by K. L. Jessop
Lost In The Darkness
K. L. Jessop
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Other books Available
About the Author
Lost In The Darkness
First Edition.
Copyright © 2020 K.L. Jessop.
All rights reserved.
No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form without written consent from the author. Except in the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a piece of fiction. Any names, characters, businesses, places or events are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, events or locations is purely coincidental.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you are reading this book and have not purchased it for your use only, then you should return it to your favorite book retailer and purchase your own copy.
Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
Cover Design by Najla Qamber
Cover Image by Lindee Robinson Photography.
Cover Models: Evan Cloyd and Katlin Blake.
Editing by Schmidt’s Author Services.
Formatting by Pink Elephant Designs
Just because life can be dark, doesn't mean happiness can never be found.
Prologue
Dexter
Age 14
I wake with a shiver, my eyes adjusting to the darkness of the night as uncertainty and fear chase my spine. I don’t like waking until sunrise, yet these past few nights, I’ve hardly slept at all.
It’s safer to not sleep.
Stretching out my legs that are stiff and sore from all the walking, my exposed skin graces the night air, causing goosebumps to spread over my body. My toes that poke out of my worn-out shoes are bloodied and compressed with dirt, my wet, dirty clothes a heavy layer on my skin.
The blanket and blue plastic sheet that covers our bodies is the only form of protection we have and the constant tapping of raindrops are doing nothing to comfort me.
I’m tired and hungry, and I know she is, too.
“Dexter,” she whispers, turning in towards me and gripping onto the tattered jumper that’s a map of holes and food stains.
“I’m here, Tessa.”
“I’m cold.” She cuddles into me like she’s always done, and I stroke her hair.
“Me too.”
“I want to go home.”
The ache in my stomach tightens with her words. Each time she says them it gets worse, but we can’t go back.
We are under the footbridge that leads to the park as it’s the best shelter I could find for us. River rats run the banks and the water—too dirty to drink—torments my thirst every day.
I look down at my sister, and the soft glow from the streetlight up ahead shining down on top of her head is enough for me to see the tear that slips over her little nose.
Just one more day.
I don’t know what will happen after that day, but it somehow gives me the courage to keep going, knowing it’s the right thing to do for us both, regardless of her tears.
“Home isn’t safe, Tessa. You know that.”
It’s been two weeks since I packed up what food and clothes I could find for us, grabbed Tessa by the hand and ran from the squalor that we call home. No one will look for us. I doubt Mum has even noticed we’ve gone because she’d hardly acknowledged the fact we were there to begin with.
There is no father for either of us.
There is no true caregiver because ours is always high.
There is no school because we stopped going.
No one.
All Tessa and I have are each other, and I’ve protected this little girl since the day she was born.
We have no friends. We have no family.
We have only each other and the cold streets of London.
“Tell me everything is going to be okay?” she whispers.
I’m about to answer when I notice a car up ahead creeping further down the carpark, stopping right before the bridge. My heart flutters in my throat, and everything seems to stop for a second. Two shadowy figures step out and ice travels down my back when they slowly head towards us. I look around trying to decide what to do as my stomach twists with dread.
“You and me against the world remember? Just like always,” I tell her in a whisper—the same words I tell her whenever she is scared. “But stay quiet and keep really still.”
“Why? What’s happening?” she replies, fear now in her voice.
“Shh.”
They stop a few feet away. One is on the phone, but I can’t hear what he’s saying because of the river.
Something doesn’t feel right and I don’t like it. It’s not the police. I know it isn’t. I swallow hard, my heart frantic in my chest. I want to run but know we can’t: Tessa is too weak.
“The last time you said that we had to run.”
They start walking again.
“Dexter,” she whispers, and the alarm in her voice hurts my heart. I cover my hand over her mouth to silence her and her eyes widen.
My body is now hot with panic.
Step by step they come.
My heart pounds so hard it makes me feel sick.
I want to go home, too.
I hold her tighter, digging my fingers into her shoulders to keep her from moving, praying they walk past us.
But everything happens so fast.
Before I can do anything, a torch blinds my eyes and her blood-curdling scream fills the air as she’s ripped away from me, leaving my body cold.
“No!” I shout, up on my feet.
