First Bitten (11 page)

He looks sideways at me, his eyebrow raised. “What, being an arse?”

I feel my cheeks turn pink. “Hmm.” I nod, lightly.

He rests his chin on his shoulder, his even eyes fixed on me. “No, that quality’s just reserved for me and Cal.”

“
Sorry, that sounded ... what I meant was ... I didn’t mean your dad and Sol ... I meant ... I mean … ” I’m flustered. I take a quick breath, “ … I like them, and you of course.”

A smile flickers over his face. “Of course.”

My cheeks turn from pink to red. I sweep my hair around my neck and start twisting strands around my finger. “What about your mum?” I ask.

“
What about her?” His sudden cool tone sucks the air right out of here.

“
Well, I just wondered where she is?” My words are careful, measured.

“
I don’t know.” He shrugs averting his eyes. “She left, seventeen years ago. I was twelve, Cal was fourteen, Sol was two. He doesn’t remember her.” His voice has gone as flat and cold as I’ve felt since I woke up this morning.

“
I’m sorry … ”

“
Don’t be,” he cuts me off. “I’m not.” He glances back at me but his face is unreadable, impassive.

“
I lost my parents,” I blurt out. “They died.”

Where the hell did that come from? That’s the first time I’ve spoken about them in years. I always think of them. Always. I just never talk about them. If I do, it makes the fact they’re not here all the more real.

“
I know,” Nathan says, blindsiding me. “It said in the papers about your parents, about how they died in a car accident when you were sixteen.”

I stare at him, confused. “Why would it be in the papers about my parents? They died ten years ago.”

“
You’re a missing person. It’s a big story in the news at the moment and ... well, in these sorts of cases they tend to give a back story about the ... victims.” He hesitates, then asks, “Do you want to see the newspaper?”

It’s my turn to hesitate.

Do I want to see the newspaper? No. Yes. No.

“
Yes,” I hear myself saying, despite all my reservations.

Nathan jumps down from the bales, lithely landing on his feet, and goes over to the tractor. He opens the door, climbs halfway in and emerges back out a second later with a folded newspaper in his hand.

Blood starts to beat in my ears as he walks back toward me. He climbs up the bales and sits down again beside me, closer this time I notice, and hands me the paper.

It’s my local newspaper, the Scarborough Evening News. I notice the date at the top of the page. “Is this today’s?” I ask.

“
Yep.”

I unfold the paper, revealing the front page.

There’s a sizeable picture of me and Carrie on the front. I recognise it instantly. It was taken last Christmas Eve. Angie and Tom had a party at their house. Eddie came with me. We were just getting back on track after I had found out about his first indiscretion.

Carrie looks beautiful. Her arm is around my shoulders, eyes sparkling, smiling widely, with her red hair ablaze around her face. I look drunk. Actually, I was drunk. It really is a great photo of Carrie, though. It captures the essence of her. I know that Angie and Tom have it in a frame on the mantelpiece in their living room. Angie loves this picture, she was the one who took it.

My face starts to tingle with the memory.

“
Your story’s made the nationals as well,” Nathan informs me. He doesn’t sound happy about it.

The national newspapers? Hackness is a really small place and I used to live in Scarborough. Both Carrie and I went to school there, so I can see why our disappearance would have a big impact on the local community. But to make the national newspapers, well you’re either a celebrity, a criminal or ... you’ve been murdered.

My throat starts to feel tight. It’s getting hard to breathe again. A fat teardrop leaks from my eye and lands on the paper, directly onto the picture of me and Carrie. Dismayed, I quickly try to dab it dry with the sleeve of Nathan’s leather jacket. Instead I smudge it.

The picture’s getting ruined. Panic grips me tight. It’s the only picture I have left of Carrie. It’s all I have left of Carrie.

Nathan, seeing my upset, pulls the sleeve of his top down and dabs the paper dry. He does a much better job than me. Now there’s only a slight smudge on the part of the picture with me in. Carrie looks fine.

I exhale with relief. “Thank you,” I utter gratefully.

“
I wasn’t thinking when I brought you this.” He indicates the newspaper with his finger. “I should have realised it would upset you. Do you want me to get rid of it?”

“
No.” I wipe my wet eyes dry with my hand and rub my hands against my jeans before touching the paper again. I can’t risk any more smudges.

I stare down at Carrie.

She’s gone. She’s never going to get married or have kids, or go travelling like she always talked about doing. I’ve stolen her life from her.

I try to breath but stale air ghosts its way through me.

“
She was really pretty,” Nathan says in a measured voice. I glance at him. “You guys look like you were having a good time in this picture,” he adds.

“
We were. Carrie was the life and soul of the party.”

“
You were close?” he inquires.

“
Like sisters.” I stare down at the picture. “She was my family. Her, Angie and Tom, they were all I had left in the world.”

“
You got no other family? Grandparents, aunties, uncles?”

“
No.” I shake my head. “”My mum and dad were both only children and my grandparents on both sides died a long time ago.” I let out a sad breath, tracing my fingertip over the picture. “I’m an orphan.”

The silence that follows carries a heavy weight.

I let my eyes drift over the paper. I read about mine and Carrie’s disappearance and the odd circumstance surrounding it. There’s the mention of my parents' death that Nathan has just mentioned. It goes on to say that Angie and Tom have put up a reward for anyone who has information about my and Carrie's whereabouts, leading to our discovery. A hundred thousand pounds.

Angie and Tom are wealthy, but still, a hundred grand is a lot of money even for them.

There’s a quote from Angie in the text saying, ‘We’re not missing one daughter, we’re missing two.’

I feel sick and it aches all the way through my chest, straight into my hollow heart. It’s all I can do not to throw the paper down and run straight to them. If only there was some way I could go to them and tell them what has happened. It won’t bring Carrie back but it will allow them some peace.

