‘Shut up!’ snapped Faith, moving quickly towards him.
Ross came to the bottom of the steps. He took hold of her arms and looked into her eyes. She was crying now too.
‘You know I love you,’ he said quietly. ‘Don’t you? I really love you, Fay. But I never signed up for any of this.’
‘Oh yeah?’ said Faith viciously through her tears. ‘You were just as into this idea as me. Don’t pretend you weren’t now, just because things have got a bit tricky.’
‘A bit tricky?’ yelled Ross, his voice booming. ‘Is that what you call this mess? What about her?’ He pointed wildly at Tara. ‘You’ve got to let her go! It’s all gone too far, sweetheart, can’t you see?’
‘That’s why we have to follow through!’ shouted Faith. ‘It’ll all be for nothing otherwise! We need to send another picture to Adam! And we don’t even have to hurt Mel this time, don’t you see?’ She cocked her head at Tara.
Tara shuddered.
Ross stared down at Faith, his expression a mixture of love and disgust.
‘No, baby. This ends now. I can’t be part of this any more.’ He turned to go back up the stairs, his broad shoulders slumped. Faith leapt after him.
‘No, you can’t! You’ll ruin it all!’ she screamed. Her arms went around Ross at a strange angle as though she was giving him an awkward hug.
Ross gasped and looked down at the blood flowering across the bottom of his white T-shirt.
‘Fay?’ he whispered, then toppled, crumpling forwards down the stairs. He landed heavily in a foetal position at the bottom.
Tara was hyperventilating. Panic squeezed her airways. Her eyes kept filling with the awful scene in front of her.
Faith stared down at Ross. Her mouth hung slackly open. She made no sound at first, then a high-pitched keening split the air. Faith sank to her knees in front of Ross’s prone body.
‘I didn’t mean it, babes!’ she wailed, gulping between each word. ‘I just wanted everyone to stop going on at me! Wake up! Wake up!’ She pounded him with her small fists. His eyes were half open and gurgling sounds came from somewhere deep in his throat. Faith suddenly jumped back and ran back up the stairs, her thin legs like pistons. The door slammed and Tara heard the key turn in the lock again.
She shuffled with painstaking slowness to Ross, whose eyes were open now, staring and shocked. His left hand cupped his lower belly, where the blood was quickly spreading in a dark stain.
‘What should I do?’ she said. ‘I don’t know how to help you!’
She desperately tried to drag details from her brain about what to do when someone was bleeding. The only thing she could think of was to apply pressure. Blood was pooling at a frightening rate, forming a dark, sticky puddle on the floor. Tara managed to drag the duvet over to Ross and tried to shove it under his back. He groaned in agony.
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry!’ she squeaked. He was so heavy. She couldn’t get her hands underneath. He did a barely perceptible rolling motion then and it was enough for her to push the corner of the duvet underneath him. Pulling it around the other side, she roughly wrapped the corners together, not tightly, but just so the stain on Ross’s abdomen was covered by the bunched up duvet. It was the best she could do.
Ross was trying to say something.
‘What?’ She put her ear to his open lips. A bubble of blood appeared and then popped.
‘Ocket . . .’
‘What do you mean?’ she begged. ‘What are you trying to say?’
‘Ocket . . .’ Then his eyes closed and his face loosened. Tara put her cheek near his mouth. But there was no warmth there at all.
Oh my God.
Was he dead?
Terror kept surging over her in waves, making it hard to think straight, and then she realised what he had been saying.
Pocket . . .
Twisting awkwardly, she managed to slide one of her bound hands into the narrow pocket of his jeans. There was nothing there but some change. She tried the other one. Nothing. Then she reached into his back pocket and found some keys. There was a small penknife attachment there. Her heart leapt with hope.
Oh, thank you, thank you . . .
