The door clicks and the hood is gone. Emilia blinks rapidly, the low light of the warm streetlamp seeming bright after the pure black of the inside of the hood. The man, his face shielded with a scarf and beanie, is standing at the open doors of the van, staring down at her.
She digs her heels into the floor of the van and shuffles backwards, away from him. But she knocks into Ryan’s body, and she can’t suppress the cry that finds its way out through her tightly pressed together lips. She tried to stay away from him during the journey, desperately avoided looking his way, not wanting to acknowledge that the man who had been in that room with her was now dead beside her. But they hadn’t secured him to anything. She had shrieked when he slid towards her, his bare arms coming to rest against her bound hands. His skin already cold.
‘Emilia,’ the man says, his voice low. ‘Do you know where you are?’
He steps to one side, allowing her a clear view out on to the road. She scans the street, taking in the details: the uniformly spaced speed bumps, the streetlamps, the detached houses set far back from the road. It is familiar. She knows this road. Squinting into the distance, her eyes widen as it finally clicks into place. There, on the main road, perpendicular to this one, is a police station. Not her old station, but a neighbouring one. They are leaving her not even two hundred metres away from a police station. And he is standing here, in unassailable quiet confidence, certain that they won’t be caught. Not now. Not today.
‘Yes,’ she whispers.
He reaches inside his heavy coat and pulls out a pocket knife, the blade glinting in the stream of light from the glowing lamp to his side.
He reaches towards her and she flinches. His eyes glint. ‘I’m not going to hurt you, Emilia.’ He tugs on her legs, pulling her roughly towards him, her head knocking against the side of the van. ‘I’m letting you go, remember?’
She resists the urge to kick him square in the chest, biting down on her back teeth. He smirks. ‘I know what you want to do –’
‘Quit playing with her,’ the woman snaps from the front. ‘It’s time to get out of here.’
His nose scrunches with annoyance but he doesn’t respond. Instead, he presses the blade of the knife against the rope that is binding Emilia’s ankles together, and slices it away.
‘Get out then,’ he snarls.
Emilia glances sideways, unable to prevent herself from looking at Ryan’s lifeless body one last time. Nausea curdles in her stomach.
‘Don’t look at him. Just get out.’
She slides forward, shuffling her feet in front of her until she reaches the open edge of the van, and drops down to the ground, her bare feet flinching from the frigid tarmac.
Her eyes dart around the road, up at the streetlamps, searching for cameras. The houses are set too far back from the road to capture anything if they have security, but –
‘There’s one camera – just up there,’ the man says, pointing upwards to a post at the far end of the road. ‘It doesn’t work. Now: go.’ He points down the road, towards the police station.
Emilia starts to walk. One step after another. Just focus on each foot: left, right, left, right. But she winces at the sound of something heavy being pulled across the van: Ryan’s body. There is a loud thud. And she knows she shouldn’t glance back – just keep walking – but she does, and there he is: Ryan, discarded on the pavement, only a short distance from somebody’s front door. Just two hundred metres from the police station. His face covered in blood. His eyes still open.
Emilia’s mouth trembles and she snaps her head to face forward.
The van’s ignition growls.
And she can no longer hold herself back, no longer restrain her limbs which have been screaming at her to do one thing, and one thing alone:
Run.
Her feet fly beneath her, her footsteps slapping against the road. Tears sting her eyes and she lets out a sob, her cries growing with each passing streetlamp, the light blurring as it flashes above her. Her entire body is aching, wailing out with exhaustion. But she needs to keep going. She is so close now. The station is growing closer, like a brightly-shining beacon, guiding her back to safety.
And justice.
She could tell them everything.
She turns her head to look over her shoulder, her legs still pushing forward.
The van is creeping away, not revving or doing anything that might awaken a curious neighbour, or late-night observer.
Run, Emilia. Run faster.
Her muscles burning, her sobbing breaths taking exponentially more effort, she forces her feet to move faster. The rough road tears into her skin, but it doesn’t matter. She’ll be there before they can get away. She can alert the police before they have managed to get too far.
She reaches the gate to the station and ploughs into it, the metal slamming into her waist. Pushing it open, she looks over her shoulder again.
These lies don’t just protect us; they protect you.
No – she mustn’t listen to them. They need to be caught.
She reaches the covered porch and its opaque glass – just an arm’s reach away from the door.
David and Marie Haines live at 153 Garrett Wood Road … It wouldn’t be difficult.
She collapses to her knees, exhaustion finally too powerful to resist. Her body rocks sideways, her head slamming into the paving. She squints up at the glowing blue light of the station, her lip trembling in a mixture of cold and fear and shame.
Because she won’t say a word.