‘And when he finally leaves?’
‘I know him better than anyone, Isla. That man has been obsessively looking for you since the day you met. Through snowstorms, gang wars, you name it. He has scoured every square metre from here to that abandoned building he first saw you in. Trust me you’re not getting rid of that man.’ My brother chuckles, ‘fuck he might even be as stubborn as you.’
Ru grips my hand in his. The rough skin of his calluses scratching against my scars. At first I was insecure about them, still being in the teenage mindset of beauty means flawlessness and that was all that was important in the world. But then it quickly became obvious to me that all of that was a facade we had convinced ourselves of amongst the boredom of the world.
Beauty means nothing when your entire focus is fixed on survival. It has no true value in this world anymore.
I still feel the pain from my wounds sometimes. The memory of it is the worst. How I would lie there in the back of the medical tent, hands wrapped up and cry into my pillow. I’d never felt so alone and scared in my life.
Then, much to my dismay, a pair of wide brown eyes popped up from the bottom of my bunk and asked what all the racket was about. Little did I know that the innocent-looking, bad-mouthed girl would become my best friend.
I’ve felt the same anxieties over losing Fauna over the years, but she's like a boomerang. No matter where she goes, what obstacles she finds on the way, she has always come back. Every single time.
It took Liam months to find me, but at least he did. Right?
‘But what if something bad happens again?’ I ask Ruaridh, voicing my worries.What if he leaves me too?
‘Then we will find him,’ Ruaridh jumps up holding out his hand for me to take. ‘Even if that means crawling through hell to go fetch the big bastard.’
Chapter twenty-five
Liam
The squeaky wheels of my trolley are my only company as I make my way through the next aisle. They leave a trail of blood in their wake from where I foolishly steered them through the inconvenience I had bumped into earlier.
Back in the curtains section some mad guy decided to jump out from behind a perfectly good set of green curtains. He almost gave me a damned heart attack with all his screaming and flailing arms.
Now, I’m a reasonable man. I occasionally like to sit down with a good cuppa and chat things out but the second his grubby hands left a streak on my girls brand new blanket I’d saw red and beat the fucker to a pulp.
Was it my finest moment beating a guy to death over a wool blanket? Not really. But I’m sure fights over bedding happened all the time on those world sales days, so maybe I can put it down to entering a new era of my life.
The protector of my girl’s comforts.
Anyway. All that skull bashing made quite the mess, and now I look like something out of a Saw movie with all of this blood covering me. I bet Isla would find it hot though, she’s crazy like that.
The woman has been feral these past few weeks. It’s like she can’t get enough of me which I’m not complaining about because well, who could blame her? My skull mask isn’t the only one in the group with a crown on it for no reason.
I stop in front of the pillow section and inspect the different qualities. But come to think of it I have no idea what she really likes, she usually uses my chest as her primary place to rest. That’s whenever she lets me convince her to stay with me. Which, despite my shameless attempts, hasn’t been that often.
She’s worried about the redhead, who has apparently been acting stranger than normal, the fact that Isla can even notice that is a fucking mystery considering the girl rarely talks.
But hey ho I’m nothing but a supportive partner. So, with that in mind, I settle on throwing in one of each pillow. Nothing is too much for my princess and the logical solution is to present her with one of each for her varying comforts.
Squeezing down the aisle, blood trailing behind me, I come to a screeching stop as I set eyes on the holy grail of pillows. The long, curved, feather-filled goodness looks almost as long as me as it stretches out before curving around at the top. Above it in swirly writing, like something sent from the heavens itself, are the sweet wordspregnancy pillow.
‘Fucking bingo!’ I hoot, turning to look at the puddle of blood by the other end of the aisle. ‘You seeing this shit. I am smashing this provider thing.’
Of course, he doesn’t respond, what with his jaw having been ripped off, but I imagine he’s proud of me from wherever he is in hell.
Let’s face it, no one who is left in this world is going to heaven. Not that I think any of us would want to. You don’t survive in such a brutal world, one filled with so much violence by being an angel. Living like this changes something in you, it makes you crave the adrenaline rush and heaven just doesn’t sound like it would cut it.
Even if one of us, on some miracle made it up there, they would be instantly kicked out for starting a fight with an angel or some shit.
The soft, pillowy goodness compresses in my grip as I throw it in my trolley. Then I throw a second one in there for good measure.
Whistling down the shop, I ignore all the pointless crap that is on the dust-covered shelves. Ironically, all of the useless stuff has a noticeably thicker layer engulfing it than the rest. The barrier for the till has so helpfully been left open for me and I breeze on through, stopping to deposit a few stones the pigeons collected for me as an offering to whatever spirits now rule this place on my way out.
I may be punch first, talk later man, who definitely thinks with his fists more times than his head, but I’m not an idiot. I do not plan on pissing off whatever spiritual being has been protecting these goods, especially when I’m taking them to my girl. I will have no bad juju following her back to the stadium, no sir.
