by Elle Croft
When she got close, she stopped for a second and listened. Low, urgent voices reached her from behind the door, but they were too muffled for her to make out the words clearly. She wanted to hear what they were saying. She needed to know, because she knew that it must be about her. Leaves cracked under her bare feet, and she winced as something sharp dug into the skin between her toes, but she pressed forward. Opening the door, the reality of what was happening flooded over her, cutting through her hazy mind, causing her stomach to lurch.
‘Oh, hey, Amy, there you are,’ Brad said casually, as though he was sitting in the living room, arm flung over the sofa like it was just a regular moment. ‘Come in.’
As her eyes flickered over the details, her brain tried to calculate what she was seeing. But there was a fog stopping her from forming a clear thought, and it wouldn’t lift, and all she could do was obey.
She stepped inside. The door swung behind her with a dull whap. She took a shaking breath and closed her eyes, hoping that when she opened them she would wake up, the scene before her just the memory of a sickening hallucination, a symptom of her illness. She squeezed them tight, then opened them once more. Everything remained the same.
Her brother was standing to her left, hovering over a wooden bench. Kat was tied to the table, her limbs immobile, her face twisted in fear. And glistening above her, clasped in Brad’s hand, was a very long, very sharp blade.
Chapter 52
KAT
Pain floods my senses, dragging me back to consciousness with a sharpness that forces the breath from my lungs.
‘Wakey, wakey,’ a voice whispers, so close to my ear that wisps of my hair dance across my cheek. It makes my skin crawl, although I don’t know who the voice belongs to, or where I am, or if I am OK.
Gingerly, I open one eye just a crack, closing it again quickly as my head screams in protest against the light. I’m lying flat on my back, directly underneath a bare yellow bulb.
Think, Kat, I tell myself. I strain to remember where I am, or who I’m with, and then, like a dam being opened in my memory, it all comes back to me with brutal force. I attempt to sit up, gasping with panic, but I can’t move. I try again, harder this time, but there’s something stopping me.
I open both of my eyes, bracing myself for the pain of the light, gritting my teeth and screaming into my closed mouth as my eyelids fly apart. Instinctively, they try to close, but I battle against my nature and force them wider.
Brad’s face hovers over mine, but I keep my eyes averted. I’m not ready to face him yet. I have to understand what I’m up against first. I twist my head one way, and then the other, looking down along my body to get a read on the situation. It’s bad. I’m lying on a wooden table in what looks like some kind of shed. I’m held down by rope, the thick cord wrapped around and around my torso, my legs, my arms. My wrists are tied separately, and I think my hands are roped together behind my back, but I can’t feel them to know for sure. The pain in my skull is almost blinding, like someone’s slamming a hammer against the back of my head over and over again.
I have to block out the pain. I have to focus.
‘Where’s Imogen?’ I whisper to Brad, the possibility that she’s not here, that she’s being kept somewhere else, blossoming in my chest.
‘Oh, you mean Amy? She’s just getting you some water,’ he says, oozing nonchalance.
My stomach sinks. She’s here, which is good, but it also means that she’s in danger.
‘In the meantime, I reckon it’s high time we had a little chit-chat, don’t you?’
His accent is thick, his voice low and simmering with a rage he’s not bothering to conceal.
I try a direct approach, hoping it’ll get through to him quickly.
‘I know you’re angry at me for taking Imogen away from you—’ I start, but he slams his fist on the bench with such force I’m certain he’s broken a bone in his own hand. I’m too stunned to continue.
‘It’s Amy,’ he hisses. ‘Not Imogen. Her name is Amy Sanders, and she is my sister. She’s not yours. She’s mine.’ His volume increases with every word, until he’s almost shouting.
I close my eyes to try to think. I can’t afford to make him angrier than he already is. I need him calm. Rational, if that’s even possible.
‘OK,’ I say quietly, my voice steady. ‘Amy. I’m sorry that we took her. We should have taken you, too. I regret that, now. I was wrong to break you apart.’
