Afraid

by Mandasue Heller

  ‘She’d have felt a lot better if you hadn’t tried to strangle her,’ Chloe reminded him accusingly.

  ‘I know,’ he said quietly. ‘But I’ve apologised, so what more can I do?’ He sighed now, and said, ‘Anyway, you’d best go back in there and let me get on with this before she starts wondering what we’re up to.’

  Skye glanced round when Chloe came back into the room, and held up the magazine she was reading. ‘Here, look at this – isn’t it gorgeous? I thought I’d decided on that other one, but I think I prefer this one now. What do you think?’

  Chloe sat down and glanced at the frothy dress that Skye was gushing over. ‘Yeah, lovely,’ she said distractedly, her mind still on Tom and the powder she’d just seen him tipping into the cup. If it had come from the doctor, why was it in a bag and not a prescription box or bottle? And how had he managed to see his doctor and stop off at a pharmacy, but still get home at the usual time?

  ‘How about these for you and Jade?’ Skye was asking now, showing Chloe some bridesmaids’ dresses. ‘But not in orange, obviously, ’cos that’s just nasty. I’d want them to be pink.’

  Chloe murmured, ‘Mmmm’ and nodded without even looking at them.

  When Tom came back a few seconds later and handed a cup of wine to each of them, Chloe peered down at the dark liquid and felt a thrill of realisation course through her when she saw several tiny white flecks floating on the surface. The light was always dim in here so she’d never noticed it before, and Skye was so naive she would probably have thought that wine was supposed to have flecks in it if she had noticed. But Chloe had been doing smack for a year and had tried numerous other drugs before that, so she should have recognised the signs. That weird sense of confusion every morning; Tom claiming that she’d given him the come-on when she didn’t even fancy him; Skye’s headaches … It all made sense now. He’d been spiking their drinks.

  When Tom sat back down and resumed whatever he’d been doing on his laptop, Chloe glanced at Skye out of the corner of her eye to make sure that she was still engrossed in her wedding dresses and accessories. Then she carefully tipped her cup and spilled some of her wine down the side of the cushion. She knew Tom would guess what she’d done when he discovered that the cushion was wet but she planned to be long gone by then.

  Skye had already started to look a little sleepy by the time she finished her first drink, and Chloe mimicked her as she handed her empty cup to Tom when he offered them a refill. Then, when Skye’s eyes started to roll just a few sips into her second drink, and the magazine fell from her hand, Chloe let her own head loll back against the cushion and mimicked her friend’s heavy breathing.

  The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end when she peeped out through her lashes and saw the way Tom was staring at them over the top of his screen. And when he laid the laptop down and walked over to her, she had to force herself not to resist when he grasped her chin in his hand and rocked her head from side to side. Seemingly satisfied that she was asleep, he slid his hands beneath her and picked her up.

  She lay floppy in his arms as he carried her up the stairs, but as soon as he laid her on her bed and went back downstairs to get Skye she sat bolt upright. She had to get out of here, but how? She wasn’t stupid enough to think that Tom was going to let her walk away without a fight, but she just wasn’t up to fending him off right now. She’d finished her last little bit of smack after dinner but it was already wearing off, and she knew that she would soon start shaking and feeling sick. Tom had promised to score for her on his way home from work, but she could hardly ask him for it now because then he’d know that she’d been faking being unconscious. And she didn’t even have the wine to take the edge off the withdrawal.

  The house was locked up tight, and she had no idea where that spare back-door key was because that paranoid cow Skye had hidden it after they came back inside this afternoon. But, even if she had known where it was, she wouldn’t dare try and sneak out while Tom was home. He’d already proved he was a nutter by drugging the pair of them, so he’d be bound to come after her to stop her from telling anyone. And, out here in the middle of nowhere, there would be nobody to help her if she screamed.

  At the sound of a floorboard creaking outside her door, Chloe quickly lay back down and listened as Tom came quietly into the room and walked around the bed. She struggled not to shudder when he leaned over her and his hot stale-smoke breath scorched her cheek. When at last he moved away, she watched through slitted eyes as he placed something on the dresser at the side of the bed.

