A Girl Like Lilac

by Victoria L. James

  “I have a motive. I have a whole bunch of them. I’ve just found out who Joel is, who his father is. I have previous warnings on my record. This is my issue. All of this is because of me.”

  “Toby, you can’t—”

  I pressed a finger to her lips and cut her off.

  “For the first time in my life, I know exactly what to do. I need you to trust me and listen.”

  Right on cue, the sirens began to wail in the distance, causing my heart to drop into my stomach.

  It’s incredible the sense of calm you feel once all the puzzle pieces of your fucked-up life begin to fall into place. It may not present you with the picture you wanted, but when the image of your future is clear, and it’s shining back at you, all inline, complete, with no faults or jagged edges, you know it’s the way it’s meant to be. It’s right, even if others protest and tell you it’s wrong.

  The sirens grew louder, and my heartbeat tried to match the volume of them all.

  “They’re going to arrest me,” I said calmly, raising both brows when she squeaked and held back her protests. “They are, Lil.” I nodded. “And it’s fine. I’m ready. But I won’t let them arrest you, so no matter what happens from here on in, I need you to follow the version of events I’m about to tell you.”

  Lilac shook her head, and it only forced me to smile even more because I loved the way she loved me. I loved the fact that we were so young and had experienced so much together. I loved our bond. The way it had been there from the first moment our eyes connected in that classroom. I loved our need to save each other. I just fucking loved us.

  “You were helpless against Joel and Chris until I came along. You were looking for me, and they took your distress and played it to their advantage—to scare you. You tell the police every little thing they said to you. All of it. Including the insinuation that they were about to hurt you, mess with you. None of that is a lie.”

  Lilac’s brows creased harder, and her tears fell.

  “You’re going to tell them that I attacked Joel to get him off you. That’s not a lie, either. You’re going to say we were walking away when Chris attacked again. Not a lie. But you’re not going to say you pushed Chris. I did. I did all of that. I smacked myself into the railings knowing what was going to happen, and I threw him over. It had nothing, nothing to do with you.”

  “No, Toby,” she mouthed against my finger.

  I brushed my knuckle across her swollen cheek, scowling at the sight and heat of it. “They hurt you first, remember that. Everything I did after that was to hurt them. I could have stopped. I should have stopped. I struck Joel so hard because I couldn’t get to Marty. I used his face to release my pain. I didn’t stop, and now it’s up to me to pay the price of that.”

  “They’ll take you from me. Don’t do this.”

  “I have to. I have to do this for both of us.” I stared back into her eyes, filled with devastating, soul-crushing pain. “Go home. Get Coral and Violet, and then all three of you go and tell my mum what happened. But none of you react or come down to the station until I call you and say so, you hear me? Not one of you. I’ll call you once I’m allowed to.”

  She pushed me away violently, anger pouring from her as she looked at me like I was insane. “No! No. I did this. Not you. I’ll tell them the truth.”

  “And I’ll tell them it’s a lie.”

  “Why?” More tears fell. “Why would you do that? Do you want to leave me?”

  “With all my shitty little heart, no.” I swallowed harshly, holding back my own emotion. “This is your only way out.”

  “It can’t be. We did nothing wrong.”

  “You don’t always have to do something wrong for people to think you’re wrong, Lilac.”

  “I did this,” she whimpered. “Why can’t you just tell them I did this?”

  “You know why. I love you too much, and it’s easier this way. Joel will tell them it was me, too, you know he will. Chris’ DNA is all over me right now. I can feel his teeth marks against my neck. I can feel his clammy hands on my skin. Marty Atkins will want to believe it’s me. The evidence will show it’s me. The only thing they’ll think if you confess is that you’re trying to save me, Lilac. They’ll throw you out of the police station faster than you can say my name.”

