by Hanna Peach
Paper Dolls
By Hanna Peach
Paper Dolls: a novel / by Hanna Peach. – 1st Ed.
First Digital Edition: April 2016
Published by Gypsy Publishing
Copyright 2016 Hanna Peach
Cover art copyright 2016 Romac Designs: http://romacdesigns.com. All Rights Reserved Hanna Peach. Stock images: shutterstock
Proofreading services by Proof Positive: http://proofpositivepro.com.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it wasn’t purchased for your use only, then please delete and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
To Emma,
Because you were the first to believe in Aria’s story.
* * *
Note to readers:
This book is set in Australia, hence it is written using Australian English (‘colour’ instead of ‘color’ and ‘realise’ instead of ‘realize’).
Prologue
In the end, my life came down to two people − two faces, two pairs of hands that have pushed aside tears, two pairs of arms that have protected me, held me despite the darkness, despite the pain that threatened to pull me under. And now these two people, the two people I loved the most, were tearing me apart.
“Choose, Aria!” my sister cried at me, her sharp voice echoing over the expanse of the gorge and the sound of water crashing onto rocks.
My hand holding the gun felt heavier and heavier, the muzzle dipping, sweat rolling from where my palm wrapped around the grip, my tendons trembling and crying out in a discordant harmony along with the weighted, fractured wailing of my heart.
I shifted my weight, trying to stand in a way that would keep me upright, even as my legs were trembling so hard I thought I might collapse, my feet crushing dried, withered leaves that had swept onto the bridge as if they were bones or pieces of my shattered self. The smell of my own sweat and fear mixed in with the pine and the tang of moist earth.
Choose. The rest of my life came down to this. One choice. Two faces.
In moments like these, everything slowed. Salem always joked that it was life’s way of making sure you didn’t miss the turning points, the important bits. As if gravity sank heavier and heavier with the weight of the moment until the world was too heavy to turn and everyone held their breath.
It certainly felt like that now. My next action, my next word, would change all of our lives.
“Aria,” Clay’s deep voice reached my ears. “Whatever happens…I love you.” The usual assuredness and authority was gone. Instead, strain and hurt had crumpled up and shoved into his throat. Choose me. Save me. Love me.
Before him my life had felt like a stack of old movies: frames missing or out of order, muted crackling sound, flickering and shuttering away, unloved and unseen in an old unused cinema, dank carpets and the smell of stale cigarettes in the musty air.
Then I found him. Or he found me.
He created a warm shield around me where I could be safe. He coaxed away all my layers and shed all my masks and his love soaked right into my skin, right into the very soul of me. He pulled out the fossil buried inside that had been my heart and breathed life into me.
How could I give up the man I loved? The one who loved me with a fierce and unwavering passion, the man who made me feel like I could defeat demons as long as he was by my side.
Winking in the threads of sunlight piercing through the solemn grey clouds, seed fluff twirled about me like swirling, dancing couples. Spinning around like Salem and I used to do in our backyard, hands clasped together tightly, turning round and round, eyes to the sky, our twin voices giggling and floating into the air like dandelions.
She had been my shield before Clay.
“I’m nothing without you, Aria,” Salem’s voice trembled, desperation leaking into the breaths between her words. Choose me. Need me. Love me.
How could I end her? I just got her back. For so long we shared almost everything, and she protected me. Her whole life had been about protecting me. Because she loved me that much.
How could I turn against her, toss her away like an old broken toy?
But I had to choose.
Several weeks ago there was one small, stupid moment, after I had her back and I had Clay, where I believed I could be happy.
Damn, girl, are you actually smiling?
Oh Flick, everything is just perfect.
One stupid moment.
But that’s the thing about us humans: we’re resilient. Hope is so hard to snuff out. Even if we’ve been kicked and beaten down and trod on, hope flares. It rises to the top like oil on water.
Even now as I stare between Clay and Salem, trying to digest our impossible situation, Hope is still there, that terrible pixie, fluttering on my shoulder, whispering.
Maybe it doesn’t have to end this way?
Maybe Flick will show up and sort this out in the way only she could do, clear and stern but with a whole lot of sass.
Maybe the police will come storming through the trees, their flashlights and guns upon us, forcing us all apart.
Or a knight riding on a white horse…
Fuck you, Hope. Here’s the truth.
Nobody is coming.
No one will save us.
And someone isn’t going to make it out of this forest today.
I could see us now, the three of us making a chain like when I was a kid, folding pieces of coloured paper into rectangles, cutting out an arm, a leg, and half a head, and unfurling my new patterns in the light to reveal a line of paper dolls. Clay, Salem and I − we were all just paper dolls in a paper chain, me in the middle, each end pulling tighter and tighter until something had to tear.
Who would I rip apart?
“Choose,” my sister screamed. “It’s either him or me.”
My fingers tightened around my gun in a reflex. This was it. I either ended her. Or destroyed Clay.