  Almost giving herself away with a sharp intake of breath when she saw a blinking red light and realised that it was a camcorder and not the alarm clock that Tom had previously claimed it to be, she squeezed her eyes shut when he turned back to her. The sick bastard! Not content with drugging her, he been filming himself having sex with her as well!

  Tom had undressed after placing Skye in their bed, and he slipped his dressing gown off now and draped it over the back of a chair before climbing naked onto the foot of the bed.

  ‘You’ve been a very bad girl, and I’m not very happy with you,’ he said, his voice husky as he pushed Chloe’s knees apart and shuffled up between her legs. ‘You might look like my princess, but that’s as far as it goes. She’s innocent, but your father has ruined you, so now I’m going to have to teach you how to behave like a lady.’

  Chloe didn’t resist when Tom reached for one of her hands and raised it above her head, but when she felt him start to wrap something around her wrist, she guessed what he was about to do and snapped her eyes open.

  ‘Oh, so you are awake?’ He grinned down at her in the darkness. ‘I thought so. What did you do with the wine?’

  ‘I spilled it,’ she informed him, a note of victory in her voice. ‘Now get off me, or I swear I’ll tell Skye everything!’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ Tom replied unconcernedly, pressing his elbow down hard on her chest and grasping her wrist firmly.

  ‘Wanna bet?’ she spat, trying with all her might to bring her knee up between his legs. ‘Get off me, you ugly big-nosed bastard! I hate you! You make me sick, and I’m going to tell everyone about you!’

  ‘And that’s exactly why you’re going nowhere,’ said Tom. ‘Because you can’t be trusted.’

  Frustrated, because he had her pinned down too tight for her to do him any damage, Chloe released a strangled scream and thrashed her head from side to side. Shocked when Tom slapped her hard across the face, she stopped briefly. But she quickly recovered, and hissed, ‘You just wait till my dad finds out about this, you freak. You’re dead!’

  ‘Don’t make me laugh.’ Tom snorted. ‘He doesn’t care about you. I’m the only one who cares. But I’ve tried to help you, and you just keep on throwing it back in my face.’

  ‘So let me go, then,’ Chloe demanded.

  ‘Just like that?’ Tom tilted his head and gazed down at her as if he were seriously considering it. Then, shaking his head slowly, he said, ‘I don’t think so.’

  Scared when he fed the end of the curtain tie-back he’d just wrapped around her wrist through the metal struts of the bedstead behind her head, Chloe said, ‘All right, I’m sorry, and I swear I won’t say nothing. I only said that ’cos I was mad at you, but I’d never grass you up. I just want to go home.’

  ‘And you really think I’d take your word after the way you tried to blackmail me?’ Tom wrenched her other arm up over her head. ‘See, that’s the problem with girls like you: you just don’t know a good thing when you see it. You have to go and ruin everything by being greedy and demanding. Anyway, I’m saving you from yourself, because you’d only end up back on the streets if I let you go; selling yourself to any man who gives you the time of day. Your mother obviously taught you well.’

  ‘My mum’s no prostitute,’ Chloe protested, anger momentarily overriding her fear. ‘And you’ve got no right to talk about her like that when you don’t even know her!’

  ‘I know enoug
h.’ Tom smiled nastily as he looped a second tie-back around her other wrist. ‘And I seem to remember that you weren’t so reticent about bad-mouthing her the other night, were you? You had plenty to say about her then. What was it you said now …? She’s “a big fat slag who shouldn’t have been allowed to have kids if she wasn’t going to bother taking proper care of them”.’

  ‘I said that to Skye, not you. It was none of your business.’

  ‘Everything is my business. And the last bitch who questioned my authority had to learn her lesson the hard way – just like you’re going to.’

  Chloe’s blood ran cold, and her tears spilled over when Tom wriggled back down to the end of the bed and picked up another cord before grabbing her ankle.

  ‘Please don’t hurt me,’ she begged, trying desperately to sound innocent and guileless, like Skye. ‘I’ll do anything you want, and I promise I won’t tell. I love you.’

