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  “Help!”

  Jared almost dropped his torch; the response was so unexpected.

  “Who’s there?” he shouted uncertainly, tightening his grip around the handle of the flashlight. In general, Jared was a free spirit. Laidback and relaxed. Although, as a child, he’d been given many reasons not to trust others, he was the kind of man who tried to look for the best in every person and every situation.

  And yet, at that moment, the unease weighed heavier in his chest. Swallowing back his irrational hesitation, he cleared his throat and took another step. “Where are you?” he shouted.

  “Over here!”

  At the sudden close proximity of the voice, he jerked the light to his left. Two figures were wading through the mud towards him. He held his breath and waited for them to come close enough for their faces to be illuminated. Then, he breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

  There was a young teenage girl of perhaps sixteen, holding hands with a child with tear-stained cheeks and a lower lip that wobbled miserably in the cold.

  All at once, the dread that had congealed inside his rib cage dissolved into concern, and he immediately went towards them to help.

  “Oh my god, are you two okay?” he called out as he came towards them. He saw that the child was a little girl, and she was still sobbing pitifully as she shivered in a wafer-thin rain mac. Beneath him, he felt the muddy slop sucking each of his feet with every step and could already feel the muscles in his calves tiring.

  “We’re lost,” the older girl explained, panting with the effort of trudging through the marsh. “We’re on holiday with our parents… our van broke down, and they went to find help…” she trailed off, and a look of despair crossed her face, “…that was six hours ago.”

  “Mummy… Daddy…” moaned the little girl, and Jared realised then that it was the child’s terrified sobs that had woken Sienna.

  “Come, come into our RV; you must be freezing,” Jared insisted, gesturing towards the motor home. “Would you like me to carry you?” he asked the little girl, whose features were strained with effort. She nodded as a solitary tear slid down her cheek.

  Ten minutes later, and the four of them were gathered around the pull-out dining table, muddy clothes bagged up by Sienna and planted next to the boots by the door. Jared placed steaming hot cups of cocoa in front of both girls and studied their bright red cheeks and wide, worried eyes.

  “How far did you walk?” Sienna asked, her voice still wracked with the shock she felt. She pulled her dressing gown tighter around her body and sat down opposite the child, who was now wearing one of Sienna’s smaller jumpers and a pair of fluffy socks.

  “About two hours,” guessed the older girl as she pushed a long strand of her sandy blonde hair behind her ear. She had introduced herself as Samantha and her younger sister as Francesca.

  Jared rubbed the back of his neck and shook his head in disbelief. “It’s almost 4 am…” he muttered, “you must be exhausted.”

  “We were too frightened waiting in the van,” said Samantha, resting her hands around the warm mug. Her face crumpled, her intense blue eyes welling up.

  Sienna and Jared exchanged hopeless glances.

  “Well,” said Sienna after a brief moment’s pause, “I think we ought to drive back to the nearest town now. Alert the police.”

  “There’s no need for that,” said Samantha quickly, “not on our account…”

  “What if your parents are hurt or lost?” Sienna asked, arching an eyebrow. “If we wait till morning, it could be the difference between…”

  Jared nudged her, and she trailed off, suddenly painfully aware of the two pairs of icy blue eyes piercing her from across the table. She awkwardly cleared her throat and drummed her fingers on the table.

  “It’s going to be so hard to navigate in the dark,” Jared said slowly. “Maybe it would be better to wait until sunlight.”

  Francesca yawned, and her little eyes fluttered drowsily. She slumped up against her older sister before suddenly her eyes snapped open again. Before anybody could comprehend what was happening, her tiny mouth dropped open, and she let out another loud, agonised wail that seemed to make the entire double-decker quiver.

  “M-m-my teddy!” she screamed.

  Sienna winced and instinctively clasped her hands over her ears, her eyes widening with alarm as she shot a horrified stare at her husband.

  “Oh goodness,” Samantha’s face creased with concern, and she glanced towards the door at the bags of clothes, then looked worriedly from Jared to Sienna. “My little sister’s teddy… have either of you seen it?”

