Gone (31 page)

“The bar’s that way.” I point in the right direction.

“Oh he would have got his drink ages ago,” he speaks into my ear and I can smell the beer on his breath. “I know where he will be.”

We walk among the tables, with every step my head feels foggier and foggier, my stomach starts to roll, and I am not sure whether I should make my way to the toilet. Dan grips my fingers and steps into my side, “You okay, Bex?”

“
Rebecca.” But I can’t even put any conviction into my voice. “I need the bathroom.” I spin trying to locate it but can’t work out where it is.

“Sure,” Dan confirms pulling me in towards a corner. I recognise the steel lined door of the ladies straight away.

“Oh look there’s, Josh,” Dan says. He points at a low sofa with his finger and I follow its direction.

Josh is sat on the sofa his head bent towards the dark head of Faye, he is whispering something in her ear. I just stand and stare. Wasn’t he supposed to be coming to find me on the dance-floor?

“You know,” Dan leans into me. “He is still in love with someone else. You are really just a holiday for him.” His words don’t really register at first then they seep into my consciousness like poison.

“I’m going to be sick,” I announce to no one in particular.

Dan pulls me towards a fire exit and pushes through. The fresh air hits me but does nothing to clear my head. I follow Dan down a path which really bizarrely leads to a beach. I didn’t see that on the way in. I look back and forth between the beach and the club. Now I am outside I feel I should go back in and find Joshua. It’s doesn’t feel right to walk away, that’s something the old Rebecca would do. Although my head is spinning and I can’t see very well I am aware that it is only me present in my mind. The old me is still caged. I want to tell Joshua that I’ve kept her at bay all by myself but then I recall him sitting whispering to Faye and I doubt whether he would even want to know. My stomach rolls and this time I gag.

On the sand I lean down with my hands on my knees. Dan’s hand rubs up and down my back like he is helping me to be sick like my mum used to when I was little. I pull myself under control and stand up straight. “
Thanks,” I say. “That’s a bit embarrassing.”

“That’s okay.” Dan smiles his hand still on the bare skin on my lower back. I edge away slightly hoping to break the contact. He moves with me. “Don’t be shy, Bex.”

“Rebecca.”

Dan laughs and steps closer. “Come on, you can’t let Josh have all the fun.”

I take a clear step away, he matches me.

“Dan, you are making me uncomfortable,” I say the words but my tongue feels fat and useless. The shots make my words come out slurred.

“Now, Rebecca.” He makes my name sound dirty as he trails a finger up my arm to the tie of my top around my neck.

Fear grips my stomach, a cold fist of it squeezes at my insides. Clarity comes to my eyesight either too late or too soon as Dan grabs hold of a handful of my hair and smacks his lips against mine forcing his tongue into my mouth. I pull away but he yanks my hair tighter at my protest which makes me gasp. My exclamation makes me mouth open automatically and Dan makes full use of the extra room. I start to gag but he ignores me and carries on. The hand that isn’t gripping my chin and holding my face to his grabs at my arse, pulling me in closer to him so I can feel his erection straining against my stomach.

Like a flash of white lightning I realise what is going to happen.

I shove as hard as I can, the motion makes his fingers pull painfully at my hair but I don’t care. I just want to end the nightmare and I will take any pain for that.

I scream and twist out of his grip hoping someone will hear me or see me. I manage to break free and I run across the sand my feet sinking with every step I take. I just have to get back to Joshua. It’s the only thought I have. I don’t know what direction I am running in, I am so busy trying not to trip on the sand, glancing up to check my surroundings and realise to my horror that I have run into darkness. There is nothing around me at all. Just sand and sea.

Dan grabs my shoulder and I give another shriek as his fingers find purchase and twist me around. “Where do you think you are going? Come on, Bex, it’s only fair to share.”

“You can’t share me, you sick bastard.”

Dan smacks his hands into my chest and I lose my balance onto the sand landing backwards, I try to scurry back, my legs kicking into the sand. It’s no good. He grabs my ankle, easily pulling me back in.

“I don’t plan to share. I’m just going to have you.” He breathes into my face as he grips my arms into the sand. The pressure is so extreme, but I still squirm against his hold. His places his foul mouth back against mine and I clamp my teeth shut. He moves back slightly and I gasp a lungful of air, I don’t even see the stinging slap before it hits my right cheek.

Pulling at my top he tears it easily, and his fingers scrape painfully across my skin. “Only a slut would wear a top like this.” His words are nothing more than a hiss as his mouth comes back down on mine and his hand squeezes my right breast so hard it makes me scream.

“I’ve been finding things out about you Rebecca Walters, very interesting things. I wonder what Josh would say if he knew.”

I try and kick free again, but it’s no good, the weight he has on me is immense and crushing. “He knows everything about me.”

“Does he? Does he know you are the very thing he hates most in the world?”

“I’m not a holidaymaker.” I spit the words with as much force as I can muster but it just makes him laugh.

“Not that. A drunk, a person who causes car accidents, who kills people.” His words along with his breath on my face makes bile claw up my throat. I swallow it back down.

As his hand reaches for the waistband of my jeans, I start to realise that with all the bad things that I may or may not have done this will undoubtedly be the worst. And with that thought I understand that there is no chance of me ever winning my fight against the past.

Joshua

The End of Times

I laugh as I pat Faye on the head and get up from the table. She has been telling me about the conversation she had with Bex in the toilet. It’s convinced me that I am making the right choices with the decisions I have made the last couple of days. I’ve been keeping them to myself but it has involved resolving my past and starting my future all at the same time. It’s time. And right now I am going to find Bex and see if she fancies ditching this place so I can take her home and spend time getting to know her just like I did last night. Slowly, gently, and thoroughly.

