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  For a moment, Ronnie was quiet, shaking his head in disbelief.

  How had it come to this?

  One moment just a pair of carefree, love-struck teenagers with the entire world at their feet.

  The next, a half-arsed edition of Bonnie and Clyde.

  The two stood in the dingy box bedroom of Scribbles’ tower block flat. It was a dismal place that reeked of dog shit and urine, stale cigarette smoke, and unwashed feet. The bedroom itself was literally just a bare bedroom with a single filthy mattress and sheet in the centre; a few squashed beer cans scattered around the edges.

  Scribbles was a drug dealer, or so he claimed to be. In Minnie’s opinion, Scribbles was the product of a horrendous upbringing and a string of incapable foster homes. The guy didn’t even own the flat; he’d simply stopped to have a cigarette outside the block, seen the last tenants moving their things out, and then proceeded to break in once they were gone. The front door was never properly closed; however, Scribbles had a huge Rottweiler called Tyson who barked like a bloodthirsty hound that would rip the shit out of intruders. In reality, Tyson was pretty much the only nice thing about the awful place; a total softy.

  It was less than ideal accommodation, but Scribbles was an acquaintance of Ronnie (how, Minnie didn’t like to ask) and was always too stoned to care about who stayed in his flat, so it had just had to do.

  “They came round to mine today,” Minnie said grimly, chewing her lower lip. “Asking if I’d seen you. Apparently, they don’t want to arrest you. Just want to talk.”

  Ronnie sighed and rubbed his aching temples, “well then, maybe I should just…”

  “No,” Minnie interrupted sharply. “No, you will not just waltz on down to the police station. Clearly, it’s all a charade to try and trick us.” She realised that her legs were aching slightly from standing and briefly considered sitting down on the mattress. The questionable brown stain in its centre made her remain standing.

  “Just… look,” she breathed, trying not to sound angry. “I called up some bed and breakfasts down in London on a payphone earlier. Most of them will take cash…” she delved into her pocket and produced a scrap of crumpled paper. “Here are all the good ones. And by good, I mean shady. They won’t ask too many questions and won’t care too much about your age. Get on a train, and check yourself in today…”

  “How will you know where I am?”

  Minnie sighed, “you can’t ring my house phone. My parents will be breathing down my neck… you have to get all the fake ID stuff sorted first. Does Scribbles still know that guy?”

  “Allegedly. But, that will take ages, Min,” Ronnie said.

  “I know,” groaned Minnie. She took a step forward and wrapped her arms around him, burying her head into his chest. “I know… but, otherwise they’ll just find you, and all of this would have been for nothing. They’ll arrest you, and that will be that.”

  Ronnie bit back a hot tear that simmered in his eye, desperate not to cry.

  It wasn’t cool for boys to cry.

  “Once you’re all set up, and you’ve moved away somewhere, I can come down on the train to visit. Then, once I go to university, we can go even further away,” Minnie murmured, closing her eyes to allow the pleasant fantasy to comfort her.

  A fierce bark suddenly gate-crashed their moment of intimacy.

  “Ouch! Fuck!” Scribbles howled.

  Both Minnie and Ronnie hurried out of the room, down the dark hallway, and into the open-plan kitchen and living area. Scribbles was sitting slumped on the couch, a thick joint balanced between his fingers, and Tyson’s paws pressed to his chest as the dog appeared to try and mount him.

  “Bloody dog, wants a toke on the zoot!” grumbled Scribbles, stretching out his arm, “Ron, get one of the steaks, will ya?”

  Obediently, Ronnie stepped over a mound of crumbling dog faeces and opened up the fridge. Immediately, a faint aroma of mouldy cheese billowed into the atmosphere. Minnie felt her stomach twinge, and a hot finger of bile tickle the back of her throat.

  “Where’s his bowl?”

  “He ain’t got a bowl, just chuck it!” yelped Scribbles.

  Minnie stared in horror as Ronnie held up a bloody, raw steak which had presumably just been draped over one of the refrigerator shelves and, with an uncertain expression frozen onto his face, tossed the hunk of meat into the middle of the dishevelled room.

