‘You don’t have to do this,’ Grace parroted, the words bouncing off the walls of the small room. The reply was a brutal slap across the face. Her mouth felt numb, her ears rang with the impact. His hands travelled down her body. She retched.
Biz stood in front of her with the arrogant stance of a man who knew he was about to take something the other didn’t want to give.
There was no point screaming, they were too far away from the hypermarket for anyone to hear. Words were useless. How was Dan going to feel when they found her body – dumped, violated and lifeless? If her body was ever found.
‘I’m going to enjoy this.’ He smiled and slid his belt off.
Gracie would be fighting like a wildcat and yet here was Grace, her body rigid with fear, as Bizzy grabbed her roughly and licked her face and neck again.
Bizzy’s hands moved lower, roughly pulling at her clothes, mauling her.
Fight back, come on, Gracie, where are you?
He bit hard on her breast and she cried out in pain.
‘Don’t worry, love, you’ll start enjoying it when I really get going,’ Bizzy said as he ripped her top. She tried to push him away, but her arms felt too heavy and her feeble attempt only amused him.
‘Ooh, a bit of fight left in you?’ he goaded, somehow playful and menacing at the same time. ‘Go, on, resist! It will make it more fun for me.’
The flash of a memory suddenly ignited in Grace’s brain, something that she’d never allowed to float to the surface of her consciousness before: her bedroom at Lottie’s place in the small hours of the morning, a man – much bigger than her, touching her, an equilibrium of fear and revulsion – just like this moment.
But Remy wasn’t here to rescue her this time.
Bizzy was struggling with his zip, which appeared to be jammed. During the brief respite, outrage and anger began to bloom in Grace. The feelings grew rapidly, overtaking the fear until Gracie took the driving seat. As he was looking down, she grabbed the army lamp from the shelf. All the trauma of Gracie’s past, the strength of Grace’s adult body, the frustrations of trying to help Remy, and the anger and fear about what he was about to do to her came crashing down on Bizzy’s head in one swift motion.
He was stunned.
Before he could gather himself, she hit him again, hard and swift, across the side of the skull. He fell back on the pod, groaning and grasping his head, and she took her opportunity to scramble towards the small window.
The old plastic frame was stuck fast, melted near the base, where it looked as though someone had let a candle get out of control. She banged at it with heel of her hand but it didn’t budge.
Bizzy sat up slowly, shock and fury emerging in his expression.
She banged at the window again.
She hopped up onto the chair and began to kick at it. The whole frame gave way as her leg bashed painfully against the edge of the surrounding wall.
Bizzy was trying to get up now. ‘Get back here, you fucking bitch!’ His words were slurred, but she knew it would only be a matter of time before he was alert.
Terrified that he would signal the other two, Grace quickly jumped off the chair and scrambled through the gap, grateful now for the difference in size between them. There was no way he’d be able to follow her.
She landed in the scrub outside, catching her hand on a broken bottle, the adrenaline providing pain relief, but the blood beginning to run freely. She heard Bizzy shouting and the others responding to him.
Her mind was racing as she pulled her sleeve down to cover her hand in an attempt to mop up the blood. In a few minutes, they were going to be outside and they would catch her. What would they do to her then? A hundred metres away, the lights shone from the hypermarket.
But they’d get to her before she even reached the perimeter fence.
She hopped up onto a recycling bin, scrambled onto the roof and then lay flat, trying hard to calm her breathing, the sleeve of her top darkening with blood.
The rear exit of the library burst open and the three men ran around the building, the sound of their feet kicking through the cans and broken glass jangling her nerves.
‘Go and look in the trees, Mal.’ Sarge’s deep voice, hardly a whisper. ‘I’ll go to the car park. Biz, stay here and see if Remy comes back.’
Ten, twenty minutes later, she wasn’t sure, they reconvened.
‘Nothing,’ she heard Mal say, sounding out of breath.
‘Me neither,’ said Bizzy. She would know his voice anywhere now.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll get the bitch at the clinic,’ Sarge said.
‘Do you think she’ll send the cops here, boss?’ Mal’s voice again.
‘No chance if she thinks Remy is coming back. There’s no way she’d risk him getting caught. Let’s go back in and wait for him. There’s time to deal with her later.’
‘Fucking little whore,’ Bizzy said. She heard him spit. Her skin crawled.
All her instincts told her that as soon as the fire door banged shut she should run.
But whatever trouble he was in, Remy had always been there for her.
It was time to repay him.
If she wasn’t there to warn him on his return, he’d die at the hands of the men who moved around beneath her.
She gently pushed herself up onto her knees and crawled across the roof to look out for Remy through the trees. He’d return, she could feel it instinctively. Getting back in touch with her old self had reignited their connection.
There was only one thing she could do now to save him.
And he wasn’t going to like it.