  “But you didn’t—”

  I sucked in a breath and turned my head to the promenade, where two police cars had skidded to a halt, their doors opening frantically then slamming shut before the thunderous roar of the officers’ feet started to pound against the wooden pier structure like a stampede was drawing closer. I took a step towards Lilac and closed the distance, bringing my hands to her cheeks and pushing my forehead to hers with all the controlled power I had. Tears rose and fell all at once, and I sniffed up to swallow them down as I searched her eyes.

  “It doesn’t matter what I did or didn’t do. If you think for one fucking minute I would let you suffer, you have no idea how much I love you. Do you understand me? I’m stuck here forever now, Lil. I can’t leave and follow some starry-eyed dream across the world. I’m a walking, talking nightmare. I’m not who I thought I was yesterday or the years before today. I have the devil in my blood. My mind is screwed up. I don’t have control. My whole world and life is shot to shit. But not yours. You have so much to look forward to. So much living to do. I’ll be damned if I let these bastards bring you down, too. You did nothing wrong. You did everything right. You saved me. Now it’s my turn to save you.”

  “I won’t survive losing you,” she whispered.

  “I might go away for a while, but you can’t lose me.”

  I pressed a desperate, tear-soaked kiss to her lips and closed my eyes.

  The whole world seemed to stop for just a heartbeat, allowing me to imagine only the two of us existed in this rotten, unjust world.

  That moment didn’t last long enough. It was never going to, and soon enough there was shouting and threats before we were torn apart, and I was pushed to the ground, my face slammed down against the wooden slats with an almighty crack. With my ear pressed down, the ocean taunted me, the subtle hiss of its victory like a song of blame landing at my feet. I blinked when they cuffed my hands behind my back, and I looked out across the village of Southwold, taking in the sparkling fairy lights on the streets, the almighty lighthouse that saved lives, and the pretty cottages. I couldn’t believe that somewhere so picturesque and perfect could be the place to bring about my whole family’s demise. So much beauty was masking so much fucking horror.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Lilac

  “No, no. You have to listen to me.” I glared into Marty Atkin’s eyes, half hoping he saw the hate I carried for him there, half hoping he thought I had no idea of the evil that lurked within his veins. “He’s lying. Toby is lying, and you know it. He didn’t do anything wrong. Did you see the marks on his neck from the struggle? Did you see the fight he had to put up?”

  Marty tossed a file of papers on the desk he was walking behind, looked around the area and blew out a bored, exasperated breath.

  “Mr Atkins?” I called again, croaked and pleading, desperate and needy. “Are you even listening to me?”

  “He’s confessed everything. There’s nothing more I can do,” he said calmly—so calmly it made my blood feel like it had stones flowing through it. Everything ached for Toby. There stood his father, ready to listen to his lies because it would, no doubt, make his life easier if Toby wasn’t around.

  “There’s plenty you can do, and you know it. Maybe it’s time the whole town should finally find out what you’re capable of.”

  Marty’s eyes shot up to mine, and he held my gaze with an intensity that should have had me cowering. Instead, I glared and challenged him with my silence, my knuckles white and my arms shaking as I held onto the small counter that separated us.

  “You’re free to leave anytime you wish, Miss Clarke. I suggest you do so sooner rather than later before you end up in the cell beside him.”r />
  “Put me there! Do it. It’s where I want to be. It’s where I deserve to be.”

  “Infatuation like that will ruin you. Be careful what you wish for.”

  “Don’t you, of all people, dare lecture me on my feelings for him,” I hissed, my eyes burning with rage. “You don’t know the first damn thing about anything except saving yourself. You make me sick.”

  His back straightened as he studied me, and when Marty Atkins narrowed his eyes, I knew he saw all his truths written across my face like a short horror story.

  “Get out, Lilac. Final warning.”

  “Stick your warning. Go ahead, do whatever you have to do. Section me. Lock me up. Throw me in a padded cell. Tell me I’m broken. Nothing will change. I won’t change. ‘Cause I’m never going to get over this. I’m never going to get over him. I don’t even want to.”

