Absolution(120)

“It’s gonna be okay,” Ally murmured.

She sounded so sure, so confident, he had almost convinced himself that he believed her.



The night was quiet and still. Ally had gone to bed a couple of hours earlier, but Jack was on a knife edge, twitchy and restless. Every imagined little noise had him up, investigating. Callum had called him when he got home, saying that he hadn’t seen anything unusual when they left, but Jimmy was no amateur – if he said they were watching both houses, Jack believed him. He checked the front door again, and walked down the length of the hall in his bare feet, checking the back door for good measure. Even though he had done this a gazillion times tonight, he would probably do it a gazillion more before the night was out.

He walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table. The medication that Ally had given him earlier was wearing off. His brain ran in circles. How could he have been so stupid as to think that Ben wouldn’t track him back here? He eased against the chair back, his bruised ribs aching with the movement. Insult on top of injury. He closed his eyes, exhausted with the weight of responsibility.

It was merely a couple of weeks earlier that he had sat in that wretched little apartment and wondered if his life could get any worse. And now – here it was, a hundred times worse. It was time to grow up. The only reason he was in this mess was because he had been so used to running away from his problems, the odds had been stacked against him from the outset. After spending four years on the run from himself, he still hadn’t learnt his lesson.

All that had to change, right here, right now. No more running away, no more hiding from the truth. He owed his father more, he owed Ally more and he owed himself more. Once all this was over, he was going out to find a job and he was paying everyone back.

A single brief, sharp knock at the front door stopped him in his mental tracks.

His heart raced. He waited, but it was not repeated. He flew up from his seat and into the living room, peering out between the curtains onto an empty front yard, glowing in the street light. His heart battered against his ribcage as he crept to the front door. He unlocked it, opening it a crack and peering out. Nothing. Opening it wider, he glanced along the porch but saw nothing out of the ordinary. His pulse raced as his gaze swept over the front yard. Turning to go back into the house, he was about to dismiss the whole episode as part of his overactive imagination when he saw a note tacked to the front door. He yanked it off, disappearing into the house, closing, locking and double-checking the door behind him. Stepping further down the hallway, he stared at the note in his hand.

10pm Tuesday. Lewis Street house. Come alone. Sweet dreams.

Crushing the note in his hand, he shoved it deep into his jeans pocket and walked slowly back into the living room. He sank down into the couch, his aches and pains forgotten. How the hell had it come to this? He leaned back against the cushion.

Adrenaline abandoned him, leaving emptiness in its wake.





CHAPTER 22




“The past is never where you think you left it.”

- Katherine Anne Porter




Everything was too quiet. No birdsong, unusual for this time of the morning, not even the sound of a breeze rustling the leaves cut through the early morning air. The only sound was that of Ally’s footsteps on gravel, each step kicking up small stones behind her. It would have been relaxing if only she had let herself go, but somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice whispered that all was not well. She ignored the twist in her gut and ran onwards, turning off at the edge of the park and heading up River Road.

The slight incline made her calves and thighs burn with the extra effort required, but she didn’t care. For some reason she couldn’t quite put her finger on, she welcomed the sensation. Up ahead, she heard voices and she slowed down to try and make them out. Almost instantly, she recognised Jack’s voice, picking up the panic in it that kick-started her into a full-blown sprint. He screamed and her heart raced, her arms pumping harder as she fought to get to him. It felt like forever before she could finally see him, and when she did, she stopped still. He was trapped inside his car, overturned in the middle of the road. She looked around for help but there was no one around. He was desperately trying to pull himself out of the car but getting nowhere. She ran to him, falling to the asphalt beside him and ignoring the stones that cut into her knees.

He stared up at her, wide-eyed and frantic. As she reached for him, she found that suddenly their positions were reversed. She was the one inside the car and he was the one outside, trying to help her escape. What she had assumed was sharp stones cutting into her knees was in fact mangled metal, trapping her inside the car so she couldn’t move. The pain was excruciating and she screamed even as he tried to soothe her, begging her to keep still while he brutally yanked at the door that refused to budge.