Page 10 of Death Kiss

We lay there for a few more minutes, letting our bodies recover. But there’s no such relief for the mind.

I don’t know if we can survive this.

‘I love you,’ I whisper.

‘I love you more,’ Liam replies.

‘Impossible.’

Accepting our fate, I let us live in our delusion a little longer. As if we could eradicate the list without being killed or caught.

FOUR

ELLIE

My feet ache, and I check the clock for the billionth time tonight.

Urgh. Still two hours to go.

It’s no wonder time seems to be going backwards, with no one but Old Martin propping up the bar. Martin, who nurses one pint for two hours while watching cricket.

Kill me now.

I’m two-thirds of the way to my total for heading abroad for a year. For ditching the grey skies and rain for sun and delicious food, and hostel hopping.

Gary scowls as I scrub at a particularly stubborn lager ring on the bar until his eyes drop to my tits.

Gross.

He’s about three steps short of the graveyard and pays with more pocket lint than pennies. As if.

I don’t know how Bernie can afford to pay me these days. Shifts at the busy sports bar near the uni are way more fun, but I have to take as much work as I can get to get out of England.

Some might say I’m running from Sam’s disappearance, but it’s not just that feeling of abandonment and unknowing that I’m trying to escape. It’s my best friend being gaga over my foster brother. And while I’m happy for them, there’s something weird between them. I always feel like they’re hiding something from me.

So I need a change of scenery. A place to disappear into and try to find who I am now before I end up in full adult life with a sensible job and a sensible partner. My last chance to be free. Sure, I hope for those things one day, but between university, Kat, my family and Sam’s disappearance, I’ve not felt like myself for a while.

The tinny voice of a newsreader interrupts Gary’s cricket, much to his chagrin. Missing man has my gut clenching until I look up and see that it’s not Sam. It’s a missing hillwalker in Scotland. My pulse stutters in my throat as I close my eyes.

You’d think after six months I could move on. Sam and I had barely even been dating, really, but it’s the not knowing what happened that gets to me. Had he been kidnapped? Did he have a secret family somewhere? Did he piss off abroad because he hates me? Is he even alive?

Gathering up my rampant thoughts, I stuff them back into the box in my head that I’ve created. A place to try to quieten them when they get too loud.

With no leads in months, there’s nowhere for the police to go with it. A dead end.

The bell over the door rings, and I look up as a rather dishy man walks in. All polo-neck and suit jacket, carrying a leather satchel. He has those crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiles at me, and for the first time in a long time, a glimmer of warmth uncurls inside me.

Well now, who’s this fine stranger?

He looks a bit academic, but this dive isn’t close to the university. A lost tourist? Tragic guy who’s picked the world’s worst first date location?

Colour me intrigued.

‘What can I get you?’ I ask as he takes a seat at the bar.

‘Just a lemonade, please.’ There’s a sweep of London posh boy in his accent. Not pronounced enough to be the Queen’s English, but enough that he can’t hide it.

‘Do adults drink lemonade in the pub?’ I say, raising a brow while fetching a glass.