In the hours that followed two in the morning the world always seemed still, like it was holding its breath in anticipation for the new day. Amanda wandered behind Shane down the stairs which led into the hotel’s car park. They didn’t want to risk being seen using the lifts and rousing suspicion. Their footsteps bounced off the stairs and the walls, pinging back to them in an endless echo.
Amanda had already checked out online. Shane had loaded up his car with their bags. When she’d closed the door to the hotel room, it was the last time she’d see the large bed covered in crisp white sheets or the city lights sparkling like scattered sequins through the window. There was no time to dwell on goodbyes. Amanda pulled the door shut, listening for the click of the lock and then hurried after Shane.
They saw no one as they powered down the stairs. They rattled down them like ghosts shaking their chains in the night. In the car park a blanket of silence covered all the vehicles. Amanda rested by the door to the stairwell, leaning forwards and waiting for her lungs to stop burning. Despite all the hours she’d spent in the gym she still hadn’t regained all her usual strength. Her bruised bones continued to feel delicate.
‘Amanda, come on,’ Shane was whispering as he looked over his shoulder at her. It felt strange to be running around in the dead of night. While most other people slept, they were sneaking through shadows, locking up doors. It was both thrilling and dangerous. It reminded Amanda of being eight years old and tiptoeing down into the kitchen during the night and easing the biscuit jar off its shelf, trying to be as silent as possible. It was that delicious moment when you reached inside, stroked your fingers against a sweet treat and froze, waiting for the lights to suddenly come on as you were caught, or for the darkness to endure, so that you could continue in your illicit deed.
‘Amanda.’ Shane had stopped running. He was stood by the bumper of his car, studying her.
‘I’m coming,’ she jogged towards him, pulling her lips into a smile so that she wouldn’t grimace. There had been so many stairs. Her legs felt unsteady and the fire in her chest refused to go out. But she couldn’t let Shane know. If he saw that she was still as weak as she was he’d call everything off. And she needed him. She was about to cast herself into a sea of dangerous uncertainty and he was the life preserver she’d have to race to if things became too much for her to handle.
‘Are you sure about this?’ the crinkles of worry in the corners of Shane’s eyes were becoming permanent.
‘I’m sure.’ Amanda strode past him, opened up the car door and climbed inside. The sound of the door closing snapped loudly through the car park. Like a gun shot. Amanda sunk low in her seat, breathing heavily.
She was once again in her green combats and coat, her hair slicked back in a smooth bun at the nape of her neck. The gun was inches away from her, in the glove compartment, swaddled in a towel Shane had brought. The gloves she’d need to hold it were tucked into her pocket. Her fingers twitched. She yearned to check her laptop, just one more time. Logging into her digital world always gave her such a feeling of calm. She felt genuine pangs of withdrawal when she was away from it for too long. But the laptop was in the boot of the car along with everything else. Thinking about the darkness of the boot made Amanda’s stomach do a backflip.
‘Then we’re doing this.’ Shane slid into the driver’s seat and put his key in the ignition but did nothing else.
‘Are we going or are we just going to sit here and stare into space all night?’ Amanda tried to sound funny but there was no making light of the situation. She just sounded scared.
‘Tell me to go home.’ His hands were now on the wheel.
‘Shane, we’ve been over this so many times and—’
‘Tell me to go home.’ He tightened his grip. ‘Just tell me, Amanda. Tell me that we can put all of this behind us and just leave.’
‘You know we can’t do that.’
‘But I’m going to lose you,’ Shane’s voice caught in his throat and he bowed his head.
‘No, you’re not.’ Amanda reached for him. ‘We’ve been over every eventuality. It will all be fine. And in a few hours it will all be over.’
What if you drop the gun?
What if you miss?
What if he’s armed?
What if he’s not alone?
Dark thoughts snapped at Amanda like snarling dogs, trying to tear at her flesh and hurt her. She closed her eyes, pushing them back, refusing to give them power. She knew what she was doing. She knew where McAllister would be, his route along the jogging trail. She could do this. She had to do this.
*
‘So it’s over?’ Corrine pressed for clarity, leaning forward in her armchair, both hands still genteelly cradling her cup of tea.
‘Yeah,’ Amanda tugged on the sleeves of her jumper from where she sat on the sofa, her long legs curled up beneath her. Her own drink – coffee, black – sat untouched on a nearby side table.
‘But you love Shane,’ Corrine insisted. ‘And he loves you. You two have been through so much together – college, university.’
Amanda cringed. She didn’t need to hear the list or have a quick history lesson about her relationship. It was done. Over. Shane had made that very clear when he packed up his stuff and left.
‘What happened?’ Corrine squeaked. ‘What did you do?’
‘What did I do?’ Amanda glowered at her mother. ‘What makes you think it was something I did? Maybe he cheated!’