  Jared blinked. “What?”

  Over Francesca’s frantic shrieks, Samantha sighed, her slender shoulders dropping. “I’m afraid my sister is autistic,” she explained with a frown, “she’s so attached to the bear. Without it, she won’t be able to calm down…”

  “Well, where is it?” Sienna asked, unable to conceal the subtle sharpness that tinged her voice.

  “We had it when we left the van…” Samantha replied, chewing her lip as she thought. “We must have dropped it.”

  “NO!” screeched the red-faced child, “m-m-my bear will be all cold and wet and muddy!”

  Samantha stroked her sister’s hair and got to her feet, “I have to go out and look for it,” she said.

  Jared stood up as well, “wait, what? We’ll find it in the morning.”

  Francesca howled. Sienna glared.

  “My sister is prone to fits,” Samantha said, “I have no choice. If she gets all worked up… well, there’s no emergency room around here, is there?”

  Hopelessly, Jared turned to Sienna, who gazed icily back at him. He groaned and rubbed his temples, which had begun to ache with the pitiful cries of the kid. In an attempt to be positive, he told himself how he’d make a joke of this to Sienna later and remind her of exactly why the two of them should never reproduce. But for that moment, he knew he couldn’t let this skinny teenage girl wade back out into the muddy, squelching wilderness. It wouldn’t be right.

  “I’ll go with you,” he said, stifling a groan.

  “Thank you,” smiled Samantha, batting her eyelashes. “You’re a hero.”

  To this flirtatious comment, Jared’s immediate reaction was to blush. He scolded himself as he pulled his boots back on for finding the teenager so attractive.

  “Would you mind looking after my sister?” Samantha asked Sienna. “It’s really far too cold and dark out for a child…”

  Sienna looked as though she would rather eat shit.

  “Fine,” she said through gritted teeth.

  From across the table, Francesca shot her a toothy smile, her crying coming to an abrupt halt.

  Chapter Eleven

  Summer, 1999

  Her clammy skin quivered and shook as the cold metal of the blade was carelessly stuffed up the inside of her top, then dragged through the material so that it ripped open. She cried even louder as she felt the night air on her bare stomach and the evil bastards’ leering at her pale pink gingham bra.

  “Nice, very girl next door,” sniggered her attacker as he pressed the knife to her cleavage.

  Overcome with exhaustion, Minnie’s limbs refused to struggle anymore. Inside her skull, her fury continued to rage and sizzle, burning and crackling into intense frustration as it dawned on her that she had never been so powerless. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t protect herself, and she couldn’t even spit a defiant insult at those sick motherfuckers because she couldn’t stop sobbing.

  Closing her eyes, she tried to disconnect from the cruel universe.

  She had accepted her fate.

  She was about to be raped.

  Maybe even murdered.

  Just another tragic news story splashed across the tabloids; another poor, defenceless teenager humiliated, battered, then discarded in a shrub or a filthy river bed.

  She waited to feel pain. She waited for the satisfied grunt of the animal that pinned her down to the w
oodland floor.

  Instead, she felt a hard jolt and a loud WHACK followed by a cry of pain. Her eyes flew open, and a smile of relief immediately flooded her face.

  The attacker with the knife had collapsed down onto his side, a spidery wound on his forehead, thick trickles of blood dripping down his face as his eyes bulged. Shards of glass stuck out at startling angles, jammed too far into his pathetic flesh to fall to the floor.

  Standing above him was Ronnie. One of his eyes was black and bruised, already swollen to the point where his face appeared deformed. In his hand, he gripped one of the wine bottles, now smashed at the handle.

  Instinctively, Minnie found herself taking the other attacker’s momentary surprise to her advantage. She squirmed out of his grasp and lunged for the knife, then turned back to face him.

  Suddenly, he didn’t seem so scary anymore.

  The piece of shit fell backwards, his face ghostly white. He scrambled through the mud, mumbling incoherently, his hands and feet not working quick enough to get away.