Her bound hands were shaking so violently that she dropped the keyring twice before she managed to pull out the small knife. Then she accidentally stabbed her wrist, drawing blood. But the pain meant nothing. She’d heard about soldiers running on broken legs in the heat of battle. When your life was in danger, cuts, bruises and broken bones didn’t matter any more. She knew that now and wished passionately that it was still just a dry fact in a book.
It felt like she was awkwardly sawing at the plastic for hours. Finally, eventually, it snapped. She whimpered with relief. Cutting the ties on her ankles was easy after that and, once done, she got up and bounced on the spot for a minute to get her circulation going again. She shook her fingers as the feeling began to flood back in painful pins and needles.
Melodie hadn’t spoken or moved throughout all this. She lay face down on her folded arms, her elbows jutting out to the sides. She was utterly still and quiet, almost as though she wasn’t breathing. Tara looked away. From now on, it was every girl for herself. Melodie had showed her that.
Tara hurried up the stairs as fast as she could, almost dropping the keys on the way. There were only three on there and she fumbled with each one, putting it into the keyhole and trying to make the tiny mechanisms inside shift and comply by will alone. But none of the keys fitted the lock. Slapping the wood in fury, she began to moan. The damp, cold walls of the shelter seemed to pulse and close in around her.
Come on, she thought. Calm down. You have to think . . .
Tara had never tried to pick a door lock and didn’t even know if it was possible in real life. She knelt down on the top step and peered at the keyhole. She could see light, so Faith had obviously taken the key with her. Tara pushed the knife attachment into the gap and tried to find a space to lever it aside. But it was too stiff. The small knife just jabbed at the wood around the lock, uselessly.
She kept trying for several minutes until tears of frustration were running down her face. It was hopeless. They were trapped in here.
Melodie still lay on her front, apparently in some kind of shock. Tara remembered she had only just heard Will was dead. In normal life she would have felt compassion for the other girl, but normal life seemed like something that was too far in the past to remember.
‘Is there any other way out of here at all?’ she said harshly.
Melodie shook her head, barely perceptibly. She muttered something too quiet for Tara to hear.
‘What?’
‘I hate her,’ said Melodie in a trembling voice. ‘I hate her!’ She burst into more noisy tears.
Tara tried to tune her out. She was thinking about people on telly who picked locks. Was it really possible? It was worth another try. She’d done it with the locker, and this building was pretty old.
She inserted the knife directly into the keyhole and pressed it sideways as far as she could get it to go. The handle dug painfully into her hand but she pressed harder and wiggled it gently. Nothing happened. This wasn’t working. But she had to keep trying . . .
Please, please open . . .
CLICK.
CHAPTER 18
BREATHE
Tara sucked in her breath as the door gently swung wide. She was looking at the garden. It was twilight and a low mist was hanging over the weedy mass of the lawn. The cool fresh air on her face was delicious. The greenery of the garden, tangled and overgrown as it was, was more beautiful than anything Tara had ever seen.
It was freedom.
Almost.
Melodie had turned her head to the side and was watching now through slitted eyes in a puffy, tear-streaked face.
‘C’mon,’ said Tara quietly. ‘We have to get out of here now.’
Melodie scrambled to her feet fast, surprising Tara. She raced up the stairs.
Tara went first, stepping out
onto the damp grass. The weeping willow trailed over the raised hump of the shelter and she could understand now why it hadn’t been visible before. Drips of water from the long green fronds plopped onto her head but she didn’t mind because she was outside.
‘Can we get to the road through the garden?’ she whispered.
Melodie shook her head hard.
Tara walked to the side of the shelter towards the riverbank. A long fence ran across the length of the garden. It was curled with barbed wire and tangled with viciously thorned blackberry bushes between the garden and the water. She would be cut to pieces if she tried to climb over it.
She took a deep, quivery breath as she looked around.
The French windows were open a little into the kitchen, and no lights were on inside.
They would have to go through the house.
Tara and Melodie exchanged looks. Tara tipped her head at the doors and Melodie nodded in silent understanding.
