Dark

by Rachel Harley

Alright, it might sting a bit, but me and him are done. His reply flies up in front of my weary, red-rimmed eyes and I bite my lip as I read his words, feeling the concern in them for me.

  Oh no. I’m sorry to hear that baby. I can come round and take care of you, though?’ A damned emoji with its eyebrow raised. I’ll never use the fucking things again as long as I live and I shake my head at my phone as I reply.

  Thanks, but you’d better not – it might be contagious and I’d be shit company. I’m just going to get a bath and try and get some sleep. I’ll give you a call in the morning.X

  I hesitate for a moment before adding the kiss, but I don’t want to put the wind up him. I don’t want to include it, but the last thing I need is him coming round here tonight. He reads the message and then the dots start to jump as he replies. My palms are sweating again and I blot them on my jeans. I need to get inside, Justin isn’t home yet but he will be any time, probably and I don’t want him to see me like this. The man is so intuitive, he’ll know that something is seriously wrong with me and I don’t want to lie to him, either.

  Okay. You know where I am if you need anything though? Even if it’s the middle of the night?

  I hiss at my screen. I wouldn’t go to him now under any circumstances. He’s dangerous, but then again I think I’ve always known that. Trouble is, I just assumed that he was dangerous to my heart, not my whole life.

  I’ll send a final reply to Carter and then I’m switching my phone off for the night. If he tries to get in touch, I don’t think that I’ll be able to stop myself from responding. I’m a raging bag of love and hate combined, and it’s starting to send me slowly insane.

  I’ll call you tomorrow. X

  The screen goes dark as I power the device off before I can change my mind. I don’t think he’ll come round tonight. My replies were a little curt, but then again he thinks that I’m throwing up and feel like shit, so I may have got away with that.

  I haul myself painfully out of the car, snagging my bag and make my way into the house. I can hear Jared laughing in the kitchen, Ellen’s no doubt with him, but I scoot quickly up the wide staircase and then the spiral ones to my attic. I let myself in, turning and shutting the door and when I lean back against it, my knees buckle. I slide slowly down the wood until I’m crouching on the floor and I wrap my arms around my legs, blinded again by my tears.

  I stuff my knee into my mouth to muffle my sobs, dissolving steadily as each minute goes by and I cry harder and harder. The pain washes over me in toxic waves, crushing me to pulp inside in a white-hot fist and I slump sideways onto the floor, putting my arms over my head and curling my body into a foetal position.

  As my sobs finally ease to rasps and little of the dark fog of pain thankfully retreats from my mind, I roll onto my back, drawing my knees up and I stare at the ceiling. A rogue tear snakes into my ear, tickling and I swipe my sleeves over my damp face, hauling in a deep breath.

  What to think about first? How you’re going to fuck him off to his face, or what his being a McLeod actually means?

  The second one is too deep for now, I need to formulate a plan in my mind to rid myself of the beautiful man who’s knotted so tightly around my heart, I’m terrified of even considering doing it. It’s going to be pain on a whole other level – I’m going to have to lie to him, hurt him badly, see the anguish in his beautiful green eyes…

  It’s all been a fucking act! At least you know now why you’ve never heard him say he loves you. He doesn’t and he never has. Never will. He’s a McLeod and he’s trying to destroy you.

  I shove that away for the moment, despite its persistence to scratch its way in and I drop my knees, lying flat on the floor and folding my arms behind my head. I need to consider one problem at a time and I take some deep breaths.

  I feel calmer now, some of my resilience returning and for a moment I actually feel grateful for my traumatic and painful childhood. If it’s done one thing, it’s equipped me to deal with stress – extreme stress. It’s all I lived with for so long, it’s second nature to me. It was my life for years, a struggle to survive unscathed physically, sexually or emotionally due to the actions or others, or the lack of them. It’s the best armour that I could possibly have. I loved no one until Justin and Ellen and although the love that I still feel for Carter McLeod is marbled deeply into my bones, my strength of character will shove him firmly out of my life and the lives of those I love. I know it will.

  So… how to do it? Perhaps it’s not a good idea to plan it out too carefully. My belly hitches when I think again of how awful it’s going to be, whether the man’s acting or not. Maybe I should say that he’s taking up too much of my time, I’m too young, not ready for a relationship?