  The sight of the steak, grisly fluid congealing on flesh, tainted by the grime and muck from the floor tiles, was like a punch to the gut. The surface of it glistened unappetisingly until Tyson promptly pounced on it and began to tear it to shreds, slimy lengths of drool drizzling down from his snapping jaws.

  And that was it.

  Before she could even register the hot eruption of sick hurtling upwards through her oesophagus, Minnie was hunched over. Retching uncontrollably, vomit violently exploded from her lips and splattered all over the floor, landing in grotesque, chunky pools on the filthy tiles.

  “Oh shit, Min?” Ronnie rushed to her side.

  “Oh God,” she gasped, lifting her head, “oh god…” she frantically wiped her lips with the back of her sleeve, her cheeks burning bright red with embarrassment. “I… I don’t…” she trailed off, shaking her head, her stomach still churning. “I’m not usually a sicky person…”

  Ronnie rubbed her back, “oh, Min, maybe you’ve picked up a bug?”

  “I’m so sorry, Scribbles,” she said sheepishly, “I’ll clean this up…” she added, although the idea of getting down on her hands and knees in their unscrupulous surroundings only made her feel nauseous all over again.

  But Scribbles didn’t bat an eyelid. He didn’t even blink on account of the cannabis-infused daze he found himself locked inside. “Ah, it’s alright, Min,” he smiled, waving the problem away with his free hand. “I was gonna have a party tonight anyway; someone always chucks up at some point.”

  Minnie didn’t doubt it.

  “It was seeing the meat,” she said slowly, “but I don’t know why it made me sick. I’ve watched plenty of autopsy and surgery videos for when I go to medical school.” She shook her head and laughed nervously, “God, can you imagine? A doctor that gets sick at the sight of blood and guts?”

  “Must just be a bug. You better get back,” Ronnie grimaced, silently gesturing to their diabolical environment.

  Scribbles coughed, “or, you might be up the duff,” he casually offered, just before taking another puff of his joint.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  2019

  Despite the vast space and crisp, country air stretching out all around them on the marsh, the pungent stench leaked rapidly from the back of the van and hit Ronnie square in the face, almost causing him to reel backwards in repulsion.

  “Fuck,” he murmured, instinctively putting his hand over his nose.

  Lloyd and Flo giggled from behind him, giddy with excitement as they shuffled to get a better look.

  “Who shat themselves?” Ronnie demanded. He shone the flashlight into the cramped van. The sky was still a brilliant white, but the van was compact and dark, so it was annoyingly difficult to see their prisoners in the gloom.

  Sienna’s tear-stained face was illuminated by the glow of the torch. The horrific wound on her head was a glistening red circle at her temple; spidery slashes leading off of it in wispy lines. It had been a wonder that she hadn’t died, given the impact to her head when she had been launched from the driver’s seat into the windshield.

  “HELP!” she screamed, jerking her bound and tied body so that it looked like she was convulsing. Her voice slashed through the air in an unpleasant croak, her hopeless sobs echoing around the wide, damp plains.

  Ronnie took a step back to stand beside his youngest daughter, his boot squelching nastily against the mud. He rested a hand on her shoulder and stared down at her. “It’s your call, kiddo,” he said gently.

  Flo gazed back up at him, her wide blue eyes shining with astonishment. “What
… you mean… I’m allowed to choose?”

  “It’s a rite of passage, darling,” her father replied with a small, fond smile. There was something about his little girl’s amazed expression that ignited a spark inside his chest, perhaps a tiny shred of childhood joy left behind somewhere deep inside his soul. “It’s your revenge to serve up.”

  Flo stared back into the back of the van and slowly moved forwards. Her little, excitable brain whirred at a thousand miles a minute, the possibilities running riot in her head.

  “Well, I say we do something that looks like a terrible accident…” she said, chewing her lip thoughtfully. “We don’t want to make it obvious that they’ve been slaughtered…”

  Sienna let out a low, hopeless whine. She turned to her left, where Jared was lying face down, his body still as stiff and rigid as an ironing board. Although she couldn’t see his eyes, she could feel that he was conscious. Living and breathing the same horrific dread that she was.