He looks surprised; those caramel eyes, so similar to Imogen’s, so similar to their mother’s, widen for a moment. But then he frowns again, and it’s not his eyes I’m looking at any longer. It’s the muscle pulsing at the side of his jaw, the vein in his neck that’s bulging dangerously. It’s his fists, clenched and ready for destruction.
I open my mouth to speak again, to ask him to give Imogen the choice, but he shushes me impatiently. He turns his back to me, this young man who could have been my child, if I’d been braver, more compassionate, if I’d been willing. Instead, he’s a stranger. A man shaped and moulded by his loss, his pain, his rejection.
I need to reach him, to bridge this gap between us, to tell him that I understand who he is, that I know why he’s so angry, that it’s OK to feel like this, that maybe there’s a way to keep him and Imogen in contact, for them to rebuild their relationship. I’m picturing weekends spent visiting Brad at his home, somewhere clean and in civilisation. He’d be under house arrest, of course, but we’d drop by with Imogen, and they could spend the day together, Dylan and me within easy reach, giving them the privacy they need, but still at a safe distance. I imagine laughter coming from the next room, the two siblings reunited.
But then he turns around again and I know without a doubt that my fantasy is just that: a dream, a figment of my imagination. Because Brad doesn’t want me to come out of this alive; the knife glinting in his hand is proof of that.
The door swings open, and my pulse ramps up its pace. I can’t see, but I know it must be Imogen.
‘Oh, hey, Amy, there you are,’ Brad says, and my heart leaps into my throat.
I can’t see if she’s hurt, if she’s OK, if she hates me. I have no idea what to expect.
‘Come in,’ my daughter’s brother says, and the door closes with a slam.
I hold my breath, hoping I can catch the sound of Imogen breathing, hoping to feel her with me. I turn my head again, and she steps into my vision. A sob leaps from my chest.
‘Oh, Immy, my love, I’m so sorry—’
My head jolts backwards as Brad’s fist connects with my jaw, and a fine spray of blood shoots into the air, raining back down on me in a red mist. The pain lands on me soon after, a searing heat that spreads from my chin all the way up my face to my forehead and around my temples. It’s excruciating, so consuming that I can’t focus on anything else. It takes all of my concentration to remain conscious, to not give in to the delicious darkness that’s hovering at the edges of my vision. My daughter needs me. I need to be alert.
I blink my way out of the tunnel and force my eyes to focus on Imogen. She looks different. Older. She’s wearing clothes that are too small for her. They’re plain and functional, and nothing like the bright, stylish clothes she usually wears. Her hair is greasy and pulled back in a ponytail, and she’s swaying ever so slightly as she stands, staring at Brad, the knife now dangling loosely by his side. I try to catch her attention, to get her to look at me, but her eyes are glazed over. She seems far away, like she’s in a dream. She’s not herself. With horror, I realise that he must have drugged her, and my stomach clenches with red-hot rage.
‘Brad, listen,’ I say as calmly as I can manage. ‘This is between us, OK? Let your sister go, and we can work this out, just you and me.’
He shakes his head.
‘No way,’ he growls. ‘I’ve only just got my family back. There’s no way I’m going to give that up now.’
‘I’m not asking you to give anything up,’ I plead, but he doesn’t hear me.
‘Liar,’ he spits, reaching forward to turn Imogen towards him. ‘Amy,’ he says, his free hand on her shoulder.
She looks up at him and her expression makes me ache. She is completely captivated by her brother, that much is clear. What has he said to her? What lies has he told about where she comes from, about who her biological family is, about who I am? I can’t see his face, but whatever she sees makes her smile. She sways again slightly. I’m desperate just to look into her eyes, for her to look into mine so she can see that all I want is for her to be safe and out of harm’s way.
She’s holding a glass, her hand trembling. I take a shaking breath. I need to get her attention.
‘Water,’ I whisper. ‘Please. Can I have some water?’
Brad spins around. I ignore him and keep my eyes focused on Imogen. Slowly, slowly, her gaze slides from her brother, along the bench, landing on my arm, then my shoulder, then my chin, and finally, after what feels like forever, my baby girl is looking into my eyes.