  Good plan. So what are you going to say when he throws the fact that you told him you loved him the other night at you?

  Did I though? Although I was half blinded with passion at the time, I don’t recall actually saying the whole word love. And even if I did, I could have been saying that I loved a lot of things. Carter’s cock, his sexual prowess, his body. Not necessarily him and I finally feel the birth of a smile twitch at the corners of my mouth. I have plausible deniability, that’s good and I intend to use that to full effect if he confronts me with it.

  You’ll be lying to him. You do love him.

  So? He’ll never hear those words again from my lips, I’d sooner die. How on earth can I be in love with a monster? And if I’m lying to him, again, I don’t give a flying fuck. He’s been lying to me since day one, the whole relationship that we’ve built together has been as strong as a house of cards.

  And finally, I can’t push the painful facts and what they’ve meant to the last two weeks of my life away. Toria’s words skate again… that he was supposed to make me fall in love with him, that he’d finally done something right. Sickness begins a dark churn as I remember my eighteenth birthday, stumbling from the bar and tipping my wine down his shirt.

  Jesus.

  Even that probably wasn’t a coincidence, he probably got a friend to bump into me, make sure it happened. Give him an excuse to talk to me, worm his way in. We didn’t meet by chance, he’d been stalking me. For God knows how long.

  Oh fuck. I think I’m going to be sick again and I scramble up from the floor, staggering to the bathroom and dropping miserably to my knees in front of the open toilet bowl. I retch, again and again, but there’s nothing left to come up, my stomach wringing painfully. I wipe some strings of drool from my mouth, sitting back and gasping. I need to go to bed, I suddenly feel as weak as a damned kitten.

  I manage to brush my teeth quickly, although it’s a struggle and I heave again as I spit out the foam. I strip quickly, leaving my clothes in a pile on the bathroom floor and hurry naked into the bedroom. I slide quickly into bed, curling up on my side, pulling the duvet high and I stare at nothing in the warm darkness. I swallow hard. I’m not even sure I can contemplate this any more in my head tonight now, the extent of the deception, the betrayal. This is far worse than finding Carter with his tongue down Toria’s throat, which is what I’d expected to find tonight. I thought that would be the worst possible scenario, not this.

  Sadly, I have no control over my tumbling thoughts, my brain determined to torture me and like photos from a projector, they flash behind my clenched lids, a Pearl and Carter journey. From that first kiss in Obsidian, to the tender, sad farewell that he planted on my lips last night, I see it all. He’s riding Dave, laughing his head off, his head thrown back and looking so beautiful that the tears start again, I’m powerless. He’s leaning over me, his curls a damp storm around his flushed face, his pupils blown out with desire as he dips to kiss me.

  Oh my God…

  None of it was real. He was acting a role and they certainly picked the perfect guy for the part. I was an eager excited virgin and Carter McLeod captivated me with his pretty face the first time our eyes met. I was ripe for the picking, he didn’t even have to try.

  The man m
ust have a heart of stone, that’s clear. To casually take a virgin’s precious virginity, shower her with every good time a man and a woman can have together, make her fall desperately in love with him when he felt nothing. Wow. I knew there were some cold, cruel people on the planet, but Carter McLeod has just taken that to a whole new level.

  Remember – when you end it tomorrow – you cannot under any circumstances blurt out that you know who he is.

  No. I need to keep this firmly in the forefront of my mind. It’s vitally important. I need to talk to Justin about this, what it means. What does it mean? That the McLeods are still a threat for a start and as I swipe my face of tears as they thankfully recede again I wonder where Carter actually fits into the family. Is he Caleb’s son?

  I doubt that very much. Dillon was all over Caleb’s life like a rash, he’d have known if he had a son. A nephew, then, obviously and it clicks in my mind. Jimmy and Philip are Caleb’s brothers, I’d bet my life on it. They just live in Dorset instead of Scotland. I smile in the dark before it fades. What to do with this information, that’s the thing. Carter has obviously been instructed to worm his way into my life as my boyfriend and do… what?

