Flesh and Blood

by Sian Rosé

  Suddenly, she lunged forwards, ramming her bare foot as hard as she possibly could into Adil’s crotch so that the man keeled over from surprise. She sprinted around him and fortunately recognised the small layout of the apartment, jogging down the hallway and back into the kitchen where she’d given birth just hours earlier.

  “Minnie!” she heard Adil yell. The noise startled her, but she pressed on through the fear, her feet slapping against the kitchen tiles as she lunged for the knife block once again.

  “Minnie, come on, just stop,” she heard him whine. Spinning around, she held out the knife in front of her, her limbs still trembling so that the metal blade wobbled dangerously in thin air.

  “Fucking get away,” she spat, eyes glittering with venom as she bravely forced herself forwards.

  He held up his light brown palms, his deep eyes widening as she thrust the knife at him. But he did not back away. He continued to move toward her.

  Even faced with the blade of a knife and that warped, crazed, and terrifying expression splayed on her face, Adil was not truly afraid of her.

  He was still coming towards her, unfaltering.

  Disbelieving.

  The white-hot rage that had simmered beneath her surface over the course of the last year surged through her veins in one molten shot of fury. Her head spun as she lunged forwards, slashing the knife through the air blindly.

  She was transported back to that horrific time on the forest floor in the clearing, when she and Ronnie had been attacked, and this whole nightmare had just begun.

  That was where it started, and Minnie knew somewhere deep inside of her that the end was nigh.

  Rage fizzled and cracked in front of her eyes; warm splatters of rusty-scented liquid landing and drying on her cheeks and lips. But still, she didn’t stop. Even when her wrist began to ache from stabbing and slashing, and her fist protested against blade plunging into flesh. Over and over again.

  Until she was numb.

  Until she was dragged out of her crazed trance by the sudden, deafening clatter of the knife falling to the ground, the metal clashing with the tiles by her feet.

  She took a step back, her heart thumping madly as she absorbed the gruesome scene that now covered the unfamiliar kitchen like a bright red blanket of gore.

  For a while, she just stood there, blinking at it.

  Blinking at the sagging, punctured corpse collapsed in front of her, and the wide, glassy eyes that stared lifelessly up at the ceiling. Adil’s butchered body lay crumpled in a pathetic bloody mess; the pool of scarlet fluid rapidly growing all around him like a sick halo.

  Her fingers curled, her nails embedding themselves into her palms as fresh prickles of exhilaration raced up and down her spine like shots of electricity.

  What now?

  Chapter Forty-four

  2019

  The sun was out and shining brightly by the time the engine of the RV had started to make a weird stuttering noise. Ronnie had driven all through the night, the guilt of Stella’s brutal torture keeping him wide awake through every long, winding mile. Every time he even so much as blinked, that horrific image of her slender, naked figure hanging up like a slab of meat haunted him, causing his stomach to churn violently.

  In quiet voices, he had discussed the next plan of action with Minnie hours before.

  The family had been everywhere, all over the UK. It felt like they were running out of places, running out of towns where they’d not caused some kind of havoc.

  Except, home.

  Real home.

  Ronnie sighed and frowned as the engine let out another snarl of defiance, and the vehicle rumbled to a stop in the middle of the wide country road they were travelling down. “Fuck…” he muttered under his breath, turning the key, only to find that the thing was now refusing to start.

  “FUCK!” he shouted, louder this time, banging his palms against the steering wheel.

  Although he and Minnie had agreed that it was logical to go to the place they’d not been to in the longest time, the plan had niggled at the back of his brain. Something had told him that it was a bad idea, and the RV breaking down felt like a foreshadowing of worse things to come.

  Both of them had doubted they’d be recognised. It’d been twenty years or so since the two of them had last stepped foot in their hometown. They’d both changed.

  Besides, everybody thought they were dead. Had done for years.

  With a low groan, Ronnie finally gave up. He got up from his seat, yanking the keys from the ignition, and stomped through to the living area of the RV. Rubbing his forehead, he got a glass of water from the sink and then slumped down aggressively on one of the cushioned chairs lining the cabin.

