‘I can’t believe we’re doing it,’ she says.
‘Doing what?’ Charlotte is having difficulty focusing. It feels good though, this chemical warmth inside her. She can’t feel the soreness down there from last night any more. Just a little throb inside, like her heartbeat. Even her anger feels good. Katie leans against her, and takes another sip of vodka before passing it over.
‘Our pact!’ Katie huddles in close. ‘That’s why you brought him here, isn’t it? We’re going to do it today!’
Charlotte frowns. Is that why she brought him here? Does she want that? ‘He just followed me,’ she says. ‘I haven’t stolen anything. Got no money.’
‘I’ve got all we need. And we’ll go to my granddad’s house and hide there for a couple of days. I know the perfect place.’ Katie squeezes her arm. ‘Let’s get drunk and do it. Then we’ll go and do my mother when she’s home this afternoon. After that, we’ll be free! Bonnie and Clyde!’
Charlotte thinks about it for a moment. There’s nothing she wants more than to be away from here with Katie. No more Tony. No more Ma. She looks at Daniel, muttering away to Peter Rabbit as he plays. She hates him. She knows she does.
‘Maybe we should just run away,’ she slurs. ‘Forget the other shite. Fuck them.’
‘They’ll never let me go,’ Katie is slurring too. ‘My mother will keep me forever if she can.’ She rests her sweet-smelling head on Charlotte’s shoulder. ‘And we had a pact. Cross my heart and hope to die. Remember.’
‘Cross my heart and hope to die,’ Charlotte murmurs. ‘Let’s get drunk first.’ She doesn’t want to think about their plan. It was a game that now feels too real. ‘I want to get out of my face.’
When the pills hit, they hit hard and for a moment she has a blind panic she’s taken too much. She fades in and out of darkness, a haze enveloping her, almost lifting her out of her body.
‘What is this?’ she tries to say, and for a moment it looks like Katie is smiling and glowing at her, and then she’s slumped asleep against the wall. She has no concept of time, drifting in and out of confusion. Everything is a blur.
‘Charrot?’ Daniel’s face suddenly looms large in front of her. His eyes, Tony’s eyes, fill her distorted vision. ‘Feel sick, Charrot.’
Is he feeling sick or is he asking her? Whichever, she doesn’t want to see him. Doesn’t want to think about him. ‘Shut up, Daniel,’ she mutters, although her words are thick on her tongue. Too much. She’s drunk too much with these pills. She closes her eyes, even as she’s aware of Daniel tugging at her.
It’s all his fault, a voice in her head says. Everything. The chip shop. Your ma not loving you any more. Tony and his belt. None of it was there before he was. They didn’t realise how little they loved you until they loved him and that’s the truth of it. It’s all his fault.
She drags her eyes open, the voice confusing her. It’s in her head, it must be her voice. Daniel is still in front of her. He looks hazy too. Has she given him more to drink? She can’t remember. Maybe. She can’t remember how much she’s drunk herself. Is it all his fault? Yes, she thinks. Yes, it is. She knows it is, like the voice in her head is saying, but he’s only a baby and it can’t really be his fault. He looks scared, sucking the corner of Peter Rabbit’s ear. She doesn’t want him to look scared. It jars something inside her.
The voice in her head is still talking, reminding her of all the love and care her ma has given him and all the pain she’s had to suffer. How if something bad happened to Daniel it would punish Ma as she deserves. How this is what she wants. It is what she wants but also not what she wants. She doesn’t know what she wants. She wants to pass out. To sleep. To forget about everything. But the voice won’t shut up, needling her from inside her own mind. He’s a little shite and you know it. He’s spoiled. He’s a brat. He’s the reason they hurt you.
Everything fades to black, hazing out – Do it, try it, squeeze his throat and make everything better. She sees her hands on his neck, feels his soft skin under them, the voice in her head is raging, and his little eyes are wide, and she’s not quite sure what’s happening. Blackness again. She’s here and yet not here. She’s doing it and yet not doing it. Her brain won’t work properly and her body feels all wrong. At some point there’s the thump of a brick. And then nothing but swimming in the darkness.
When she opens her eyes next, her vision is clear but her head feels like it’s going to explode and her stomach roils with puke waiting to happen. What the shite kind of pills does Katie’s ma take? She doesn’t want any more of those, never again. Katie is passed out beside her, slumped up against the wall, her legs splayed out at a very non-Katie angle. ‘Katie?’ she says, and the world spins slightly again with a wave of nausea. ‘Katie, you awake?’
Peter Rabbit catches her eye, abandoned on the floor by her feet. A flash of something comes to her: hands, neck, Daniel. A dream? The nausea fades with a wave of something cold. Dread. A small shoe in the corner of her vision. A leg very still. She doesn’t want to look, oh she desperately doesn’t want to look, but she can’t help herself.
Oh shite, Daniel. His face is turned away, but there’s blood on the ground and he’s not moving at all, and he’s dead she knows he’s dead and she thinks she might scream or—
‘Oh my God, Charlotte.’ Katie is dragging herself upright, eyes blearily widening. ‘You did it. You actually did it.’
Charlotte’s shaking, her whole body trembling like she’s standing next to one of those stupid pneumatic drills they’ve been using up on the high street, and it’s so surreal, it’s all so surreal and he can’t be dead, not really dead, not like we talked about, hands around his throat, oh God Daniel you little shite I’m so sorry, Katie takes her cold hands and holds them up to her face.
‘Look at me, Charlotte.’
She does. She wants to look anywhere but at little Daniel and oh God what will Ma say, and so she stares straight into Katie’s perfect eyes. ‘It’s done,’ Katie whispers, hot breath on her cold face, Daniel will never breathe again, oh shite oh shite. Katie kisses her gently on her open mouth. ‘You’ve done it. It’s the beginning, Charlotte. We can be free! I can’t believe you did it, but you did. Oh, Charlotte, you’re my hero. There’s no going back now. Next, my mother. Then we run. We fly like the wind. Just us. You and me, forever. No going back.’
Charlotte’s teeth are starting to chatter. It can’t be real, how can it be real, it was only a fantasy, a crazy game. Everything is too bright, too real, and yet at the same time too surreal. No going back.
‘I need to go home first,’ she hears herself saying. ‘Make things look normal. If Ma’s home I’ll say I’m going to look for Daniel. Then come to you. They don’t know about you. They won’t look for me with you.’ How does she sound so normal? So calm. ‘We’ll do your ma and go, right?’ She kisses Katie back although her own mouth tastes sharp and bitter. Rotten.
‘Half an hour? At mine?’
Charlotte nods. She needs to get out of here. She needs to get away. Where is her anger now? Where did it all go? Into your hands and round little Daniel’s neck, that’s where it went and oh shite no going back.
‘I love you,’ Katie says with a smile as they clamber back out into the cold October air.
‘I love you too,’ Charlotte answers, her own smile a sickly grimace. And maybe she does. She does. But everything is broken now. She’s broken now. Daniel’s broken can’t be fixed never be fixed oh God oh God. ‘See you in half an hour.’