Damn. You’ve got to be rich to not even know where the cleaning supplies are in your childhood home.
‘I’ll text Tuck to come help. He won’t spread gossip around the staff, and he’s helped me with… incidents… before.’ Eliza pulls out her phone and sends a message.
Maggie hesitates, then nods numbly and sits on the bottom step, looking anywhere except at the gaping hole in Eddie’s face. Would Coffin come back for seconds?
I grab Eddie’s ankles while Eliza takes his shoulders. We start dragging him down the corridor, my shoes slipping on a puddle of god only knows what.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ I mutter as I skid, nearly going down myself.
‘Try not to die,’ Eliza chirps. ‘One corpse is plenty.’
We haul Eddie out into the cold night air via an old servant’s entrance at the back of the house. The music from inside fills the air with disjointed glass, clashing with the dark acts we commit.
By the time the pig pen looms ahead, I’m sorer than I think I’ve ever been.
The pigs are already stirring.
I gag. ‘They’re coming closer.’
‘They know dinner when they smell it.’
We tip Eddie in, and the pigs surge forward, excitedly snorting and nudging at Eddie with their twitching snouts.
I turn away sharply, not needing to add anymore images to my brain tonight.
Eliza watches me for a long moment, then smirks. ‘Well, Roman. Welcome to the family.’
I scrub a hand over my face.
‘I assume Maggie hasn’t left you completely in the dark. You don’t seem quite as shocked as you ought to be.’
‘Not entirely,’ I say hoarsely.
She tilts her head. ‘And you still like her?’ The question hits harder than the bat did.
‘Yes.’ And I do. But enough to deal with all of this?I don’t know.
‘Huh. I may have underestimated you.’
I have a sinking feeling that my life, as I once knew it, is well and truly over.
THIRTY-ONE
MAGGIE
We siton the edge of the bed in silence. The world outside the bedroom door continues on. People partying. Cleaners cleaning. Pigs eating.
Steam from the open en-suite door still lingers in the air, but beneath it, that unmistakable coppery smell of blood. My hair soaks the towel I grip around me, my fingers tight. Roman’s hair is equally wet, his skin covered in a constellation of water droplets.
We both look hollow.
Like the couples you see at three in the morning in A&E. Sitting close but not touching. Trying to rationalise the trauma we’ve seen. Bruises are blossoming while a thousand horrid thoughts rampage.
My brain just won’t shut up.
The bat.
The knife.
