by Angela Peach
I was shaken from my thoughts by Alex grabbing hold of me in a massive bear hug, picking me up with his strong arms so my feet were dangling above the floor.
“Alex!” I laughed, but instead of putting me down, he spun me around and pushed me roughly against the wall.
Then he kissed me.
CHAPTER 16
Once I’d got over the shock of my (very recently dead) brother’s tongue thrusting into my mouth, I twisted my head from side to side, trying to break free. But he was well over six foot of pure, toned muscle and he had me pinned tight against the wall. His strong hands cupped underneath my backside and lifted me higher, and that was when I felt it.
He had a very hard erection.
I pounded my fists against his back and shoulders, but he didn’t seem to notice and just pushed himself onto me harder.
What the hell was this shit?
I tried squeezing my legs together, but his lower body was preventing my thighs from closing, and as his right hand went up my skirt, I squealed in horror at what he obviously intended to do.
No! No, this can’t be real!
The thought suddenly occurred to me that maybe this wasn’t? Maybe Spencer had gone too far out of range again after our argument, and I was having another episode like the roof jump and blood sucking? It had to be a blur-this was far too fucked up to be real! I felt slightly reassured by this, and decided that as soon as Spencer returned, everything would return to normal and I would ask her to hypnotise me and delete this particular memory forever. All I had to do was get through it until she got home.
Of course this was easier said than done. A fuck load easier. Especially when his fingers pulled aside the fabric of my small panties and forced their way into me. A guttural noise escaped his throat and as I squirmed in terror, I got a horrible feeling he thought I was enjoying this.
When he removed his hand, my relief was short lived as I felt him undoing his jeans.
NO!
He finally disengaged his mouth from its assault on mine and started roughly kissing my neck, giving me an opportunity to speak at last.
“Alex, what the fuck are you doing?” I gasped. “Get off me!”
“You said we shouldn’t be ashamed of how we felt. God, Mol, I dreamed of this moment the whole time I was in Afghanistan, but I never dreamed you’d feel the same way!”
“What? What are you talking about? I’m your sister!” I shouted, but he was too far gone to hear me now. Something had snapped in him toward me and I’d spent the last half hour inadvertently encouraging it! I heard my mobile start ringing across the room.
“It’s ok, Molly. I won’t hurt you, I’ll be gentle!” he reassured just before he ripped away the tiny fabric of my thong like it was made of tissue paper.
“No, no, no Alex, stop this now, please, please don’t do this, please don’t do this” I begged, but it fell on deaf ears. As he pushed his penis into me, I screamed. I beat him with everything I had, but he was made of iron and my blows didn’t faze him in the slightest. He grunted as he slowly built up a rhythm, tearing into me painfully with each thrust. I sobbed helplessly. The buzzing in my ears was deafening as my heart rate went through the roof.
Spencer, where the fuck are you?
I scanned the room-my phone was on the other side of the kitchen where I’d thrown it and the table was blocking the way to it. Over by the sofa, less than five feet away, was one of the empty champagne bottles. If I could get to it, maybe I could stun him long enough to get to the phone, which had started ringing again.
Or get the hell out of here?
But it might as well have been five miles away for all the good it was going to do me from here-I couldn’t even push him off me.
As if an angel was suddenly remembering to look after me, he strengthened his hold on me and moved us away from the wall towards the sofa. My legs kicked as we went, but it was completely futile. I kept my eyes on the bottle the whole way. If he was aiming for the sofa, I’d be able to get a hold of it and take a swing. Ignoring the searing pain between my legs, I concentrated all my energy on the bottle. As he lay me down on the sofa, still inside me, I reached out with my right hand-it was within reach! My fingers fumbled over the top of it before I got the neck in a tight grip.
Then I swung hard.
It made contact on the back of his head with a loud crack and he stopped what he was doing. Puzzled, he raised a hand to touch the spot I’d hit, but he was still very much alert. I swung again, harder this time. His frown deepened.