I can’t find her on the dance-floor. Searching amongst the crowds I look for a flash of hot gold that will show me where the girl made of the sun is. My eyes start to feel dim the longer it takes me to find it.

“Have you seen, Bex?” I ask Andrew who is also circling the dance-floor undoubtedly looking for Faye.

“Yeah she was with Dan, they went that way.” He points towards the sofas where Faye and I were sat.  I would have seen her surely?

I pace across the floor pushing people out of my way, there is still no sign of her and an unsettled feeling starts to grip my stomach, my chest feels tighter with every second that I can’t lay my eyes on her.

I get to the sofas and stare about wildly. Nothing.

“Have you seen a redhead in a gold top?” I ask a group of guys loitering near the chairs.

“Yeah we saw her,” one smirks. “She was really hot until she nearly threw up everywhere.”

“Where did she go?” My voice is rising.

“Out the door with her boyfriend.”

What? She can’t have. I’m her boyfriend aren’t I?

Dan.

I push through the doors and down the path to the beach. The sick feeling I had walking across the dance-floor intensifies as I search the scene in front of me and see numerous couples making out in the sand but no girl in gold.

My heart is thudding fast and I am not even sure why, apart from this feeling I have in my gut which tells me I need to find Bex. I ditch my flip flops and start to run across the sand. I shout at people as I run past.  “Have you seen the girl in gold?” But no one answers.

I am about to stop running and turn back in the opposite direction when a flash of something catches my eye. Gold.

Running as fast as my legs and the sand will allow I chase towards the flash of light. As I get closer my brain can’t take in the scene around me. The girl dressed in gold is sprawled on the sand, her legs bent at strange angles with a guy straddling across her lap. She does not seem to be fighting so I almost stop running. It’s just another couple making use of the dark but the girl turns towards me and my entire world stops spinning. It’s Bex and she has her eyes screwed tightly shut. Just like she does when she counts on her bangles. Apart from right now she is not counting on an overload of jewelry.

I am over the sand in five easy paces. I drag Dan off her landing a sharp kick to his ribs to get him as far away as I can manage. I give her a quick glance up and down. Her jeans are undone but still up, although her top is ripped off her shoulder and one breast exposed with an angry red mark streaked across it. She opens her eyes and stares at me, no expression on her face. I would have thought she was dead if I hadn’t just seen her eyes flutter open.
Shock.

“Oh what a surprise, Josh Adams saves the day again.” Dan snarls rounding on me. He does not stand a blinding chance. I lift two years worth of innuendo and punch him with it.

“You’d better run because I am going to fucking kill you.” The words rip out of my chest.

He does, he doesn’t miss a beat but slides his feet across the sand and I spin from watching his retreating form and fall to the ground next to my girl made of the sun.

“Bex, my angel.” Sobs start to rack my chest as I lift her onto my lap. “Bex, look at me.”

Her eyes raise and she offers me a small smile. “I always knew you would be the one to save me, Joshua.”

“Always. That’s what I met you for.” I try and shift her torn top over her exposed body as I lift her into my lap, wrapping my arms around her.

“Josh?”

“Yes.” I whisper into her hair which is knotted and matted.

“
You can’t save me. I can’t be saved.” And with those words she throws up on the sand and starts to sob and I start to sob with her, my chest rising and falling in time with hers as I try and deal with the horror of just what could have happened if I’d arrived another two minutes later.

After a while I sit her up on the sand so I can unbutton my shirt. “I need to get you home.”

She starts to cry louder and harder. “I can’t go home. I can’t see my dad. He will know.”

“Bex this is not your fault.”

“It is. It is.” She is almost wailing now. “It’s always my fault. Everything I do ends in tragedy.”

I ignore her words and start to slide my shirt onto her, buttoning it up with shaking hands.

“I’m going to take you home with me.”

“Where?” she whispers against my neck as I pick her up in my arms.

“Just home, Bex.”

And with that I march across the sand leaving the horror of what coul
d have been indented on the ground behind us.

First I have to get her safe and then I have to kill Dan. They are the only two things I have left to do tonight.

Rebecca

Saving Grace

Josh pushes Daisy faster than I ever thought she could go to the studio, screeching the van to a halt, and carrying me up the stairs with neither of us saying a word. I have my lips clamped shut to stop them shaking or letting out the scream that I am containing. Once inside the studio Josh lights a lamp in one of the furthest corners of the room before placing me on the sofa. Moving back towards me with calm even steps he lowers himself onto the floor at my feet then silently with a million unspoken words racing between us he unbuttons half of his shirt that I am wearing. The gasp he allows to escape when he catches sight of the gash along my chest is the only sound he makes. Slowly he dips his face to the mark as I hold my breath waiting to see what he is going to do. I think for a moment he is going to kiss it. I almost want him too as perverse as that may sound. But he unwillingly drags his eyes away from the mark and finds mine. Then he breaks the silence between us forever more.

“Bex, you need to go to the police, right now while they still may be able to find DNA or something.”

With his words every shred of self-resolve I am managing to maintain shatters into a million pieces. The scream that rips from my lips is one of the most horrific noise I’ve ever made. I scoot away from him but his gaze and his touch are gentle as he slowly grabs hold of my hand and brings it up to his lips. The words that follow are steely and determined. “You’ve got to report him. He could have done that so many times before. He could-”

I stop his words with a firm shake of my head still unable to find my tongue.

“Bex, my angel.” Joshua moves himself closer, sliding his hands around my shell-shocked body.

“I can’t.”

The greens watch me intently. His hand brushes my hair and smooth’s down the section Dan pulled at so hard. “Why?”