I opened the window in my room and swung my already-packed bag out, angling my arm so that it landed in a bush to the right of the kitchen, away from the window. Then I stuffed an old rucksack with towels and sweatshirts to make it appear full. I stomped around for a while, slamming my feet against the floor above Jack so he’d think I was having a tantrum.
After ten minutes, I came downstairs. He hadn’t moved from the hallway. He stopped scrolling through his phone and registered the bag as I dropped it by his feet, taking care not to be any nearer to him than I had to be. I scooted backwards, arms folded across my chest. ‘There.’
‘Good,’ he said, stowing his phone in his pocket. ‘You’re cooperating. I knew you’d come around. It was all just a horrible accident, Soph. The wrong person died, but don’t worry, we’re going to take another run at those bastards, and this time they won’t get out alive.’
I sneered internally. He obviously didn’t know I was the one who had rescued them. Man, he was such a moron.
I forced a shrug. ‘Whatever. I can’t make rent by myself, and we both know I have nowhere else to go.’
The ghost of a smile flickered across his face, and I caught myself wondering what it would be like to cut it out of him and watch the colour drain from his lips. I smiled too as the image danced in my brain. One day I would find out.
Jack unclasped the front door and lugged my bag over his shoulder. ‘Ready?’ he asked, his tone already lifting.
I stalled. ‘I need to pee.’
His brows lifted. ‘What? Why didn’t you go upstairs?’
‘I was too busy rushing for you!’
‘Fine. Hurry up.’
I locked myself into the bathroom under the stairs and assessed the window. It was too small to fit through; I had overestimated my tininess. Dammit. I ran the tap and cursed loudly enough so he could hear me. Then I shouted through the door, ‘Can you please get me a toilet roll from the cupboard in the upstairs hallway?’
My heart thudded in my chest.
Please please please.
There was a loud, pointed sigh and then the heavy plodding of his feet on the stairs. I eased open the bathroom door, shut it quietly behind me and darted into the kitchen and out the back door. I had seconds at best.
I grabbed my rucksack from where it had landed, and catapulted towards the end of the garden. I threw the bag over the wall and started climbing, my feet scaling the trellis, my hands clawed tight against the concrete. I was halfway over the wall, my feet scrabbling against wood on one side and my fingers clutching stone on the other, when Jack’s voice rang out behind me.
He was running and I was struggling, heaving my body over the wall until it scraped along the top as I slithered over it. And then he was below me, lunging for my foot and wrapping his fingers around my ankle. With a primal shriek, I kicked out, anchoring myself with my hands as I bucked against him. He held firm. With my free hand over the wall I grabbed Luca’s switchblade from my back pocket and flicked it open. Jack yanked me by the ankle. I slipped towards him with the blade outstretched, and slashed it as hard as I could across his face.
He fell backwards, shrieking as blood pumped from his eye and coated his fingers as he held them tight to his face. He lunged blindly for me, but I had re-straddled the wall and was rolling over it, falling away from him.
I landed with a thud on the other side. The drop was high and the fall jolted the wind from my lungs. I re-stashed the blade, ducked and rolled, grabbing my rucksack and stumbling into a small line of trees that hid me as I pressed against the wall that bled into another, larger street of houses. Jack’s screams of agony hung heavy in the air behind me, and I seized the surge of adrenalin they gave me.
I sprinted along an endless row of boxy homes, hopped into a nearby garden and weaved my way behind a squat wooden house with a dilapidated porch. At the back of it I lost myself in an expanse of shrubbery and threw my rucksack over wall after wall, chasing the sun as it sank away from me, until I was too tired to do anything but wedge myself behind a garden shed somewhere along the endless row of houses. I tucked my limbs inside my body, shrank into a ball and waited for the darkness to hide me from Jack and his Marino assassins.
I took out my phone and called Millie.
‘Soph?’ She cleared her throat, waking her voice up. ‘Is everything OK?’
‘Yeah,’ I said quietly, conscious of the fact that I was trespassing on someone else’s property. ‘I just wanted to tell you I’m leaving town for a little bit.’
‘What? Why? What’s happened?’
‘Calm down,’ I said quickly, cutting off the freak-out. ‘I’m just living, Mil. I’m living like you told me to.’
Panic vibrated in her voice. ‘Soph, you’re freaking me out. What are you talking about? I didn’t mean “leave town” when I said that, I meant “get up and go for lunch with me” or something. This is definitely not what I meant.’
‘I know.’ I smiled against my phone. ‘I’m not going off on some big soul-searching adventure.’
‘Oh,’ she said, relief colouring her tone. ‘I thought you were about to ditch me for the pyramids or the Grand Canyon or something.’
‘Jack’s back in Cedar Hill.’
She sucked in a sharp inhale. ‘Shit.’
‘Yeah,’ I concurred. ‘I’m going somewhere he can’t get to me … until I want him to.’
‘What exactly does that mean?’