𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚛

one

"You can make it out, Tara."

Tara jolted forward, the train beginning it's journey to the ends of the earth. Her shoulders relaxed minutely. Tara glanced towards her car door, the only thing dividing her from the people outside.. She locked it instantly.

And while the concrete station and countless faces faded away into a lush green landscape, she could not let herself leave behind her guilt just as she had left behind her former life and identity.

"Good luck."

❖

Tara hadn't slept a wink in the nine hours it took to travel from Cork to Belfast. She knew she should have, but every time her eyes closed she was forced into a wicked rewind of what she'd done.

So instead, she lost herself in a waking coma of shock. Those grueling nine hours had done the equivalent of putting tape over cracks in concrete pavement, but at least she wasn't crying anymore.

When Tara Donnelly stepped off that train in Belfast nine hours later, she was ghastly.

Her eyes had lost their healthy, blue shine. Now they looked dry and red with long, dark shadows hanging under them. She had been dulled into an ashen apparition of her former self, her once fiery spirit thrown in the Atlantic to drown alongside that of her victim.

She stood in the Yorkgate train station, watching her train go by with thoughtless eyes. Tara had already mourned away her sentiments and sympathies. She now moved methodically and with a hardwired purpose.

Tara was going to America. Far away, where her damning life in Ireland and nothing in it, could ever find her.

Her father may not be an all powerful ruler, but by god did he have the right friends. And right now, Tara believed he wanted nothing more than to see her brutally slaughtered for her crimes.

So until Tara managed to leave Ireland behind altogether, she would not allow herself a peaceful rest. She swore it to herself.

She stalked the houses she passed with sharp eyes until she spotted a clothing line hanging undefended. She slid along the edges of the street, keeping to herself and not meeting a single pair of eyes. 

Tara slipped her fingers along the line, pinching at the clips holding her chosen clothing up and plucked them from their perch. In a cold, dark corner, she stripped away the red, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes once her old clothes had been discarded. 

Without making any detours, Tara trekked the thirty minute walk up to the Port of Belfast, looking for the earliest boat right out of the small country she'd once called home.

Tara nervously fidgeted with her fingers, feeling like every passer-by could see right through her, like they all knew exactly what she had done with just a fleeting glance.

Being alone on the train was nice. With the door shut and securely locked, there was no one who could have bothered her. Out in the open in a busy port in an even busier city didn't afford Tara the same luxuries of privacy and personal space. 

She anxiously flinched at every stranger that bumped her shoulder. Her heart stalled at every shout across the crowd. Tara was practically a walking parade of nervous tics by the time she got to the front of the queue for the ticket booth.

"When's the next boat to Boston?" Tara had hesitated, the bored brunette woman sat behind the glass raised an eyebrow at her latest customer's shy antics and Southern Irish accent.

"Sorry, boat left three hours ago, next one won't be off for another week, dear. Come back on Monday morning an' I'll sort you out."

Tara's jaw clenched at the woman's words.

There wasn't a chance in hell she could survive a whole week on her own. She would be a sitting duck no matter where she stayed as long as it was still on this confounded island.

Pretty soon, news would come out about what she had done. After all, accidentally murdering one's aristocratic mother and running away from home is bound to get media attention all the way up to the tip of fucking Scotland.

The relatively high social status of her family would ensure that this story would not disappear until the culprit was found and hanged. The papers would be hungrily feeding off of it like vultures to a carcass.

Her face would be plastered across every newspaper, painted in a bloody red light, emblazoned with words that claimed her a radical killer and they weren't an ounce or a gram shy.

Within days, stating Tara's real name would send her on a one way trip to the gallows.

So she steeled her face and nodded politely at the woman before walking away. All she had to do was stay alive until Monday morning.

It really shouldn't have been a problem.