  Minnie, on the other hand, found herself so full of energy that she practically jumped to her feet and was on him within seconds.

  “You sick cunt,” she hissed, driving the blade straight into his face. There was something exhilarating about saying that word, the most terrible of swears that up until then she had never once even uttered under her breath. The point of the weapon slashed through his cheek, narrowly missing his eye.

  But she didn’t just stop there.

  Although she saw blood, and although she could practically feel the fear draining out of his pores, it was as though her arms had been replaced by the mechanical hands of a murderous robot. She stabbed him repeatedly.

  Again, and again, and again, and again…

  Crimson splatters of his flesh covered her face, and she savoured the rusty taste on her tongue as each puncture came easier and easier. She ripped through flesh, pierced tissue, and chipped bone in a mad, chaotic frenzy.

  And with every movement, she only became more alive.

  Chapter Twelve

  2019

  “I’ve got a confession to make.”

  Jared shivered and pulled his thick coat tighter around him. He grimaced at the repulsive patch of mud belching and congealing around his boots as he illuminated the ground with his torch. He was only half-heartedly listening to Samantha, who had been filling the air with mundane chatter ever since they left the RV. His teeth chattered. He was cold, wet, and thoroughly miserable. All he wanted to do was find the fucking teddy and go back to sleep. But they had been searching for what felt like hours and had wondered so far that the RV was now just a small rectangle in the distance, illuminated by a small square of light.

  “Hey, did you hear me?”

  Jared startled as her voice suddenly presented behind him, her words tickling the back of his neck. He spun around and found himself almost nose-to-nose with the teenager. It was dark, but he could just about make out her classically beautiful features in the moonlight.

  “What?” he mumbled grumpily.

  “I said, I’ve got a confession to make,” said Samantha, her voice slowing in a way that Jared might’ve mistaken for seductive. She smiled at him and appeared to move closer, even as she remained totally still. Her presence somehow engulfed him; her scent, her warmth, and her smile creeping under his skin where they were not wanted.

  “What’s that then?” he asked, averting his eyes, pretending to scan the ground with his flashlight again.

  “I’m a fan.”

  “Sorry?” he turned back to her.

  “I’m a fan of your YouTube channel,” Samantha said with a shy smile. “I watch you every day…” she put a hand on his arm. His skin sizzled beneath her touch. “That’s why I came here.”

  Jared’s face contorted into a disbelieving frown. “What? You got your family to come down here just because Sienna and I were?”

  Samantha nodded excitedly. She touched his other arm and pressed her body up against his. “Do you believe in love at first sight?” she whispered into his ear so that all of the hairs on the back of his neck stood up to attention.

  Swallowing, Jared paused.

  What the fuck?

  He shrugged Samantha off, suddenly repulsed by her.

  “What? Are you kidding me? Are you hitting on me? When your parents are lost out here somewhere?!” he gestured out across the pitch-black marshes.

  The girl pouted and crossed her arms. “No, that would be crazy…”

  Jared scratched the back of his neck and took more steps backwards, his mind racing and his chest tight with unease. “What the hell is this, Samantha? Are we looking for a teddy bear or not?”

  Samantha giggled and shook her head but didn’t say a word.

  He felt his stomach lurch as that awful churning of dread came back and hit him all at once. His senses seemed to combust as he felt another presence as if the two of them were somehow being watched.

  “I’m going,” he said, his voice wobbling although he tried so desperately to sound brave. He turned on his heel, a thick knot blocking the top of his throat.

  Suddenly, a loud, almighty squelch pierced the air. The breath was knocked clean from his lungs as a surge of agony blasted him in the small of his back, and every single one of his limbs literally froze. Paralysed, the young man’s torch slid from his hand, and he fell down, flat on his face into a deep puddle, thick with muck and grass.

  He screamed, only for his mouth to fill with dirty water. Desperately, he tried to move, but nothing would work. He was stuck, as rigid and lifeless as a corpse.