  ‘If only I could believe that,’ Tom said regretfully. ‘But you’re a liar, Chloe, and I know exactly what you’d do if I let you go. You’d go straight back to your scummy friends and tell them about me and Skye.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t,’ Chloe insisted. ‘I swear on my nan’s life I won’t say a word.’

  ‘Would that be your dead nan?’ Tom asked sarcastically.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ Chloe sobbed. ‘I promise I won’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t take the risk,’ said Tom.

  Aware that nothing she said was going to make any difference, Chloe kicked out at him and strained with all her might to pull her hands free of their restraints. Then, throwing her head back, she screamed at the top of her lungs.

  ‘Pack it in!’ Tom hissed, scrabbling back up the bed and clamping his hand over her mouth. ‘You asked for this,’ he told her, peering down into her panic-stricken eyes. ‘Ever since you got here, you’ve done nothing but flaunt yourself and push the boundaries of my generosity and patience. But I’ve had enough. Do you hear me? Enough!’

  Unable to breathe, Chloe’s face turned crimson, and her eyes began to bulge.

  ‘I’ll take my hand away,’ Tom told her. ‘But if you scream again, I will hurt you. Do you understand?’

  Chloe nodded again, and then drew in a deep gasping breath when he withdrew his hand.

  ‘It’s a pity it had to come to this, because I was starting to like you,’ he said. ‘But sometimes you just have to admit when something isn’t working and let it go, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Chloe whimpered, truly scared for her life now. ‘I swear I won’t tell. Skye’s my best friend, and I’d never do anything to hurt her. Please, Tom, just let me go and I’ll never say nothing – cross my heart.’

  Tom stroked her hair back off her face and gazed down into her tear-filled eyes. ‘If you do exactly as you’re told and prove you can be trusted, I’ll think about it. Okay?’

  He smiled when she nodded her agreement, and said, ‘Good girl. Now relax, and let’s have some fun.’

  20

  Skye’s stomach was churning when she woke up, and she clamped a hand over her mouth and ran to the bathroom just in time.

  After throwing up violently several times, she rested her sweaty cheek on the cold toilet seat. She knew this couldn’t be just a hangover because, as bad as the wine often made her feel when she’d had too much, it had never made her this sick. She guessed that she must have got food poisoning from last night’s takeaway.

  Either that or she had a brain tumour, like Chloe’s grandmother.

  ‘Chloe!’ she croaked, scared that she might actually be seriously ill. ‘Please get up! CHLOE!’

  When no answer came, she groaned and pulled herself to her feet. Chloe’s bed was empty when she looked into her room and, thinking that the girl must have had another nightmare and got up early again, she made her way downstairs in need of some TLC.

  Shocked to see Bernie lying on his blanket when she walked into the kitchen, Skye temporarily forgot about her sickness and ran over to give him a cuddle.

  ‘What are you doing in here?’ she asked, laughing when he excitedly licked her face. ‘Did Tom let you in? Oh, it’s so good to see you, boy. I’ve missed you.’

  Chloe wasn’t in here and, guessing that she must have got scared when she saw Bernie, Skye gave the dog one last cuddle and then popped her head around the living-room door to let her know she was safe to come out. That room was empty, so she walked out into the hall, calling, ‘Chloe, where are you? I’m up now, so you can come out.’

  She frowned when no answer came and walked down the hall. Using her shoulder to force open the door of the tiny front room that they couldn’t use because it was so crammed with rubbish, she looked inside, and then turned and checked the cupboard under the stairs before going up to check the bedrooms again.

  Scared now that Bernie might have attacked Chloe and she was going to find the girl lying injured somewhere, she looked under the beds and in every cupboard and drawer, and even crouched down to check the space beneath the bath. But Chloe was nowhere to be found.

  Baffled as to how the girl could have vanished into thin air, Skye suddenly remembered that Chloe now knew about the back-door key. If she’d seen where Skye had hidden it, she might have taken it into her head to sneak out to break into the shed – which would land them in a whole heap of trouble, because Tom was bound to notice if she messed up anything in there.

  Cursing Chloe under her breath, Skye ran back down to the kitchen and grabbed the clock off the shelf – only to be baffled all over again when she saw that the key was still in it. And the back door was locked when she tried it, so she knew that Chloe couldn’t have unlocked it and then put the key back to fool her.