Soundlessly, the two girls moved quickly down the garden. It was torture not to run at full pelt but Tara forced herself to be careful, watching out for anything in the long grass that could trip her up or make a noise.
When they reached the doors, Tara peered into the gloomy kitchen. Some kind of mournful piano music was playing quietly in another room. Slipping inside the kitchen, her heartbeat ratcheted up, so loud she was sure it echoed in the otherwise silent space. The fridge suddenly hummed and shuddered, sending shock hurtling up Tara’s spine.
‘Come on,’ she mouthed at Melodie and the other girl looked back at her with swollen eyes. Tara could hear her frightened breaths, in and out, like old-fashioned bellows.
Tara took a step forwards.
Her head throbbed with a pounding hum and her mouth was dry and woolly. She longed to be able to walk to the tap and pour herself a glass of cold water but instead forced herself to take careful, slow steps forward. Melodie followed closely behind.
They passed an open door to the left and Tara glanced in, flinching. Faith was lying on a red velvet sofa. A white throw shot with gold was hanging off and pooling on the floor. Her arm hung down to the ground, her small fingers curled elegantly inwards. Faith was so still, Tara wondered hopefully if she was dead. Then a loud snore emanated from the doll-like figure and she muttered something unintelligible. Tara and Melodie froze. But Faith became still once again.
Tara breathed out slowly and her limbs weakened with relief. Thank God . . .
And then the tinny sound of dance music exploded through the still air, shockingly loud. Faith’s mobile phone was on a glass coffee table. It was moving slightly as though dancing to the music.
Faith sat straight up and stared directly at Tara with a confused expression.
Melodie pushed past her, strong suddenly, as she got to the front door. She wrenched it open and was out but then Faith seemed to come from nowhere, slamming the door shut before Tara could get out too. The phone was still ringing and then it stopped abruptly. The landline began to ring. Tara expected to hear Melodie battering on the door on the other side but the only sound was her own breathing and the phone, ringing over and over again.
Melodie had gone. She had left Tara here alone.
‘You silly little bitch,’ said Faith, her voice surprisingly clear. If she had been drunk before, she was sober now. ‘You made it all go wrong, coming here,’ she continued in a hiss. ‘Ross only panicked because of you.’ Her eyes filled with tears.
Tara had never hit anyone properly in her life but now she swung her fist in an instinctive punch. Faith was too quick though and ducked. Tara hit the door instead and pain blasted through her knuckles.
‘What do you want from me?’ she sobbed. ‘Let me go! It’s all over now. Don’t you know that they’re coming to get you?’
‘Shut up!’ screamed Faith. ‘Shut up, shut up!’ Her mouth was twisted with rage and her lips stained with red wine.
And then Faith moved so fast that Tara didn’t even have time to blink. She was falling backwards onto the wooden floor of the hall and something was over her face, taking her breath away. Something white and soft. A pillow. Faith was trying to smother her with a pillow.
Tara shoved at the weight on top of her, fighting with every last bit of her strength but she was tired and sore and dizzy and anyway, Faith was gripping like a limpet, stronger than she should be for her size. Tara’s head thrashed from side to side, trying to clear a space for air, desperately trying to pummel the woman on top of her. But Faith was sitting astride her chest and all Tara could do was flap and try to make contact with the woman’s back. It wasn’t making any difference. She couldn’t get free. Faith was small but possessed with the strength of a person who no longer had anything to lose. She’d killed two people already. What difference would another make?
This realisation squeezed the last remaining air from Tara’s lungs. Her chest cramped and ached and lights began to explode inside her mind. She thought about Leo and the lido. She remembered the cool blue world underwater and wished she’d never, ever wasted air.
She was going to die here. She’d never see her family again.
Mum, Dad, Beck . . . Sammie . . .
Play dead.
She didn’t know where the words came from. But a split second later she forced herself to go limp, her feet flopping to the sides.
