The NSC Boxset: Heart of Stone (283 page)

“And what the fuck do you mean by that?” she hissed, venom spewing from her with every syllable as her eyes fired daggers across the room at me.

“Well, you’re not exactly the nicest of people.”

“Says her.” She huffed.

“Oh my God, Rebecca.” I shook my head sadly. “How old are you?”

“Bollocks, bitch.”

“I rest my case.” I sighed and tapped at the column my wrists were attached to with my fingers, giving something other than the fuck whore’s annoying screech to focus on.

“Well, have you asked yourself that question?” she smirked at me.

I sighed as the image of sudden superpowers being bestowed on me came to mind and I mentally visualised yanking the metal support from the ceiling and swinging it in her direction, severing her ugly fucking head in one swipe. I pouted when she remained in one piece and smiling that grotesque bloody grimace of hers.

“All the time, Rebecca. All the bloody time.”

“Well, I rest
my
case then.”

“You know when I get out of here,” I growled across the room at her. “I am so giving you my middle finger on my way out.”

She sneered at me as she tried her bonds once more, struggling with them, her body and arms yanking at them furiously.

“You’ll either burn the skin on your wrists doing that, or you’ll pull a muscle in your arm.”

“Go to hell.”

“Right now, that is such a better option.” I retorted with a snarl.

“My God,” she screeched. “I’m gonna go mad if I have to spend my last breaths in the same room as you.”

“I can make that a lot quicker for you if you wish.”

She sighed then pouted childishly as she gave in and relaxed again. “I should have finished you years ago,” she declared.

I started chuckling at that thought, which then turned to laughter and then full on hysterics. My belly hurt at the humour with her announcement. “Finish me years ago . . .” I sniggered, “That is the funniest shit I’ve heard in years.”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “You’ve finally gone mad.”

I nodded to her, “I think I may have. I’m actually laughing at one of your jokes.”

“Oh just fuck off Ava.”

I laughed harder. I couldn’t help it, I think I had gone slightly mad. The thought of spending any more time with the bitch had sent me crazy, giving me something other than horror to focus on.

We both froze when the door opened and a tall light haired man stood in the doorway. I didn’t have chance to engrain his features to memory before I spotted the syringe he held in each hand.

“Oh no.” I said as I scurried backwards in a wasted effort to draw myself away from him.

Rebecca started to cry again, her high pitched wails hurting my ear drums before the guy put me out of my misery and sent me to oblivion with some shit he injected into my veins.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Fear

Mason

“YOU OKAY?” LAYLA asked as she deposited a cup of coffee beside me. I turned to look at her. Her face was pale, her eyes dull and sad as she gave me a sombre smile. She sighed heavily when I shrugged.

“I’m not sure really,” I told her honestly. Most of me was going slightly crazy, a burning inside that I couldn’t douse as the fear crippled me. She fiddled with my hair as was usual for my best friend, her fingers trying to tame the wild few strands that obstinately fell the opposite way to the rest of my hair. “I’m scared shitless. I’m terrified for both her and Bec, Bec more so cos’ if I know Ava, it will be her that kills her before their captors do.” Layla smiled and flicked her eyebrows in agreement. “But then there’s this part of my heart that knows Ava will survive this.” I swallowed and grabbed Layla’s hand, holding on tightly to her. “Is that wrong?”

“Is what wrong?” She asked as her pretty face gazed at me in confusion.

“That I’m not as worried as I should be.”

She exhaled heavily and sighed noisily. “Nope. If anyone knows how Ava will be handling this, it’s you. She’s resilient and tough and although it’s awful to say, she’s been through worse than a couple of people locking her up.”

“With Rebecca” I added with a smirk.

“Ah,” Layla chuckled. “Yes, that in itself may be trouble.”

“So no joy with Etta?” she stated as she plonked on the sofa beside me.

“Nope, she seems to have disappeared along with Ava.”

“Are you sure it’s her?”

I shrugged. I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t ever sure who in cases like this but I always relied on my instinct and it had usually never been far wrong. “Nothing else springs to mind. She’s angry, I get that, George is trying to take away her life, Ava and I ruined her life to start with . . .”

“You didn’t ruin her life, her parents did that all by themselves when they started trafficking girls and picked on the wrong people.”

