What the hell happened at that farmhouse?
Is Lily really dead?
Rose. Who the hell is she?
What the hell is she?
Ricky looked around nervously. “Where do we go now?”
Ashley snapped out of her paranoia and shrugged. “To get help.”
“We’ll go to my house,” said Jude. “My mum will listen to us. Maybe.”
They were all out of breath, so rather than run, they powerwalked until they reached the playground. There, they found the twins. The brothers were sitting on the swings, and they were clearly confused when they spotted Ricky with Jude and Ashley. One of them – Ashley thought Tommy – stood up and came over to the playground’s railing. He leant over the bar and pulled a face. “Ricky, what you doin’ with these two?”
Ricky stammered, and when he failed to find words, he shrugged.
Tommy raised an eyebrow, then nodded at Jude. “The fuck happened to your hand, man?”
Jude looked down at his bloodstained hand and fumbled for an answer. “Glass on the playing fields.”
“That sucks, man. Little kids play there.”
Danny came over to join his brother at the railing. He looked at Ricky. “Hey, where’s Lil? She texted earlier saying she was wid you.”
Ricky swallowed and didn’t do a good job of acting unsuspiciously. “Sh-She, um, pissed off about an hour ago, blud. Think she went to see her brother.”
Danny nodded, but his eyes narrowed. “A’ight. We’re heading down the newsagent to get some Rizla. You down?”
Ashley expected Ricky to say no, seeing as they had a murder to report, but he surprised her by saying, “Yeah, I’m down. I need to buy some too, innit?”
Jude grabbed hold of Ricky’s wrist and protested. “We need you to come to my house.”
Ricky shoved him aside. “Fuck off, Judy. We ain’t friends.”
Jude stared at him, clearly trying to convey a message. Ashley nudged Jude and told him not to waste his time. “Like I said earlier. Fuck him.”
Ricky moved to join the twins, clearly willing to delude himself that everything was normal.
“Hey, Ricky,” said Tommy, still hanging over the railing. He held up a rolled cigarette. “You got a light, blud?”
“Yeah, man. Hold on.” Ricky stopped and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a clear plastic lighter, but something else fell out onto the ground. Ashley was close enough to see what it was.
Rose’s locket.
Ricky froze, staring down at it like a lit bomb. His mouth worked silently for a few seconds as he tried to form words. “I… I grabbed it from her. I-It was in her hand when I tried to… I forgot I had it. I put it in my pocket when we climbed the slope.”
Behind the railing, Danny frowned. “The fuck you on about, Ricky? What is that? Jewellery? Whose is it?”
“It’s mine,” said Ashley. She marched over and grabbed the locket off the ground. To sell the lie a little more, she glared at Ricky like he’d stolen it from her. It wasn’t hard because she hated the sonofabitch, but she was also doing it to protect him. “Can’t believe you took this, you prick. It was my grandmother’s.”
Ricky got a hold of himself and seemed to realise she was playing a part for his benefit. He shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes as if she were a lump of shit on his shoe. “Whatever, bitch. Get out of my sight before I spark you out.”
Ashley shook her head in disgust, turned on the toes of her trainers, and rejoined Jude, who was standing a little further back. The two of them left, shoulder to shoulder, with their heads turned so that they could speak quietly.
“We need him to come with us,” Jude whispered. “The police will want to talk to him. He needs to back us up.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” said Ashley. “I mean, what the hell do we even say? You really want to tell the police that a crazy, naked witch in the woods tore Lily Barnes to shreds – a girl we just so happen to hate. I don’t even want to imagine what her crazy family might do if they hear we were with Lily when she…” She shook her head and hissed. “Look, Ricky clearly wants to pretend like this the whole thing didn’t happen, so perhaps we should do the same.”
Jude’s eyes went wide. “We can’t ignore this, Ash. That woman – Rose – is still out there in the woods. What if she hurts someone else? What if she hurts us?”
“I just… I just need to think. There are no options that feel like they’re going to go well for us. Why the hell did we go back there, Jude? We’re so stupid.”
“It was because I made us. Ash, I’m so sorry.”
She put a hand up, not wanting him to feel any sorrier for himself than he already did. “You could never have known. At least we’re alive, which is more than I can say for Lily. Do you…”
“Do I what?”
“Feel bad for her? I’m not sure that I do. Does that make me evil?”
Jude clutched his wounded hand against his stomach. Once the pain stopped, he looked at her. “You’re not evil, Ash. Lily didn’t deserve what happened to her – nobody would deserve that – but she was a bad person. Not just mixed up, but an actual rotten person that was probably never going to be anything else. Even Ricky’s better than her. I almost feel like it’s a front with him.”
Ashley had got the same impression briefly when Ricky had helped Jude up from the shallow ditch, but then, as soon as he had seen the twins, he’d gone right back to being an arsehole. All the same, she’d had his back when he had dropped the locket on the floor. He was in this with them, and they all needed to stick together.
She lifted the locket now and examined it. It was chunky and round, possibly