‘Imogen,’ I breathe, my muscles relaxing with the relief of having made this connection with her at last. I know what’s behind those eyes. And she knows what’s behind mine. It’s enough. It has to be.
I don’t see Brad’s fist coming for me again. I just hear his furious voice.
‘Her name,’ he roars, ‘is Amy.’
Everything goes black again.
Chapter 53
KAT
When I wake, seconds or minutes or hours later, the pain in my head reaching a crescendo, Imogen and Brad are huddled in the corner of the shed, whispering furiously. I can’t hear what they’re saying.
I cough, and they both turn to face me. Imogen has a strange look on her face. I think it’s fear. But she can’t possibly be scared of me … can she? I need to know what he’s been telling her.
‘Your real mother,’ I say quietly, steadily, keeping my eyes focused on her, ‘is in prison.’
‘I know that,’ she says defiantly, her lower jaw jutting out. I’ve seen this look a thousand times before. I know my daughter, even if she thinks I don’t. I know how to get through to her. Her life might depend on it. Mine definitely does.
‘She did horrible things to her children,’ I say. ‘To you, and to your brothers and sisters.’
Brad rushes forward with a growl, but Imogen puts her hand out to stop him, and my heart leaps with hope. Unexpectedly, he freezes. So maybe he doesn’t hold all of the power, after all. That’s promising.
‘The house you were born in,’ I continue, ‘it was nicknamed Satan’s Ranch. There were more, more children, who didn’t survive. The things she did to you, to all of you, the things they both did …’ I trail off, swallowing hard, desperate to keep my emotions in check, to serve my daughter the facts, bare and unadorned, so she knows what it is she came from. What it is we rescued her from. But saying the words, voicing the horror that we’ve so deliberately tried to keep her from, it makes my stomach turn.
‘Brad?’ Imogen turns to face him, a look of pure, innocent inquisitiveness in her eyes. My heart cracks like the scorched ground outside, a fissure so deep I’m certain it’ll never be repaired. Once she knows the truth, she’ll never be the same. How could she be?
‘She’s lying,’ Brad says with a laugh. His body language is casual, as though I’m nothing more than a nuisance. He’s smart. He knows exactly how to manipulate her. ‘She doesn’t want to lose, Amy. She thinks this is some kind of battle, me versus her, and she’ll say whatever she needs to in order to win. You know she’s a liar, Amy. Have I ever lied to you?’
‘No,’ she whispers.
My stomach plummets.
‘Exactly. You can trust me. I didn’t lie to you, I told you that Mum and Dad are in prison, but that’s not because of some kind of satanic ranch. It’s because they were misunderstood.’
‘Misunderstood?’ I explode. ‘Is that really what you think, Brad? They chained you to your beds and starved and tortured you, for God’s sake. Immy, they didn’t love you. Not really. They don’t know what love means.’
Tears wobble on the rims of Imogen’s bloodshot eyes. She’s so pale. So thin. She’s only been gone for a week, and this is what he’s done to her. She turns once again to face her brother.
‘Amy,’ Brad says slowly, gently, like he’s talking to a toddler. ‘Our parents love us. They love you. I know they do. Because they told me so. And I was saving this for a time like now, when I knew you needed to hear it. Last time I went to visit Mum, she gave me this. I think you need to read what she had to say. To you.’
He pulls a piece of paper from the back pocket of his jeans. It’s folded into a small square, and it’s soft and crinkled, as though it’s been opened and read and reread a hundred times. He holds it out to Imogen, her questioning eyes still locked on him. I watch, helpless, as she reaches out a trembling hand to take it. She’s eating up everything he’s saying. She wants to believe him, wants me to be wrong, to be the bad guy. I don’t know how to stop this, how to make her change her mind.
She unfolds the paper, and holds it up with two hands, squinting through the fug of whatever substance it is he’s given her to read it.
