She smiled at me, but that smile faded when she squinted and leaned in to look at my face. I watched as her eyes of ocean blue, ones identical to her brother’s, scanned my face from top to bottom. I saw the worry, and anger, that glowed within them.
“The fuckin’ scumbag,” she hissed as she lifted her fingers and brushed them over my throbbing cheek. “Look what he’s done to your face.”
“This is nothing,” I assured her. “It’s really not, I swear. Let’s just go. I don’t know where he is. He’ll kill me if he finds out I’m leaving him. ”
Bailey dropped her hand and nodded, then she grabbed my bag and put it in the boot of her car.
“Get in,” she said to me. “It’s fuckin’ Baltic out here.”
I hurried towards the passenger-side door.
“Noah!”
I got such a fright that I jumped, and for a moment my feet cleared the ground. With my hand gripping the door handle of Bailey’s car, I looked over my shoulder as Anderson slammed the door of his own car shut. I wasn’t anywhere near him, but I could see the anger burning within his cruel black dahlia eyes. He knew what I was doing. He knew. He had a bouquet of flowers in his hand. With his eyes on me he dropped the flowers to the ground, took a step forward and crushed them under his boot.
“Don’t you dare get in that fucking car, woman.”
I stared at him, and for the first time since I became fearful of him, I held his gaze and met his challenge head-on. I wasn’t going to cower before him any more; I wasn’t going to allow him to break my spirit any longer. He was nothing, and I wanted him to know that.
“I want a divorce, Anderson. I don’t want to be your wife for a second longer.”
“She’s done with you, ye woman-beatin’, no-good stream of piss!”
He didn’t look at Bailey for a second; his focus was entirely on me. When he suddenly lunged and started to cross the car park, Bailey and I screamed as we rushed into the car and locked the doors behind us. I put my hands over my ears and screeched when pounding erupted on the window of my door. Bailey fumbled with her keys for just a moment before she started her car and pulled away.
“Noah!”
I looked over my shoulder, and in the moon’s light I spotted Anderson running back towards his car.
“He’s coming after us!” I gasped in fright. “Oh my God! Oh my God, Bailey!”
“Don’t worry,” she said, her voice determined. “He can’t hurt ye any more. He knows that I know that he’s been abusin’ ye.”
She may have known that he was abusive to me, but she didn’t know Anderson or the lengths he would go to keep me. I did – I had first-hand experience of how dangerous he could be when someone tried to take away something that was his. He viewed me as his property, even though he always tried to spin a story that everything he did was for my benefit.
“What do we do?” I asked, then I looked over my shoulder and screamed when Anderson’s car skidded out of the car park. “He’s coming!”
“Call me brother,” Bailey shouted as I struggled with my seat belt before I heard it click into place. “The dispatch grid might be busy with a lot of callers tonight. Call Elliot directly, his number is the same as it’s always been.”
“I don’t have a phone,” I said, panicked. “Anderson never let me have one, I used the flat phone to ring you.”
She grabbed her phone from her pocket and pushed it at me without taking her eyes off the road. I took it and hurriedly unlocked it once Bailey told me her passcode. I dialled Elliot’s number; I knew it by heart. I pressed Call just as Anderson drove directly behind us, making me scream with terror. Elliot’s phone rang a couple of times, then I heard a beep instead of a voice.
“Elliot? Elliot? Shit, shit, shit! It’s his voicemail!”
Panic gripped me as my hand grabbed on to the handle of the door. I kept looking over my shoulder, and when I realised Anderson was never going to let me go, I began to cry.
“Help us,” I sobbed. “Oh God. Please, I don’t know what do! Bailey, what’re we gonna do? It’s so dark, put the high beams on.”
I screeched as the car slid slightly as Bailey made a sharp turn.
“Oh God, oh God!” I sobbed. “Bailey, you’re going too fast!”
With shaking hands, I looked back at my phone and realised I was still on a call with Elliot’s voicemail. I tried to hang up and call him again, but I was so distraught I couldn’t make my fingers do what I needed them to do.
“Tulse Hill,” I cried into the phone. “Elliot, we’re on – Bailey, slow down!”
“I’m tryin’!” Bailey suddenly shouted. “I can’t stop, it’s black ice! We’re slidin’.”
“Elliot!” I screamed as the car swerved. “Elliot, help us. We’re driving through Tulse Hill. Please, please! Anderson is going to kill us – Bailey! Look out!”
One moment we were sliding at an insane speed, then the next our bodies were being violently jerked from side to side as the car flipped multiple times before landing on its side and smashing into something solid and unmoving. Somewhere in the midst of this, I smacked my head against the window of my door and felt warm liquid dripping down my face, as pain unlike anything I had ever felt before spread like wildfire across my head and body.
Before I closed my eyes, I called out a name. I called out for a man to help me, but before he could answer . . . darkness had already claimed me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ELLIOT
Present day . . .
I was going fucking crazy.
I hit my hands against the steering wheel of my car for the millionth time.
