Phoenix

It’s dusk when I arrive at Abigail’s door.

It feels strange to be here while there’s still enough light to see by, and stranger still to ring her buzzer like any regular visitor.

I wait for the click as she answers but it doesn’t come. I look up at the window and the living room light is on. No sign of her.

I buzz again. Clear my throat as I wait for her voice.

Still nothing.

I call her number. It rings out.

I smile to myself, wondering if the cheeky little bitch is goading me to break in after all.

I’m tempted.

But no. I opt to press her neighbour’s buzzer instead.

She answers in a beat.

“It’s Leo,” I tell her. “Abigail’s boyfriend. She’s not answering.”

“Oh, sure,” she says and buzzes me in.

She’s waiting for me on the landing with a smile on her face.

“You can wait in here until they get back,” she tells me. “If you’re at a loose end, I mean.”

I stare blankly.

“They?”

“Your brother and Abigail. I guess they were heading out for more supplies.” She pauses. “Is he single?”

How my blood runs fucking cold.

“My brother?”

“Jake, right? He was right here.”

Abigail’s door key is in my fingers in a flash. I’m inside her place in a heartbeat.

It’s boiling in the kitchen. I open the oven to find a burning lasagne. I turn off the oven and head through to the bedroom.

They can’t have been gone long. The smoke alarm isn’t even sounding.

I call her name as Sarah joins me in her hallway.

“They went about half hour ago,” she says.

I spot her phone on the sofa.

I call up her messages. Check her calls. Check everything.

And then I see it.

Her online fucking hook-up login. I call up the logs with shaky fingers.

My heart is in my throat as I realise how fucking stupid I’ve been.

My laptop. The sonofabitch was on my fucking laptop.

And he took more than five fucking grand from my bank account.

He took my black swan, too.

I call up his tracker on my phone but the sonofabitch has disabled it. They could be fucking anywhere.

I pace up and down as the fear seems to register for Sarah.

“Your brother… he’s not gonna hurt her, is he? Come to think of it, she seemed pretty wired.”

“She didn’t say where they were going?”

She shakes her head. “I didn’t ask. Didn’t think.”

I call Serena. I’m hissing fury as she picks up.

“It’s Jake,” I tell her. “The cunt’s got Abigail.”

She tells me she hasn’t seen him, hasn’t heard anything since last night.

Fuck.

My hands are in my hair. My scars itch worse than they’ve ever fucking itched since I’ve had them.

“Check my laptop,” I tell Serena. “Look for anything. Any clue. Check the history.”

I don’t even want to think what he’s using that five grand for. I don’t want to think about how fucking crazy he must be.

“The bank,” Serena tells me. “Some dating website…” She pauses. “Wellington’s local depot.” She clocks it as soon as I do. “Oh no, Leo. Oh my God, no.”

And I don’t need a tracker to tell me where the sonofabitch is heading. He knew I’d find him all along.

“Lock the doors,” I tell my sister. “Lock the doors and stay inside.”

“Don’t go there!” she hisses. “Please, Leo! Don’t fucking go there! Call the police!”

But I can’t.

He’s too fucking crazy for the police to turn up.

No.

There’s only one person he wants, and that’s me.

Bait.

Of course.

How fucking ironic.

Tonight her username’s more apt than it’s ever fucking been.

“Don’t call the police,” I tell her. “I’ll handle it.”

“NO, LEO, DON’T!” she screams, but I’m already hanging up.

Wellington’s will never mean anything but tragedy to me. They always told us their products were flammable, but they didn’t tell us quite how much so.

Didn’t tell us how they’d turn our warehouse into an inferno if one of their drums caught light.

Five grand.

I wonder how much fuel he can have bought for five fucking grand.

Enough.

“Is she gonna be okay?” Sarah asks as I leave.

“She’ll be fine,” I say, and I mean it. I’ll make sure of it.

I call Jake’s number knowing full well I won’t get an answer.

It doesn’t matter. He’ll get my message and I know it.

“I’m coming,” I tell his voicemail. “But you knew that, didn’t you? You can let her go already, Jake, I’ll be there regardless. Don’t do anything fucking stupid until I get there. You don’t need to hurt her. She’s done fucking nothing to you. It’s me you want.” I pause. “And I’m on my fucking way.”