‘Out loud,’ Brad says to Imogen. ‘Read it out loud so your liar of a fake mother knows that she’s wrong about our mum.’
Imogen glances briefly at me. In the split second when our eyes meet, I try to convey everything I’m feeling for her without saying a word. But she looks away again just as quickly and focuses on the letter.
‘Dear Brad,’ she reads quietly, ‘I want you to know how much I love you. You are my son, and I’m so proud of you for carrying on the Sanders name. We might not be perfect, but we are family. And family always sticks together. For years, we’ve been shown as the bad guys, as inhuman, your dad and I. And I know we weren’t the perfect parents, but we love you, we always have. That much I can promise. I hope you do succeed in finding your sister. If you do, tell her I love her so much. She’ll always be my baby girl.’
Here, Imogen’s voice, slurred and thick from whatever’s pulsing through her bloodstream, begins to shake. My heart sinks lower and lower. I want to scream, to make her understand that she’s my baby girl. That what her crazed shadow of a mother offered her was nothing like love, was a warped and distorted version of it from someone so broken she can’t understand what love really means. But if I speak, I know I’ll be silenced. And I’m not sure how many more times I can endure being beaten before I pass out for too long to save my daughter. As it is, I’m queasy and feeble. I need to find another way to get through to her, and quickly.
‘Ask her if she still has the birthmark right above her belly button,’ Imogen reads, then stops, covering her mouth with her free hand.
I know that birthmark is there. I’ve seen it a thousand times, a hundred thousand times, when I’ve changed her, cleaned her, bathed her. But she doesn’t want to hear about all the nappy changes and sleepless nights and child therapy sessions and late-night sheet changes and nightmares and the patience I needed to get through the tantrums she didn’t understand, couldn’t understand, because she didn’t remember, not really. She just wants to hear from the woman whose genes she inherited.
‘Tell her,’ Imogen whispers, her eyes wide, ‘that I have a matching one. Tell her we have that in common. Tell her we’re still connected, even if we can’t be together.’
Imogen’s crying now. So am I. I’ve lost this battle. I’ve lost my daughter. As I fall apart on a wooden bench in a hot shed in the middle of nowhere, Brad folds Imogen into his arms and whispers something into her ear. She nods, sobbing, her shoulders heaving, and he strokes her back and keeps whispering, his voice too quiet for me to hear, until Imogen’s breathing slows and her sobs subside.
Brad holds her out at arm’s length, looking right into her glassy eyes.
‘You see?’ he urges her. ‘You’re connected, you and Mum. And so are you and I. We have a bond that can’t be broken. Not by anyone, no matter how well you
think you know them, or how well they think they know you.’
She nods, sniffing, and runs her forearm under her nose.
‘Good,’ Brad says. ‘So now that you know the truth, we need to do something about her.’
He turns to look at me, his eyes shining with glee.
My blood turns to ice in my veins.
Chapter 54
IMOGEN
Brad held the knife out towards her. The blade winked in the light that was coming from a single bulb, suspended from a cord above Kat.
She looked at him, confused.
She couldn’t think clearly. She wanted to soak up every word of the letter she’d just read, but she couldn’t do that when her mind was swirling and Kat was tied to a bench and there was a knife in Brad’s hand.
Why was Brad holding a knife? Why had Kat been tied up like a prisoner?
She knew that she should be focusing, that she should be getting answers to those questions, but her thoughts kept circling back to the fact that she had a letter, that her mum had reached out to her, that they shared a connection. Her insides glowed with that knowledge, with the thrill of reading words meant solely for her, coming from the woman she had been desperate to know since she first learned the truth about Kat and Dylan.
She could have sworn the birthmark on her stomach was pulsing, reminding her of its presence, of her link to her mother. This snippet of information, this glimpse into who her mum was, it was too precious to have out in the open, too valuable a treasure to waste on an audience. She wanted to go back to bed and turn it over, inspect it from every direction, watch it sparkle in the light, get to know every millimetre of its surfaces.
But Brad wanted her here. With him. He wanted her to do something. Only she didn’t understand what that was.