Like This, for Ever

36




EVERYTHING INSIDE HER was wrong. Internal organs swelling, skin tightening, bones pressing closer together. Lacey’s body just didn’t seem to fit any more. Working parts she never normally gave a second’s thought to, systems she took totally for granted, were jarring and clashing like badly made clockwork.

Concentrate. She had to get down the steps without falling. God knows how she’d managed to drive home without killing someone. Maybe she hadn’t. Lacey realized she had no recollection of leaving Lewisham police station, of finding her car where Joesbury had left it, of driving across town to her flat. Maybe the screech of brakes on wet tarmac, the glance of terror, the thud of metal against flesh had just slipped her memory. She’d had blackouts once before, years ago, when long hours just slipped from her consciousness. Maybe they were happening again. Maybe there was someone bleeding on the roadside somewhere and it was all her fault.

The ache in her chest was spreading outwards, making her stomach cramp. She was at her front door, with no idea how long it had taken her to get down the steps. She had to go in, and yet the cold air and the rain on her face felt like the only things keeping her together. Noise above. Footsteps. She’d be seen.

Inside her flat, Lacey found herself searching her pockets for her phone, before remembering that Tulloch still had it. And who would she call anyway? Tulloch genuinely seemed to think she might have killed that boy, killed all of them. Hey, maybe she should confess – it wasn’t as though she had any plans for the rest of her life. Would prison really be any worse than what she was going through right now? They’d probably send her to Durham. At least then she’d have someone to talk to.

Lacey realized she was laughing. Too loudly. She had to stop, she’d wake the people upstairs.

But it was impossible to stop, even with both hands clamped to her mouth, and now the laugh was turning into a scream. She felt it, behind her hands, a steady, building pressure, like cheap fizzy wine pushing at a cork; she had to let it go, no one could keep this much pain inside them and not howl out loud.

The kitchen drawer slid open, smooth and silent. The knives looked very clean. Lacey’s fingers touched the one that was sharpest and she ran the edge of the blade along the length of the scar on her wrist.

The easiest thing in the world. She watched white skin fall apart like fresh snow before a plough. The pain was like an electric current, starting in her wrist and speeding out to every part of her. It was like energy. The blood appeared in tiny, perfect droplets that stretched and met, forming a single scarlet line.

She raised her hand, let the blood flow snake-like down her arm, bent her head and stretched out her tongue. Warm, salty, metallic.

The scream had gone from Lacey’s head. In its place was a soft, ivory light.