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ELLEN STARED AT HER with wide, terrified eyes. “What did you do?” she repeated, still huddled in the nest of Olivia’s clothing which she’d created for herself.
Olivia glanced away, her eyes flooding with tears, everything around her shimmering like looking through fractured glass.
“The voices got worse. They were coming from inside the walls, whispering things to me, horrible things. They said they were going to hurt May, and they’d describe the awful things they were going to do to her. I started picking away at the walls—just a little bit at first, but then making the hole bigger and bigger. I hid it with a poster, because deep down I guess I knew things weren’t right in my head, but I didn’t know how to stop it.
“But the voices kept coming. They were telling me how they could move through the walls of the building to get into May’s room down the hall. They said they were watching her sleep, and talked about how helpless she was, and how they could do all these awful things to her—” Her voice broke, and she clamped a hand over her mouth, trying to contain her emotions enough to continue. Ellen was still watching her in horror, like she was a car crash she couldn’t quite bring herself to look away from. They’d known each other for two years, and Liv had never made a single mention of the mental health problems that had plagued her for most of her life.
“I tried to find them—the people the voices belonged to—but every time I thought I’d managed to catch one of them in the walls, they always slipped away. I started to think of how I could get them out, how I could force them to come out, and I came up with a plan. I knew when they were in there, because they told me how they liked to watch May sleep, so I decided the night time was the best option. I stuffed a whole heap of crunched up paper in the hole I’d created in my bedroom wall, and then I set fire to it with a lighter. I hadn’t thought the flames would catch on so quickly. My plan was to smoke them out, that was all. To make it so they weren’t able to breathe in there, and they’d be forced to come out. I hadn’t known how quickly the flames would spread, but they caught up inside the walls of the student halls and tore straight through them. The building was old, and there was something they’d used when they’d created all the dividing walls for the student bedrooms that should never have passed fire regulations. But because it was inside the walls, I didn’t even realise how badly it had spread until everything started to bubble and peel.”
She shook her head and covered her face with her hands.
“Jesus Christ,” Ellen muttered, horrified. She picked up the empty bottle of water in her shaking hand and tried to drain the last dregs, only to find it empty.
“When I realised what was happening, that I hadn’t smoked anyone out, but instead had set fire to the student halls, I ran. I banged on all the doors, but it all happened so fast. We were three stories up, so everyone started to converge on the stairwell, pushing and shoving each other to get down the stairs. Some people had already got in the lift, but then it got stuck, and we could hear the students screaming inside. It was chaos. I couldn’t tell if May was with everyone, and the heat and flames had got so bad by then I couldn’t go back to check.”
“I remember that happening,” Ellen said, aghast. “It was in the student accommodation in Manchester.”
Liv nodded. “I was lucky. No one died, but May was severely burned. She lost all the hair from one side of her head and had to go through numerous skin grafts. It could have been worse, but there isn’t a day that goes by when I’m not eaten up with guilt about what I did. I ended up in a psychiatric unit for five years. When I got out, I moved to London and became Olivia.”
“Your guilt didn’t stop you hurting me, though,” Ellen said, tears in her eyes. “You forgot all about what you did when you were drugging me and locking me inside here.”
“I’m sorry, Ellen. I’m so sorry. I thought I was keeping you safe.”
“Just like that poor girl you burned at university,” she spat. “You’re sick, Liv. You need help.”
“I know, I know.” She put her face in her hands again and sobbed, great, heart-wrenching sobs. Ellen made no move to comfort her, and she didn’t blame her in the slightest. She didn’t deserve any comfort, not after everything she’d done.
“I saw Zach,” she managed to say eventually. “I was with Michael in the city, and he saw me and recognised me. I was so frightened he was going to tell Michael what I’d done, and then everyone would know what a terrible person I was. I thought he was following me, that he planned some kind of revenge for what I’d done to May.”
“It’s a shame he wasn’t, because then maybe none of this would have ever happened.”
Ellen got to her feet, putting her hands out either side to support herself against the wardrobe walls as she staggered out on weak, trembling legs. “I’m going to call the police now, Liv, and I don’t want you to stop me.”
“I won’t,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.
And she stayed that way, kneeling on the wardrobe floor, until the police arrived to take her away.