I look to Nathan, pleadingly. “Isn’t there any way I can tell Angie and Tom what has happened, end their suffering?”

He stares back at me with sympathetic eyes and I already know his answer before he speaks. “We’ve already talked about this, Alex. You know it isn’t a possibility. If you go to them, you’ll only end up putting them in danger too.”

Frustration practically burns up my insides. I know he’s right but I don’t want him to be. I owe everything to Angie and Tom. They deserve more than this from me.

I stare back down at Angie’s words, letting them burn into my retinas, and something catches my eye. Eddie’s name. Eddie’s in here, of course he is. He was my boyfriend after all. I scan the text. The story on him only just starts when it ends, saying, ‘Turn to page 5 to continue … ’

I turn the pages quickly. There’s more about me in here but I’m not interested in me, I’m only interested in Eddie.

I see a small picture of him halfway down the page. He looks distraught. It makes my heart hurt. And, as I stare harder at the picture, things start to stand out, like the police station behind him. This picture is of Eddie leaving the police station. I swallow down hard. As I read the text directly below the picture, it says Eddie’s a suspect in our disappearance.

Oh God. He might have cheated on me but I don’t want Eddie to go to prison for something he didn’t do. My heart starts to beat erratically.

I let my eyes scan over the words, picking out the important parts.

‘
Alexandra Jones and Eddie Thomson had been in a relationship for three years ... Eddie Thomson works for Tom Ross, Carrie’s father ... Jones and Thomson had argued the day before her disappearance ... Jones discovered he’d been cheating on her ... They argued and had split up the day prior to Alexandra and Carrie’s disappearance ... Jones had moved out of their two bed house on Princess Street ... the last call received to Jones’ mobile was from Thomson ... Thomson was taken in for questioning but was released without charge when his alibi was corroborated ... the night of their disappearance Thomson was with a woman, Serena Travers. She confirmed to police officers yesterday that he had spent the night with her at her house on Scalby Road, Scarborough.’

My heart sinks down to the stony floor.

He called me begging me to go back to him and all the while he was at her house. Carrie was murdered, I was left fighting for my life, and Eddie was getting his jollies on with his tart.

I fucking hate him, the bastard. And I truly hope he feels so guilty that it swallows him whole and he chokes the fuck to death on it.

My whole body is shaking with rage. I’m so angry I don’t know what to do with it.

I jump down from the bales and begin pacing the floor, the paper still tightly clutched in my hand.

“
You okay?” Nathan asks me, concerned.

“
No!” I yell, throwing the paper to the floor. “I’m not bloody okay. I’m having a really shit time of it, if you hadn’t noticed!”

“
I noticed.”

I stop pacing at his firm tone and stand there facing him.

His serious eyes meet mine for a long moment. “You can be as hurt and pissed off as you want, Alex, but it’s not going to change anything. This is how it is for you now and you’re just gonna have to find some way to accept it.” He sighs. I feel like an irritation. “I don’t know what other way I can say this to you to make you understand.”

Does this guy have no heart at all?

I feel all consumed by my grief again. I’m so close to the edge. I could scream.

So I do.

I scream until my head throbs and my throat feels sore. And when I’m done, I open my eyes and see Nathan just looking blankly across at me.

And now I feel even worse, not better.

“
What if I don’t want to accept my situation?” I cry at him. “Then what?” My head is buzzing around like there’s a swarm of bees inside.

He shuts his eyes briefly in silent apology and I can’t bear to look at him for a second longer.

I grab the page of the newspaper featuring the picture of Carrie up from the floor and, clasping it to my chest, I turn and stalk out the barn.

“
Where are you going?” Nathan’s deep voice is at my side within a matter of seconds.

I stop and spin around to face him. My heart is pummelling my rib cage.

I push my hair angrily off my face and scowl up at him. “I’m going back to your house, Nathan. You don’t have to worry, I’m not going to try and leave. I mean, it’s not like I have anywhere to go.” I can feel my bottom lip starting to quiver. “I know I’m stuck here and I know you hate that thought as much I do … ” My voice breaks, betraying me. I bite down hard on my bottom lip.

Nathan frowns down at me. His light eyes look almost black in the darkness. “Alex, you’re not a prisoner here, but it’s also not possible for you to leave at the moment. You already know this.” He exhales, raking his fingers through his hair. “And it’s not that I don’t want you here, it’s just …”

“
I don’t want to hear it!” I cut him off with a wave of my hand, blinking back my pathetic tears. “Really, I’ve heard and seen enough crap today to last me a lifetime. No more! I don’t want any more.” My loud voice echoes around nature’s silence.

“
What do you want?” His question catches me off-guard. He takes a step toward me, towering over me, the toes of his boots nearly flush with my trainers, leaving a veil of air between us.

I feel off-balance. I dig my feet into the ground to steady myself and look up at him. “What?” My voice comes out sounding weaker than I intended.

“
Just what is it that will make all of this better for you?” His voice sounds dry and intense, and he’s wearing an unfathomable expression on his face.

My heart has set a battering ram against my chest. I’m sure it’s about to crack through a rib any second now.

I take a shaky step backwards. “Nothing,” I say affected. “Nothing will ever make any of this better. Just leave me alone!” I shove him away from me, hard in the chest, and then I’m turning on my heel and running toward the house, leaving Nathan behind.

And this time he doesn’t follow me.

Chapter 10

Hope

I’ve lost everything. Everything. My humanity. My life. My best friend.

Every day is like a hangover, worse than the one before. I’ve been in this house for a week and that week has felt like a year. I sleep sporadically and the little sleep I do have is plagued by nightmares because all I think about, every single second, of every single day is of what I’ve lost ... what I’ve become ... that night ... Carrie.