  “Get her out of here,” he ordered as his attention turned to my mum.

  “Come on, Lilac,” Mum whispered beside me, tugging on my arm and trying to peel me out of the building I’d been practically camping inside of for the last twenty-four hours.

  “You’re a coward,” I said to Marty. It was a simple statement. The truth whispered on a breath of exhaustion and disbelief. “A rotten coward. I don’t know how you can look at yourself in the mirror every day.”

  “Now.” He pointed to the doors.

  “This isn’t over.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Oh no, sir. It’s a promise.”

  “Lilac,” Mum warned in my ear, guiding me away.

  I stared at Toby’s biological father blankly, my eyes turned down and lifeless as I walked backwards, guided only by my mother’s tender caress and best intentions.

  Chris was dead.

  I’d killed him.

  So young. So much life within him. All of it gone because of me.

  And I had no regrets. Not one. My actions had saved Toby’s life. If I had to, I’d do it all again, right here, right now, in front of the entire population of Southwold. Did that make me evil? Did it make me cold-hearted? Did it make me less of a young woman than I was before? I didn’t even care. All I wanted was to save Toby, and that’s what made me feel less than I thought I was.

  I’d had so many shots in my life, so much fortune. I’d had everything a girl could wish for. My family had raised me surrounded by a perfect bubble of love and fairy tales. Toby hadn’t stood a chance since the very moment he was created. Marty Atkins pushed inside his mother with force and without permission, dragging Toby into this world under a cloud of murky emotions, mixed feelings, and with his biological father’s temper. I’d been the light in his life. I knew that then more than ever. I understood why Toby tried to live in my world rather than letting me live in his. Even though he’d never known the exact reasons for being different, he knew he was different.

  Toby scared himself. I only wished with all my heart that he knew he didn’t scare me. How could you be scared of someone so selfless, so honourable, so pure?

  I walked out of that station determined to keep fighting to make him see sense.

  I walked out of that station hating that I’d already been away from him for twenty-four hours too long.

  I walked out of that station vowing to do something alongside his mother and Wayne. Something that would free him. Something that would make the world see it was self-defence. Something that would make Marty Atkins pay for the assault on Darlene Hunter. Something, something, something—all the things.

  I vowed, I wished, and I begged the universe for justice, never letting myself stop.

  But there was something I didn’t count on happening, and that was Toby’s next move.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Toby

  He’d been interviewing me for thirty minutes, the attitude he always wore, wrapped around him like an expensive Italian suit that made his posture straighten, his jaw twitch proudly, and his eyes shine smugly.

  It was just like the last time. Marty would ask questions, trying to provoke me into showing my darker side, while I sat quietly, staring at my balled-up hands stretched out in front of me.

  This time, however, I knew exactly what I was doing.

  The tape recorder was on, documenting our conversation, and another officer sat in the corner beside us, as well as my ornamental, serving-no-purpose lawyer, both of them witnessing the whole interaction between my fucking father and me.

  Dad.

  The man whose DNA ran through my bones because he’d raped my mother and then held her prisoner with invisible shackles for her entire life, broken because of him, unfixable because of him.

  The smirk I wore on my face as I looked up at him through hooded eyes had Marty narrowing his own and studying me.

  “I always knew you’d end up back here,” Marty said calmly.

  “Written in the stars, was it?”

  “Don’t get smart.”

  “Maybe we were just destined to spend a lot of time together,” I suggested, raising a brow.

  “More like I know trouble when I see it.”

  “Trouble breeds around these places, huh? I bet this town is full of things none of us know about, isn’t it? Murderers, burglars, drug rings, rapists…”

  Marty’s small scowl was only there for a second, but I saw it. I saw the flicker of doubt before he looked down at the clipboard in front of him and began to trace his pen over the corner of it.