  The fear was so intense that it ripped through every shred and fibre of his being, the adrenaline dulling the pain from the leaking stab wound in his spine. Jared’s head spun as he sucked in more filthy rainwater and battled with the harrowing realisation that he was about to die.

  All of a sudden, his scalp screamed in protest as his head was plucked from the puddle by tufts of his hair. The amber light from his torch was shone in his face, and he blinked his stinging eyes to see Samantha’s piercing blue gaze staring excitedly down at him.

  “P-p-please, S-s-s-Samantha…” whimpered Jared, tears pouring down his dirty cheeks.

  “Please, please, please….” the girl mimicked. “Honey, you ain’t fucking going anywhere.”

  Jared sobbed.

  “And my name isn’t Samantha- it’s Stella,” she told him with an evil grin that turned her beautiful face monstrous in the torchlight. “You were really going to reject me?”

  “No…” he cried, vigorously shaking his head. “No… I…”

  “So you were going to cheat on your wife?” Stella demanded, mouth agape in feigned horror. “You nasty bastard. With a sixteen-year-old as well…” she shook her head and tutted. “Disgusting.”

  “What did I do to you?” Jared asked, fixing her with his watery eyes. “I was just trying to help you.”

  Stella smiled, “oh, you’re going to help us lots and lots, Jared…” she looked up then. Jared noticed the glint of the knife she twirled around in her dirty, blood-stained fingers. “Ah, there’s my dad.” She dropped his head again, this time, so his nose collided with something hard beneath the water.

  This time, she didn’t lift his head up, and he remained under until his lungs filled with lead and felt as though they were about to burst.

  Jared was thankful to finally pass out.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Summer, 1999

  It had not turned out to be the wonderful, romantic evening that Ronnie had planned.

  Exhausted, every inch of his body aching and every muscle strained hard, he sat on the ground with his knees up, his filthy, blood-stained hands clasped together. Beside him, head nestled into his shoulder, Minnie wept quietly.

  In front of the young, besotted couple was the fiesta. In the driver’s seat and the passenger’s seat, the two men sat. The guy with the knife was leaned up over the steering wheel, his bulging eyeballs st
ill open and staring, even in death. The blood from his head wound saturated one side of his clothes.

  Perhaps an even scarier sight was the other man in the passenger seat, who Ronnie had feared would literally fall apart as he and Minnie had dragged him into the car.

  All around them, staining the forest floor, were dark smudges of blood and patches of mud and soil saturated with dark, crimson pools.

  Ronnie’s hands shook as he glanced down at the packet of matches he held.

  In the aftermath of the evening’s events, the two teenagers had devised a plan. Set the car on fire, so it looked as though they had been attacked, mugged, and had the car stolen. Then go to the police station and act none the wiser.

  But, as the sky started to lighten behind the towering trees, Ronnie had an awful, unrelenting feeling that they were about to make the worst mistake of their lives.

  Minnie seemed to sense his uncertainty.

  “I’m going to prison, aren’t I?” she cried softly so that her voice was barely audible over the squawks of birds up ahead. “My life is ruined.” She imagined how worried her parents would be that she had not arrived home at ten as promised. They’d be out searching, and if the two of them did not make a choice soon, they’d find them like this. About to burn the two men that they had just murdered.

  Ronnie swallowed and turned to her. “Shut up,” he hissed, his brow furrowing.

  He took a deep breath and tried to relax. In times of stress, Ronnie could not control his temper. He didn’t want to lose it at Minnie, to make their situation one hundred times worse.

  “What are we going to do?” she whispered, staring hopelessly at the mutilated corpses sitting in the romantically decorated fiesta.

  “Maybe we should just say the truth,” said Ronnie, chewing his lip. “We acted in self-defence.”

  Minnie stared doubtfully at the gruesome scene in front of them. As much as she knew in her heart that it was true, that she had never even said a nasty or callous word to anyone in her entire life, the men in the car certainly didn’t look like they’d been killed in self-defence.