Hikers - The Collection (Complete Box Set of 5 Books)

by Lauren Algeo

  ‘Let’s go for a nice drive and you can tell me all about these hikers.’ Daniel’s tone was amiable now and Brewer saw Ellen nod behind the wheel. Why shouldn’t she go for a drive with this persuasive boy?

  They’d talked about Karen in the past but Brewer had never really considered how his first wife could have such a deep-rooted effect on his second one. Did every woman who fell in love with a widower feel like that at some stage? Inferior to a first love who was no longer in the world?

  ‘Fight him off.’ Brewer barely noticed that he was muttering under his breath as he ran towards the car. His fist gripped the syringe so tightly he was worried it would break. He was clutching the only chance they had of killing Daniel and he had to save Ellen. ‘Come on, you’re stronger than this.’

  The car began to crawl slowly forward as Daniel settled in the passenger seat and manipulated Ellen’s limbs. Brewer knew how hard she would be fighting against him but he didn’t know if it would be enough. If the boy got his claws into Lucy’s memory too then it would be game over.

  The passenger door closed as the car turned in a wide circle. This was his last chance. Brewer pushed his body as hard as he could and stretched his hands towards the rolling car. His fingertips closed around the door handle of the back seat and he yanked it outwards.

  The car was picking up speed and he ran alongside it with his arm braced on the door. It was now or never. He launched himself clumsily onto the back seat and the door slammed shut behind him a fraction of a second later. He grabbed a handful of Daniel’s hair and pulled his head back between the seats, exposing the vulnerable skin of his neck.

  The boy attacked his mind again but Brewer was too focussed on the task at hand to waste valuable energy blocking him. He plunged the needle into Daniel’s throat and injected the full dose of insulin. Daniel howled and gurgled as the empty syringe hung from his neck.

  ‘Ellen?’ Brewer rasped. His chest rose and fell rapidly with his laboured breathing. There was a painful stitch in his side and every part of his body hurt from the exertion.

  Ellen didn’t respond. Her hands were still tightly gripped on the steering wheel and the car was bumping along next to the cliff edge. He reached out to shake her shoulder and Daniel’s small hand clamped down on his wrist.

  ‘She’s mine,’ he hissed over his shoulder, his black eyes flashing angrily.

  ‘Not for long.’ Brewer lashed out with his fist and struck the boy hard on the cheekbone. The insulin had been injected straight into his bloodstream and would kick in any minute. They just had to keep him at bay until then.

  Daniel’s head rocked back briefly with the impact of his knuckles but his gaze never faltered. ‘What did you do to me?’ he demanded.

  ‘Exactly what I did to your kin,’ Brewer spat. ‘You’ll be dead within minutes.’

  Daniel laughed out loud – a wild, high-pitched sound that sent icy fingers of fear trailing down Brewer’s spine. ‘So will you.’

  The boy reached out and stroked Ellen’s cheek. ‘Left.’

  Left towards the sheer drop.

  ‘No.’ The word was quiet on her lips but full of determination.

  Brewer’s heart soared – she was taking back control as his hold over her waned. The car slowed as Ellen’s foot inched its way across to the brake. A fresh idea sprang to the front of his mind and he dove forward between the seats to wrap Daniel’s seat belt around his small body. They could strap him in and aim the car at the cliff edge before leaping out to safety. The combination of the insulin and fall would finish him off.

  ‘Insulin?’ Daniel plucked the word from his top-line thoughts. ‘What would insulin do? Don’t you know I’m invincible?’

  Brewer projected the image of the Grand lying motionless on the floor of his house to Daniel. ‘Hikers aren’t invincible.’

  Daniel seized at the memory and attempted to dig for more.

  That’s it, Brewer urged underneath, in a deep part of his mind. The more the boy busied himself with the past, the more chance they had of escaping. The car was moving too fast for him to jump out and try to get to Ellen’s door to free her too but she was beginning to slow it down as she wiggled herself out of Daniel’s mental grasp. The insulin would soon overwhelm him.