“Yeah. Me.” I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair. “Do you think life will ever settle down?”

She patted my cheek as she lifted herself up, “You are Mason Fox and you wouldn’t have it any other way.” She winked when I chuckled then left the room as Debora walked in.

“Hey,” I smiled at her. She looked exhausted, her thick brown hair limp, her skin washed-out and full of blemishes, her lips sore from where she had chewed on them frantically.

I stilled when she sat next to me, lifted my arm and snuggled into me, her arms curling around me as she sought comfort. “He won’t talk to me, Mr Fox.”

“George? And please call me Mason, Debora, I’ve told you before.”

She nodded and sighed as we both stared through the window. “I’ve told him that he can do things properly, you know through the courts and that to gain access to Jamie the proper way instead of just whipping him from under Etta, but he says that’s not enough, he wants full custody.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

“It’s not that, I don’t mind bringing him up with George but I don’t think it’s right the way he’s doing it. It’s not fair on Etta, and it’s certainly not fair on Jamie, he needs his mum . . . we all need our mum’s.”

I gave her a squeeze and kissed the top of her hair. The poor girl had had an awful upbringing, shipped from uncle to uncle, fighting for her mother’s attention. In some ways I wished that I had been her dad, maybe I could have given her more of a stable childhood but it hadn’t been . . . it never had.

“Do you . . .” she gulped heavily as tears choked her throat. “Do you think she’ll come back?”

I closed my eyes as her distress burrowed deep within me, her despair now mine. “I don’t know, Debora. I can’t lie to you and say that she will because I don’t know.” I held her tighter, “But I can tell you that Ava will do her all to get them out of there alive.”

“Yeah?” she scoffed. “Even my mother?”

I smiled secretly. “Even your mother.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Underestimated

Ava

“GOD, I NEED to wee.”

“Good luck with that.” Rebecca huffed as she wriggled on her own backside. “I’ve needed one for the last few hours. But the bastards have just left us here to rot . . . and piss ourselves.”

I sighed, “Well you’d think they’d appreciate we’re women.”

“Do you always have to be so sarcastic?”

I rolled my eyes as I shifted position and tried to alleviate the pressure on my bladder. “Whatever, Rebecca. I’m too tired to fight with you.”

“Well, wonders never cease. You always want to fight with me; the chemo must have shrivelled your bitchiness.”

“Fuck you, you heartless bitch.”

“Ooh,” she murmured as she smirked at me. “Have I hit a nerve? By the way, loving the new hairstyle.”

I blew out a slow breath, wondering if my death could be any more torturous than this shit. She tipped her head and studied me with a slight incline to her eyebrows. “What?” I asked with an irritated sigh.

“It’s blonde.”

I nodded and shrugged. “Yeah, new growth, completely new colour and texture.”

She pursed her lips and nodded faintly, “Well, it suits you.”

“Eh?”

“Your hair,” she gestured to my head with a tilt of her chin, “I like the colour. It’s kind of a really light copper blush, but with blonde streaks. It might be something I’d consider doing to mine.”

“What?”

She squinted at me. “My God, are you always this stupid? I—like—your—hair. It gives you a pixie appearance too. Makes your chin more prominent and defines your cheekbones.”

For Christ’s sake.

“Right.”

She shifted again as her toilet needs began causing her problems. “Ava, I’m just gonna wee in a minute.”

“Go for it,” I sighed. “I’m sure we’ll be here long enough for it to dry out.”

“Oh don’t say that,” she whimpered.

I shrugged and rested the back of my head on the metal support behind me, closing my eyes to try and gain some concentration. We’d been there ages and the only person we’d seen was the guy that put us to sleep. It wasn’t making sense.

“I’m scared.”

I opened an eye and peered at Rebecca. Her eyes were full of fear, tears rimming over and spilling down her cheeks as she looked at me. I nodded; it was all I could do. “I know.”

“Are you?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah,” I answered with a nod. “Yeah, I am. I can’t seem to get a hint at anything.”

“A hint?” she asked as her gaze roamed the room.

“Yeah, something that will help me understand the situation, why we’re here and who is doing this.”

She nodded then groaned as she shifted again. “If I ask who you’ve upset you’ll take it the wrong way.”

