Jake stepped back as he advanced towards him.
One hand pressed to his neck, the other a white-knuckled fist at his side, Paul Lewis took another step. ‘What have you given me?’ he snarled.
‘Just ketamine,’ Jake said, his mouth curving into the reassuring smile Emily had seen so many times. There was no reassurance in his eyes, though. What she saw there, a mixture of hatred and burning anger she would never have believed him capable of, shook her to the core. ‘A large dose. Nothing a big man like you can’t handle, though, hey,Louis?’
‘Youbastard,’ Paul spat, taking another step towards him.
Jake took another step back. He didn’t look fazed, though Emily’s heart was banging so fast she thought it might explode.
‘I’ll fuckingkill…’ Paul started. Then he stopped, his legs buckling, the drug Jake had injected into him bringing him heavily to his knees.
‘Probably best not to fight it,’ Jake advised, moving back towards him. One shove with his foot was all it took, and Paul Lewis keeled over.
Moving fast, Jake reached past him to grab Emily’s arm. ‘Out,’ he instructed.
‘But … what do we do?’ Emily asked, terrified, as she watched the man’s eyes roll. ‘They’ll know; the police, they’ll know it was—’
‘It’s not enough to kill him,’ Jake said sharply. ‘I doubt he’ll be going anywhere near the police. We need to go, Emily.Now.’
‘Were you going to …? Once he was drugged, did you intend to kill him?’ Emily struggled to speak the words as, his hand firmly under her arm, he guided her out of the flat, almost dragging her down the concrete steps.
‘Yes,’ he snapped. ‘I’m still fighting the urge not to. Keys?’ he asked, as they approached her car.
She fumbled in her pockets.
‘Are you okay to drive?’
She nodded and pressed her key fob.
‘Go,’ he instructed, pulling her door open. ‘Straight home. I’ll be right behind you.’
She’d started the engine and was reversing when she heard him shout. ‘Ben! For God’s sake, don’t!’
Emily slammed on the brakes. Shoving her door open, she looked towards Ben, who was facing away from them, taking a draw on his cigarette before tossing it towards the workshop. Her mind didn’t register what was happening until Jake threw himself towards him, pushing him to the ground just as a whoosh of flames spewed out.
Forty-Nine
Jake
‘Ready?’ Jake asked Millie as she came downstairs. She still looked pale, but she was holding things together. She and Emily had talked, tentatively at first. Jake had guessed that they’d made some headway towards healing their wounds when he walked into the kitchen to find them hugging each other fiercely and crying together.
Giving him a plucky smile, Millie nodded. Jake smiled reassuringly back. Holding eye contact with her for a second, he saw that she understood he was trusting her to use her initiative regarding how much she disclosed to her friend. Three days had passed, and they’d had no contact from the police. Thinking they would have done by now had they been under suspicion, Jake breathed a little more easily.
‘We’re off,’ he called to Emily upstairs.
‘Okay. Ring me if you need a lift later, Millie,’ Emily called back.
Once Millie would have rolled her eyes and told her she was sixteen, not six and perfectly capable of walking home on her own, but now she looked relieved – that her mother cared enough to be worried about her, Jake surmised, which was definitely progress.
Leaving Emily with Ben to have a more in-depth conversation with him – about the incident that had turned his life upside down and Lewis’s flat into an inferno, as well as historical events that were painful for both of them – he picked up his car keys. Opening the front door to let Millie out before him, he gave her shoulders a squeeze as they walked towards his car.
Millie was quiet for a while on the journey. Eventually she turned to him. ‘I’m sorry I told Ben about Lewis being his father,’ she said, almost blurting it out, as if she’d had to summon her courage.
Jake reached for her hand. ‘It’s okay, Millie,’ he said, squeezing it. ‘He had to know.’
‘Yes, but it should have come from Mum, not me. I should have thought about it, been more mature.’
‘You were distraught, Mils. We all were.’ Pulling up outside Anna’s house, Jake took a breath. ‘We can’t undo things, Millie, but we can learn from them. I think that’s the lesson to take from this, don’t you? The mature thing to do?’