‘Oh no, Shane’s such a nice boy. He wouldn’t do something like that.’
‘Jesus, Mum.’
‘So what happened?’
‘He cheated,’ Amanda declared bluntly, raising her eyebrows in a taunting gesture.
‘Seriously,’ Corrine passed over the declaration with a roll of her eyes. ‘What happened? I know Shane would never cheat on you.’
‘How could you possibly know that?’ Amanda spat bitterly.
‘Because he loves you. Every time he looks at you I can see it bursting out of him. He loves you much, Amanda. He’d stand by you through anything. He already has.’
‘Yeah, well, he doesn’t love all of me.’ Amanda suddenly needed her coffee. She reached for her cup and drank deeply from it, not caring that it slightly burned as it slid down her throat.
‘Of course he does.’
‘No. He doesn’t. Shane’s changed since he joined the force. He’s more… judgemental.’
‘He’s taken on a very serious job, Amanda. I imagine he’s under a lot of pressure and—’
‘He’s perfect, I’m not. I get it.’
‘That’s not what I’m saying, Amanda, I—’
‘I’ve always been how I am. Who I am. But suddenly that’s not good enough anymore. Suddenly it’s no longer okay for me to bend the rules.’
‘Are you bending rules?’ Corrine looked horrified. She placed down her cup and stared at her daughter, stricken.
‘Nothing important.’
‘Amanda—’
‘The world is not black and white, Mum. Its shades of grey. And Shane used to get that. Only now he doesn’t.’
‘Have you been doing something…’ Corrine lowered her voice and stared nervously towards the window and then back at Amanda, ‘illegal?’ She paled as she asked the question.
‘Define illegal.’
‘Oh, dear God,’ Corrine produced a handkerchief from her pocket with a flourish and began dabbing gently at her brow. ‘What did you do, Amanda? What was so terrible that Shane felt compelled to leave you?’
‘Nothing.’
The darknet and her adventures within it. But her mother would never understand that. Amanda broke a few laws but only for the greater good. She was like a digital Robin Hood, her and Turtle82 and a few other hacker friends. They helped take down corrupt organisations, expose married people who signed up to exclusive dating agencies with the intention of secretly cheating on their spouses. Once upon a time Shane admired her tenacity, her bravery. Now he just saw the litany of crimes she was committing. He’d become a cop first, a boyfriend second.
‘You must have done something.’
‘I was me,’ Amanda shrugged. ‘That’s all I’ve ever been. And I’m not perfect, Mum. No one is. And Shane never used to care about that, now he does.’
‘Oh, Amanda, you can’t throw away what you two have over some petty argument.’
‘I’m not.’
‘But he loves you. He truly, utterly adores you.’
‘Clearly not enough.’
‘How can you be so hard about this?’ Corrine was now wiping tears out of the corners of her eyes.
‘Mum, Shane and I are over and I’m moving on with my life. I just came round here to let you know, not be lectured about it.’
‘Do you think a good man is like a bus?’ Corrine seethed. ‘That you can just jump off one and then hop on the next one and ride it for as long as you like?’
‘I don’t want a good man,’ Amanda was standing up. She was ready to leave. ‘I want a great one.’
*
The darkness pressed in on them from all sides, challenging the strength of the car’s headlights. They cut a clear path ahead but beyond their reach the world was lost to the night. The city shimmered distantly in the rear-view mirror like an abandoned jewel at the bottom of the ocean. Soon it would disappear completely.
Shane didn’t speak as he drove. He just silently moved the car deeper into the countryside.
Amanda picked at the ends of her nails, looking down at her hands, wondering what they would prove themselves to be capable of.
‘Do you remember when you left?’ the question slid from her lips before it was even fully formed in her mind.
‘Huh?’ Shane’s forehead crinkled as he was suitably confused.
‘When we were together. In our apartment. You remember that?’
‘Of course.’ His green eyes remained focused intently on the illuminated strip of road ahead.
‘You left because you were tired of me using the darknet.’
‘What’s your point?’
‘My point…’ Amanda shifted in her seat. No matter how she sat she could feel the stifling presence of the gun nestled close by. ‘Is why are you here now? I’m about to commit a murder, Shane. That makes you an accessory, which is a whole lot worse than turning a blind eye to my online activities.’
Shane clenched his jaw but didn’t reply.
‘If we’re caught you’ll lose more than just your job. You’ll go to jail. We both will.’
‘Is there a question there somewhere?’ He sounded angry.
The car careened around a corner, the headlights burning against a small rabbit who just had time to scramble out of the road to safety.
‘I guess what I’m asking is why stick around now? When you wouldn’t before.’
‘Because I learned from my mistakes,’ he told her briskly.
‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning,’ he swung the car around a tight corner, approaching it with a bit too much speed. It shuddered uneasily as it straightened out. ‘If I had to choose between losing you and losing my job, my freedom. I now know which is worse.’
