Survival (Twisted Book 1) (23 page)

“I’ll call you tonight, okay?”

I nodded and kissed him goodbye.

“I love you.”

“I l
ove you.”

I watched as he drove away and headed inside to call Beth. I wanted to go out.

We were halfway through dinner when I reached into my bag for my phone and realised I had left it at home.

“Beth, we have to go.”

“What?” she garbled a response with a mouthful of garlic
bread.

“I’ve forgotten my phone and Thomas is supposed to call. We have to go.”

“Just finish dinner. You can call him from mine when we’re done.”

I relented; I didn’t trust Beth not to judge me if I told her how uneasy I felt. I panicked silently, my dinner forgotten.

I just didn’t feel right.

I dropped Beth at her house and sped home. My phone was sitting on the counter in the kitchen where I left it and I snatched it up. Six missed calls from Thomas and as many voicemails. I hit call.

“Where have you been?” He answered as soon as the phone rang.

I felt better the second I heard his voice.

“I went for dinner with Beth and forgot my phone. I just got back.”

“I was worried,” he sighed and I imagined him running his hands through his hair. “Did you have fun?”

“Yeah,” I lied. I couldn’t tell him I’d been going crazy. “What are you doing?”

“Taking a break before it starts. Did you lock up?”

“It’s still early.”

“It’s dark. Lock up.”

“Yes, Sir.”

I tried to keep the mood light, but it was anything but.

“Don’t play. I’m not there to protect you if something happens.”

“Geez, okay. I thought I was the crazy girlfriend.”

“Well, I guess I’m the crazy boyfriend.”

He was sulking. Great. The only downside to being with someone with a childish side was that he sulked like a teenager. I checked the back door and walked through the house to lock up the front.

“Why are you so miserable?” I asked.

“Because I want to be at home with you.”

“Maybe a night apart is what we need.”

“Seriously?” He was shocked. It sprung up my defences. “Are you playing the “we need a break” card?”

“No.” We were heading for a fight. I felt the tension rolling over us like an approaching storm. “I don’t want to be the crazy girlfriend.”

“Intensity isn’t insanity.”

“There’s a fine line.”

“I can't do this. I have to work. I love you the way you are…we’re crazy for each other.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not the one falling apart.”

“Thanks for the trip to Guilt Gorge. You could have come with me.”

“I wasn’t invited. I don’t even know where you are.”

“Kent.”

“What?”

That word. That place. It stopped my heart in its tracks and I felt the last remains of sanity slip away.

“Kent.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t realise-” he trailed off.

“You didn’t realise what?”

“Nothing,” he spoke with soft caution. “Forget I said it.”

“You didn’t realise I had no emotional independence? You didn’t realise it would only take me a few hours to miss you? You didn’t realise I was Crazy Sarah number two?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

I hung up and stared at the screen.

I knew where he was and it hurt like a thousand daggers to the chest knowing he was there and I wasn’t. I unlocked the front door and left the house.

Déjà vu…I should have felt the déjà vu.

March 19
th
, 2011.

I couldn’t remember how I got there. I just saw darkness, a few street lamps that didn’t give much away and a row of shops in the shadows. I climbed out of the car, ignoring the buzz in my pocket and slammed the door.

I didn’t remember the drive that led me to where I was; I could have killed someone. I could have run myself off the road because I was in a trance, unable to deal with my own erratic mental state

Things had begun to spiral and that’s why I flipped. They’d been spiralling slowly for weeks, waiting for the tailspin. It was the mother of tailspins.

I suddenly remembered walking out of the house after putting the phone down on Thomas. I didn’t like him going away; I was afraid he wouldn’t come back. He was right; he told me every time I snapped at him…it was an irrational fear, but I couldn’t help it. He couldn’t be there. The clock was ticking, I could feel it. I didn’t know what it was counting down to but I felt each grain of sand as they fell.

We still hadn’t conceived, my job was falling to shit because I was overworked and under-stimulated and I felt like we were stuck in our life; I wanted to take his hand and run from work, from home, from the guilt that I couldn’t give him a child. Everything was perfect before we let people in and started planning the future. So I did run, only without Thomas and I couldn’t, as I stood on the dark street alone, bring myself to answer his call.

One foot found its way in front of the other and a walk began; a walk with only one direction planned out, until I was standing in front of a black door and pounding my fist on the cracked paint.

“Password,” a voice boomed from behind the door.

The only evidence of life was that voice and it sent a shiver down my spine.

I opened my mouth and let the gut-wrenching words roll from my tongue.

“Row, row, row your boat.”

The door opened with a creak and I froze. My heart broke clean in half like my life had the last time I stepped over that threshold. The hallway smelled how I remembered it; like cheap air freshener and sweat. I remembered climbing the stairs before, with a mere percentage of the pain I felt in this moment. Why was I there? I should have been able to let Thomas be, but I just couldn’t. Not there. Why did I continue to punish myself? That’s what I was doing, with every step I took out into the open space, so full of bodies I couldn’t see the walls…just the ring.

And the cage.

The cage my precious brother died in.

I stood at the top and looked down on the crowds. I remembered the fear of the unknown I felt all those years ago.

It froze me to the spot.