  It wasn’t that bad, he told himself. He’d just need to phone a breakdown service. Of course, it could be awkward explaining why they didn’t have insurance or cover. And if they got sent out some nosey bugger who tipped off the police, they’d be fucked.

  “Bollocks,” he grumbled underneath his breath, rubbing his aching temple. Exhaustion had suddenly slammed into him like a wrecking ball, and it wasn’t long before his heavy, sagging eyelids had closed.

  Sometime later, he was awoken by a sharp, insistent tapping at the door. He jolted at the sound, spilling the glass of water down his front in the process.

  “Shit,” he swore again, his body tensing as he slid out of the seat and stared apprehensively at the outline of the door in the metal wall of the RV. He pricked his ears, waiting for another knock. The rest of the place was silent, apparently void of life from where the children and Minnie were asleep, clearly knocked into a deep unconsciousness from the excitement of the previous day.

  Just as he was about to let his shoulders sag, there was another loud, harsh rap at the door. Ronnie bristled and shook his head, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He touched the increasingly familiar bulge of the pistol he’d stolen from the caravan site, wedged comfortably into the pocket of his jogging bottoms. Not that he’d be in any hurry to blow anyone’s brains out. Especially not when they had no mode of transport to get away afterwards.

  But alas, he thought to himself grimly, if it was a particularly intrusive copper, he’d be left with no choice. Everything about the place was extremely incriminating. He was fairly certain his eight-year-old had even gone to sleep nursing a Tupperware box of intestine, for fuck’s sake.

  Swallowing, Ronnie moved towards the door, slowly turned the latch, and pulled it towards him. Bright sunlight spilled in through the narrow doorway, temporarily blinding him to the tall figure that stood on the steps.

  “Hello?” he croaked, his voice still gravelly from his nap.

  “You alright, mate?” a man asked, “just wondering what you’re up to just parked up on the road like this?”

  Ronnie resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He shifted so that he could see the man and was partially relieved and partially irritated to find that it was just some nosy do-gooder. “Broke down,” he said bluntly. “Need to call a mechanic.”

  The stranger came closer; his perfectly preened faced coming into full view. He was smiling, the kind of wide, over-eager smile that made Ronnie feel thoroughly suspicious. “My husband’s a mechanic,” he said helpfully.

  Pausing, Ronnie cocked his head and eyed the man. “Right,” he said tightly, “so, can you ring him?”

  Laughing, the stranger shrugged and jerked his thumb to his right. “The hubby is in the camper van. We’re off on travels, too. Nothing quite as extravagant as this, though,” he nodded towards the interior of the RV wistfully. “When we saw you, we thought we’d just stop and see if you were okay. It’s an odd place to park, you see.”

  Ronnie grunted, finally allowing himself to relax. Maybe the poofter did have an annoyingly sunny disposition, but he clearly wanted to help. In other circumstances, Ronnie would have conspired to rob the camper van he had mentioned. He’d learned through experience that the gays always owned expensive shit. But he was in no position to be adve
nturous or ambitious, especially when he was so damn tired.

  “I’d appreciate your help,” he said, forcing the corner of his lips upwards into a smile.

  “Paul,” smiled the stranger, giving him a hand to shake. “I’ll get Ross- that’s my husband.”

  He retreated down the steps. Ronnie followed him and peered down the road at the shitty, decrepit old camper that was parked just a few yards away from their RV. He was being smug, smirking to himself at his good fortune, when he felt a warm hand on his shoulder.

  “Min,” he yawned, meeting his wife’s eye as he spun around.

  “What the fuck is going on?” she hissed, pupils, glittering in the morning sunshine. She folded her arms. She was wearing Sienna’s dressing gown. It wasn’t as though the woman would be needing it, buried somewhere beneath the marsh in Lonely Loch.

  “The bloody thing broke down,” Ronnie explained. He gestured down the road at the old camper van, and Paul’s spindly figure briskly retreating back to it. “Apparently, this guy is a mechanic. He can fix it for us.”

