I look at her as a surge of heat fills my chest.
Her face is thin and pale from three days of nothing. Her lips are cracked, but those eyes are clear and determined.
‘Someone should,’ I say.
‘We should,’ she says. ‘Together.’
The bulb swings, and I nod. It feelsright.
‘Together,’ I say.
We get to our feet.
THIRTY-EIGHT
KAT
The night air is a godsend.Still so cold, but the freshness of the outdoors hits us both.
I breathe and breathe and breathe. And despite being in an industrial estate, it’s the best thing I have ever sucked into my lungs.
Liam and I stand outside the unit and look at the distant streets, the ordinary world continuing like we hadn’t been on the brink of death for days.
I reach for his hand.
Liam takes Sam’s keys and searches the one car that lights up when he presses the button. He finds his own phone, still switched off, and Sam’s one too, lit up on the passenger seat. There’s a fleece on the floor, and despite it smelling like it hasn’t even met a washing machine, I gladly accept it, almost crying as the warm cloth slips over my arms.
There’s water too, and as badly as I want to down it, Liam makes me take small sips.
‘What next?’ I ask.
‘We’ll drive somewhere neutral, without cameras, and get a taxi to your place. Then clean up your room. Ellie should hopefully be at Mum’s, but I can’t risk switching on my phone anywhere near where Sam’s has been in the past few days.’
I nod, sitting back into the seat as he switches the car on and whacks the heater on full.
‘We’ll get ourselves cleaned up, and eat and drink, and bandage our wounds as best we can. Then we’ll go to mine, love on Reggie and make sure his food’s topped up, and get my car keys.’
‘I didn’t realise you have a car.’
He gives a wry laugh. ‘Don’t get your expectations up, it’s a right old banger, but suitable for carting a dead body. We’ll wrap him in bin bags and bleach the scene well. Then we’ll torch the building.’
‘It should concern me how well you’ve thought all this through,’ I say, not feeling even the slightest bit disturbed.
‘He gave me a lot of time to imagine killing him in there.’
‘And what do we do with his body?’
He looks over at me and smiles. ‘The well. It’s served us well so far.’
Hours later, we’re on a winding country road with a bin-bagged body in the boot, and a McDonald’s in my lap. I can only nibble the fries and nuggets, but I don’t care.
Liam’s phone trembles in my palm as I text Ellie.
‘You’ll need to call me Will,’ Liam says.
‘What?’
‘It was the name I eventually gave the child services. William. I thought it would be a smart move to change my name to distance me from my dad.’