  Daniel retreated from his mind suddenly and Brewer’s breath caught in alarm. What was the boy doing?

  ‘I’m not as foolish as you think,’ Daniel snorted. ‘Distraction won’t keep me from destroying you.’

  He snapped his gaze back to Ellen. ‘Lucy took a little tumble just like this one, didn’t she?’

  Ellen sucked in a gasp through her clenched teeth. ‘Leave her alone,’ she whispered. ‘Scott, stop him!’

  Brewer was helpless in the backseat. He’d restrained Daniel and injected him with more than enough insulin to kill him only the boy wasn’t succumbing to it yet. Oh god, what if he’d evolved enough to be immune to it? Brewer had only tried insulin on the Master’s descendants, what if the ones from the Grand’s line were different? He wished he still had the second syringe to inflict a double dose.

  The engine roared as Daniel manoeuvred Ellen’s foot onto the accelerator again.

  ‘No!’ she squeaked but her hands inched the wheel to the left as Daniel came forward with a vengeance.

  ‘Block him out!’ Brewer yelled at her.

  ‘I… can’t.’ She could barely whisper the words. Tears of effort slipped from the corners of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She was mentally exhausted and he was too strong.

  The car started to veer left, on a path towards the edge of the cliffs. Brewer scrabbled around on the backseat for anything he could use as a weapon. There were only newspapers and Daniel’s computer tablet – nothing of use. He picked up the tablet regardless and began to hit Daniel on the side of the head, through the gap in the seats.

  ‘Let her go!’ he shouted.

  Daniel’s two, perfectly-healed arms came up to protect his head and for a split second, Brewer thought he was moaning in pain, then he registered that the sound was actually low chuckling. The boy was enjoying himself, feeding off their heightened emotions.

  Brewer glanced through the windscreen and saw the sea stretching beyond the cliffs. The car was on track to drive them straight over the edge.

  ‘Go.’

  He wasn’t sure if Ellen had spoken the word out loud or if he’d somehow heard it inside his mind.

  ‘Never.’ He shook his head vigorously. He would never leave her, no matter what the fate.

  Daniel’s soft laughter turned into a choking sound and his guard dropped. Brewer’s eyes desperately searched the side of his face. Was the insulin finally taking effect? Daniel’s face was pale and his breathing seemed more laboured. Brewer couldn’t feel him anywhere inside his mind, although most of his focus had been on Ellen.

  Her body had been rigid behind the wheel but suddenly her shoulders slumped downwards. The car was perilously close to the edge – he could see the jagged rocks below and the slope as the ground dropped away sharply.

  With a scream of terror, Ellen slammed her feet onto the brake. She spun the wheel as the car squealed in protest – anything to try and change their sliding trajectory to the edge.

  The momentum threw Brewer forwards and he clung onto the front seats as the car skidded on the uneven ground. Was the braking distance enough? Would they stop short of the drop?

  For a moment, he thought they would. That fate was on their side and they would be able to scramble free before the car pitched down. The car bumped and bounced then paused for an agonisingly long second. The front two wheels dipped and he saw the sea rise to meet them through the windscreen. Ellen screamed again as the car rocked up and down, balancing itself on the ledge. Brewer threw himself backwards in an attempt to redistribute the weight but the car kept on tipping.

  Daniel was collapsed in the passenger seat, whimpering quietly as the insulin ravaged his body. He was of no further threat to anyone yet it no longer mattered. Brewer
knew the laws of physics weren’t on their side – the weight was loaded in the front of the car.

  He reached between the seats silently and gripped Ellen’s hand as the bonnet dropped down again. She twisted to face him with bulging eyes and another scream poised on her lips but as soon as their gaze locked, calmness flooded her face.

  This time the creaking car hadn’t been flung back up with the rocking momentum. It carried on dipping lower, with groans of protest, and rocks crumbled away from beneath it. Brewer knew they weren’t going to make it out before gravity plunged them to the sea.