“Mol? Wha…?”
He pushed himself up to look at me and man, did he look angry! I swung the bottle with everything I had and he saw the movement out of the corner of his eye, turning his head just as it completed its arc. The bottle made hard solid contact on his temple, and third time was a charm. He collapsed onto me, but rolled off and fell onto the floor where I could no longer see him. Pulling my legs up to my chest, I crouched with my back against the sofa, holding the bottle in front of me in case he came back for another go.
After about five minutes, I realised I was in some weird sort of paralysis, unable to move from where I was, and I also became aware that I was sobbing hysterically. I convinced myself that the second I tried to move, he’d grab me and finish me off-he was, after all, a trained killer.
My body started shaking uncontrollably with my sobs, but I still held the bottle, battle ready, in front of me.
That was how Spencer found me when she returned home, but I didn’t hear her come in, didn’t hear her calling my name, didn’t even see her when she ran across the room to me. I just didn’t register that she was there.
Because I wasn’t.
I came around slowly. As I hadn’t passed out, it was more that I gradually became aware of my surroundings. I was on the floor in the toilet, my head resting on the wall and the air was pungent with the smell of sick. One by one, my senses returned, as if being switched on. My hearing was next.
“It’s ok baby. It’s ok. I’m here now, it’s ok” Spencer was whispering, and I could feel her close behind me, one hand stroking my hair, the other on my waist.
“Tell me it didn’t happen. It was just a dream, right? It was just a dream?” I croaked. Her hand stopped in my hair. It was all the answer I needed. I broke into sobs again and she held me close, tight.
But I didn’t feel as safe as I used to in them.
“What if he wakes up?” I asked suddenly, pulling myself out of her embrace. “Oh my god, he’s going to come for us Spencer! We have to get out of here!” I started scrambling to my feet but she held me down.
“Tris, wait! Sit back down a minute?”
“Spence, he’s a trained killer! Come on, we have…”
“He’s dead. He’s…he’s dead” she repeated softly.
“What? He can’t be!”
“Baby…I checked. He doesn’t have a pulse.”
I tried to swallow, but couldn’t.
Dead?
“Are you sure? I mean, maybe you got it wrong?”
“I didn’t get it wrong.”
“But he was just alive!” I said, stupidly.
“Sweetie, I didn’t get it wrong.”
“I don’t understand! He can’t be dead!” I declared, and for the first time I saw her eyes. They were full of fear and sorrow.
“Baby, what…did he…what happened?” she whispered, struggling to choke the words out. A tear trickled down her cheek.
“I…nothing.”
The crazy thought ran through my head that she might think I’d been sleeping with him and that was why she was upset with me. Because she was bound to have seen he had his trousers undone and put two and two together.
“Did he…did he touch you?” her voice broke and another couple of tears fell. “It’s ok, you can tell me.”
Scared of her reaction, I shook my head.
“Tris, it’s ok. Please?”
I tried to swallow again, but my mouth was too dry.
“I didn’t…I wasn’t…” I looked down at my hands. “I didn’t want to do it. I wasn’t doing it to hurt you. He…he forced me” I managed to say. Spencer drew in a sharp breath and I waited for her to shout at me. Instead she pulled me into her arms.
“Oh my god. Oh my god. No, baby, no!” she started to sob now.
“I swear Spencer, I didn’t want to do it. I love you! I’d never do anything like that to you!” I said, feeling the need to reiterate my point. She looked at me, confused.
“Tris, you don’t think I thought…fuck, fuck, fuck! Oh sweetie, come here” she cried, pulling me back into her and holding me tight. “I know you didn’t baby. Oh god, are you ok? Did he hurt you?”
I nodded into her shoulder, relieved that she believed me. Then a thought occurred to me.
“Did I kill him?”
She pulled back only far enough to look at me.
