say.”
I took a life. He might not have been innocent, but he was still a human being. And the sick part? I’d do it all over again to save Allie.
“Where’s my son?” I hear my mum scream from down the corridor.
I sit up, glancing at Louise. “That’s my mum. Can you tell her where I am?”
She pulls her attention away from the charts and nods. Seconds later, my mum comes running into the room, tears streaming down her face.
“Oh, my god, what happened to you?” she cries, eyes round. “They said you were taken and that you suffered knife injuries.” She begins to sob, examining my body. She winces at my injuries. She stops when she finally notices Allie tucked into my side. She sniffles, wiping her nose. “Is she okay? What happened? I thought I lost you, CJ. I tried to get here as soon as I could, but I had to get a taxi. I wouldn’t have been able to drive back from London without crashing.”
“Mum, I’m fine,” I croak out, squeezing her hand. I watch her for a minute, wondering how much they told her. “Did they tell you anything else?” I ask carefully.
“They told me you were taken by the maniac who was killing those poor innocent girls, and that her friend called them,” she tells me, her eyes flicking to Allie.
Allie stirs in my arms, but she doesn’t wake, too exhausted from today’s events. I give my attention to my mum, the person who has been my rock my whole life, and fill her in on everything, needing her to be strong once more. I tell her about Alex, about his fucked-up family and the delusions he had that Allie was his, that she was his sister. How he related a sibling to a lover.
Mum gasps, her hand covering her mouth. Her other hand hovers over my stab wound that the doctors stitched up not long after we arrived. “And he did this to you? Have they arrested him?”
I look away, unable to meet her eyes. “I killed him,” I whisper.
Her hand twitches in mine. “What?”
My eyes fill with tears, and my throat clogs with emotion. “I killed him. He was going to kill her, Mum. I stabbed him in the back, where his heart is, and I killed him. I killed him,” I grit out, feeling frustrated and angry. Frustrated because I felt so useless, felt useless and angry because I should have done something to prevent the whole thing. I should have watched my back in the library, worked harder to find him—something.
“Oh, my darling boy,” Mum cries, leaning forward to kiss my forehead. Her lips lightly touch my skin, but I flinch, the sting too much even with all the pain meds they’re feeding me.
“I killed him. I don’t know how I’m going to come back from that, Mum.”
I watch my mum transform from a crying mess to the mum I’m used to. She wipes her eyes, straightens her spine, and looks me dead in the eye.
“You will get back from this because you had no choice. He killed six girls, CJ. Do you think he wouldn’t have killed you? Look at you; he tried to. He killed that girl in front of you. You did what you had to do to survive. And you have your friends and family around you—to support you and show you every day that what you did was the only option. And every time you look at Allie, you’ll be reminded of what you saved—who you saved. That, my boy, is how you’re going to get through this.”
“I thought we were going to die, Mum. I kept thinking he’d kill me first, so I wouldn’t be able to help her. She would have been all alone, Mum. How did social services or his nan’s doctors not pick up on who he was, what he had inside him?”
“Maybe we can answer those questions?” a man standing at the door announces.
I watch as two uniformed police officers walk inside. I turn away when Allie begins to stir, whimpering in her sleep.
“Please don’t hurt him,” she cries, tossing and turning. I wince from the pain, and slowly, with my bad arm, lightly stroke her cheek.
“Allie, Cupcake, you need to wake up. You’re having a nightmare.”
When her whimpering sounds painful, I shake her awake. She flinches, shooting up in bed. “Kill me, not him!” she screams.
My mum rushes around the bed, coming to her side. “Allie, it’s okay. We’re here.”
“Cupcake, breathe,” I instruct, wishing I could move my stiff body to hold her against me.