  ‘I love you,’ he whispered hoarsely to Ellen. He shifted fractionally to kiss her tenderly on the lips.

  ‘I love you too,’ she breathed.

  Deep down, neither of them had really expected to make it out of this alive but at least they were together. They held onto each other tightly between the seats as the car plummeted down the cliff face. Their eyes fixed on each other and their minds on thoughts of loved ones.

  Brewer ignored the flipping sensation in his stomach and the churning of the sea below, which thankfully Ellen couldn’t see. Memories of a happier past bubbled to the surface. He saw his family and friends, and heard Marcus’s deep laugh. Karen’s beautiful face danced before his eyes with the curve of a smile on her lips. His mind flitted to Georgie and the sacrifice she had made for him. To Mitch and his young family.

  Then there was only Ellen. Tears were streaming down her cheeks and he knew Lucy would be prominent in her thoughts yet she looked serene. He squeezed her warm hands and breathed in the scent of her sweet perfume. He let her face fill every part of his mind until there was nothing else.

  Death was only a door to the rest of their lives.

  Epilogue

  ‘Quick, get inside,’ Marcus said gruffly.

  Ella ducked under his arm and into the silent house. ‘Wow, it’s a mess!’ she exclaimed, looking around the trashed kitchen.

  There were broken plates and discarded food packets. Every cupboard door was ajar and letters had been ripped open on the counter. Marcus closed the back door behind him.

  ‘The police had a field day,’ he muttered.

  ‘Do you think anyone will come back?’ Ella asked.

  ‘No, they’ve finished with the place.’ Marcus surveyed the kitchen then walked through to the dining room.

  ‘Wait in here while I get a few bits from upstairs,’ he told his daughter. ‘Don’t go near any of the living room windows in case they see you.’

  There had been a few reporters camped out in the front garden, waiting for any more leads on the story. They were busy interviewing neighbours and passers by, looking for new angles.

  Ella sat down obediently at the dining room table while Marcus went upstairs. She’d been curious to come to Scott and Ellen’s house again but now she was here, she felt on edge. She knew the stories in the media weren’t reflective of the caring couple she’d known, although it was hard not to read them. What if they had secret lives hidden in this house?

  Her eyes darted around the small room. There were scraps of paper everywhere and the drawers of the unit in the corner had been emptied out on the table. It was mostly just cutlery and random objects, like batteries and Christmas candles. The police would have taken anything they deemed important into evidence.

  Ella heard creaking upstairs as her dad moved across the old floorboards. He’d been reluctant to let her come with him but her mum hadn’t been able to face it, and he’d needed someone to help keep look out while they’d parked down the road and snuck round to the back of the house. They had a spare key to the back door for emergencies so it technically wasn’t breaking in but her dad wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near the house. He’d been told he was too emotionally conflicted to be involved in the case.

  Ella had heard her parents talking about it in hushed voices last night when they thought she was in her room. She’d sat on the stairs and listened to them. Her mum had been crying softly.

  ‘It’s not fair,’ she’d sobbed. ‘They would never have done what they’re saying.’

  Her dad had tried to comfort her as best he could.

  Ella had been watching the news and reading the websites – some more sensationalist than others. It had been three days since the incident the whole country was talking about. According to reports, and a statement from a member of the security team, Scott and Ellen had killed the Prime Minister’s son.

  They’d driven him over the edge of a cliff while on a geography field trip. The car had been recovered from the sea but no bodies had been found yet. The impact with the water had smashed several of the car windows and there was speculation that the bodies had drifted out with the strong current. There were boats, divers and helicopters out searching for them.

  Ella had seen a press conference last night with the PM and his wife. They’d both been visibly distraught and begged for information from the public. They were still clinging to the hope that their son was alive. That he’d somehow managed to survive the fall and swim to safety. Ella knew that her parents were holding on to that same false hope about Scott and Ellen; they had been their closest friends.

  None of the story made sense to Ella. If, for some unknown reason, they were going to murder the boy, there would have been no need to kill themselves. There was no explanation for why they were both in the car too.