  “We can make this really easy or really hard, kid. You’ve already confessed to being responsible for the death of your friend Chris. You’ve confessed to the assault on my son, Joel Atkins.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “But you deny that your girlfriend, a Miss Lilac Clarke, had any involvement whatsoever.”

  “She was being harassed by your son and Chris. I pulled them off, saved her from their impending attack, and then things got…”

  “Deadly.” He looked up and raised a brow.

  “It was either him or me. If you’re asking me to regret saving Lilac, I can’t, and I won’t. I’d do the same thing again tomorrow.”

  Marty flared his nostrils, clearly fucking angry that I’d dared to lay a single finger on his precious Joel but trying to keep his cool in front of our witnesses, and his tape recorder which was in full action. He rested his hands on the table between us, much the same way I was doing, and he leaned forward. Too fucking close. It took all my jaw twitching control not to lash out and smash him across the face.

  “Do you think prison is going to be easy, Toby?”

  “I’ll risk it. I’m willing to pay for my actions.” I leaned even closer, letting all my quiet venom pour out. “Unlike some folk around here.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. I will pay for my wrongdoings because I’m not afraid. Life can be easy, or it can be hard, makes no difference to me. I know the law. I know I broke it. But I’m not a coward. I’m not like you… or your son,” I spat. “I plead guilty to manslaughter. I plead guilty to the assault on Joel. I plead guilty to protecting my girl. I plead guilty for being too in love too young. I plead guilty to whatever you want to throw at me. I’ll own it all.”

  “Then I think you’re going to have to say goodbye to that girl of yours for quite some time,” he said through tight lips.

  “You think I give a shit about being on this side of the table?”

  “A normal person would. A normal, sane person would show remorse or beg for forgiveness.”

  “Sanity doesn’t exactly run in my family.” I smirked.

  Marty’s jaw ticked, and the skin over his knuckles stretched as he curled his hands tighter together.

  “Although you can probably tell me more about my family and DNA than I can tell you. Isn’t that right… Dad?”

  The word hung in the air like a bulldozer, swinging above us, waiting for someone to drop it so it could smash our whole lives to smithereens.

  Marty’s mouth fell open, his eyes wide, moving over mine wildly
.

  I raised my brows and flared my nostrils. “I’m right where I need to be, sitting here with you. My father. The guy who raped my mother eighteen years ago, forcing her to flee in a fit of hysterics after the man she loved pinned her down and took the one thing that wasn’t his to take. I’m with my dad, right? The guy who caused my mother to get in a car and—”

  Smack!

  His hand hit the button on the tape recorder violently, causing his body to shake with rage as he held it down and glared at me with all the hatred I knew he had.

  Maybe I was the one thing he’d created that he knew was a mistake.

  Maybe when he looked at me, he saw everything evil about himself staring back.

  Maybe I was his worst nightmare because I showed him his true reflection.

  “Yeah,” I whispered, nodding sarcastically. “Figured you’d do that once the truth started to come out of my mouth. Pity you couldn’t just let me confess and go to prison really.”

  “You son of a—”

  “Bastard? That’s me.”

  “Marty?” The female officer in the corner moved her chair, and her high-pitched voice rang out in the room around us.

  “I can’t decide what’s worse, though. If you’d let me finish my speech, it might have allowed you to call bullshit on everything I just said. I could have just been some desperate kid, looking for any excuse to get out of trouble, making up some story about you raping my mother, right? But now you’ve gone and panicked, knocked the tape off halfway through my crucial confession and, you know, I think you might have fucked up.” I twisted my mouth and blinked innocently. “Want my lawyer to get you a lawyer?”

  “I’m going to kill you,” he mouthed, his face turning purple as the veins in his neck popped.

  “You might have given me life, but don’t think you have the power to take it away. I’m made from you. You’re in my blood. I’ll finish you before you can blink, old man. But…you leave my family the hell alone, leave town, take your shitty life and family far, far away from here, and I’ll go quietly. That’s a deal I’m willing to make. You go… I go.