I squeezed my eyelids shut for a moment, just for a moment of peace. Just for an instant I could shut out the inevitable, and in this blessed darkness I believed I could conceive a way that both could exist in my life. A way that I could choose Salem and Clay.
You can’t have both.
You tried.
You.
Can’t.
Have.
Both.
Choose now.
But how?
What do you do when someone puts a gun to your head? Clay’s words came back to me, echoing as loud in my mind as if he had just spoken them. You refuse to bend. You push back. You find another way. You take that gun off him and put it back in his face. But you do not give in.
Find another way…
I knew what I had to do. A kind of peace settled on my skin, as delicate as gossamer, as light as silk.
I opened my eyes to a world of bright light until my vision adjusted. The torn and pained faces of the two people I loved came into focus. The only two people I’ve shared air with while we slept, the same two people I’d crawl into Hell to be with, and the only two people I would die for. I forced the ghost of a smile forward.
And turned the gun on myself.
1
Four weeks earlier…
“I still can’t believe you won.” I chanced a glance up to Clay, hiking a few metres in front of me. He had impossibly long legs but he never walked so fast that I couldn’t keep up. His dark t-shirt
was fitted enough to show off the wide V of his torso, a patch of dampness on his shirt sticking to the middle of his shoulder blades. Damn. That was a great back.
His voice, deep and rumbling, called back to me. “I can’t believe you made me work so hard just for a date.”
“I doubt you’ve ever had to work for a date before so don’t think for a second I feel one bit sorry for you.”
“That is true. Most women can’t resist my charms.”
I snorted. “I’m not most women.”
He glanced back at me over his shoulder, his dark blue eyes sparkling with intensity. “Indeed, you are not.” It felt like his words hid another meaning from me.
Leaves crunched under my feet like tiny old bones and small lizards rustled away from the sounds of our footfalls. The path we were walking on, through the National Park in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, was skinny and barely visible at times, the green outstretched hands of ferns hiding the toes of tree roots, and moss stretched across slippery rocks. Despite being at the start of a Queensland summer, the air was cool under the trees.
“You know what I’m still trying to decide?” he asked.
“What?”
“Whether you’re worth all that work.”
I let out an indignant noise.
He laughed. “I’m joking, angel. You’re worth it, even if I had to wait another three months just to get you on a date.”
“Then you’d have given up?”
“Then I’d have to seriously rethink my strategy.”
Truthfully, his strategy was perfect; he put me at ease almost immediately and never pushed too hard, happy to let our friendship develop first for as long as it took. It had been me that was the problem.
But he had been patient until he found a tiny crack in the wall I built around myself, just a crack but it was wide enough for him to begin to pry me open. And now I was here, hiking with him, alone, on a date.
Clay’s tanned calves flexed into diamonds as he walked. I sighed internally. He even had great calves. My eyes continued to travel up, entranced as his muscles flexed and coiled with latent power. Suddenly I found myself staring at his butt, firm and rounded in his dark maroon knee-length shorts. I sighed again. That was one hell of an ass. Perhaps the most amazing ass in the world. Not that I had ever spent much time dissecting the characteristics of a great ass. But I just knew instinctively this was a good one. I knew because every time I stared at it I got this urge to grab it. My cheeks heated. Lord help me. What was I thinking? I wasn’t like this. I better look away before I…
...tripped. Dammit. My arms flew out in the air as my toe caught on a root or a rock or something. I managed to catch myself before I fell into the dirt.
“You alright?” Clay stopped and turned.
“Fine.” I straightened up, trying to pretend that my ogling him had not been the cause of my near fall, my eyes darting everywhere except at him. “I just tripped.”
“I know it’s hard but try not to be so distracted walking behind me.”
My mouth dropped open and my eyes darted involuntarily to him. He grinned at me, a twinkle in his eye.
I lowered my face, letting my long auburn hair hide my hot cheeks. Or, at least I hope it hid them. I could never seem to hide anything from Clay. “Just turn around,” I demanded, “keep walking.”
“God, I love it when you get bossy.”
“Clay!”
“I love it when you say my name.”
I fought the rising flush. Damn him. He enjoyed making me blush. He almost made a game of it. But that’s all it was. Just a game to him. A man like Clay couldn’t possibly be seriously interested in a girl like me in that way. Right? “Just…just,” I spluttered, “just shut up and keep going.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“How did you find out about this spot, anyway?” I asked as we started off again.
“I grew up in the area. I used to come out here as a boy with my father.”
We hiked in silence, deeper and deeper into the forest, the air thick of the smell of eucalyptus. Friendly bugs flitting about, flashes of ruby and vibrant blue. The undergrowth, skinny ferns and thick velvet bushes, shook with the scatter of small rodents and lizards, scurrying away from our footfalls.
Finally we came out to the jagged, rocky edge of a small lake, a clear jewel amongst the surrounding forest. I stopped and wiped away the sweat that had mixed with the sunscreen on my forehead and was beginning to sting my eyes. I squinted across the lake at a flash of sunlight glinting off something…glinting off Salem’s long red hair.