  “I say, we put them in the front seats,” Flo continued, “jam something in the bonnet, so it catches fire…” she paused briefly, deep in thought. “Maybe spill some vodka inside the car, make sure the whole thing goes up?”

  Ronnie and Minnie exchanged glances in a fleeting moment that was pregnant with emotion. Wordlessly, they conveyed their pride to one another. Their girl had taken one of her parent’s old schemes and made it better. Of course- if it was the engine that caught fire, it would look far less suspicious than a lighter igniting in the front seats.

  “Right,” Ronnie said briskly, clapping his hands together and turning to his sons. “You heard the lady. Get them both in the front seats.”

  Lloyd and Zach both sprang into action, and once again, Sienna began screaming, her voice rasping as it resounded across the wide space. Lloyd grabbed her shoulders and effortlessly dragged her out of the van so that her feet splashed into the mud on the ground, and the murky water splattered up and down her pyjama bottoms.

  In her restraints, the woman frantically kicked and struggled, bleating wildly with wide, blood-shot eyes.

  “Ugh, fuck me,” groaned Lloyd, briefly turning his head to spit on the ground. “It’s this one who’s shat herself.” In disgust, he threw her body to the ground and hurriedly wiped at his damp trousers. Sienna’s limbs jerked in shivery movements in the muck, and exhaustion finally began to quieten her screams.

  Stella laughed, throwing her head back so that her blonde hair fell gracefully over her shoulders. “Not very lady-like, is it?” She squelched forwards in the mud and squatted down beside Sienna’s body, brandishing the blade of her knife, which had been tucked into the pocket of her jeans. “You want me to stop her squealing, Flo?” she asked hopefully, probing the base of the woman’s spine with the point of the knife.

  Flo considered this, “but then won’t she be numb? If you paralyse her, I mean?”

  “Why don’t we test it on this one?” Zach suggested, dragging Jared’s rigid carcass to the edge of the vest. He flipped him over in one swift movement. Half of Jared’s face was coated in a foul concoction of blood mixed with vomit; the vile paste lit up in the light of the day. Expertly, Zach withdrew his own knife from the waistband of his trousers and held it out to his little sister. “Hurt him. See if he feels it.”

  With a mixture of uncertainty and anticipation, the child took the knife from Zach and contemplated it for a moment. Her eyes flitted back towards Jared, whose eyes were closed but whose nostrils were flaring with frightened pants. Lips pursed with concentration, Flo raised the knife and plunged it as hard as she could into the man’s shoulder.

  It didn’t go in very far, but the puncture was severe enough to make Jared screech out like a badly wounded animal.

  Flo chuckled and nodded approvingly, “interesting…” she turned back to Stella, who was still squatting down by Sienna. “Do it, sister,” she confirmed. The little girl watched with interest as Stella repeated her favourite move, plunging the knife into the spinal cord, severing it. A loud, painful crack filled the air, followed by Sienna’s desperate screams for mercy. Of course, they were in vain.

  At the sidelines, Minnie and Ronnie watched, his arm snaking around her shoulders whilst she allowed her head to nestle into him. It filled the two of them with joy and gratitude to watch their offspring work together, laughing and joking companionably, working together to carry out little Flo’s plan. The boys stuffed the now static bodies into the front seats of the van, Zach turning the key in the ignition whilst Stella tended to the engine. Flo quickly inspected the van for traces they might have left behind, poured cheap vodka over the screeching, bleeding bodies, and then slammed the doors shut when she was satisfied that a thorough clean-up had been done.

  The family, mother, and father, sons and daughters, stood in a group a few metres from the front of the vehicle. Arms around each other, a mutual feeling of warmth spreading from each of them into the next. It was the happiest, most contented that the family had collectively felt in a long, long while.

  They were doing what they loved most as a family, and afterwards they would drive off into the sunset in their beautiful new motor home.

  What could be better?

  At first, the fire started as just a small orange flicker in the bonnet. Through the windshield, Sienna’s face was twisted and red, her mouth wide as she screamed and screamed. Beside her, Jared cried, his eyes swollen from all of the tears.

