Confusion had taken over though, when she’d turned her little body into mine and wept, her soul-wrenching cries making my heart pound faster than it ever had before. The deep way she looked at me, with her huge blue eyes, did something to me that I wouldn’t identify to myself.
A sound from the kitchen made me turn and head that way. Red sat in the doorway to the pantry and she shifted her eyes my way as I approached.
A deep sigh left me and for a moment I closed my eyes, bracing myself for what I prayed I wouldn’t find, but knew I would.
Kloe was frantic, her eyes scanning the shelves and the pencil she had in her hand scribbling insanely over a pad of paper in her hand. Her lips moved as she silently mumbled the contents of the pantry.
Gritting my teeth I opened a few cupboard doors in the kitchen and pulled out the few items stocked in there. Then, carrying them over to the pantry, I shoved up some cans on a shelf and placed down the items. Then I went back for more. And more. Until the shelves were so full I thought they’d give way under the weight.
Kloe, as if unaware of my presence, continued until all the items were logged in her little book. Her tongue and teeth worked over her lip when she repeated the process, screwing up the first sheet as if it told her a lie, and starting again.
“Why did you change your name?”
I caught the slightest stutter in her movements. But she carried on. However, knowing I’d disturbed her mental state, she appeared to struggle counting. Eventually she blew out a breath and turned to me, her heated eyes falling to where I sat on the step down into the pantry watching her.
“You know why?”
“No, I don’t.”
Confusion swept across her face and she frowned. “I thought you knew all about me?”
“I know the very basics but nothing else.”
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. She scanned the shelves, her teeth chewing on her lip in frustration as I disturbed her chore. Reaching up, she moved some tins around, keeping her gaze from me. “I was nine when… and my mother had been dead for eight weeks.”
My teeth sank into my bottom lip, the taste of blood filling my mouth when I bit too hard. Oh Christ! No wonder she was as fucked up as me.
“You were in the attic with your dead mother for eight weeks?”
She nodded then stilled, blinking, and her brow creased. “I think I went a little crazy in those weeks.”
“I’m not surprised.”
She glanced at me and then frowned harder. “I remember the smell. She’d always smelled of fresh soap before, but…” Retching, she shook her head and blew out a steadying breath. Then she slowly turned her eyes my way. Tiny beads of tears collected on the bottom lid of her beautiful eyes, marbling the sheer blue of her irises, and she chewed her lip for a second. “I spoke to her all that time, like she was alive. Like she was in there with me.”
“I’m sure she was there with you.”
Shrugging, she stepped towards me and lowered herself onto the step beside me. “Brian didn’t come back for six days after he killed her. I counted them. The light and darkness that came through a small hole in the brickwork. I was so hungry. And maybe a lot crazy.”
Taking her hand in mine, I gave it a small squeeze. She squeezed back harder, holding onto me like I was the shock to her system that kept her heart beating. The tears that had bubbled in her eyes fell freely down her pale cheeks and she placed her other hand to her chest as if it would stem the agony inside her heart.
“Having my mother there, albeit… dead, was… She was still my mum, Anderson.”
I nodded quickly. “I know.”
“And then…” she coughed faintly to clear her throat, “well, after eight weeks, Brian decided it was time for my mum to leave.”
My heart was beating so fast. Because I knew what was coming. I knew.
“He tried to take her from me. I was nine! I was just a little girl!”
“I know,” I whispered, pulling her to my chest as she broke.
She nodded against me. “I don’t know what happened.” She leaned back, blinking away the sorrow from her eyes. “He picked her up. I remember screaming, so hard that I felt something pop in my eye.”
Trying to contain my emotion, I ran my tongue around my dry mouth, attempting to replace some of the moisture that had evaporated with the adrenaline surging through me.
“And… and the next minute. He was on the floor, groaning. Blood poured from a big hole in his belly. I… I …”
“Hey, hey.”
Her head was shaking so much, the fear and terror in her eyes making my body vibrate. “I thought I’d killed him.”
“You didn’t?” The aforementioned adrenaline that had overtaken plummeted so quickly that I felt dizzy. Fear, for the first time ever, clamped hold of me and I stared in shock, unable to move.
“No.” Slowly her eyes moved to mine, the mirror image of my fear staring right back at me. “I grabbed his keys and ran. I just ran. I remember it was raining, and suddenly it was so good to feel that beat against me. Fresh air and rain now two of my most favourite things.”
The fact that I was keeping her locked up made my gut twist painfully.
“I... Someone found me in a park, just stood, staring up at the sky as the heavens opened.”
Silence curled around us as we both reflected.
“I’m so sorry, Kloe.”
Shrugging me off, she sighed. “The police went back but he was gone.”
I nodded. Somehow I’d known. “Hence the change to your name, and new life.”
“Yeah, they couldn’t risk it. I was just a child. My name was changed mainly because of the media coverage. But a lovely couple fostered me and…” She shrugged again.
“Where are they now?”
“They both died eight years ago. Car accident.”
“Shit...”
“No.” She shook her head and smiled. “They showed me how to live, Anderson. I was so lucky. There’s not many that get a second chance at life. They encouraged me to use my past and help people.” She barked out a laugh. “Not that I helped you much.”
Guilt made my veins tremble. How could I do this to her? After everything she’d been through? She was like a wild bird, created to soar in the wind and the sun, and the rain if she chose to. And I kept her in a cage, on a little perch, locked away from what she craved - life and freedom.
She stared up me when I shot up, my fists clenched in anger.
“Anderson?”
“I… God damn it! I can’t.”
She called my name once more when I snatched up my jacket and walked out of the front door. The front door I left unlocked.
I KNEW I HADN’T BEEN asleep long when the darkness outside still glared back at me through the window. I don’t know why but after Anderson had left I went up to his room and curled up on his bed. I needed the familiarity of his scent, the comfort of his pillow pressed to the front of my body.
Somehow I knew he’d left the front door unlocked and I could have bolted – should have bolted. But there was something inside me that held me back. Part of me knew it was the finality I needed, the end to the chapter between us. Yet there was a silent voice in my head, and my heart, that told me for the first time in a long while, I fit. I clicked into place with Anderson. He saw through the smokescreen I hid behind and I recognised the loneliness he tried so hard to bury deep inside him. Even after witnessing what he had done to James, I should have been appalled, horrified, but I wasn’t. And I wasn’t quite sure why.