I woke the next morning to find Nico curled into me like a comma, her head on my pillow. I could feel her breath on the back of my neck, and when I rolled over to face her, the first thing she said was my name.
“It’s going to be OK,” I told her as she reached for my hand under the duvet. “I know what to do.”
And I did.
I knew exactly what to do.
I had to call my mother.
I used Barry and Jen’s landline. All I said was that I needed her to come get me, and half an hour later our car pulled into the campsite, my mother’s face tight with concern when she saw Nico and me waiting for her.
“What’s going on?” she asked as soon as she pulled away.
But before either of us could answer, Nico and I looked down as our phones lit up in our hands.
Message after message from Nico’s mother on mine.
Dozens and dozens of them.
More than I could—or wanted—to read.
I’ve just been into Nico’s room and she’s gone.
Where is she?
I know she’s with you.
This is all your fault.
I’m calling the police.
You’re an evil, rotten girl, Mara Malakar.
Stop turning her against me.
Give me back my daughter.
Then she started calling.
Calling and calling.
When I turned to look at Nico, I saw her face get tighter and tighter as she stared at her phone.
“It’s OK,” I told her, reaching over to take it from her. “It’s going to be OK. Just ignore her.”
“What’s going on?” my mother asked as she watched me turn it off, then put mine on silent.
When we didn’t say anything—just looked at one another, Nico pale and panicked and me trying to smile as I reached for her hand—my mother said, “Tell me everything.”
“I don’t know everything,” Nico finally admitted.
But she told her what she did know.
And my mother nodded, her eyes on the road and her fingers curled tightly around the steering wheel.
She waited until Nico was done, then nodded and said, “Thank you for telling me.”
She stopped the car, and when I realized that we were outside the police station, I slid closer to Nico on the back seat as she slid closer to me, our hips touching as she squeezed my hand.
“Wait here while I park the car,” my mother said, then looked at us in the rearview mirror, her eyebrow arched. “Don’t go in until I get back, OK? I’ll be back in a minute, I promise.”
We did as we were told, our hands clasped as we stood on the pavement, Nico shivering beside me, even though the sun was already high and bright in the sky, as though it was watching over us until she returned.
Sure enough, a few minutes later, my mother strode around the corner. She looked exhausted, her arms crossed and her face tight with concern again. But then she looked up to find us watching her and caught herself, uncrossing her arms and lifting her chin to flash us a sure, steady smile.
And I don’t know which of us it was for.
Nico or me.
I held Nico’s hand tighter as my mother led us inside and told us to sit on one of the gray plastic chairs while she went to the counter. I couldn’t hear what she said to the officer standing behind it, but I could see a fold appearing in the pale skin between their eyebrows that got more and more pro-nounced as they nodded solemnly, then reached for the phone.
When they did, my mother came and sat beside Nico.
“Right,” she said, in that way only she does when she somehow sounds perfectly calm yet unbearably tender, all at once. “Someone is going to come out and speak to us about what you told me, Nico.”
As soon as she said it, I felt Nico tense beside me and I slid my arm around her.
“I can’t.” She shook her head. “What if I’m wrong?”
A tear skidded down her cheek and I caught it with my fingers as my mother said, “You’re not wrong.”
But she shook her head again. “I can’t, Mads. I can’t.”
“You can. You won’t be alone,” my mother reassured her. “I’ll be with you the whole time, I promise.”
Nico turned her cheek to peek at her from under her wet eyelashes. “You will?”
“You’re under seventeen, so you need an appropriate adult and I pass for one, apparently.”
That made the corners of Nico’s mouth lift slightly.
Just for a second before they fell as she shook her head again.
“I can’t,” she said, her chin quivering as she whispered, “It’s my mum.”
That made my mother’s chin quiver as well.
But she recovered quickly. “She needs help, Nico.”
When another tear slipped down her cheek, I swiped it away with the pad of my thumb, then took her face in my hands. “You’re doing this for her, Nico.”
A door next to the counter opened then and someone in a creased gray suit walked out. They scanned the reception area, then strode over to where we were sitting and crouched down in front of us.
“Hey, Nico. Remember me?”
“DS Delgado.” She nodded as I let go of her face and slid my arm around her again.
Detective Delgado nodded back. “You wanna tell me what’s going on?”
Nico looked panicked as she turned to my mother, who just smiled smoothly and held out her hand.
Nico looked down at it for a moment, then back up at her, and when she nodded, Nico took it.
My mother suggested I go home, but of course I didn’t. I stayed there until Michelle and the others rushed in with hot chocolate and hugs. They didn’t ask a single question, just sat with me, taking turns holding my hand until my mother finally emerged through the door next to the counter and we all ran toward her at once.
“Nico’s going to be OK,” she told us, her eyes on me.
And I didn’t know who was holding my hand or who had their arm around my waist.
Just that they were there.
The only thing keeping me upright as my mother said it again. “Nico’s going to be OK. She’s given a statement and now we’re going to the hospital—”
“The hospital?” I gasped.
