“That I’ll wing it.”
I snap my fingers. “I’ll wing it.”
“We need to get you patched up,” he says, pulling away from me and seeing the blood that has soaked into his top.
“The good news is you know how to fix these types of wounds.”
“I don’t know how you see that as being a good thing.” He stands and holds his hand out to me. I give Andrews a final glance, sigh, and take his hand.
“Are you okay?” he asks, his hand resting on my shoulders.
I look up into his eyes.
“It’s business.”
We stare, one beat, two beats, three beats.
He sees right through that answer, but thankfully he doesn’t say anything apart from, “Sure, it is,” before standing and stepping away.
I stare at Andrews, his broken body, his pale expression and something cracks along my chest. Something painful, but I don’t acknowledge it. No, I do what I do best.
I put it in the box, I close the lid, and I lock it with the invisible key.
I just wonder how much more space that little box has.
“Do you have any idea where we are going? Is London even safe for us now?” Owen asks as I pull out of the long driveway and navigate through the huge, posh, and overly prestigious St George’s Hill estate in Surrey.
“I’m winging it, remember?” I say as I pull up to the security gates, which open as the security guard in his little hut waves at us. “London is probably one of the safest of places. Plus, maybe you were right. Maybe carrying on like nothing has happened is the right course of action here. They aren’t likely to shoot you if you’re on official business.”
“Reassuring to hear that, Kara.”
“Oh, so I’m Kara again now, am I?”
“I’ve no idea who you are right now, to be honest,” he mumbles, tapping on the huge Tesla flat screen and pulling up the sat nav.
“What do you want from me?”
“Maybe some honesty, maybe some truth, maybe some goddamn acknowledgement that I killed someone who meant something to you,” he snaps, his taps getting more aggressive.
“Wow, Okay. What do you want me to say, Owen?” I glance across at him as we pull up to a light. “That I’ve been fucked over by two so-called friends in the last twenty-four hours? That one of those people, who yes, may havetaken advantage,”I air quote, “of me, but equally saved my life when the person who had promised to be there fucking left me.”
“There it is—”
“Yes, there it is. He saved me when you couldn’t.”
“We’re back here again, are we? Skirting around the edges of the conversation we need to have, with you lashing out. Pull over,” he demands.
My head jerks in disbelief. “Fuck off.”
He reaches onto the floor and grabs the gun, pointing it at my head. “Pull the fuck over, Lucy, or I swear to God—”
“That you’ll what? Shoot me? Like you’re going to shoot me. So do yourself a favour and put the gun down, before I put you the fuck down.”
“You’re driving a car; you’re not going to do that—”
My arm flies across quickly and I disarm him. The gun is gripped in my hand just as the light goes green. The car behind beeps, and I accelerate, still pointing it towards Owen. His eyes widen as his brain finally catches up with the move I’ve done.
“So, you’re just going to ignore what’s happened back there then, compartmentalise, bury it wherever you put everything else from our past, and bury your head in the sand?”
