Rebecca shook her head at him in a way he did not like. It looked like pity. “Stop defending him, Davie. You’re not like him, I can tell. You’re a good person.”
Davie ran both hands through his hair and let out a long breath. His head still ached and now he felt dizzy as well. The banging and shouting from upstairs didn’t help the situation. How had things gotten so crazy? Did it start when he was hit by Andrew’s car, or was the whole turn of events inevitable even before that? Davie had a feeling that Andrew and Frankie were destined to reach this point regardless. He just hoped his involvement hadn’t made things worse.
“Let us go,” Rebecca said calmly. “This is the point where you decide whether you want to be part of this or not. If you let us go now then it will be clear that you just got caught up in something. Keep us here, though, and you’re proving that you’re as happy to go along with this as the others.”
Davie stared down at the carpet, down at a chunk of browning cod meat that jutted out from beneath the sofa. He thought about things long and hard, then looked Rebecca in the eye. “He’ll kill me if I help you. You’ll have him arrested, and when he gets out he will literally kill me. Frankie is all I have so why would I want to make him hate me?”
Rebecca stared back at him with deep, soulful eyes. “Because you know that this is wrong, Davie.”
Davie nodded. He didn’t want to see this girl get hurt – in fact he could hardly bear it. “Okay,” he said to her in a hushed whisper, already regretting what he was about to do. “Get out of here. Quickly, before I change my mind.”
Rebecca put her arms around Davie and squeezed him tightly. “Thank you,” she whispered into his ear. Then she stood up and grabbed her mother’s hand. “Come on, mum.” Rebecca tugged hard at her mother’s arm, trying to snap her out of the daze she was in. “We can go and get help now. It’s all over.”
Davie knew the decision he’d just made was the right one – could tell by the love and concern Rebecca had for her mother – but it didn’t make him feel any less apprehensive. Frankie was indeed going to kill him.
Rebecca managed to get her mother standing, despite the woman’s hands and feet being bound, and was now looking down at Davie with an expression he wasn’t used to. It looked like compassion. “I’ll make sure the police know that you had nothing to do with this,” she told him. “You should get out of here, too, before Frankie comes back dow-“
Andrew crashed through the living room door and sprawled onto the carpet beside the sofa. His hands were covered in blood, as were his jeans and shirt. Frankie came through the door immediately after him – followed by Shell and the twins – and swung a massive kick into his midsection.
Andrew was silent as the blow crushed his ribs and sent him struggling for breath on his back. Covered by blood and swollen in the face, Andrew looked more dead than alive.
Frankie looked around and noticed that Rebecca and her mother were standing. Davie swallowed a lump in his throat as he waited for his brother’s reaction.
“Sit down, bitches,” Frankie ordered them, without seeming suspicious. Perhaps he assumed they’d stood up in surprise when Andrew had crashed into the room.
Rebecca did not sit down as instructed and instead lunged right at Frankie with her fingernails pointed out like claws.
There was a deep-red lump growing on Frankie’s forehead and Rebecca added to the wound by gouging two long furrows into the flesh of his cheek. The scratches began to bleed instantly, but Frankie reacted fast. He punched Rebecca hard in her stomach, doubling her over in agony, then shoved her, by her head, to the ground. He made it look as effortless as discarding a piece of rubbish.
“Tie this slag up,” he ordered the twins before looking at Davie and scowling. “What the fuck, man? You were meant to be keeping these two under control.”