“Nico’s fine.” My mother nodded. “It’s just a precaution.”
“That makes sense,” I heard Michelle say, and I felt a little steadier.
But then I heard Louise say, “They’re probably going to do blood tests to see what her mum gave her.”
“Nico’s fine,” my mother repeated. “But you should go home, because—”
“No way.” I shook my head fiercely. “I’m coming.”
“Mara, you can’t,” my mother said, then waited for me to meet her gaze. “You won’t be able to come with us, so you’ll just be in the A&E waiting room with all the drunks and screaming babies.”
“Your mum’s right,” May said, pulling me closer, and I realized it was her arm around my waist. “Trust me, if it’s anything like it was on New Year’s Eve, it will be like a scene from Resident Evil.”
I had no idea what that meant, but I believed her.
“I don’t want Nico to be alone,” I whimpered.
“She’s not alone.” My mother pressed a kiss to my forehead. “She’s got me.”
So, I went home, because what else could I do?
I went home and sat cross-legged on my bed, Michelle beside me and the others dotted around my room. A solemn, stunned silence settled as they looked helplessly at one another, then at Michelle, who looked back helplessly at them, before turning to me.
I waited for her to reach for my hand and tell me that it was going to be OK.
But she just let out a miserable sigh. “Mara, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s OK.” I nodded, trying to cough away the lump in my throat. “Nico’s going to be OK.”
“No.” Michelle shook her head. “I’m sorry for getting it wrong.”
I was so startled that I laughed. “Wrong?”
“About Nico.” Her eyelashes dipped for a moment before she raised them to meet my gaze again. “For dismissing her behavior as bullshit and swagger when it was so much more than that.”
The others agreed, their foreheads creased and their eyes wide as they gathered around my bed.
“It’s OK,” I told them with a sniff as they apologized, all at once.
And it was.
They were just looking out for me, weren’t they?
“How could any of us have known what Nico’s mum was doing?”
They shook their heads, and when they started talking among themselves, I sat there like I did the night they showed Nico’s photo on the news, my brain a snow globe again as they batted questions back and forth and traded furious, breathless theories about why Nico’s mother did it while the day died around us.
Then, just after ten o’clock, I heard the front door and literally flew down the stairs to find my mother.
And Nico.
“Oh my God!” I said with a heave and a sob, then launched myself at her from the bottom step with such force that she fell back and almost knocked a framed photo of my grandparents off the wall.
Nico hugged me back and through the tunnel of it all—the relief, the uncertainty, the fear—I could hear my friends asking her the questions that were currently warring in my head.
Are you OK?
What happened at the hospital?
What did the police say?
Are they going to arrest your mum?
You can’t go home by yourself! Where are you going to stay?
You can stay at mine.
Or mine. We have a spare room.
Eventually, my mother held her hand up and said, “OK. Take a breath, girls!”
When they did, I finally let go of Nico and stepped back to find my mother smiling sweetly at Erin, May, and Louise.
“Nico needs some space. Why don’t you guys go home and you can talk tomorrow?”
She sent them upstairs to get their stuff, and when they returned, in a whir of kisses and hugs and demands to be kept in the loop, she ushered them out the front door.
When they were gone and the house was still again, she let go of a breath and nodded up the stairs.
“Nico, why don’t you take a shower?” Then she tipped her chin up at Michelle. “Can you get Nico a towel and something to wear, please? You know where everything is, right?”
“On it!” Michelle said, clearly relieved at having something to do.
“Hey, baby girl.” My mother pressed a quick kiss to my cheek as they disappeared upstairs, then put her arm around me and led me down the hall into the kitchen. “I don’t know about you, but I need a cup of tea.”
My father had his back to us as he stirred something on the stove.
“Mads!” he said when he heard us walk in and spun around holding a wooden spoon. “How’s Nico?”
“Hungry, probably,” she said, her eyes wide, “but I see you’ve got that sorted.”
“I didn’t know what to do, so I’ve been stress cooking.” He shrugged, then said, “Tea?”
But he didn’t wait for a response as he put the wooden spoon down, then grabbed the ladle from one of the steaming saucepans and began decanting some chai into a smoked glass mug.
“How do you always know, Vas?” my mother said with a sigh, rubbing his back with her hand.
She kissed him as he handed her the mug, then sat at the table with a wearier sigh.
“Mum, what’s going on?” I asked, sitting opposite her.
She rubbed her face with her hands. When she took them away and opened her eyes, I saw how red they were and I remember holding my breath as I waited for her to tell me.
But before she could, I heard Michelle.
“Wait for me!” she yelled as she thundered down the stairs. As soon as she skidded into the kitchen, my father handed her a mug of chai, which she almost spilled in her haste to join us. “What’d I miss?” she asked, out of breath, the chair scraping loudly on the tile as she pulled it out and sat down.
If you didn’t know Michelle, when you saw her run into the kitchen like that, her cheeks flushed and her eyes wide, you’d have assumed it was because she didn’t want to miss a single, juicy detail. But I hope you know Michelle a bit better now, so you’ll believe me when I say that it wasn’t that at all.
