Page 83 of Death Kiss

‘You wouldn’t.’

‘I won’t. I’ll be tucked up in bed with my beautiful fiancé while they find out whether new holes fuck as good as natural ones.’ I stand, unhurried. ‘Every day you’ll wonder if it’ll be that day. Who it’s going to be. How many of them will torture you. What they’ll use. How long they’ll make you suffer.’

I go to push in my chair before remembering it’s bolted to the floor.

‘Willia—’

‘It’s Liam,’ I say. ‘William died in that cottage long ago. And now it’s your turn to live in fear of bigger men than you. Of the things they’ll do just to make you cry. You’ll remember me, and Sam, and all the others, and know you did this to yourself. And that you deserve every fucking cut.’

‘Wait,’ he pleads, his voice becoming shrill.

I don’t.

No one will ever make me fear them as he did. Never again.

By the time I make it outside, I’m a little shaky, stopping to inhale the cold, fresh air. Relishing that I’m out here and not stuck in there, facing the rest of my life behind those miserable walls.

Maybe Freddie had a point.

I’ll need to buy him a pint when they get back from their travels in the spring…

FORTY

KAT

SIX MONTHS LATER

I’ve made way too much food for the invite list, but I don’t care. Liam having everything means the world to me, and we might not have much money while we figure out what the hell to do with our lives, but I’ve made it my mission to make him smile as much as is humanly possible.

Great piles of chocolate chip cookies teeter on mismatched plates beside an enormous quiche and endless piles of cheese and cold meats. Reggie jumps up, trying to get to the chicken, and I scoop him off the chair before he can make it to the table, then relegate him to the sunroom. Hamish darts between my feet as I wash my hands, aiming to hoover up an errant piece of cheese. I drop him another, while humming the Cheese Tax song to myself.

The ceiling of the kitchen-come-dining room, one of only two rooms we’ve so far furnished, is covered in brightly coloured paper chains. Seeing them there, looping against the intricate ceiling in such stark contrast, makes me smile. It took me hours to make them all, and it cost me numerous paper cuts, but I can’t see myself taking them down any time soon.

‘Kat,’ Liam says, swooping into the kitchen and gathering me up in his thick arms. ‘You did all this?’

‘It’s just a little food and some paper chains. Nothing crazy.’

Liam looks up at the colourfully decked ceiling in awe, and it breaks my heart. When he told me he’d never had a real birthday party, there was no way I’d let another year pass without one. Sandra had tried, but by that point he was a teenager surviving life, not celebrating it.

‘I love it,’ he says, tipping my chin to kiss me with utter tenderness. ‘You’re a top-notch fiancée, you know?’

‘So I’ve been told.’ I reach behind him and squeeze his backside. ‘Now put yourself to use, birthday boy, before I do.’

I raise my brows, and he grabs me by the ass, picking me up and pinning me against the counter. ‘You gonna put your money where your mouth is?’

‘Not unless you want Sandra to catch you with your naked ass out. But I promise that later you can do whatever you want with me…’

‘Whatever I want?’ he asks.

‘Always. I trust you.’

Liam steals one more lingering kiss before putting me back on the floor. ‘Where’s the mayor of Grumptown? Not like him not to be whiskers deep in food.’

‘I had to detain him in the sunroom. Can’t have paw prints in the icing.’

The doorbell rings, and I do a little skip on the way, discarding my apron on the back of a chair as I let Sandra and Colin in.

‘Kat, this place is something else. Every time I see it, it takes my breath away a little more.’ Sandra pulls me into a hug before I’m swiftly passed into