Silent - Part 8: Her Friend Maxine

LUCY, May 2019, Missing

Yes, she and Maxine shared a secret concerning a boy.

The Boy who lives close to the sea, near Lyme House in Lancashire.

She'd arranged to have lunch with Gavin at a café in the park to discuss The Boy as she'd been curious to see what Gavin would suggest, given his experiences at Lyme House.

But the man with the baseball cap prevented her from getting to Gavin. The Angel of Mercy, as he called himself earlier. He followed her back from the Cybercafé and appeared just as she parked her car outside Maxine’s. And then…running, running, running…thinking the man would never dare to attack her in public…that if she continued just a little longer, she would reach a main road and safety. But he caught up with her, the man. Brought her down so that her back crashed against the ground and pain travelled up and down her neck and spine.  And then…the awful sense of detachment and false calm, as if she was observing it happen to her.  Looking at the houses and the sky, noticing mundane things like the net curtains in the porch at the corner of the next street. Nothing could hurt her anymore, because this wasn’t happening to her. Happening to someone else.  

And then?  The man kept pressing that cloth against her face…the chemical smell…the loss of consciousness…and she’d known nothing for a while, although she dimly recalls hearing a van door slamming shut at some point.

Now, she’s here now. Thirsty, but no longer hungry. Weak from the dark and the chloroform and the lack of food and drink.  She hates the man, but needs him to return so he can let her out.  

Again and again, she shouts, but no one answers.  He’s left her here to die.

Except she won’t die.  Someone will rescue her.  

Ashleigh, her ex.  Gavin.

Gavin.  Ashleigh.  One of them. They must.

***
The Boy first got in touch with her through Facebook, using an alias. He wasn’t old enough to have an account of his own. He lied about his age. He used his mother’s laptop and promised to be careful, but he thought his mother was getting suspicious.

An angry Boy who often turned on her for no reason, calling her names and saying she was spiteful and cruel. She always forgave him, though.  She loved him and wanted to protect him from the bullies.  

***

She counts to stop herself from going crazy. Thinks of earlier times.  A couple of years ago, before it all started. Her and ex-boyfriend Ashleigh, and Ash’s dog Bruce.  Big, mad Bruce, the Alsatian.

The three of them walking along wild grassland near their homes in Yorkshire, following a tiny stream out into fields, a breeze brushing against her cheeks, Bruce rushing ahead, ears pointed in anticipation. The smell of sun and soil. The excitement of that spring. Her and Ashleigh. She was so happy then.  

Ash, Ash, Ash. Silently, she calls him, hoping he will hear her.  
Rescue her. Go back to being how they were.  

Her and Ash.  Ash and her.  Forever and ever and ever.

***
Ashleigh lived opposite her in Yorkshire.  Maxine’s brother.

They hadn’t spoken until the day they’d met in Lower Sixth and found themselves paired together. She’d always thought him arrogant, but they’d got talking again one break time and he’d seemed so different…polite, thoughtful.  Even offered her his jacket to shield her from the rain when they’d walked home together, and he’d been shivering from the cold but he’d insisted she wear it.

That rainy afternoon, he’d invited her into his house, opposite hers. Maxine, a model, had been there, and they’d started chatting immediately.  Bruce, the German shepherd, had liked her straightaway…jumped up on the sofa by her, tail thumping, and looking pleased with himself.

Popular people.  Maxine and Ash were perfect in every way.  And they’d wanted to spend lots of time with her.

She and Maxine saw each other most days…talked…Max helped her with makeup and hair.

One evening, she confided in Max. Told Max about what had really happened when she was a little girl. Her parents dying in a fire. Her adoptive parents banning her real dad’s family from having any further contact with her.  The secrecy.

‘Why don’t you just go back and get the answers?’ Maxine had said to her. ‘I’ll help you.’

So she had, and another fire had broken out a decade after the first one.

***
I can’t die.  

She won’t.  Someone will realise she’s missing.  Maxine, Gavin or a friend from Uni.  Or one of her tutors there. They’ll alert the police and the police will find her.  They will free her and punish the bad man, the so-called Angel of Mercy.

Exhausted, she drifts back to sleep.