Chapter Thirteen – The reunion
Summer’s POV
I gulped as he stopped at the bottom of the stairs. My body reacted the same way as it used to; stomach turning, heart racing and hands shaking. I felt physically sick that he was in the same room as me again.
Run. That’s what I wanted to do. I should have left with Lewis. I shouldn’t have pushed him away and told him I needed space. I should have called him today and told him how sorry I was and how much I loved him because I really did love him.
Even knowing all that, I still couldn’t think of this as a mistake. The floor was still stained with Louise’s blood; my own was speared against the wall. Rose was dead because she couldn’t live without this crappy life. For them, and every other girl he’d ever hurt, I had to stay and do this.
Clover smiled. “How have you both been?”
Becca grabbed my hand and squeezed. We knew we had to play along for a while so I returned his smile. “Fine.”
“Where’s Rose?” he asked warmly. He was properly in love with her. Every time he looked at her it was more genuine and real than when he looked at me or Becca.
So he really didn’t know about her yet. “She’s at my house,” I replied casually. Becca looked at me out of the corner of her eye so I squeezed her hand to stop her from saying anything. I had a feeling that when he found out he was going to go crazy and for now we needed to make sure he was calm.
“Why did you leave her behind?” Anger flashed through his eyes. The way it did before he lost it.
Thinking fast, I replied, “She has a headache so she’s sleeping it off.”
He visibly calmed down, believing the lie. Both me and Becca also relaxed slightly. What was coming up terrified me so I was glad that for now he was calm.
“I’m sure she’ll be fine in the morning,” Becca added, playing along. It was then that I looked at Chantelle. She looked frozen.
Clover nodded, his eyes flicking to the statue in the corner. “I’m so sorry,” he said, reaching out for her hand. She let him take it. I think, and hoped, that she was just processing everything we’d told her. “I see you’ve already met but I’ll formally introduce you. Chantelle, this is Poppy and Lily,” he announced proudly. “Girls, Chantelle will be staying with us from now on.”
“Heather?” Becca asked sarcastically.
Clover’s face hardened. “No, this is Chantelle.” I frowned in confusion. If she wasn’t meant to be his new Heather then who was she? A smiled spread across my lips as a thought passed through my mind, ‘Maybe he does have a sister.’
Becca shrugged. “I’m lost.” I almost hit her. We weren’t ready for this yet, there was still loads we to say and making him really mad straight away wouldn’t get us answers.
“Chantelle will be staying with me.” With him. Like she wouldn’t be locked away? “Poppy, where have you been living while I was away? With Lily?” he asked, changing the subject. Chantelle’s confused and horrified expression never changed a bit.
“Yes,” she answered a little too quickly. Chantelle then frowned and looked at Becca. Did she know something? “We all stuck together.”
“I’m so glad you did,” he responded, smiling proudly. His sick mind drove me crazy. I couldn’t understand him and how fucked up he really was. “I was so worried about you all and how you would be coping.”
“My family took care of me,” I blurted out, hating that he thought they didn’t give a crap and he was that cared.
“Well, you don’t need to worry about anything now. Our family is back together and I’ll find us somewhere to start over.” I stared at him blankly. Did he even hear that? “Did you receive the flowers, Lily?” Clover asked. I nodded numbly. “Oh, good. I wasn’t sure if you would, Mrs Tate refused to take my first phone call. I kept my expression neutral as I worked everything out. How he got me the flowers and how he knew we’d be here. It had something to do with Chantelle. “I’m sorry, Poppy, I didn’t have the address where you were staying to send you any. Forgive me?”
Becca’s lips tightened into an angry straight line before she composed herself. “Of course.”
“I knew you would understand. Rose too.” A sick part of me was looking forward to telling him she was dead, but I wished more than anything that she wasn’t. She became almost a sister to me, just like Louise. Through planning this whole stupid thing, I kept them in my mind.
“So, what’s the plan then?” I asked him to change the subject and steer Becca away from ruining the whole thing.
He smiled and stepped next to Chantelle, wrapping his arm around her. “We’ll pack a few things and then collect Rose. It’s going to be a long journey, we’ll have to only move at night and remain covered during the day. We’ll start a new life far from here.”
“And Chantelle will be with you?” I asked for clarification.