She took out her phone, relieved to see it was on silent, and rang the security department at Janus.
‘It’s Doctor Gunnarsson. I’m transporting an offender. I’ll be there within the next hour,’ she said quietly. She held the phone with her left hand, conscious of her injury.
‘Do you need us to come to you and help bring him in?’ asked the guard.
‘No, no. If he sees anyone else, he’ll run. He doesn’t suspect anything so he should come with me willingly. I can get him into the car park, but when he sees you lot, he’s going to fight it.’
‘We’ll be ready,’ came the reply.
She lay in wait, her heartbeat the only marker of time.
Finally, she heard someone moving through the trees by the railway line. She was about to climb down when the scrape of the metal door signalled one of the men had come out. Grace ducked and then she heard someone relieving themselves against a wall. When they had finished, she peeked over the edge of the roof to see Mal standing alone. Inside, the other two men were laughing.
‘Fuckers,’ he mumbled.
Remy was moving towards the library, she could see him through the trees, hands in his pockets. Her throat strained with the desire to shout out. Remy, stay there! Don’t come any closer! But it would be suicide.
She saw Mal turn his head swiftly in the direction of the railway embankment.
Blood rushed furiously in Grace’s head as Remy moved closer.
Mal stood still for a moment and then went back into the library.
Quiet as a cat, limbs trembling, Grace hopped down from the roof onto the bin and ran towards Remy.
He looked up, startled. ‘Are you still here? Go away, Gracie… I don’t need…’
She put her hand across his mouth and he pulled back, confused. ‘They’re here,’ she whispered.
He bobbed down, hands in front of him as though he expected an immediate attack, eyes locked onto the library.
‘My car…’ she whispered, and pointed before grabbing his hand and pulling him towards a gap in the fence.
This time, she was rescuing him.
Once on the other side, she let go and started running, Remy close behind. The car park was empty but for a few vehicles pooled in light near the hypermarket entrance. Her car stood alone. Seconds later, the three men appeared and began running towards them, yelling.
A shot rang out across the car park.
Out of the corner of her eye, Grace saw Remy duck and come up again, before the pair of them made it to the car. Her heart was beating fast and her hand shook as she reached out to the thumbprint recognition pad.
Another shot rang out and the rear windscreen shattered.
The central locking systems clicked, Grace yanked open the door and threw herself in. She slammed the door hard as Remy scurried round to the passenger’s side. Two more shots fired in quick succession and pinged off the bodywork.
Through the glass, she could see Sarge, Bizzy and Mal as they hurtled towards the car, pushing a startled late-night shopper out of the way. Her trolley hit the ground, its contents bouncing and smashing on the tarmac as the men ran.
Remy fumbled with the handle and finally opened the door.
‘Get in! Get in!’ Grace screamed.
Remy hurled himself in and quickly pulled the door shut.
Bizzy slammed against the car.
The engine fired up and Grace screeched off in reverse.
Mal, driving another car, skidded to a halt next to Sarge and Bizzy and they jumped in.
Grace swung her car around so it faced the exit and shot off through the gates and onto the main road.
Remy held onto the dash, his fingers spread wide, white at the tips. He turned around to see where the others were.
‘Faster, Grace! Go on!’
‘I’m going full whack!’
‘They’re behind us!’ he barked, even though she could see in the rear-view mirror.
The one with the silver hair was driving. The one who’d tried to attack her was leaning out of the window, a gun in his hand.
A plan came to Grace’s mind, and she slowed down a little and skirted into a side road leading to a warren of streets that had been their stomping ground as kids.
‘We’ll lose them down here,’ she told Remy confidently, squeezing the brakes to take another corner fast.
‘They’re still there!’
She took a few turns, trying to shake them off, and when they disappeared momentarily, leaving the street behind a black void, she swerved down an alleyway where she cut the lights and the engine.
Seconds later, the other car sped past the entrance to the alley.
Grace and Remy sat in the darkness for some time until their breathing had calmed and they were sure they were gone. Grace started the engine and reversed out onto the main road.
‘Where are we going?’ Remy asked.
‘I know somewhere safe.’
He nodded at her briefly but kept scanning the road and turning round to make sure no one was following. After ten minutes of driving in silence, he visibly relaxed. In contrast, she felt herself gear up for what she knew was coming.
‘We lost them,’ he said, exhaling.
‘Good,’ she replied, tight-lipped.
‘Where are you taking me?’
‘I’ve changed my mind about getting you that biochip. I’m going to stop off at work on the way and get one for you.’
‘Oh, Gracie!’ he sighed. ‘Thank you!’ He leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes. ‘I’m so tired. I feel like I haven’t slept for weeks.’
His response exacerbated her guilt further.
By the time Grace had parked in the underground car park of the Janus Justice building, Remy was in a deep sleep.
The guards, armed with strong sedatives, didn’t have much of a struggle.