“I hit him. With the bottle. But it didn’t knock him out. So I hit him again. Twice” I said slowly, as if remembering was hard. “Is that what happened? Did I kill him?” I felt sick again, and just managed to scramble away from her to the toilet bowl again before bringing up bile. When I’d finished retching, Spencer handed me a glass of water and I drank it gratefully.
“You want another one?”
“I have to go to the police.”
“No. You can’t!”
“Spence, I’ve just kill…oh jesus, I’ve just killed my brother! This isn’t the sort of thing that’s just going to go away! It’s not like we can just pretend it hasn’t happened? People are going to notice he’s not around!”
“Tris, you need to think about this before you do something stupid…”
“I think it’s too late for that!”
“Think about this. Properly. Look at me. Look at me!” I looked at her, but my head was spinning.
“What’s mum and dad going to say? Oh fuck! I killed their son! My brother!”
“Tristen! Listen to me? You have to focus! What do you think the police are going to do if you call them? I’ll tell you-they’ll take you away, without me. What if things blur when you’re being questioned? What if you say stuff that isn’t right? You’re going to look crazy! And then they’ll keep you away from me longer, and more things will blur, and what will probably happen is you’ll get locked away forever and never see me again. Do you understand?”
I managed to focus on what she was saying. She was right. I realised with horror that if the police turned up and just took me to the station for a statement, I’d probably end up locked in a cell by the end of the day. In a strait jacket.
“What am I going to do?” I whispered.
“Do you trust me?”
“With my life” I replied instantly, the earlier argument about trust petty and forgotten now.
“Good. Then we’re going to go into the bedroom and we’re going to pack a few essential things, and we’re going to get out of here to a hotel and figure out what we’re going to do. Do you think you can do that?” I nodded stiffly. “Ok. First, why don’t you take a shower and clean yourself up a little?” she suggested and I nodded again. That was a good idea. I definitely needed to do that. She helped me to my feet and got the shower running while I stepped out of my clothes. When she turned back to me, I could see the pain on her face as she looked at my body and when she raised her brown eyes to mine, they were filled with so much sorrow. “Oh baby, I am so, so sorry. I’m so sorry!” she said, shaking her head as more tears fell. I hugged her, starting to feel a strange sense of detachment. Then I pulled away and got in the shower while she went off to pack.
When I came out, almost an hour had passed and I still didn’t feel clean despite scrubbing my body and brushing my teeth until I was raw. I saw Spencer had been busy as there were three large holdalls and suitcases by the bedroom door. She’d left me out some jeans and a t shirt which I put on, not caring about drying myself, and then I sat on the edge of the bed.
“Sweetie, is there anything you need that you think I might have missed?” she asked gently. I shook my head. All of my valuables were still in the bag I’d brought from Nicks the previous night, and I didn’t own anything I cared about right now. She came over and crouched in front of me. “I know this is a stupid question, but are you ok?”
“Yes. Let’s just get out…”
At that moment, there was a loud insistent knocking at the front door. We both jumped, then froze, holding our breath. A moment later, there was another round of banging and we jumped again.
“It’s the police!” I whispered, eyes round with fear.
“It can’t be!” she whispered back, but even she sounded uncertain. When the banging came again, louder, she stood up. “I’ll go.”
“No! We go together” I hissed, getting shakily to my feet. We took a deep breath and walked to the front door holding hands, only dropping them as she unlatched it.
It wasn’t the police. It was Alice and Nick.
“Nick? What are you doing here?” I exclaimed, shocked but relieved.
“I’ve been calling you all day. If you’d bothered answering your phone to me, I would’ve told you we were coming” Alice said coldly as Nick pushed his way inside.
“Is he here?” Nick asked, going into the kitchen. I looked with horror toward the sofa-from this angle, the body was hidden out of sight. But if either of them walked into the lounge, they’d see it for sure.
