Fuck, but that’s it, isn’t it? Me and Amy. To make things work. Because Amy sets my world on fire and makes me feel alive. It isn’t hurting people or lying to manipulate and get what you want, all those things only force me to shut down, turn off my emotions, hide inside myself for protection. Fuck. No. It’s Amy who makes me feel like a man on fire. Amy’s touch, Amy’s love. The world is so, so fucking wrong.
‘No,’ I whisper, my eyes dangerous and wild as I stare at the other man, a man who does get off on hurting and lying, who enjoys every fucking moment of it. ‘No.’ The statement is more firm. I shake my head, anger snapping across me like electricity.
I need to believe in myself and do what’s fucking right and this ain’t right. What’s right is what I feel when I’m with Amy.
I release Bishop from my crushing grip, and lock my heart around the only one thing I know to be the truth — through all the shit and lies I made — I love Amy and fuck if I’m ever gonna forget it.
I stumble back, and something catches my eye like a shooting star. My mum’s yellow yo-yo, tucked on a high shelf inside the caravan.
I toss Bishop to the ground, and barrel into his caravan. He shouts something but I charge ahead.
Inside, there’s a smell of damp. When my eyes adjust, I make out piles of hoarded rubbish. Thick fans of flattened crisp packets, piles of crushed tin cans and empty beer bottles. A single mattress with no sheet or blanket lies in the corner.
This is where that bastard raped my mum.
I feel a wave of sickness. I grab my mother’s yo-yo and storm back outside.
‘I’m taking what belongs to me,’ I tell him. ‘You’re done, Bishop. My mother can’t rest in peace until you’re behind bars. I’ll stop at nothing to make sure it’s done.’
‘Why don’t you fucking kill me, Shepherd?’ His voice is kind, now, friendly even, and it makes my skin crawl. He laughs cruelly. ‘Too much of a fucking coward?’
I look at the shadow drawing of Amy on my wrist.
There. That’s proof I’ve got heart.
I turn to face him head on. Get my breath back. Then say, ‘Because I’m not a monster.’
Leaving the glade, I thumb out a text message to Amy.
I love you. I’m coming back to you, S x
Darkness was the only thing I lived. It was reckless, like living on the edge of a blade. But then I saw . . . her. Hair shone so bright, like a star exploded in my god-forsaken world, right in the centre of my un-beating heart. She brought me back from the brink of death. She handed me a second chance.
It’s time I start living.
56
ME
Three months later . . .
In the months passed, the woods smothered Bishop’s caravan. The door is hanging off and his mattress has been dragged outside.
Bishop Clark, Christian Earhart, Archer and a handful of other men involved in the child pornography ring were all put behind bars.
The June sunshine falls on my shoulders. I put down the can and climb up the steps. Inside the caravan, there’s a foxy smell. A dark reek, like a wild animal was kept inside against its will.
The smell of yesterday’s lies.
My boot skitters on broken glass. The floor is rotting. I kick aside bottles and fag ends, and slump down in the dirt.
I think of a yellow yo-yo. A silver seahorse. Secrets and splintered hearts, lost toys and hidden treasure. I think of Diana, who passed away last month.
When I empty the can of petrol, I throw a lit match. The flames catch and destroy. A raging monster. It reminds me of the thing that used to stare back at me in the mirror.
Fire licks up the side of the caravan and over the roof. It kills the tainted.
Kills the lies.
The dark past twists, just like my heart, and just like that . . . is gone.
I'll go on protecting the world for you, Amy. Not destroying the world for you. And all you have to do is keep on loving me.
I head back home before the light goes out.
With Amy AND MAX in my CAR, with all our bags packed and tossed into the boot, I drive slowly through Greystone.
No way in Hell was I gonna let Max get lost in the foster-care system. I won’t let him travel the same dark road I did. Amy and I adopted Max. With wealth like mine, you can get anything done.
The sky breaks open and summer rain taps the windows, closing us in.
In a second, we’ll be gone, leaving Greystone’s living and dead.
When I’m nearly out of town, I stop the car and turn to Amy. She sits silently beside me in the half-light with her sunshine hair over her face, her hands held small and cute in her lap. My mother’s seahorse bracelet wraps around her wrist, matches her necklace like it’s fucking destiny or some thing magical like that.
‘You ready, baby girl?’ I say.
She strokes my check, gives the shivers. ‘I’m pregnant.’
I grin wide. ‘That’s the best thing you’ve ever said to me.’
I smile back at her, and she cures any doubts I have about being a good father with just her stunning eyes.
I love that girl. I fucking love her. I’m gonna spend the rest of my life proving to her just how much she’s got me twisted around her finger and how much I love it. She shook me up. Told me to stop staring
