Puppet Master

Chapter Thirty Four

Chapter Thirty Four

“Why would he think she was there? She was just raped for God’s sake! Why would she go to a place like that?” Rising panic raising her voice, Tori kept glancing down at Jayden’s phone in her hands, willing her brother to call it. They were only about ten minutes from her flat now, but the drive so far had felt like an eternity, despite Jayden breaking every speeding law on the highway code – the car descending into silence. Jayden was trying to keep a brave face, trying not to panic her, she could see, but the fact that he’d not once even looked at his CD player indicated how distracted he was, she’d never known this car in silence – ever.

The dark night outside crushed in on the car in an ominous cocoon, the only light from the headlights of the car and the cat’s eyes on the road. She tried to focus on something outside, anything, trying to bring herself out of this panic by finding something stable, familiar, in the outside terrain, but there was nothing.

“I don’t know, babe, but he sounded pretty convinced. Davies is over there, at Tourniquet, if anyone can find anything in that kind of place, it’s him. You just need to be patient, babe, Shannon is tougher than you seem to think she is, give her some credit for that, she’ll see through Sebastienne the second she sets eyes on him, I’m pretty damn sure of it.”

Tori was silent a moment, watching the tiny shimmers of light pass over his sharp features, and the heavy set of his jaw as a muscle twitched just above it. “Why is Davies following me?” she whispered, “Why was Nate so angry when you said you’d taken me to the club?” Her voice was so weak, tears began to thread through the heavy words as they hung in the air between them, “Please, Jay, what are you so scared of?”

His grave sigh seemed to beat around the four corners of the car, it went on for so long, but his voice, when he finally spoke, was broken, “Losing you.”

“I’ve told you, Jay,”

“No, I mean really losing you, Tor, you underestimate these men and you will not come out of it well. I won’t have you being a by product of that, but they will use you, especially if Sebastienne has been whispering into the right ears like the little fucking snake in the grass that he’s proven himself to be.”

He couldn’t be saying what she thought he was saying ... Breath crushing her chest, she struggled to organise his riddles, why could he never be straight with her? Why was it always like this? Like a mystery of epic proportions? “You mean he could ... ?”

He gave a grim nod, just a tiny fraction of movement that sent chills running over every angle in her body, “And Shannon is ... oh my god! Why the fuck wouldn’t you tell me this? How could you not tell me this? And Nate knows what he’s capable of?”

“Nate knows better than anyone, Tor.” His voice was solemn, and quiet, almost like a whisper, and it floated like a dream over her skin, leaving goose pimples in its wake. She shivered, once again turning her sightless eyes into the darkness that surrounded them, retinas straining to find something to focus on in the blurring depths.

“Put your foot down ... please,” tears slid down her pale cheeks, mascara blurring and pooling underneath her violet eyes.