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“You think you’re clever, don’t you?” Simon’s snarl echoes in the cold, damp space of the basement. “Just because your stupid slag of a mother sent you to a posh school, you think that makes you better than me?”
“A vat of dog piss is better than you.”
He punches me again, harder this time, hard enough to send a splatter of blood across his shirt and stars flying across my vision. I register the pain from a distance, like another body is feeling it. I smile through my split lip, and the movement makes me realise the skin around my right eye is already starting to swell.
If I survive this, I’m going to have one hell of a black eye.
Paddy will bepissed.
“You should probably get Terry back in here,” I tell Simon, pointing my chin at the door behind him. “So I can find out what a real punch feels like.”
My words have their desired effect. Simon’s face contorts with rage; he throws his arm back for another punch. Too telegraphed; I jerk my head out of the way at the last minute, and his fist crunches into the concrete. Simon lets out a yell of pain.
“You stupid fucking bitch!” He grabs me by the front of my top with both hands, hauling me up to grind his face into mine. “You think your rich boyfriend’s going to save you? Is that it? You dumb fucking slag, you’re going to die here.”
I laugh, a low sound, blood gurgling in my mouth.
“My rich boyfriend would actually have the guts to kill me. You don’t have guts, Simon. It’s just beer and pie in that big belly of yours.”
I know I’m running my mouth, but my brain is running too, working a hundred miles an hour, assessing everything. The basement, cold and unforgiving, has only one exit I can see. My hands are tied back, there’s almost no give, and something sharp is slicing into my wrists: zip ties. My legs are free—Simon must have thought it unnecessary to restrict them.
Well alright. My mind forms a sequence of calculated moves. The odds are fifty-fifty: my agility against Simon’s brute force, my wit against his blind rage. The odds have never once been in my favour in life; this is as good as it’s going to get.
All I need is to be quick and decisive. Simon, his hand too sore from punching the concrete to hit me, is standing to kick me in the stomach. The first kick lands—it has to. He throws his leg back for the next kick—too telegraphed, you stupid fuck!
I turn and kick into his standing leg, boot to knee. He keels back. Precious seconds—that’s all I have. I squeeze my body through the V of my bound arms. When my arms are in front of me, I pull one leg up to my chest, and then I kick with all my might, straight into my wrists.
The plastic digs into my skin hard, but it doesn’t give way. I kick again. Simon scrambles to his feet with a roar of fury, calling me every name under the sun. My window of time is closing. Fuck, fuck.
Fuck the zip ties. Time to run—I’ll deal with Terry when I get to him.
I roll onto all fours and thrust myself up onto my feet. I sprint, but Simon’s already on me. He tackles me to the ground and lands on top of me. I turn my head at the last minute to avoid banging my chin into the concrete and losing all my teeth.Instead, the side of my face collides with the ground in a jarring crunch of pain.
“You stupid fucking bitch, you’ll see, you’ll fucking see,” Simon is jibbering thickly in my ear.
I can hardly move under the weight of him. I blink and force myself to breathe. Focus.Think.
“That’ll teach you to come tomyhouse,” Simon snarls. This time, when he speaks, I throw my head back into his. He yowls, which makes the pain in my own skull worth it. It buys me another second. I use it to move my legs out of the way and twist my body out from under him and flop onto my back.
Simon reaches for me; I scramble away. He grabs me by my ankle and pulls. The concrete rips into the skin of my back as he drags me, but I clench my jaw shut. I won’t make a noise of pain. I won’t allow it.
Simon shoves his knee into my stomach and rains punches down on me. It’s easy enough to block the blows with my bound arms. Nadine herself said it. I can take pain like a champ. It’s not the pain I’m worried about, though.
My worry is what happens next: Simon digging his weight into me as he wraps his hands around my neck. Fuck. He’s going to kill me, and Terry’s going to help him bury my body, and Declan will cover for them the way he always does, and I’m going to die now, die here, because of the money Mum borrowed from Declan forhim, for that worthless subhuman piece of shit Richard.
Fuck. Help isn’t coming. Help never came when Richard hurt me. Help never came for my mother, not even the day she died. Help isn’t coming.
Nobody is coming for you, Willow.
Nobody’s coming for me, butI’mhere. And I’m not dead yet. And if I’m going to die, then I’m going to die fighting.
Simon’s face is a red, sweating mess, his features melted in a grimace of determination. He squeezes as hard as he can, and now there’s almost no air left in my lungs. I fight with everything I have. I hit him and punch and kick; I claw at his face and eyes, anything I can reach.
There’s no room for panic now. My vision swims. The basement door slams open. At first, I think I imagine it. A sliver of light cuts through the darkness, and Terry appears in the doorway. Simon looks up, his grip loosening only slightly.
“What?” he barks.
Terry says nothing. He stands, teeters, keels forward. He falls face-first onto the concrete. Something long and thin sticks out from his back, tipped with red at the top.