Sheer pain hits my cheek from one man’s fist as the other man battles against Tessa’s fight for freedom. Another blow hits my shoulder, and I fall back hard against the bridge. Red hot pain trembles through my entire body, but the screams coming from my sister force me to get up.
I chase after them as they run back to the car, white spots blurring my vision from the hit.
I keep running.
Her screams.
Her cry.
“DEXTER! HELP ME.”
“TESSA!”
My legs burn as I try to fight a battle I know I’m never going to win, and her screams soon muffle as she’s bundled into the back of the car. My foot slips on the wet riverbank, sending me to my knees with a heavy thud. The pain in my head is piercing and my eyes blink to try and focus through the haze.
I can’t breathe.
My
body fails me, and I fall to the ground, the heavy rain on my back pressing me down to the ground even harder as I lose all strength.
I can’t move.
“Tess,” I cry.
The lights of the car begin to dim. Her scream is still so clear.
No.
Not my Tessa.
“TESSA!” I roar with every ounce of energy I have before everything goes black.
Chapter One
Twelve years later
Pepper
I take a seat in the hard, wooden chair of the coffee shop, wishing it is something far more comfortable as I’m going to be here for most of the morning. Opening my laptop, I load up the web page and begin my daily search for work. There had been a time when the stream of traffic outside and the constant bustle of the London streets would have been something I’d fall into the flow of daily, not even thinking twice about the chaos: the exhausting routine of an early morning commute to University and the dreaded rush hour at hometime that would leave my stomach growling, unable to wait to devour the baguette I’d got into the habit of buying each evening on the way home before a night of studies.
The city had always been a place that—even on the darkest of days and no matter how heavy the rain fell—I could call home. I used to loved the residence that made me who I am.
Only my life has done a complete one-eighty, and this past couple of years, I’ve slowly fallen into a different world that no twenty-two-year-old should be in. It’s changed from what I knew or wanted it to be, and the unpredictability it makes me feel constantly suppresses me, more and more each day that ticks by.
I used to be the girl who would breeze through life without a care in the world. I used to be the girl who didn’t need makeup because her smile was enough. I used to feel so much different from what I do now. Now, I’m in a bubble of uncertainty and loss, and it’s hard trying to crawl my way out of it.
I don’t want to be in it anymore.
Persie wouldn’t want me to be in it, but fuck it’s hard when you lose the one person in your life who makes sense—the only person I’d had a strong connection with and who’d made me Pepper Livewell.
It’s hard to try to be anything else when she’s not here to share this life with me.
For the sake of my parents, and my friends who think I’m on the mend, I continue to wear this fake smile and find a way to ‘breeze through life’ again when on the inside I’m screaming at the top of my lungs because I can’t breathe.
I need a new direction.
I need a new job to keep me focused.
I need a purpose to keep on living life as the clock ticks by. I need… something.
“Okay, Persie. What should I do with my life today?” I sigh as I log into the job site to see what is available. I’ve done countless searches over the past weeks, trying to get back out in the world and to nudge myself out of this slump I’m in, but my mind soon wanders back into the world I once loved.
Losing a loved one is the worst thing that can happen in anyone’s life: the raw, hollow ache it leaves you with is dark and tarnished. It leaves you cold, it leaves you wounded and it leaves you with questions you will forever ask but ones you will never get the answers to.
I’d experienced loss in my life before, and when my grandparents left this world, it was something I never thought I’d recover from, yet over time I somehow did. But when my twin sister was ripped away from me in an instant because of a careless driver on the wrong side of the road, it had torn me into thousands of pieces, and no matter how hard I try to put myself back together, it never works because half of who I am died with her that very day. The word ‘lost’ has never been more fitting: I lost my twin on the day of our birthday; it was and still is the worst kind of hell.
I’m not the puddle of depression that those close to me believe I am—not anymore anyway. I’m just… detached. I still have bad days. I still have nights where I cry myself to sleep, but what I can’t get my head around is that I’ve lost all connection, and I’m unsure how to correct it because my puzzle piece to life is no longer here. And that’s hard.
Scrolling the job page, I consider my options and mentally work out in my head if vacancies like domestics or factory workers that are on offer are viable by the time my little yellow scooter takes me across the city. After paying for petrol and congestion charges, I’ll be out of pocket, and the thought of taking the tube makes me nervous. Ideally, I need to find something within reasonable travel distance from my apartment and one that doesn’t have me relying on my parents for cash flow backups. They’ve done enough for me this past couple of years already. I need to start standing on my own two feet again.
