Good Girl, Bad Girl(91)

He pulls me up. I stumble. He catches me, putting his arm around my waist. I try to speak, telling him I want to lie down, but my words are garbled and make no sense. He’s leading me along the hallway, holding me up as he fishes for the keys. The door opens to reveal a bedroom, a bed, a camera, a tripod . . .

He lets me fall backwards onto the mattress, where I curl up, wanting to sleep, but a bright light blasts through my closed eyelids. He puts his hands on either side of my face and kisses me, his tongue pushing into my mouth, ammonia on his breath. I gag, turning my face away and grabbing his shoulders, trying to push him off, but he has wedged his knee between my thighs, forcing them open. Fingernails scratch at my skin, pulling elastic aside, rummaging like he’s searching for a lost pound. I beg him to stop, but my voice won’t make the sounds.

In slow motion, Felix leans back and unbuckles his pants. He grabs my head, pressing his thumbs into the soft flesh beneath my ears, guiding me towards him. I understand. I fight. I pull at his fingers, pleading for forgiveness or for mercy, although I don’t know what “mercy” means. This is my life. Who I am. What I’ve been. That person. Used. Abused. Unloved. Unlovable.

My stomach spasms and guts erupt.

Felix rears back uttering a sharp cry.

“Bitch!”

He’s holding his arms out, looking at the masticated mush of cheese and pizza dough clinging to his shirt.

“This cost me a hundred quid.”

He goes to the bathroom and takes off his shirt, scrubbing it under the running water.

I know I have to run. I try to stand but topple over. I crawl on my hands and knees until I reach the corridor and heave the remaining contents of my stomach onto the carpet.

Getting to my feet, I stumble down the passageway, swaying from side to side, bouncing off the walls. I take in gulps of air, trying to focus.

Somewhere behind me the tap is turned off and light spills past me.

“Hey! Where are you going?”

I’ve reached an unlit exit sign. I push down on the horizontal bar, shouldering the door open, and lurch across a landing to a short flight of stairs. Felix is close behind, reaching for me, clawing at my face to stop me screaming. He slams me against a brick wall, but his thumb has found my mouth. I bite down hard, feeling his skin break, reaching bone. He curses and releases his grip. I lash out with a boot, finding his shin.

“Psycho bitch!” he yells.

I’m free. Running. Revived by the cold air. Aware that my skirt is partially undone. I’m through the fence and onto the road, stumbling towards a light. A car swerves, braking hard, wheels locking. I spin away, turning the corner, not looking back. A bus, brightly lit, sounds a horn. I don’t stop . . . I won’t stop . . . because he is somewhere behind me.

Suddenly, my head fills with the blast of a police siren and a spotlight turns everything white. Momentarily blinded, I bounce off the side of a parked car and fall to the pavement. A police officer is crouching next to me. He’s saying something, but I can’t make out the words.

I’m a child again, fuddled by sleep and feverish dreams, conscious of a door opening, a figure backlit, whispering my name, pulling back the bedclothes, saying, “You know I love you. You know I won’t hurt you.”

A hand touches my arm, telling me to lie still.

I would cry if I weren’t so tired, so desperately tired . . .





47




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CYRUS




* * *



“Her ribs are bruised, but nothing is broken,” says a triage doctor wearing crumpled blue scrubs and a cotton surgical cap cocked at a jaunty angle. A rust-colored rosette of toilet paper is stuck to his neck that must have been there since this morning. He’ll soon need to shave again.

“Evie said her drink was spiked, so I’ve organized a tox screen and given her drugs to counteract whatever she might have taken. I’ve also prescribed her some painkillers. Raising her arms above her head is going to hurt, so she might need help getting dressed.”

“Was she . . . ?” I don’t finish the question.

“Sexually assaulted? I have no idea. She refuses to let anyone examine her internally.”

The waiting room of the ER is dotted with the broken, wounded, grazed, and bleeding, all with jaundiced-looking faces from the fluorescent lights. I’ve been here since just after midnight, when the police messaged my pager. Evie gave them the number before she fell asleep in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.

She’s awake now, talking to the officers that found her. I take a seat and watch a man with fuzzy hair and a food-stained shirt arguing with a triage nurse, demanding painkillers. She uses his first name and tells him to sit down or she’ll call security. The man retreats to his shopping trolley, which is parked outside the automatic doors, laden with filthy blankets and folded cardboard.

Two officers emerge from the consulting room and have a conversation, heads together, before summoning me. The more senior one looks at me with a sullen animosity, as if I’m personally to blame for his working nights and never seeing his family.

“I’m PC Burton,” he says. “This is PC Huntley. How do you know Evie Cormac, sir?”

“I’m her guardian.”

“Do you have any ID?”

I show him my driver’s license.