  She pursed her lips together and stared after Paul, suspicion tinging her expression. “How do you know we can trust him?” she whispered, her eyes glazing over.

  Ronnie felt a sore stab in his gut as he took in the pained look on her face. This morning, Minnie was looking naked and exposed. Vulnerable. Only he knew that beneath the hard, thick wall of bricks she’d built up around herself, there was still a small part of her that was tainted by the past. Seeing Stella in such an awful state would have only served to pour salt into those gaping, never-healing wounds.

  Minnie was not afraid of other people when she was dealing with them on her own terms. She didn’t think twice about hijacking houses, and stabbing the owners to death, or watching the life drain out of her enemies. But when it came to unexpected visitors or acquaintances, she briefly resembled a rabbit caught in the headlights, just before quickly bracing herself for an attack.

  “What choice have we got?” Ronnie pointed out. “We’re not going anywhere with the RV not starting.”

  She bit her lip and nodded, pulling the dressing gown tighter around her body.

  A refreshing gust of wind suddenly buffeted them, making the long, blonde strands of hair on Minnie’s head dance around her face like the legs of an octopus. The couple stood quietly, eyes fixed intently on the camper van, Paul talking to someone in the driver’s seat, and then the door eventually being pushed open.

  A tall male stepped out, his brow furrowed in annoyance, clearly unimpressed at his services being offered involuntarily.

  Although she did not say anything, Ronnie turned to Minnie, sensing a sudden, eerie shift in the atmosphere. He saw that her lips had parted slightly, and her eyes crinkled as though she was trying to make sense of an incomprehensible passage of an old book.

  “What?” he asked before turning back to follow her gaze.

  The tall man, presumably Paul’s husband, Ross, was continuing towards them, with Paul following along behind him like an eager little lap dog.

  Ronnie was just about to open his mouth to prompt Minnie again when he saw it.

  He saw it, and instantly every word in his vocabulary temporarily dissolved into nothingness, rendering him speechless.

  Minnie felt her heart skip a beat and her chest tighten as she registered the familiar, distinct stroll and those familiar eyes that always seemed to be able to stare right into her soul. Even the way he breathed as he walked took her back all those years, and suddenly she was transported back into the kitchen of her parent’s house, listening to him traipsing about the place.

  Her first instinct was to run towards him, but she could feel Ronnie’s hand grip onto her wrist in a warning. But warning for what? What was there to do? She considered retreating, but her feet were rooted to the spot.

  At first, Ronnie could see no recognition reflected back at them in Minnie’s brother’s face, and for a second, he wondered if it would all be okay. Maybe Ross would note a similarity, but there’s no way he’d say anything. He thought they were dead and had done for twenty odd years.

  But even after so much time had passed, even Ronnie could clearly tell that it was Ross Walter coming towards them. He’d aged- his hair thinner, more lines on his face, but it was clearly him.

  His fears were confirmed when Ross got to about a metre away and finally looked up properly, his eyes locking onto Minnie’s. Ronnie felt his heart plummet from the top of his chest down into the depths of his stomach. A million thoughts raced through his mind.

  What the fuck now?

  Ross stopped dead in his tracks and took a sharp, loud intake of breath that drowned out the wind.

  “Oh my god,” he blurted out, clearly involuntarily. Blinking, he furiously shook his head but did not take his eyes off of Minnie standing there on the steps. “Oh my god, Minnie?” he squeaked, the weak, high-pitched tone of his voice almost comical as it tumbled from his lips.

  Paul grabbed onto Ross’s arm, his face contorted into a deep frown.

  For what felt like an age, the four of them just stood there outside the RV. Minnie and Ross staring madly at one another whilst Paul looked quizzically from one to the other, and Ronnie’s brain whirred furiously as he internally debated the best course of action. He willed his wife to plaster on a look of confusion and shrug her estranged brother’s reaction off as a misunderstanding between strangers.

  Much to his dismay, she did not.

  Instead, a single, glassy tear slid down Minnie’s cheek.