  I have no idea and although I realise that without confronting him, I’ll never know, so what? Whatever it is, it’ll be bad, I’m sure and it’ll only hurt me further, tarnish and ruin every precious memory that I have of him. I can live without knowing. I need to speak to Justin and Ellen and we need to decide what we do with the information, but I know what Justin’s like. I’m going to sit on it, at least until I finish with Carter. I’ve got to do that first, without a doubt. If I tell Justin now, he’ll probably drag him out of his house and beat the shit out of him.

  When the dark wings of exhaustion finally begin to fold around my mind, I sigh, letting my mind drift and just before I fall off the edge and into the long dark, I think of Carter’s tattoo and his explanation for getting it done.

  ‘Symbolic.’

  There’s a tiny flare in the back of my mind for a second, that this means something, something good but before I can try and examine it further, I’m gone.

  Forty Two

  There’s a woodpecker in my dream. He’s beautiful, in fact, he isn’t a woodpecker after all – he’s a phoenix. What he’s doing at the top of the tree in front of me, I have no idea, but he’s tapping away, obviously trying to drill a hole. I stare up at his technicolour tail and he looks down at me for a moment before the tapping starts again. This time, he’s really determined and the tapping turns into a burst of banging… banging…

  I fly up in the bed, dragged from sleep as the noise gets louder and I shake my head in confusion, scrubbing at my eyes. The banging starts again and I realise that there’s someone at my flat door.

  Glancing at my watch as I swing my legs out of bed, my belly lurches when I see that it’s nearly half three in the morning.

  Oh God, what if it’s Carter? He’s done this before.

  Yeah, has he ever but I can’t allow myself to think about the night that he crashed through the door to make love to me for the first time. He wouldn’t rock up here at this time knowing that I’m ill.

  I shove my body into my robe and hurry through the darkened lounge, flipping on a lamp as I go. I open the door with my heart in my mouth. Whoever’s on the other side of it, I get the strangest notion that what they have to tell me isn’t good news, not at this time of a morning.

  It’s Ellen and she takes my hands as she comes into the flat. I shut the door behind her and look at her with anxious eyes. Hers are dark with worry, her lovely face drawn.

  ‘Pearl, I’m so sorry to get you out of bed at this time of a morning, but can you listen out for Jared for us?’ A pause, as if she’s gathering herself to say the next words. ‘Dan’s had a heart attack, Justin and I need to get to Royal Liverpool.’

  Oh shit?

  I stumble towards her, tears burning again. Jesus, I’m so sick of crying, I’m actually shocked my wrung out body can produce any more today and then she’s in my arms. She’s crying too and we hold each other for a moment, before she pulls away. She gives me a pained look.

  ‘Hopefully, it’s not looking too serious at this stage,’ she says, running her hands through her hair. She’s wearing leggings and a fleece, her pale face devoid of makeup and she gives me a wobbly smile now, squeezing my hand. ‘He needs an Angiogram and possibly a stent, but it’s a keyhole procedure, unless there’s complications,’ she tells me and I sink onto the arm of the chair, looking up at her with swimming eyes.

  When is this shit-storm going to pass?

  It’s one thing after another, but I have the feeling that it hasn’t even hit us yet. The thunderheads in the distance are black and menacing, but they’re off into the future, are still gathering strength. I bite my lip as I realise that I can’t tell Justin and Ellen anything about this yet, at least not Carter being a McLeod. Justin won’t be leaving Dan’s side, Ellen will need to prop him up and I can’t dump even more shit on them at a time when they’ll be worried sick. Jesus God, he’d better pull through. It would destroy us all if we lost him.

  I pang for Holly. She must be in pieces right now and I stand up, taking Ellen’s hands and leaning my head on her shoulder.

  ‘Don’t worry about a thing here, go.’ I give her a kiss. ‘Please would you let me know how he is?’

  ‘Of course I will,’ she whispers. ‘He’ll be fine, Pearl. We all have to believe that.’

  We do and I give her a stronger smile as she moves over to the door. ‘Ellen, give Justin my love will you? Tell him not to worry about anything at The Guardian, okay? I’ll hold the fort for as long as he needs and update him regularly.’

  She nods. ‘I will, thanks love. I’ll see you soon.’