‘But you’re risking everything.’
‘You’re worth it.’ He powered down a length of straight road. They were drawing ever closer to the woodlands within McAllister’s estate. ‘Now can we just drop it please?’
Amanda pulled at a loose thread on her coat. She wondered if she tugged hard enough if the whole thing would just unravel.
*
The first night had been the worst. Amanda had stood in the centre of her small apartment, letting the emptiness seep into her. She could still smell him in the bathroom. On his side of the bed. Even on the sofa. His cologne had burrowed deep into the fabric throughout the place, embedding itself upon the home like a permanent tattoo.
Amanda felt restless. She tidied the kitchen cupboards, rearranged all her knick-knacks in the living room area and made and then re-made her bed. Midnight crept by and she didn’t even notice. She felt Shane’s absence everywhere. Only he wasn’t really gone, not like her father had been. Amanda went to the window and drew back her thin curtains, gazing at the pale glow of a nearby streetlight. Shane was out there, in the world. Maybe he’d gone back to his parents or perhaps he was crashing on John’s couch. But he was no longer in Amanda’s world. She regretfully glanced back at the emptiness.
She just needed to readjust. That’s what she told herself. Shane had been such a huge part of her life for so long that losing him now was obviously going to be a shock to her system. But she’d get over it. She’d recovered from far greater loses before.
As she ambled towards her bedroom, finally resigned to the fact that she needed sleep, she wondered what her father would say if he were there to witness the collapse of her first big relationship. Would he be annoyed as her mother had been? Relieved? Would he tell her that this was her chance to spread her wings and see the world? To grow?
He’d left Amanda’s life before he’d really had chance to impart any wisdom to her about love and matters of the heart. He’d only ever known her as his little girl.
‘Love is a strange beast,’ he’d declared one Christmas after several glasses of sweet sherry. ‘It can be playful like a kitten or ferocious like a wolf. But no matter how love treats you, you can’t ever shut it out completely, not forever. It will always scratch at the door, begging to be let back in.’
*
A crimson fissure cracked along the horizon. The darkness was distilling. Amanda rubbed at her eyes and grabbed a bottle of water that was resting at her feet. She needed to sharpen her senses.
‘We’re nearly there.’
Shane confirmed what she already sensed. An iron ball rolled around her stomach, crushing everything in its wake.
‘I won’t ask again if you’re ready, because I know you are. You’ve shown me that you are. And I believe in you.’
Amanda nodded in gratitude. Shane’s belief in her helped keep the wind in her sails. She told herself over and over that she could do this. That everything was going to work out fine.
‘Where will we live?’
She blinked, startled. Her mind had drifted and she’d missed the start of Shane’s question.
‘Sorry, what?’
‘When we go back, where will we live?’ He was watching the distant sky as the fissure widened. A new day was imminently dawning. And for someone in the woods that morning it was to be their last.
‘When we go back home?’ Amanda had barely entertained thoughts of home. She was too fixated on the present.
‘Yeah, when we go back. I mean, I know you’ve got your house that you shared with Will, but I didn’t want to assume anything about that and—’
‘I can’t live there,’ Amanda blurted. The apartment had become so hollow after Shane left and his absence wasn’t permanent. There was no way she’d be able to tolerate the pure walls and sparkling surfaces of the home she’d shared with Will, not when she knew he’d never be coming home to tell her off for not using a coaster. It would be too painful to continue to exist in the world they’d built together.
‘Then we’ll find somewhere,’ Shane said gently. ‘Together. If you like?’
‘Have you been thinking about it much? Going home?’
‘Of course.’
The woodlands were up ahead. Dark and still shrouded by shadow.
Shane cocked his head towards her as he slowed the car. ‘Haven’t you?’
‘Not… really,’ Amanda admitted honestly. ‘My head’s kind of been stuck in the moment.’
And the past.
She felt like she was being haunted by all her previous choices. All her lingering heartaches.
‘Well, I’ve been thinking about it.’ Shane stopped the car. ‘To be honest with you it’s the only way I’ve been able to cope.’
‘Really?’
‘I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t drive you out here, let you buy yourself a bloody, gun,’ he shrivelled as he said the word, ‘I couldn’t do any of it unless I knew we were working towards a tomorrow together. I can’t believe that this is the end, Amanda. Even though there’s a gnawing fear within me that thinks that it could be.’
Amanda nodded and stared at the glove compartment. She felt that fear too. It was in a constant orbit around her and occasionally it crashed against her like a meteorite, destroying the part of her that it touched.
‘Everything is going to be fine.’ She lifted up the hood of her coat. ‘I’m going to go and kill Gregg McAllister and then we are going to go home. Together. Everything will be fine.’ She hoped with all her heart that she was right.