“He’s alive,” he confirms, tone formal, and for a moment, a tiny moment, a sliver of time, I feel relief spread through my chest, but it's gone as quickly as it blooms because he’s not here. Clay. Is. Not. Here.
“Where is he?”
“He’s”—Blackborn diverts his gaze to the window behind me, then returns his attention—"indisposed.”
I feel numb. "My babies?"
"After the crash, they were brought to paediatrics for observation, but?—"
"But what?"
He takes a big breath in and lets it out slow. "They were taken hostage in their room.”
The world shrinks to a pinpoint.Hostage?“I don’t understand.”
“An individual went into their room while the nurses were warming milk. This individual locked the doors.”
I grasp the edge of the bed.
“No, no, no, no,” I chant, feeling the floor tilt.
I release the bed, and back away from that man. I put spacebetween me and him. I hate his fucking uniform and his useless fucking job! He is a fucking failure! He failed me! The system failed me. There was no accountability for me as a child, for our poverty or my mother’s drug problem and suicide. No accountability when they put me in that foster home with that woman or for my rape. And now, no accountability for the car pileup or for my babies.
I hate him. I step backwards again, my calves hitting the single seat behind me.
He goes on, “We have the room surrounded, but the perpetrator has stopped communicating with us.”
The officer is talking—I stare at the ground as my vision burns around the edges with hatred. He says it all so plainly, as if this is not the unravelling of my entire existence. Of all the good things, one, two, and three—the infinite number! It’s meant to be infinite! I just started accepting it, accepting that good things can come, keep coming…
I don’t feel the tears until my face is covered in them, and the world is blurring again. I manage to claw four words up from my consciousness. "Who has my babies?"
He takes a single step towards me. "Can you confirm you know a woman by the name of Eleanor Bradfield?”
No.
The car… The car with the squashed insects on the grille—it was Jake’s. It washer.
“Yes.” My head aches.
“We are concerned about the safety of your children. She seemed hostile and extremely volatile. She was talking about her two missing foster boys, something to do with revenge for them. She is claiming that Clay Butcher may know their whereabouts.”
No.
“It’s best you prepare yourself. She was your foster mother,correct? Do you know what she might be referring to? We are hoping you can convince her to update us on the welfare of your children and get her communicating.”
No.
And I drop to my knees, crumbling, legs as useless as I am—this ismyfault. Mine. I invited her into my life, into their lives, all because I wanted to prove I wasn’t a nobody, was worthy of her love. I moan at the hospital floor, a current of sorrow flooding my face, making the useless man in blue fade.
The room blurs.
My reality trembles.
I close my eyes. I cover my face and ears, blocking everything out, sobbing mindlessly—throaty, painful tears that don’t want to be inside my useless body that failed them.Ifailed them. Mummy wasn’t close. Mummy didn’t protect you. My three good things: my perfect boys and our life.
Not again.
I see my mum.