“Hey, you can’t come in here! There’s no one here except us!” Spencer cried out, trying to block Nick from walking any further.
“Who is he? I think I have a right to know” Nick spat, looking at me with such hatred, normally I would have wilted with shame and shock. But today was not a normal day, and today Nick was about as scary as a kitten-albeit a kitten who might just stumble across a grisly murder scene. I stood up straight.
“There is no ‘he’” I said calmly, surprising myself.
“You told Alice you were in love with another man” he hissed.
“No, I told Alice I was in love with someone else. I never said it was a man.”
This information sank in slowly. I watched as his face registered confusion, then realisation, then horror. His eyes flew to Spencer.
“No! You’re not…you’re lying!”
I walked over to Spencer and took her hand in mine, then kissed her tenderly on the lips. It was cold and harsh and cruel, but I needed to give him a sharp shock that would hopefully get them both out of here asap. She kissed me back softly, our tongues flickering against each other’s.
“You fucking bitch! You fucking dyke bitch!” he shouted, but it worked. He ran out of the front door leaving Alice stood staring at me in shock.
“What the fuck has happened to you? Who are you?” she said, and I saw tears in her eyes as she shook her head in disbelief. Then she looked at Spencer, cold and hateful. “What did you do to her? What did you make her believe when you hypnotised her?”
“There never was any hypnosis. I lied. I’ve always been in love with Spencer. We’re moving in together. This is who I am, Alice. If you don’t like it, you know where the door is” I said, again very calmly although inside my heart broke at how much pain I was causing. She clutched one hand to her heart and the other covered her mouth as her tears fell unchecked, but she didn’t give in.
“Tris? Come on? I’m your best friend…I know you! I love you!”
“I want you to leave, Alice. Just go, and don’t try to contact me. I’ll call you if I change my mind, but right now, I’m happy with just me and Spence.”
“You don’t mean that!” she insisted.
“Yes, I do!”
I had to turn away and go into the kitchen-staring at my best friend as I gunned her down, watching everything we’d built up over the last two years destroyed by my own words, was like torture and I couldn’t take any more.
“Ok. Ok. You know where I am if you change your mind” she said quietly behind me, and a moment later the front door shut as she walked out
, out of the bungalow, and out of my life. I fell against the work surface, unable to support myself any longer and Spencer came and helped me to a chair.
“I don’t know how much more I can take” I said. Alice deserved tears and sobs and hysterics-instead I was numb, my emotions fried and burnt out.
“Are you ready to get out of here?” she asked and I nodded. We went back to the bedroom to collect our bags, and I checked the bedside table drawer where I usually put my jewellery every night before bed. I was glad I did-the locket I’d gone to so much trouble to procure was sat next to my silver hoop earrings and watch. I put them on, and placed the locket carefully in my pocket. Then I looked up at the walls where Spencer’s sketches hung and experienced a massive pang of sorrow for her. She was going to have to leave all of this behind-her home, her work, all the belongings she’d accrued over the years, her friends and family.
Because of me.
We dragged the bags silently to the front door and I saw she’d put the pile of gifts there, ready to put into the car.
“I don’t want to take them” I said, pointing at them. “Leave them here, please?”
“Sure. We have to make a quick stop on the way to the hotel. One of my clients has some diazepam she said I could have, so we need to go pick them up. Then I think we should go to London. It’s easy to blend in there-we can be checked in by eight tonight if we leave now” she said, looking round as if checking she’d packed everything she needed.
“I’m sorry. I know I seem to be saying that a lot lately, but I am. I’m sorry” I said. She came over to me and held my face in her hands.
“None of this is your fault. So long as we’re together, I don’t care about anything else. Now listen to me. I’ve cancelled all my appointments for the next two weeks, so no one will notice I’m missing. I’ll tell the neighbours I’m going on holiday when we leave. We should get at least a week head start before someone thinks to look here for him. He must have either walked or got a taxi here cos there’s no car outside.”