“Watch me. Watch me,” she screamed, her girlish voice bouncing off the insides of the trees that lined a different lake, a secret magical pool we had discovered in the nearby forest the summer of our thirteenth birthday. She stood dressed in nothing but her white cotton underwear on the tip of a large rock that jutted out over the water, budding prepubescent breasts, her skinny legs like pale stalks.
“Be careful,” I called out as I sat, fully dressed, in the shade of the trees, far enough from the bank that there was no chance I’d fall in.
She took a short run and leapt off the edge of the rock, flipping over in the air. My heart jammed into my throat as she arced over, then hit the water with a crash and disappeared. Droplets landed all across my skin and my body broke out in a chill. Salem had always been the adventurous one.
I held my breath, as I always did when she was underwater. Habit.
As the seconds ticked over I began to feel a growing pressure in my chest.
Where was Salem? Why hadn’t she come up yet?
The skin of the lake remained unbroken, ripples stretching out to the edges, the only proof she had ever gone in the water. My voice broke through like a gasp around her name as I expelled the stale air in my lungs. She hit her head at the bottom. Oh God. She had hit her head and now she was going to drown. I told her it was dangerous but she never listened to me.
I crawled over to the edge of the lake so there was no chance that I would fall in too, my fingers scratching against the stone, scuffing my knees as my shorts rode up. I leaned over the rock, holding my breath again, imagining her lying like a pale dead fish along the rocks on the bottom.
Instead I saw her face peering back at me through the water. She reached out for me as I reached out for her. Our hands grabbed each other and I tugged backwards, falling on my butt. She broke through the water’s surface and pulled herself up to sit on a rock on the edge of the lake, droplets shaking off her long hair turned the dark colour of old blood from the water, laughter falling from her lips.
I glared at her, teetering for a second between fury and relief that she was alright. Relief won out. I lunged at her, wrapping my arms around her. “Salem,” her name lodged in my throat, “you scared me. I thought…I thought…”
“I’m fine, silly.”
“But you were under for ages. And I thought you’d−”
She shushed into my hair. I gripped her tighter, not caring that my clothes were soaking up water from her wet body. “You know I’d never, ever leave you.”
She had lied.
But then again, so had I.
Clay dropped the small pack from his shoulder, jolting me back to the present.
I glanced back over to the rock where Salem had been standing. But Salem wasn’t there. I wasn’t wet from her body. My arms were empty. It had been a memory playing out before my eyes. Just a memory. Not real.
“Last one in is a rotten egg.” Clay pulled his shirt off over his head and dropped it onto his pack without a hint of self-consciousness to his graceful motion. For a second I was struck dumb. I don’t think I had ever been this close to a shirtless man before, firm planes of his chest, perfect six-pack, thick forearms, all covered in smooth golden skin so different from my milky skin. I wished my skin took the sun like his did. His china-blue eyes twinkled with mischief under thick, heavy brows and the shock of dark hair that fell over his forehead and often caught between his lashes.
Last one in is a rotten egg. I looked down into the lake. Salem’s pale figure, her hair like seaweed, lay prone along the bottom. I gasped, stepping back from the edge, and squeezed my eyes shut. Salem isn’t there, Aria. She isn’t real. I forced my eyes open and looked again. Sure enough the bottom of the lake was empty.
“You okay?”
I jolted at Clay’s voice, hoping he hadn’t noticed my strange behaviour. This is why you don’t date. “I, er…didn’t bring anything to swim in.”
One side of his mouth lifted up. “So don’t wear anything.”
I turned my head to hide the heat in my cheeks. “I’m not going in without clothes on.”
“Why not?”
I glanced over and caught him sliding off his shorts, revealing slim hips and thighs, legs in a pair of dark grey boy leg briefs, a large bulge in his−
Oh. My. God.
I turned my head again, this time my face igniting into twin flames.
Thankfully he didn’t seem to notice my embarrassment. Or perhaps he just chose not to point it out. “So go in with clothes on. It’s warm enough that they’ll dry.”
I shook my head. “I mean, I’m not going in. At all.”
“Are you serious?”
I nodded, still staring at the glassy lake surface, glinting at me like broken glass. Who knew what lay beneath the surface? What dark things lay waiting? People died in lakes.
I didn’t see Clay coming towards me until he grabbed me. For a brief second I felt a lashing of fear through my body as a very different pair of arms grabbed me. I gasped and this unwanted presence faded, leaving behind Clay’s strong and warm body curled around me, trapping me in his arms, but making me feel safe. I became aware of the strength in his forearms and his arms, the way that he used them to keep me against him and a very different emotion coursed through me, something hot and electric. I fought a shudder.
I looked right, his face sitting just over my shoulder. There was a wicked glint in his eyes as they held my stare for one moment, then he looked out. I followed his gaze and found the water.