  The delicious scent of burning gas filled the air, and black clouds of smoke began to billow from the van as the fire took hold. Soon, the windshield smashed from the heat, and red hot flames crept inside the driver’s seat, dancing chaotically in flickering spirals inside.

  Reflections of the fire reflected in Flo’s eyes as a nasty grin tugged at the side of her lips. Her skin prickled with elation as she watched the terror on Sienna’s face and the agony that consumed the young woman as her flesh began to burn. She was screaming again, but this time it was as though her soul had left her body. Each loud cry was like nails being dragged through the skin, and they only got louder and more animated as the fire took its toll.

  In silence, the family watched the young couple fry. Their snowy white skin darkened, then reddened, leaving quickly transforming blisters that glistened, raw and horrific in the daylight. Then, like coal, their bodies charred until they no longer looked human, and white smoke poured off of them like steam evaporating from a bowl of stew.

  Sienna, Flo thought, must have been the stronger of the two. Even when her hair had fizzled out into nothingness, and her body was unrecognisable, she still yelped, using the last of her boiling energy to call out for help that would never come. She screamed until she died.

  Transfixed, the family stood and watched, as if they were at a bonfire display, right up until the white sky began to darken, and the tangle of crackling flames began to simmer and gradually die. It left behind nothing but a broken, battered shell of the van, fragments of shattered glass embedded in the marshy mud. Two smoking bodies remained, black and crumbling in the seats; the stench of their cooked flesh still hanging in the atmosphere.

  After a few moments, Minnie finally spoke.

  “So, I’m thinking showers, and then we drive back to town. Maybe find a nice restaurant to celebrate at?” she suggested brightly.

  The others nodded and murmured enthusiastically in agreement before all trailing back inside the RV.

  “I fancy a curry,” Lloyd said.

  “No- pizza!” moaned Flo.

  “I want to go somewhere that does booze,” Zach interjected.

  “We had pizza the other night!”

  Minnie and Ronnie held hands and followed their children into the motor home, listening fondly to their chatter.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Summer, 1999

  Chicken tikka masala for dinner. Usually, one of Minnie’s favourites.

  But staring down into the bright red glistening pool of sauce made her stomach turn. Anxiety prickled at the back of
her neck at the prospect of having to get up and dash for the bathroom at any given moment. Morning sickness had taken hold of her like the tight, clamping jaws of a feral beast and was frankly whipping the shit out of her, along with the entire contents of her stomach.

  “Oh Min, cheer up, babe,” Julie sighed from across the family dining table, putting her own fork down and cocking her head at her daughter.

  It had been an entire three weeks since Minnie had last seen Ronnie. The police were still looking for him and regularly popping around at random times to try and catch her out. Detective Jones was convinced that Minnie knew exactly where the boy was and had tried almost every angle to get the truth out of her. But Minnie remained tight-lipped. In fact, most days, she didn’t even bother getting out of bed. What was the point?

  She could, her parents pointed out, go out with friends. Socialise and enjoy the summer.

  But how was she supposed to do that when she was apart from Ronnie? And now, bearing the weight of this incredible secret, how could she possibly go anywhere and just plaster on a care-free smile?

  Minnie swallowed and glanced up at her mother. “I miss him,” she breathed miserably, her shoulders sagging.

  Henry and Julie exchanged despairing glances.

  “It won’t feel this way forever,” Julie said gently. “We’ve all been there before. Heartbreak… it’s a horrible thing; it can make you feel rotten.”

  Tightening her grip around her own cutlery, Minnie scowled up at her mother. “It will,” she said snippily. “I love him, Mum. That will never change.”

  Julie rubbed her temples and shook her head, “oh… you silly girl,” she tutted, “one day you will look back at this and…”

  Like a tidal wave, all of Minnie’s pent-up sadness, frustration, and anger surged from somewhere deep in the pit of her stomach and erupted out onto the dinner table in one hot, slippery mess. The girl stood up and slammed her fist against the dining table, causing both of her parents to startle.