“Yes, she will.” His smile widened as he stared down at her. Chantelle kept quiet, her rose tinted glassed had been removed and now she was seeing the real him. I felt sorry for her; she was obviously vulnerable and believed all his crap. I just hoped that somehow I could get out of her before things turned nasty. “We have plans for her education and a possible business opportunity for us all,” he told us proudly. Talking to him was surreal. It was hard to believe that anyone could be that delusional.
“And will you continue to murder women?” Becca asked casually. I almost laughed. We both seemed so cool on the outside, talking to him as if he was an old friend. In reality I think she was a terrified as I was. My heart was racing the whole time.
“That has nothing to do with you, Poppy. I suggest you show me some respect, and stop bringing up things that do not concern you.” The lines on his forehead deepened as he became angrier. I was starting to care a little less. Every second I was in the same room as him the more I hated him.
“Oh, we dropped by the grave yard and while we were visiting Louise and saw your mum,” she said casually. I knew she wanted him to pay and understand what he did as much as I did but I didn’t want things to get too out of control. Well, I almost did but I could still think sort of clearly. We knew what he was capable of which was why we needed to stay calm for as long as possible.
Becca shrugged. “Found your birth certificate. How’d she die?”
“You both went through my personal belongings?” It wasn’t a question but still, we both nodded. “How dare you!”
I held my hand up. “We weren’t sure if there was someone we could contact to help get you out…We didn’t know what to do,” I added quietly. “Sorry about your mum.” I meant that. The part I was sorry about was how she treated him. I’m sure that if she’d been the mother she should have been then none of this would have ever happened. Clover would probably be a happily married man with a couple of kids. I would be at College and still with Lewis. She was the one that started all this. I had almost as much hate for her than I did for him.
Clover’s eyes tightened. “Thank you.” For the first time ever, I saw a weakness inside him. He shook his head. “Now we need to move fast. I’m going to clean up and pack some things. You girls do the same.”
“Wait,” Becca shouted as he turned around. “We know the truth about you and your mum.” Clover’s face fell. “The pictures in the bedroom of you two,” she explained. “Did you want to or…?”
“Want to what?” he asked through gritted teeth, daring her to answer him back. I stepped to the side, touching he handle of the draw that contained one of the knives. There was no going back now. Everything was going to come out right now. I was suddenly scared. Slipping my hand in the drawer, I pulled out two knives and handed one to Becca behind out backs.
“You do not speak about my mother. Understood?” he barked, clenching his fists in anger. Through every murder and beating I saw how mad he face would get, nothing compared to how red he was and how much the veins in his neck stuck out.
“Sorry, I was just trying to work out how you justified murder, kidnap and rape.”
Flinching as Becca said the last bit, I lowered my head slightly. It made me feel sick, used and dirty. How Lewis could touch me again, I didn’t know.
“Enough,” he spat through clenched teeth. “You were homeless, I gave you everything.”
“Why me though?” I asked him. That question plagued me since the start. “I wasn’t homeless. I had a family, friends and a boyfriend.”
Clover scoffed. “You were out alone at night, Lily. You may have had a family but they certainly weren’t looking after you.”
“That’s not true. I thought I was safe on my own, I had no idea what sick bastards were wondering the streets.”
“Watch the language you’re using!” he scolded, as if that was the only part of my little speech he cared about. “That’s not how we talk.”
“No, Clover, that’s not how you talk,” I shot back. “Sleeping with your own mum, kidnapping us, every time you took us into that room or murdered another prostitute wasn’t even the worst thing you’d done. Rose was the worst. You got inside her head so much she couldn’t live a normal life outside this prison. Rose isn’t at my house, she’s dead. She killed herself because of you,” I shouted, tears streaming down my eyes as I thought how scared Rose must have been to be alone. More than anything, I wished I could have gotten to her first and convinced her everything would be alright.
Clover’s face fell. “No,” he whispered and shook his head.
“Yes,” I responded. “She was too scared to be in the real world. Rose is dead and it’s your fault.” Tears filled his usually empty, dead eyes. “Are you starting to realise what you’ve done now? None of us wanted this, I had a family and even the girls that had no one didn’t want this. We never wanted you.”
Becca stepped forward. “I would have preferred to spend my whole life on the streets than down here cleaning up your murders, receiving the beatings for fucking flowers dying, flowers, and being rap-”
“Shut up, both of you!” Clover shouted. “I’ve done everything for you both, to keep you safe and take care of you and this is how you repay me.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Becca screamed. “We. Didn’t. Want. It.”
