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“You two are about the same age, right? You should get to know each other” he tells me, and he just leaves me, with a strange man. Is this why he made me wear a summer dress today?

He’s spent my whole life calling my mum a whore, and telling me not to be a slut. Now he’s just thrown me at this, I mean Dan is handsome though. How bad can he really be?

As soon as he starts talking, I swoon. His hand on my hip as he sweet talks me, telling me about how pretty I am, showing me his watch. I don’t know anything about watches, but I know it looks fancy and when he tells me it cost £10,000 I’m impressed.

He’s just perfect, he’s so funny and so exciting. He takes me for a drive in his Golf GTI, I shriek with excitement when he jumps red lights and makes the tyres squeal on the roundabouts.

He parks us up in a backstreet, telling me about this club he’s going to be at later tonight. He invites me, and says not to worry about ID because he knows all the security, and my friends can come too.

I’m absolutely taken by him, when he puts his hand on my exposed thigh I flinch at first, that same hand brushes my hair behind my ear.

“It’s okay, baby, don’t worry so much.”

And he kisses me. To start with I don’t know what to do. I’ve never kissed a boy before. But after a few seconds I join in. This is different. He likes me, and I like him.

He jokes with me that I’ll have to walk home unless I promise to meet him at the club tonight, so I do.

I’m so excited when I get home, I tell Daddy all about it. He’s so happy for me he takes me to buy new adult clothes and shoes and makeup and even drives us all to the club in his Mercedes.

I had the best night. We got really close and I gave him something I can never have back. It didn’t hurt. I enjoyed it once I got into it. It took me a minute to feel comfortable, but he was so gentle and reassuring.

I don’t really remember it the next morning. I was only a little bit drunk, but I turned my brain off again. I didn’t mean to.

I thought Daddy would be happy, he wasn’t. He was very angry. He said I was a whore like Mum. That all it cost was a cheap club and some champagne. I didn’t tell him that I did coke, too.

I go to my friend’s house, they think I made a bad choice. I think they’re just immature. It’s not my fault that they didn’t like coke and can’t get boys. They’re all judgemental. They don’t understand what it’s like growing up. I end up smoking my joint on my own and going home to Reddy.

Silly little girls.

Twenty Five

Sawyer

My knees bruise on the kitchen floor as my leg muscles complain about the amount of work they’ve done today. Thankfully I opted out of the relocation of Key’s remains, though from the top of the stairs I saw Craig painfully shifting the makeshift body bag out of the door, and presumably into his car.

Nik wasn’t joking when he said this would be a CSI: Fuck Off kind of clean, it turns out blood - and especially congealed blood - takes a bit of scrubbing. Trusty toothbrush and an assortment of chemicals has my floor sparkling again. The table was the first job, always clean from the top down.

Sitting back on my still moaning knees, I sigh with contentment at a job well done. Inspecting my work, the house almost back to its original state now. Then I see some blood splats and my elation turns to immediate frustration “Nik! You got brains on the skirting board, you cunt!” I can’t help it. Dark sarcasm seems to have become my default mode right now, as I refuse to work through everything mentally. That’s a job for no-sleepy-bedtime, unless I exhaust myself to the point of collapse first. That is certainly the plan. Then future me can find a nice therapist, who Nik will presumably have to kill once I divulge our crimes. I don’t know why it makes me chuckle, but it does.

Craig and Nik are still in the living room, they’ve been chatting for a while. It’s odd, I mean properly odd, it’s almost civilised like Nik didn’t just murder his colleague, torture him in a bathtub, make him piss himself, kick the sense into him and leave him stranded with a corpse whilst he fucked me silly.

Focused intently on the human remains at the end of my cleaning-toothbrush I cup my hands over my mouth and stifle another excruciating heave when I realise that, between my thumb and forefinger, contrasting against my yellow marigolds is half of one of Key’s molars.

Nuhuh, nope, absolutely the fuck not, no way. Not. Nope. Not a chance. No thank you… I stifle another heave.

I walk straight into the living room, interrupting their conversation. Arm outstretched, I present this little gore to Nik. His confused return stare, blank face, and silence inflames me immediately.

“The fuck am I supposed to do with this?” I sass at him

“I dunno… make a necklace?”

That just. Maybe it was funny. But wrong note, Nik, read the fucking room. I pull my outstretched hand back, prepared to launch it at his stupid face.

“Woah woah woah…! Forensic evidence… evidence… no throwing” I stomp my foot and put it with the other assorted bits of evidence to be disposed of. Craig’s looking, I can’t really say better can I? But in a fresh suit. That was the favour: give him one of Dan’s suits to be sent home in. He looks a bit banged up and a touch traumatised, but he’s otherwise a functioning human. Just like me, I suppose.

A short while later, Craig is led into the dining room, where I stand propped against my usual countertop. Admiring how everything is back in its place. It soothes something deep within me, a finished deep clean. The air lightens, and my mind clears, the fog is lifted.

Loosely holding his hands together in front of him, almost as if he’s carrying his cap, he bows his head slightly. “Good night, Ms Stones, sorry for all the trouble.” He forces a very slight smile before leaving. The door shuts behind him.