  “It’s me.”

  Chapter Forty-five

  2019

  It was Minnie who, to Ronnie’s horror, suggested going on a walk with Ross. Just the two of them. Brother and sister.

  Although she could sense how furious Ronnie was, Minnie had grown competent at blocking him out, like most couples, she figured. At that moment, she was pulled to Ross as if they were magnets, and something intense was driving her to talk to him away from Paul and away from Ronnie.

  She knew that she could have lied. She was good at lying, and the children were good at improvising. The whole thing could have been swept under the carpet. But since the previous evening, Minnie felt cold and vulnerable. When she first recognised her older brother’s familiar swagger of a walk, a million warm memories had flooded her head at once, completely consuming her.

  There were so many things she longed to say to him, but yet, as they walked, the metre between them felt like miles. And the distance only grew with every step.

  Her chest felt tight, her throat closing up. She looked up at the sunny sky, the golden gleam stinging her eyes. Beneath her feet, the country road was bumpy and dusty, lumps of disintegrating concrete grounding her into this bizarre reality. All around them, fields stretched out. They’d grown up in a suburban town; however, this was the road their father had always driven down when he’d been taken the family to or from holidays. It was like the connection between their home and the big, wider world.

  It was Ross who spoke first.

  That’s the way it had always been.

  “Where have you been, Minnie?” he asked.

  He didn’t look at her when he spoke, just stared down at his feet as they walked down the quiet, deserted lane. Although she scrutinised his expression, as she had trained herself to do with everyone she met, she could not read him. She couldn’t tell if he was sad or angry.

  “I felt like I couldn’t come back,” she said dumbly. “They were going to make me get rid of my baby, Ross…”

  “So why didn’t you come back when it was too late to get an abortion?” he interrupted, still staring down at the ground. His voice was calm, but there was an unpleasant sharpness to it that felt like it was slicing into her flesh.

  Minnie laughed. Not because it was funny, but because she couldn’t even begin to comprehend where she’d start to answer that question. Ross stopped in his tracks and shot her a glare of disgust, “is this funny to you?” he demanded, his cheeks
flushing red. “Do you have any idea what you disappearing did to us? Did to…” his voice broke, and tears welled up in his eyes, “did to… me?”

  Before he could stop her, she lunged forward, wrapping her arms tightly around his towering figure. She breathed in the unfamiliar scent of his aftershave mixed with washing powder that didn’t smell of home. He hugged her back, burying his head in her shoulder.

  “A lot of bad shit happened to me, Ross,” she said, her voice crackling. “Bad shit that I don’t want to talk about.”

  “We could’ve helped you,” he groaned.

  Her heart broke. Later on, when they’d escaped Steve, she’d seen how hard her family had searched for her. She knew they thought she had died. She tried to imagine how painful it would have been if the roles were reversed, and it was Ross who had just gone missing. Vanished into thin air.

  Swallowing back tears, she shook her head. “You couldn’t have,” she breathed. “Honestly, you couldn’t. But I don’t want to talk about that.”

  Ross pulled away from her embrace. He put his big, grown-up hands on her shoulders and looked intently down into her face. For a while, he just looked at her, blinking in disbelief as if it were a miracle. To him, it was.

  “You know what?” he said finally, “it doesn’t matter. The main thing is that you’re back.”

  She opened her mouth in protest, “uh, Ross…”

  He tightened his grip on her shoulders as if it were a threat. “We’re going to Mum and Dad’s,” he said, “and you’re coming with us.”

  “No,” she shook her head, stepping back out of his clutches, “no Ross, I’m not. It’ll cause all kinds of trouble. It’s been amazing seeing you, but…”

  His smile dropped. “What? Why?”

  Minnie sighed and rubbed her forehead. She paced back and forth, kicking stones and random tufts of grass poking out from the dusty road. “Ronnie is my husband,” she said carefully, “I can’t have Mum and Dad phoning the police, getting him arrested. He never did anything wrong; he never deserved any of that shit. I love him, and I can’t put him in danger.”