She was worried about Nico.
“What happened?” she asked, still out of breath as my father sat with us. “Is Nico OK?”
“She’s fine,” my mother said, then stopped to sip her tea. “I mean, she’s not fine given the circumstances, but they were very thorough at the hospital and the doctor I spoke with was happy to discharge her.”
“She got her blood test results back that quickly?” my father asked before I could.
My mother shook her head. “Some of them. The rest will be another day or so. But they examined her and checked everything, her temperature, pulse, blood pressure, oxygen levels, and they’re all normal, so that’s good.”
That made something in me settle, but Michelle frowned. “So we don’t know what her mother gave her?”
My mother shook her head again.
“But Nico hasn’t taken any supplements for a month,” I said, and I was the one who sounded out of breath this time as panic pinched at me. “What if there’s nothing in her blood and they think she’s lying?”
My mother reached across the table for my hand and squeezed it. “They know she’s not lying, Mara.”
“Plus”—Michelle reached for my other hand—“she must have given Nico something yesterday to make her sick so she couldn’t see you. The chances are, there are still traces of it in her blood.”
“Besides,” my father added, “I’m sure the police will test the supplements.”
“So, what happens now?” I asked, looking between the three of them.
My mother lowered her voice, even though I could hear water running in the bathroom upstairs. “Nico’s very concerned. She’s anxious that the police are going to go to her house, kick the door in, and drag her mum out.”
“They should,” Michelle said under her breath.
After everything that had happened, I should have agreed, but there was something about the way my mother was looking at me as she held my hand a little tighter that reminded me that it hadn’t always been that way between Nico and her mother. They must have had moments like that. Quiet, tender moments when Nico thought her mother would protect her from anything. So I got why she wouldn’t want the police to do that.
“Do you remember the detective you met at the station?” my mother asked. “Detective Delgado?”
Michelle and I nodded in unison.
“He promised Nico that they would be discreet. That they won’t humiliate Rebecca.”
“They should!” Michelle said out loud this time, her face flushed again. “She tried to kill her!”
“She wasn’t trying to kill Nico,” I told her when she let go of my hand to sit back and cross her arms. “She was trying to keep her close. Stop her from leaving because she was terrified of losing her.”
“Same thing.”
“No, it’s not, Michelle.”
I stared at her, but I shouldn’t have been surprised that immovably logical Michelle couldn’t see that.
That’s the trouble with being immovably logical, it often only presents you with two options.
Right or wrong.
So she couldn’t see that there was a murky midpoint between the two.
“Whatever Rebecca did, she’s still Nico’s mum, Michelle.”
“Plus, she’s the only parent Nico has ever known,” my mother reminded her.
That made Michelle soften, her shoulders lowering.
“Are they going to arrest Rebecca?” my father asked with a frown.
“Nico’s asked the police to speak to her first,” my mother said with a small shrug. “She’s convinced that if they’re not confrontational, Rebecca’s less likely to get defensive and deny everything.”
He thought about it for a moment, then nodded.
Michelle obviously didn’t agree with that tactic, though. “As soon as the police show up unannounced, she’ll know Nico has said something, and she’ll charm them into thinking it’s all in her head.”
I remembered that first phone call.
All of those darlings and sweet girls.
How Rebecca made me believe that it was a good idea not to tell Nico that we knew each other before.
How she convinced me it was for the best.
And the panic full-on winded me as I turned to look at my mother.
But she squeezed my hand again. “She can’t charm her way out of this, Mara.”
“She knows it’s over,” my father agreed with a sad sigh. “She’s known for a while.”
“She knows she can’t keep doing this to Nico forever. She has to let her go.”
My mother’s gaze dipped for a second, and when she looked up again, I asked, “So, what now?”
“We wait for the police to do their thing.”
“What happens to Nico in the meantime? She can’t go home, can she?”
“Where’s she going to live?” Michelle asked.
“They were talking about finding her a temporary group home—”
“No way,” my father interrupted, shaking his head. “She’s not going into care.”
“Care?” I gasped, but my mother held her hand up again.
“I told the police she could stay with us, Vas.”
He nodded. “Of course.”
“It won’t be for long. Detective Delgado told me that Nico has an aunt and uncle who live half a mile up the road from her in Rottingdean.”
“What?” Michelle and I said at once.
“Her mum’s sister and her husband, apparently. They got in touch with the police when they read what happened in The Argus and asked them to pass on their details to Rebecca, but she never got in touch. Nico had no idea they were there.”
“So, Nico’s going to live with them?” my father asked as he finished his tea.
“The police will check them out first, but Detective Delgado says family is the preferred option, so…” She crossed her fingers and held them up.
But I was stunned. “I can’t believe Nico had an aunt and uncle half a mile away this whole time. She could have walked past them in the street or been behind them in the queue at the Co-Op and didn’t know.”
My mother closed her eyes and shook her head. “I’m guessing there’s a lot more that Nico doesn’t know.”