AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I shake my head. ‘No, I’d hidden it.’
‘Hidden it where?’
‘There was a vent, in the girl’s bathroom on the ground floor.’
‘You know you hid it, but you don’t remember hiding it?’ His forehead creases.
I close my eyes and let myself slide back towards the black hole at the centre of my universe.
The tape is in the secret vent and I’m running home, faster than I’ve ever run, through the trees. I trip but I get up and start running again. The branches scratch my face and the pain helps me focus: I must catch up, make sure Mina and Lydia know what to say if they speak to the police.
Did I do the right thing with the tape? Mother told me to destroy it. But where and when? I couldn’t risk being caught with it on the way home. What if Lydia or Mina saw it? No one knows about the vent.
Apart from the one person who might most want the tape. My ex-best friend.
But Georgia will never set foot in PES again. Not after this.
What would I say, if Georgia finds it? If she takes it to the police and my parents discover I haven’t got rid of it?
It’ll never happen. No point in thinking about that. In thinking about any of it.
The furrows in the field behind Shorthorn Lodge have dried hard and treacherous. In the fading light of the sunset I see two heads, one russet, one dark, nearing the gate. They’ll cross the lane and find the broken bit of the old wall hidden in the hedges and climb through.
I pump my legs harder, ignoring the burn. ‘Lydia! Mina!’ I call, slowing, hauling in air, as they reach the hole in the wall.
They turn. There’s a ten-foot gap between them, and I wonder if they’ve been arguing. They’ve both put on their blazers while mine is tied around my waist and keeps dropping.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, panting.
Lydia puts her hands on her hips.
‘Is Tristan okay?’ Mina asks.
‘He’ll be fine, I think,’ I say, knowing he won’t.
‘Is Miss Smith okay?’ asks Lydia.
I shake my head, keep shaking it, try to stop, but can’t, and then I sit down on the hard earth.
‘Not okay… how?’ says Lydia.
I close my eyes. I have to protect my brother. ‘She attacked him,’ I say.
‘I don’t buy it, Frances. I don’t,’ says Lydia. ‘He was saying all that stuff before he went in, and earlier, with Georgia… He’s a fucking liability.’
‘No, he was just… That was just bravado.’ I try to remember his story while we were waiting for Mother. ‘He… he did flirt with her. But he didn’t expect her to be… up for it.’
‘Yeah, right,’ says Lydia.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Right.’ I stare at her until she looks away. ‘He tried it on a bit, but then she, like, went for him, and he tried to say no, but she just kept going.’
‘This is true?’ Lydia squints at me.
‘It was just like we’d said. She had it planned.’ I think about the tape sitting in the vent. ‘She wouldn’t even let him start the camera. And then he tried to get away but she was, like, on him.’
Lydia crosses her arms. ‘So he, what? He hurt her?’
I swallow.