Trouble is, where I once knew what I wanted for a career, now I’m unsure altogether.
Going back to university is an option, but continuing with journalism like I was studying doesn’t seem right anymore.
“Excuse me, miss?” A quiet voice brings me out of my thoughts. I look up from my laptop to find a waitress standing over my table with a tray in her hand carrying what I can only presume is a hot cup of coffee.
“Hi.” I smile, realising I’ve been here a while and not ordered. “Sorry, I’ve not looked at the menu yet to see what I want.”
“Oh no, don’t worry. That’s not why I’m here.” She looks down at the tray. “The gentlemen at the counter wanted to buy you a drink. If coffee is not to your liking then I can change it.”
I look past the blond girl and latch eyes onto the gentlemen at the counter: a good-looking, well-built man in uniform smiles at me with a nod. On instinct, I raise my hand to him then look back at the waitress and whisper in surprise, “The police officer?”
She smiles brightly. “Yes. Officer Emmet is a regular of ours. He often buys a customer a drink when he pops in.”
“Often?”
“Daily.” She beams. “Today’s your turn.”
I look back at the officer who is now holding his own take-out cup and laughing with the man behind the counter. Another officer stands behind him, listening to something on his radio. It’s not often someone buys a stranger a coffee, and coming from a police officer it somehow means that little bit more.
“Is coffee okay for you?” the waitress says, bringing me back to her.
“Oh, yes, thank you. That’s great. Please pass on my appreciation to the officer.”
I take the cup from her and she turns on her heels. The smell of black coffee fills my senses and warms my insides before it’s even passed my lips. Looking back at my laptop, I’m about to scroll through the second page when a deep voice interrupts me.
“Good morning.”
Looking up, the first things I see standing out from his black and white uniform are big, warm green-blue eyes—a combination of soft yet firm—telling me instantly that, although the person standing in front of me is a man of the law and probably won’t take any shit, at the same time there is no intimidation running off his presence whatsoever.
“May I?” He gestures to the vacant seat on the opposite side of the table.
As much as I would like my space, I’m hardly going to say no to an officer.
“Of course.”
Taking the seat, he turns his radio down that is clipped to the chest pocket of his uniform to give me his full attention, while I sit and observe how handsome he is: those eyes; a solid jawline that’s dusted with light day-scruff; the soft wave of his brown hair; and the very prominent Adam's apple in his throat all scream ‘attractive’ to another level. Uniform or not, this man sitting in front of me is something else.
“So, officer Emmet. To what do I owe the pleasure of your kindness?”
“You’re at the table.”
My brows draw together. “Sorry?”
“Whoever is at this table, I buy a drink for them—just my way of doing something good in the world.”
“The waitress said you do it often.”
“As often as I can. It started a few years back, and I’ve kinda carr
ied on doing it.”
“And here I was thinking I stood out to you somehow.” I smile, appreciating his generosity.
“In one way you have stood out.”
I arch a brow and can’t help the boldness that leaves my lips. “Are you flirting with me whilst on duty officer?”
If his beautiful features don’t do enough, his wide smile ticks the final box.
Emmet chuckles and holds his hands up innocently. “Not at all. You look like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
I sigh and lean back in my chair, annoyed that even a stranger can read my dull mood. “Well, I’ve clearly not done a good job of covering my transparency today.”
“Reading people comes with the job. Would you like to talk about it?”
I wave him off. “Seriously, you’ve got more important things to be doing than have me waste your time with details of my daily internet searches about how to get more money. And no, it’s nothing illegal before you ask.”
He smiles. “Good to know. So, if it’s not illegal then one can only assume it’s a job search?”
“Wow, you are good at this. How did you guess?”
“Because a girl of your age would normally either be at work on this miserable and grey Monday morning or at the very least have a pile of books around her while studying.”
I look at him for a few seconds before my eyes fall to the laptop and deflation hits once again. I do consider not bothering to say anything at all, but a part of me thinks I owe him an explanation, given the fact he’s kindly bought me a coffee when he hadn’t needed to.