It was just enough to make Faith slacken her grip a little. Pulling the last trickle of strength from somewhere deep inside, Tara twisted sideways, gulping air into her screaming lungs and slamming Faith against the wall of the hallway.
The front door opened with a crash then and people flooded the hallway. Everyone was shouting and bodies seemed to fill the space. Somewhere in the background a dog was barking insistently. Strong arms were lifting her up and there was a crackle of static and noise that hurt her head.
Someone shouted ‘Tara!’ and someone else yelled, ‘Get away from her, son! She might be injured!’
Tara couldn’t get her eyes to focus properly. Everything was blurred and distorted.
‘Are you all right? Tara, are you all right? Oh God . . .’
Leo?
Her vision began to return. Leo was close, looking into her face. He was crying. He touched her cheeks and hair, delicately, checking her.
Tara’s chest hurt so much. Had to breathe. In and out.
‘It’s okay! You’re okay! You’re okay!’ Leo was saying the words over and over again.
Tara closed her eyes.
And let herself breathe.
EPILOGUE
The first day passed in a haze of sleep and painkillers.
Tara was kept in hospital for five days in total. She had concussion, bruised ribs, severe bruising to her knuckles and was mildly dehydrated. Mum, Dad and Beck stayed with her on rotation and Mum even slept on a camp bed next to her for the first two nights.
Ross survived the stab wound, which turned out to be ‘relatively superficial’ according to a policeman whose name Tara kept forgetting. As soon as she’d been able to sit up and speak, he and a colleague had made her go over what had happened in so much detail, she’d have screamed if she only had the energy. Faith was in custody, charged with murder and GBH. Tara told the police as much as she could, but she left out the pictures in her mind. They didn’t need to know that detail. Anyway, the precise order of events was still a muddle to Tara. She knew that distraught Melodie had run to the next-door neighbour who’d called the police. But Leo was there too. He’d gone to see Faith and found Sammie. He must have guessed that Tara was inside the house.
She still didn’t know exactly what had happened because Leo didn’t come to the hospital. She kept looking, hopefully, at the doors to the ward when visiting hours began.
But still he didn’t come. A heavy sadness filled the pit of her stomach every time a person appeared that wasn’t him. She tried to concentrate on her few good memories, shuffling the pack in an attempt to stop the horrible pictures that constantly sneaked into her mind.
> That wine bottle coming towards her.
Waking up in the bomb shelter and seeing Faith sitting there, so cold and cruel.
And the pillow over her face as her last breaths ebbed away . . .
Mum said there would be counselling for her as soon as she left the hospital, but all she wanted really was to see Leo.
But maybe what they’d had was too fragile to survive this . . .
She did have one surprising visitor on the fourth day.
It was late afternoon. Mum was thoroughly getting on her nerves. When the pictures of Faith first came into her dreams and Tara jerked awake, crying, she was grateful for the presence at the side of the bed. But after a couple of days, the events in that house were starting to take on a hazy quality and details were blurring at the edges. And Tara was grateful for that. People kept saying she was going to need counselling and maybe she would, later. But now she was getting itchy for her own things. For home. Plus, Mum kept looking at Tara as though trying to memorise every inch of her face. Her eyes filled with tears on a frequent basis and she constantly blew her nose. It was becoming a little wearing.
So it was a relief when Beck turned up. He persuaded Mum he’d keep Tara company while Mum got some chores done at home.
He made himself comfortable in the chair next to Tara’s bed, rummaged in her box of chocolates and checked messages on his phone, evidently untroubled by any need to make conversation.
Tara gave a small grin at her oblivious big brother. He carried an air of the outside world with him that made her deeply envious and grateful at the same time.
The curtain around her bed was half closed on the side nearest the door. When it was yanked suddenly, Tara expected to see yet another nurse or doctor wanting to check her head wound or her blood pressure or the other million things they did on an almost hourly basis.
Hold Your Breath Page 16