It stopped all hopes of oxygen entering my lungs.

Willing my body to turn proved pointless when the lights dropped, the crowds cheered and the music started as the MC entered through the door of the cage and into the ring.

“And
noooww!” He announced, but his voice was lost to the white noise in my head.

I was nineteen again.

I was terrified.

But, like before, I was not alone.

I saw him.

Thomas was there with Chaz and Joel, and I saw his photographer and journalist next to them. He was working and I was in the tunnel of torment I’d been trying to ignore for so long.

He had his phone to his ear and the buzzing of mine continued. He clenched the hand that wasn’t gripping his phone and chewed on his bottom lip; mine trembled as my heart sank and I ached to go to him. I wanted to be wrapped in his warm embrace; the only place I felt safe, but I couldn’t move.

All thoughts of safety and surrender left my mind when the fighters made their way to the ring and all I could remember was the flash of green from Oliver’s
mouthguard, but no helmet. He would’ve lived without a few teeth. It was the punch to the back of the head that killed him.

The bell rang and my eyes fixated on the two men in the ring.
Punches. Kicks. Grappling.

Cheers erupting from the crowds.

Pain.

Crippling pain.

Memories.

Blood boiling, stomach roiling memories.

Thomas.

I looked over to find him looking at me. He’d spotted me in a crowd of hundreds. Chaz waved; he must have thought I was meeting them there. That wasn’t the plan. There was no plan.

Thomas stood and I backed away as he pushed through the sea of people. Another punch. Another cheer. Another step back.

My back collided with the front of someone and I turned to see a stoic bouncer with him arms folded, his eyes glued to the fight instead of looking at me. Keeping his gaze on the action, he reached out with one hand and shoved me backwards. I stumbled.

“Get your hands off her.”

“No touching,” the bouncer growled.

“Does she look aggressive to you?”

Thomas took a step towards him.
Bad idea. He was probably an ex backstreet boxer; most of the bouncers in the circuit were…or used to be. Judging by the looks of things, it hadn’t changed much since the last time I was there.

“No touching.”

“Thomas, please,” I begged, as he continued to square up to him. “Please, let’s just go.”

“No exit during fights.”

The bouncer grunted and folded his steroid-enhanced arms. His co-bonehead laughed. They were goading Thomas. I knew they were allowed to use blunt force if ‘necessary’, which meant they could taunt him until he made the first move and wouldn’t hesitate to kick the shit out of him.

“Open the doors.”

I wretched at the sound. I had no control; my body quivered, my heart hammered; my skin fell cold as the voice wafted over my skin and froze me to the core. It had to be a nightmare. It couldn’t be happening.

The bouncer nodded obediently, like I’d seen many others do before him and clicked the door open with a sneer.

I took off, running through the corridors until I was outside, sucking in the crisp air and gasping for more.

“Skye?”

Thomas. God, I was fucked.
Catastrophically. Anyone who needed a quick fix of insanity could’ve jumped into my mind at that moment and had the ride of their life.

Standing up straight, I saw Thomas pulling on his coat. I hadn’t even taken mine off. I was sweating; my entire body was on fire, yet my skin prickled with goosebumps.

“What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know.”

It was the truth, more or less. I didn’t know
why
I was there; I just knew that I had to be.

“Give me your keys,” I handed them to him and caught sight of my trembling hands. I was a mess; I could only imagine what I looked like. “Get in the car.”

He opened my door and I fell in, shakily pulling my seat belt over me as he made his way round to the other side.

“Where’s your car?”

“At the hotel.”

He put the key in the ignition and the purr of the usually quiet engine echoed around the car as he pulled off.

I should have
seen it coming. Impossible. I’d always been too wrapped up in the storm that tormented me. But I should have seen it.

March 19
th
, 2011.

“You’ve got to talk to me, Skye,” he gripped the wheel with white-knuckle force. “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know,” how was I supposed to talk to him when I didn’t know what was going on? “I’m sorry.”

“You reacted like that because I was there? I told you I was working. How did you know where to find me?”

“That place…” I took a shaky breath. “That’s where Oliver died.”

“Oliver was a fighter.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a realisation. Everything had just clicked into place.

“Yes,” I bowed my head and picked at a piece of cotton on my jeans.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why?!”
I flinched. He was so angry. His voice was guttural, shaky, and the vein in his neck thumped with pulse racing frustration. “What the hell were you doing there?”

“I don’t know!” I cried. The tears fell and I couldn’t stop them. I wanted him to understand the chaos in my mind, but even I couldn’t make sense of it. “I didn’t want you there…where Oliver died.”

“This can't happen,” He ground his teeth and continued to drive, pulling out onto the M25 and speeding up. “We can't fall apart because you’re losing your mind.”

“I’m not crazy.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t have to. You don’t think I can feel the tension too? I honestly don’t know how I get there, but I panicked. That doesn’t mean we’re falling apart.”

“I just don’t know what’s going on with you. Why would you not tell me something like that?”

“I don’t know, but we’re
not
falling apart. It was just easier to shut it out.”

I could see his anger had eased, but his frustration just grew. I could feel it bouncing back off him and keeping me on edge. I knew he just wanted to shake some sense into me; I did too. But I knew it wouldn’t work.