  The door closes behind her and I stand vacantly in the lounge. I need to try and get some more sleep, I’ve got to do the most painful thing I’ve ever done tomorrow, but I’ll need to keep an ear out for Jared. I nip down to Ellen and Justin’s bedroom and grab the monitor. He’s quiet at the moment, but then he does generally sleep right through unless he’s poorly, so I don’t think he’ll wake up until morning. Ellen will no doubt be back by the time I need to go to The Guardian, even if Justin stays at the Hospital.

  I lie back in the bed, but sleep now eludes me, despite how knackered I am. I grope for what I was thinking about just before I nodded off last time, but it’s skittered away from me. As I lie in the dark room, my eyes closed, Aaron suddenly floats unexpectedly into my mind. I’d smile if I could find one in me. He was absolutely right and I remember his words in the office, words that I scoffed at, took offence to. I was so sure of myself, despite never hearing Carter declare his feelings, so certain that I could read it in his eyes. I’m a gullible naïve fool. Carter is a conman.

  I’ve evidently dropped off again and the grizzle of the monitor wakes me at nearly seven. I hurry down to Jared’s room to see him standing in his cot, his bottom lip sticking out and his white blond hair standing on end. He grins when he sees me and I spend the next forty five minutes getting us both breakfast and washed and dressed for the day ahead.

  Just as I’m putting him into the playpen in the kitchen, the front door opens and within a few seconds, Justin and Ellen appear in the kitchen. They both look absolutely wiped, their eyes red and they’ve no doubt been crying. My heart lurches, but not with my own pain this time. Justin gives me a sad smile as I walk over and pull them both into a hug.

  ‘Thanks for watching His Nibbs,’ he says, giving me a quick kiss. ‘He been okay?’

  ‘Always is, Jus,’ I reply, looking from him to Ellen now. ‘How is he?’

  Ellen moves over to the kettle and fills it, clicking it on and I follow Justin over to the stools at the island. We slide onto them.

  ‘He had a blood clot in one of his coronary arteries, but thankfully the surgery removed it without issue. His blood pressure dropped drastically at one point, and he needs to spend the next couple of days
on Critical Care, but they’re hopeful that he’ll make a complete recovery,’ he says and there’s a mixture of relief and anxiety in his tired blue eyes.

  Ellen comes over with drinks for us both and I sip mine gratefully. Justin gives me a beady look over the top of his mug.

  ‘Are you sure you’re alright? You didn’t look great yesterday, and you look even worse this morning,’ he says, pulling no punches as he puts the mug on the tiles.

  I roll my eyes in mock offence. ‘Cheers Jus – that’s exactly what a girl wants to hear!’ I say, trying for light and carefree but I know I’m not fooling him for a moment. My eyes are puffy and red rimmed and he knows I don’t suffer from hay fever. Something has made me cry, but Justin being Justin, he doesn’t push it.

  I take a sip of my coffee. I can’t tell him about the McLeod shit we’re in until Dan’s out of danger, not a chance. Justin won’t know what to do with himself, it would throw him into torment and I cannot do that to the man. It doesn’t matter for the next few days, anyway. Carter will have no idea I’ve uncovered him and his toxic family, and whilst they’re none the wiser, they’re not much threat.

  I wonder if I should talk to Dillon first? I know that when I do tell Justin, the first thing he’s going to do is go to Steve Thompson, but I think that Dillon will advise caution. What’s Justin got to complain about, for a start? The McLeods haven’t done anything – certainly nothing illegal – not yet. I can’t try and explain to the Police that I’ve been seduced by Carter McLeod with a view to harming us. There’s no proof of that and I’d sound like a raving lunatic.

  Justin gives me a little shove. ‘You know what I mean – you’d be beautiful if you were a zombie Pearl, I’ve seen you look better, that’s all?’

  Shock suddenly washes over Ellen’s face. ‘You looked terrible when you opened the door last night, are you really okay?’

  ‘Yeah. I threw up on the way home, I thought I was coming down with a bug, but I felt better after I’d had a nap,’ I say glibly. Thankfully there’s no mumbling or stuttering and Ellen looks at me sympathetically. ‘It must have been something I’d eaten,’ I say to reinforce my lie and Justin looks at me beadily again.