We headed out of the room, taking the bundled-up evidence with me and leaving the corpse for some sad Sandra to stumble across later. I led the way down through the house, heading towards the kitchen and keeping us out of sight as party goers stumbled about drunk, whooping and cheering, not having the faintest idea that their host was currently growing cold on the floor upstairs.
After I’d grabbed the bag with my tools and our swimwear in it from the sauna, it didn’t take me long to find the fuse box and with a simple flip of a switch I cut the power, plunging us into darkness, shutting off the music and making sure the CCTV was unable to see us as we walked straight out of the front door into the night, leading my little psycho back to my car.
I said nothing to her as I drove us towards the private airfield my family made use of for our jet and she remained silent too, the new truth between us cloying and suffocating.
I really was the worst of humanity and it looked like I was going to be dragging her down with me no matter how hard I’d been trying to stop that from happening.
T he take-off had been thrilling. I’d watched the lights of the runway disappear beneath us as we climbed up, up, up into the sky, my face squashed to the window as I took in the twinkly world below. When we’d risen above the clouds and the huge moon had appeared to light the entire fluffy world beneath the night sky, I’d stared, slack jawed and enthralled by every drop of silver light that kissed the bed of clouds.
There’d been some new clothes waiting for us onboard and even though they were as boring as a bag of beans, I’d changed into the black leggings and snuggly grey sweater, pulling on the socks and curling up in my seat. Niall was beside me in a big cream seat of his own, not seeming remotely interested in the view beyond the window even when I pointed out a cloud that looked like a giant turnip eating a mushroom.
He was wearing a navy tracksuit and his tattooed fingers were flexing against the arms of the chair as he stared at nothing with a deep frown drawn onto his features, like he was working out the most complicated math problem in the world. I’d never been good at math, numbers were tricksy things, always doing cartwheels around my head whenever I tried to wrangle them, giggling at me as I attempted to put a couple of them together and squish them up to make a bigger number. No, that cultured number stuff wasn’t for me. My mind didn’t put things together, it tore them apart and created fantasy worlds out of the pieces.
For the longest time, that had been all I’d had as company. In my head, I had friends who liked me, and I could be whoever I liked. A villainous princess or a heartless assassin. No one could tell me who to be inside my mind, no one could hurt me there, or reject me, or make me feel odd. That was what the people on the outside did. The real world looked at me and recoiled, but the people I made up in my head couldn’t do that. I’d made them up after all.
Niall had been the first outside world person who’d seen who I was and hadn’t flinched away. He’d answered my weirdness with a weirdness of his own, and tonight, I’d thought that was it. All those pretty declarations while he’d had me pinned beneath him, all the burning looks and kisses which I could still feel tingling within my lips. It had been beautiful for a minute there, the best feeling I’d ever found in the outside world with its realness and its rejection.
But now he’d gone all quiet, sitting there like a goose who’d lost its beak and nothing I said or did drew any reaction from him. Regrets were settling deep into his features and it left a pang in my heart as I stole glances at him, knowing I was the reason for them.
“I tried to tell you,” I said after a stretch of silence, wondering if he might not regret it so much if I could make him see that I’d wanted him to pop my strawberry. “But then it was happening and I was distracted and I liked it so much I didn’t think it mattered anyway. But I didn’t mean to not tell you, it was more that I didn’t get around to it. Like, I was on my way around the mulberry bush, but then I went wandering off to dick city, you see?”
“Brooklyn,” Niall sighed, swiping a palm down his face before looking me directly in the eye. “I never would have had sex with you if I’d known.”
Ouch. Glenda died. Quacked her last quack and fell down to the ground with a thump and didn’t get up again.
I was nodding and my mouth was open, but no words were coming out. Tears were welling in my eyes and before I knew it, they were spilling over like little rivers. I tried to catch them on my fingers to keep them back. I whipped around to face the window again, the moon so bright and watchful as always. And I didn’t find it beautiful anymore, I found it taunting, the craters on its face pulling up into a smirk.
“Sure. Yeah. Of course. Okie dokie. Alrighty-roo. Fo sho. Roger that.” I saluted him without looking back, dabbing away my tears as I tried to will my eyes to suck them back in.
“Spider,” Niall said heavily, his arm looping around me and even though I resisted, he was too strong and he pulled me right out of my seat into his lap.
I looked up at him with a tightness in my throat, not knowing what to do with the big emotions muscling their way into my chest like two rhinos and an elephant. There wasn’t room in there for them, and now Glenda was dead, who was going to look after them?
“It ain’t you, love,” Niall said, stroking my cheek with his thumb. “I tainted the good in ya. You’re a dark creature in ways, but you’re so innocent in others. And now I’m the ruin of that innocence and I never wanted that. Never,” he said fiercely and I tried to force words past the lump of coal jammed in my throat.
“I’m not innocent, Hellfire,” I said, giving him an imploring look. “I know I like to play games and dance and do stupid shit, but I’m an adult. A killer. I hold onto the magic in the world because there’s so little of it that’s truly there. So I create it for myself instead. I run and play and skip and do whatever the fuck I like because I don’t have to do what society expects me to do. I’m free of those binds, unlike every other adult on this planet. I didn’t conform. I don’t school my features, or tuck my head down when someone looks at me weird. I don’t correct my behaviour, I don’t try to fit in. Because fitting in is so very fucking boring. It’s a cage that everyone walks so willingly into just so they don’t stand out. Teenagers put their dolls down, hide their favourite toys and cringe if their friends ever find them. But why do we have to put the dolls down, Hellfire? Why can’t I like glitter and fairies and jumping on trampolines just because society decided I’m not allowed to play anymore? It’s crab shit.”
Niall’s eyes softened as understanding poured from him. Because of course he knew. Me and him were the same.
I barrelled on, knowing I was probably babbling but I needed to let it all out.
“It’s not about being a grown up, it’s about doing whatever we feel like doing, because why the hell not? Why should we put ourselves in a box, dampen our smiles, hold back the skip in our steps when our feet itch to dance? Why shouldn’t our emotions pour out of us whenever the wind changes? If I get mad, I wanna be ragingly fucking mad, and if I’m happy I want to be ragingly fucking happy, Hellfire. I don’t want to hold it all in and pretend I’m mature, because no one’s really mature. They’re all just playing the biggest game of pretend in the history of pretending. And everyone just…goes along with it. They let life grind them down into a ghost of the fun person they used to be, the one who followed their dreams and whims and never gave a shit if some boring Betty told them not to. But eventually, bit by bit, they gave into the pressures of society and one day, poof, the real them disappeared. And maybe eventually they’ll look up and realise how much time they wasted pretending to be as dull as everybody else. But not us, Niall. Not you and me. We’re free. Everyone can judge us and point and stare, but we won’t stop playing because we know the truth.”