  The interviews with the security man, Richard Addington, had been confusing as well. He said that everything had been fine on the drive down and while they’d eaten lunch in a café, but then Scott had gone crazy and started attacking Ellen and Daniel on the cliff top. Addington claimed that he’d driven the car over to help them and Scott had injected him with a mystery substance to knock him out. His testimony was hazy after that, as he’d clung on to consciousness. He told reporters that he thought he remembered seeing Scott forcing Ellen and Daniel into the car then climbing into the back seat – which meant that Ellen had then driven them over the cliff edge.

  Ella could see no logic behind that. There had never been any hint of an abusive relationship between Scott and Ellen, although that didn’t mean there wasn’t one.

  Addington had blacked out then so he had nothing else to offer but speculation, which the reporters had lapped up. He said that Scott had been wild when he’d attacked them so maybe he had been on drugs or something. It had yet to be revealed what he’d been injected with himself.

  The media had jumped on the story. They claimed that Scott had lost his mind and turned to drugs after the death of his first wife. That he’d been fired from the police force. That he’d manipulated Ellen to move to England with him and lie about their relationship. Some stories said that he’d acted alone and killed her and Daniel but others suggested that they’d worked together to kill the boy – like some modern day Brady and Hindley.

  It didn’t help that they hadn’t told anyone at their new jobs that they were married. They hadn’t even told her mum and dad that Ellen was working for the PM too. The police thought it was pre-meditated – that they’d both taken jobs at Downing Street to get close to the Connors family, and they’d been planning to murder the boy all along.

  That was absurd to Ella. Scott and Ellen had just been a normal couple to her. They had come to dinners and barbecues at her house, and bought her birthday and Christmas presents. They’d both been kind and quiet and seemed to genuinely love each other – nothing like the monsters the media were making them out to be.

  Ella tapped her manicured fingernails on the dining table. She’d heard her dad mention to her mum that Scott had had some research boards in the house and he hoped that the police wouldn’t get the wrong idea about them. He’d insisted to her mum that they were just for information about the Connors family so he could do his job well – there was nothing sinister behind it. Ella couldn’t see any research boards in the room so she presumed the police had taken them as evidence. There were traces of forensic powder left on the table where they’d dusted fo
r prints. It wasn’t technically a murder investigation yet, not until the bodies were found.

  ‘I’m going to tidy up the bedrooms,’ her dad called from the top of the stairs. ‘Can you busy yourself cleaning down there for a bit?’

  ‘Will do,’ Ella shouted back yet she remained sitting at the table for a moment.

  Her dad’s voice had sounded nasally and she could tell that he’d been crying. He had no idea what had happened to his best friend. Her mum had wanted to get some of their valuable possessions in case vandals broke into the house after the police were done with it. She’d asked for photographs of the four of them and some of Ellen’s jewellery and pictures of her daughter, Lucy. Scott still had his first wife’s wedding ring too. She’d died when Ella was a baby but apparently she’d been lovely.

  Her mum hadn’t been up to coming to the house herself, she didn’t want to see it in that state. Ella knew that she wanted the memories and valuables as a comfort to herself, as well as holding on to them for when Scott and Ellen returned. She’d heard her mum say that she was still waiting for them to come back so they could give a reasonable explanation for the events that had unfolded. Ella hoped that was true. That there was some logical reason for all of this. She didn’t know what else to believe.

  She shifted forward to get to her feet and her eyes landed on something on the floor. It was barely visible – a corner of a black notebook poking out from underneath the dining room unit. She probably wouldn’t have noticed it if she’d been standing up.

  She walked over to the unit and dropped to her knees to retrieve it. The notepad was bound in well-worn leather and there were dark stains on the cover. The police must have dropped it, or missed it during their search.

  She rifled through the pages and saw they were filled with handwriting… Scott’s handwriting, judging by the Christmas cards he signed every year. Various words jumped out from the pages – Karen, pain, hikers – and she registered that there were numerous dates throughout. This was some sort of diary or journal.