Binding Ties

Chapter Six

Clarke knew they’d been trying to put a tail on him – he was about five minutes away before they got their shit together and got a car, but he still wound through the darker paths at the edge of the city. Jayden had mapped out a route with him earlier that day – he’d turn left outside of Tourniquet’s rear parking, and then a stiff right out through the residential areas, where the roads all networked together but you’d never know how unless you knew the area like the back of your hand.

He could feel her anxiety in the seat next to him – her blue eyes were glazed, and darting between the road ahead, and the path they’d already taken in the wing mirror. She was afraid to believe they were free, he knew, afraid of what might be behind them in the face of her escape.

“Hey,” he muttered softly, his hand coming out to rest on her denim clad knee – and savouring the softness of her tiny curves – the delicacy of that one fragile bone, “It’s okay, we’re on course. Don’t panic.”

Dragging a deep breath, she pulled back her shoulders against the plush leather seats, and nodded as she exhaled in a long, slow release. Her body was wired up on adrenalin – her heart beating a frantic rhythm that echoed into the dark spaces in the car.

He turned onto the quiet back streets that would lead them into the next county, speeding up his pace a little in the long, dark stretches of road, before he pulled to a stop at the back of an old, almost condemned-looking building.

It was in the middle of a block of three properties – the back dusty, and rubble filled – littered with bin bags and trash all over the small square of concrete that made up the yard.

Sophie watched quietly as he pulled a key from his pocket, and turned the stiff lock on the outside door – paint clinging to his fingertips after he’d pushed it open, and let them inside. He dusted his hands on his jeans as he switched on the harsh light that came from the bare bulb suspended on the ceiling.

The place was awful. An old, seventies style wallpaper made up of orange hexagons peeled from the crumbling walls, and there were piles of plaster and dust all over the uneven terracotta slate tiles on the floor.

He pulled two huge bean bags that looked brand new out of the cupboard at the side, throwing them into the corner and gesturing for her to sit.

“What is this place?” she asked quietly, still looking around her at the terrible mess. She could see cabinets and papers all over the peeling linoleum through the doorway into the next room from where she sat hesitantly.

“It was my sister’s place,” he mumbled quietly, busying himself with two holdalls in the far corner, “She was a hairdresser.”

There was something in his voice – steel, and sadness. Sophie brushed at some plaster dust on her knees – the denim already loose and yellowing from two weeks of not being able to wash them. She didn’t want to pry – she knew better than anyone how important it was to keep the secrets that you needed to – but these sounded more like dark, angry memories.

His sister obviously hadn’t been around for a while – at least ten years judging by the disrepair of this building – walls didn’t crumble and peel after a few months, it would take years of neglect to get into this state, and by the looks of the scattered paperwork and office- orientated space that she’d seen, then she’d left in a hurry.