  ‘Oh, God,’ she moaned, sitting down heavily on a chair as the realisation settled over her that Chloe must have found another way out and was probably halfway back to Manchester by now. Tom was going to go absolutely mad when he found out.

  Right on cue, Tom’s car pulled up at the side of the house, and Skye bit nervously on her lip as she waited for him to come in.

  Surprised to see her downstairs, Tom paused when he stepped inside, and drew his head back. ‘How come you’re awake? You were fast asleep when I went out.’

  ‘I felt sick,’ she told him. Then, wringing her hands together, she said, ‘Don’t get mad, but I can’t find Chloe. She wasn’t in her room when I got up, and I thought she might have come down here and got scared when she saw Bernie. But I’ve looked everywhere, and she’s just not here.’

  ‘I know,’ Tom said, slipping his jacket off. ‘She went home last night. Well, this morning, to be more accurate. I took her.’

  ‘To her dad’s?’ Skye gasped. ‘But I thought we agreed she shouldn’t go back there.’

  ‘She wanted to go,’ Tom said, shrugging as he lit a cigarette and sat down at the table. ‘And to be honest, I thought it was probably for the best.’ He patted the seat beside his and waited for Skye to sit down before continuing. ‘Don’t get upset, but you were right about her: she was trying to take me away from you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Skye was confused. ‘She said she only flirted with you to get back at me, and she promised she wouldn’t do it again.’

  ‘She lied,’ Tom said flatly. ‘But that’s what girls like her are like: they’ll say anything to get their own way.’

  ‘What did she do?’ Skye asked, folding her arms over her stomach when it started to churn again.

  ‘She tried to seduce me when you fell asleep last night,’ Tom told her. ‘And when I said no, she threatened to tell you that I’d tried it on with her. That’s when I decided she had to go.’

  ‘Bitch,’ Skye muttered, unable to believe that the girl had been lying to her face after she’d gone out of her way to help her settle in. She’d treated her like a little sister, and had even let her wear the angel necklace.

  ‘My necklace!’ she gasped, raising her hand to her bare throat. ‘I lent her my necklace. Did she giv
e it to you when you dropped her off?’

  Tom shook his head and gave her a regretful look. ‘I didn’t know she had it, or I’d have taken it off her. Sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Skye said, sniffing back the tears that had begun to glisten in her eyes. She might not have wanted to wear the stupid thing, but she hadn’t wanted to lose it for ever. If she ever saw Chloe again, she would kill her for stealing it.

  ‘I should have listened when you told me what she was like,’ Tom said, reaching out to wipe an escaped tear from her cheek. ‘But I promise it’ll never happen again.’

  ‘What if she tells someone I’m here?’

  ‘She won’t. I made her swear on the Bible before she got out of the car. Just trust me on this. I guarantee she won’t tell a soul.’

  Skye nodded, but the thought of what would happen if Chloe did tell was terrifying.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Tom asked.

  Skye shook her head and swallowed loudly. ‘I feel really sick. I think I’ve got food poisoning off that takeaway.’

  ‘Doubt it, or I’d have it, too,’ said Tom. ‘You probably just had too much to drink. Anyway, this should make you feel better.’ He took a last drag on his cigarette and stubbed it out. Then he reached into his pocket. ‘Now we’ve got rid of the troublemaker, I thought it was time you had this back.’

  Skye’s face lit up at the sight of her ring, and she smiled when Tom slipped it onto her finger.

  ‘Carry on behaving yourself like you have been lately, and I won’t have to take it off you again,’ he said. ‘Happy?’

  Skye nodded vigorously and beamed as she gazed down at the tiny twinkling diamonds surrounding the dark sapphire. She had forgotten how beautiful it was, and she was determined never to lose it again.

  ‘Oh, and I’ve got another surprise,’ Tom said casually. ‘I’m taking you to meet some old friends of mine in a couple of weeks. Don’t worry,’ he added quickly when a look of panic leapt into Skye’s eyes. ‘I’ve told them my sister is staying with me, so they’ll think you’re her.’