I scoffed but nodded, “Yeah, that’s a possibility.”

She huffed and smiled to herself. “I’d say it’s a given. If you weren’t here with me I’d have said it was you doing it to me, but you are so that’s out.”

“Well done, Miss Marple.”

She glared at me but then something miraculous happened . . . her lips twitched and she smiled at me. Fuck, life was all wrong. Everything was upside down and inside out. I didn’t like it. It made me nervous and wary. “Don’t smile at me Rebecca, it makes me nervous.”

“Oh fuck you!”

“No thanks.” I retorted.

“No, same here. Why would I want you when I can fuck your husband?”

I clenched my teeth as nausea rolled up my throat and attempted to make an appearance. My stomach twisted with jealousy as her hatred speared my chest and made it difficult to breathe through.

I tried to ignore her as I pulled my legs up and turned my back on her as far as I could but the vision of her words assaulted my mind and all I could visualise was her and Mason, fucking and even worse . . . enjoying it.

* * *

“You know,” Rebecca whispered into the darkness that had descended into the room, bringing a chill into the air with it.

We’d been silent for a long while, both of us imagining how to kill the other as our hatred lay thick in the atmosphere around us.

“I have far more reason to hate you than you me.”

I shook my head in bewilderment. “And how do you work that out?”

She hesitated and I swear I could feel her sadness eat at me. It radiated from her, even in the darkness, even through the chill, its potency thick and rancid as she struggled to find her voice. “Because although you believe I took him from you,” she choked on a sob and I winced at the sound. “You took him from me, Ava.”

I turned to look at her. She was watching me in the dim light from the moon as it streaked into the room and gave off a faint glow. I remained silent, waiting for her to continue. Her eyes slid to the window, “Six years we’d been together.” She smiled painfully, although not at me, her throat bobbing as she tried to swallow back the lump in it.

I rolled my head around my neck as I tried to ease the tension and dropped my eyes from her. “We’d been friends for years. I’d had such a crush on him since I was twelve.” She chuckled slightly and smiled wider. “Our families were friends and would always holiday together. I remember one year,” she paused and I turned to look at her. She didn’t return my look; her eyes were still fixed on the moon as she lost herself to her memories. “He took me fishing. He’d have been, what? I was fifteen . . . So he must have been around seventeen.”

Her expression lightened and she giggled. “He’d caught this tiddly little fish, I mean it was so weak and weeny but it seemed to beg with its large, round eyes for me to help it, free it. So I unhooked it and threw it back in.” She shook her head in humour. “Mason threw me in after it, said if I couldn’t catch any with a rod I should use my teeth.” She slipped her face to mine, “He used to call me a horse.”

I smiled and nodded. “Yeah, I can see that.”

She narrowed her eyes on me and sighed but carried on. “And then on my seventeenth birthday, he kissed me . . . and I fell in love.” A tear rolled down her face and I watched it slide off her chin and drop onto her cream silk shirt, the drop splattering against the dirt that now spoiled the pristine material.

She smiled then looked at me. “It was my first ever kiss and . . .” she swallowed and shrugged, “ . . . and it was perfect.”

“Rebecca . . .”

“No,” she cut me off quietly. “I’m not telling you this to hurt you. I just want you to . . . well to understand.”

“Why?”

Her teeth pulled at her bottom lip and a sob made its way out of her. God damn, that was not my heart aching, no it was hatred burning up. “Because I’m tired, Ava. I’m tired of fighting for something . . . someone that was never really mine, but God, I so wanted him to be.”

I sighed and looked to the floor, her heartache hurtful to watch. “Have you ever wanted something so bad that you would kill for it, Ava? You would humiliate yourself, degrade yourself and do some . . . shameful things just for the slightest bit of attention from someone who held your heart.”

I nodded, “Yeah, I get that.”

She nodded and smiled tightly. “But then you always had him. You never had to fight like I did, you never took his disgust. You never had to take the humiliation of grabbing onto the scraps he threw you.”

“If that’s the case, why didn’t you let go?”

She scoffed and shook her head as her cries became louder. “Because I love him, Ava. I’ve always loved him. I turned to coke because of him. I let him take whatever he wanted from me. I let him share me with other men and all I wanted . . .”