For the second time today my foot is to the fucking floor as I pull away.

 

* * *

 

Abigail

 

I thought I was scared in the back of Leo’s truck, trussed up in the footwell in the middle of the night. But it’s got nothing on how sick I feel in the back of Jake’s.

I can smell the diesel from here. I can hear the liquid in the big vats behind the seats swishing around every time he takes a corner.

I don’t need a memo to tell me that this stuff going up is what killed Mariana.

And I don’t need a memo to tell me that Jake is planning on doing it all again.

Maybe he did it in the first place.

“Bait,” Jake calls from the front.

I hate the way it sounds from his mouth.

“That’s a fucked up username, you know? Bait.”

He laughs.

“But then again, if the cap fits.”

I know I should do everything I can to avoid antagonising the drunken psychopath at the wheel, but I can’t stop my mouth as it blurts out the obvious.

“You started that fire.”

He laughs. “You think I fucking killed Mariana? LEO killed Mariana. She wouldn’t have been there in the fucking first place if he wasn’t such a cunt.”

“You were in there when it started, not Leo.”

“Yeah, trying to stop her losing her fucking mind!” he snaps, and I decide to keep my mouth shut from here on in.

I hope Leo’s discovered my absence already. I hope he’s called a thousand cops and they’ll be descending on this truck any second in a helicopter. But no. The truck rumbles on.

I know we’re climbing. I feel it.

“We were a good team once,” Jack tells me. “Me, Leo, and Mariana. We ran the business together.”

I don’t say a word.

“I saw her first, you know? No matter what he fucking tells you, I saw her first.” He pauses. I’m sure I hear him sniffle. “I fucking loved her. I loved her more than he ever did. He’d have kicked her to the fucking kerb long ago if she hadn’t had Cam.”

I wish he’d stop talking. I wish he’d shut the fuck up.

“Leo loved her,” I argue. “She loved him, I’m sure.”

“Like you know fuck all about it,” he snarls. “She wanted to run from him.”

“Good for her. Maybe she should have done it without taking a midnight detour to a warehouse packed to the rafters with highly-flammable chemicals.”

I’m being a horrible bitch and I know it, but I can’t stop. It’s get angry or get scared, and I’m not ready to give up and go down without a fight. Not for this douche.

“She called me, you know,” he says, but I sigh.

“I don’t really care.”

“You will.”

Those two simple words make me shiver.

I close my eyes and pray for a miracle. Pray for a nightmare. Pray for a monster.

Pray for anything.

For him.

I pray for another shot at having a baby. I pray for the chance to meet Cameron and see if we could grow to like each other. I pray for a chance to eat Sarah’s grandma’s special recipe lasagne with the man I love.

I pray to kiss his scars one more time.

I pray to see him in the moonlight and water one more time.

To hold him one more time.

To take him one more time.

To tell him I love him.

To tell everyone back home I’m sorry for running and I love them, too.

The backseat is a lonely world. Tears stream easily as the sky turns dark through the back window. I try to hold them back, because these silent tears are the worst.

These silent tears mean defeat.

My heart drops into my stomach as the truck comes to a stop. I flinch as he opens up the back and tugs me out by my feet.

His breath is in my face as he wraps thick twine around my wrists. Fighting is no good as he crouches down and fastens it to my ankles.

I can hobble at best. I struggle to keep my balance, even against the truck.

His eyes are dark glass. Vile and angry.

And sad.

He’s so sad.

It’s that part of him I speak to.

“You don’t have to do this,” I say. “Not any of it.”

“Run,” he says, just like that. My eyes widen in realisation. “That’s what you like, isn’t it?”

I have no words as he takes my elbow and throws me into the darkness.

I stare around me at the high surround fencing. The spikes on top.

I stare into the darkness and see the toothy grimace of a burnt-out tower. And I know.

She died here.

“Run!” Jake shouts, and it’s enough to bring me to my senses.

I hobble as fast as I can into the darkness with my heartbeat in my ears.

I trip and stumble but keep my footing.

Because I have to.

I really have to.

Tonight, it’s the monster’s brother who’s hunting me.

And if he catches me…

If he catches me, it may well be the end of all of us.