“You really believe what you do is right, don’t you?” I asked calmly, shaking my head. “What your mum did to you was wrong but that doesn’t excuse everything you’ve done. You’re not some amazing guy saving the world. You’re a sick, evil bastard that needs to be locked away.”
“Shut up,” he yelled, jumping forward, grabbing the tops of my arms and digging his fingertips into my skin. I gasped at the stinging pain but I refused to cry out.
“You’re sick,” I screamed in his face. “I fucking hate you.” He slammed me against the wall, knocking the air out of me. With one arm across the top of my chest and the other across my stomach, he had me completely pinned.
I didn’t have much room to move but I managed flicked the pen knife open and jam it into his leg. Clover yelled out in pain, letting me go to hold the shallow wound in the top of his thigh. I took the opportunity and jumped out of his way.
His hands shook and he stared down in disgust as a steady trickle of blood seeped from the cut. He was still a complete germ freak. Suddenly, his head snapped up and he sneered at the three of us menacingly. Chantelle had very little to do with the conversation down here but he planned to kill her too. No matter how he felt about her, in his eyes, her not backing him meant she was against him. Really she was probably just terrified and wishing she was anywhere but here. I knew I did.
“You bitch,” he spat. I grabbed Becca’s hand and pulled her back with me. Chantelle was staring into the open cutlery drawer that I opened to get the penknife out. The gun.
My eyes widened as she reached inside. At that minute I wasn’t one hundred percent sure whose side she was on. Sure she now knew the horrible truth about Clover but that didn’t mean she would turn against him, especially if she thought that helping him would mean he would spare her. It wouldn’t but she didn’t know that.
“You have no idea what I gave up to protect you girls. How hard I worked to support and care for you.” Clover pulled out a long carving knife from his pocket. It was easily three times longer than the stupid, pathetic penknives both me and Becca were holding.
This was it then. We were going to die and all this would have been for nothing. Sure he knew about Rose and how we really felt but as soon as we were all dead, he’d be gone. No justice.
“Stop,” Chantelle shouted, her hand shaking around the gun as she aimed it in our general direction.
Clover spun around. “Chantelle,” he said softly, holding his hands up.
“Don’t,” she cried, tears streaming down her face. “It was all a lie. Everything you said, all the plans we made. I believed you, I believed you liked me.”
“I do lik-”
“Shut up! Stop lying,” she screamed, pointing the gun at him and squinting her eyes. “You lied. You did all those things to those girls. You screwed your own damn mum!” She was shaking so much that the gun was more pointing to the ceiling.
I had a choice. Fight or die.
Without a second thought, I threw myself on Clover’s back, pushing him to the floor. He elbowed my in the ribs so hard, I cried out. The cracking noise together with the sharp pain confirmed I had broken ribs. I hissed through my teeth and punched him in the face as he rolled over under me. Blood started pouring from his nose, making him gag.
Screams filled the room as he rolled us over and wrapped his hands around my neck. I was terrified, my stomach turned but didn’t matter though; we only needed a few seconds with him distracted so Becca could gain power over him.
Clover pulled me to my feet and Becca frantically pulled at Clover’s hands, which were tightening around my neck. My lungs started burning from the lack of oxygen. I blinked hard as black spots clouded my vision. Suddenly he stopped and jumped back, pushing Becca against the wall and raised the knife. I didn’t know what Becca did to get him off me but he shouted in pain.
The shot echoed loudly through the small room. Chantelle’s mouth dropped open as she held the gun out at arm’s length. I looked over at Becca and it was only then, as she stared at me in horror, that I realised it was me. My eyes flicked to my stomach even though I really didn’t want to see. Blood seeped from the small round hole.
Being shot was a strange feeling but not a painful one; it was surprisingly peaceful, which surprised me. It felt more like I was floating or swimming under water.
Everything seemed to be in slow motion; Clover’s voice was muffled and sounded far away but I saw him run at Chantelle. I vaguely heard three more shots and then I was falling, and the world turned black.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Uh oh, it's Summer! Well, their plan sucked so what else did she expect LOL! Who were the other three shots for though???
Okay...now there's two chapters left. Or one chapter and the epilogue, yeah that sounds less so I'm going with that one!
Thanks to sassysmartgurl93 for the new cover <3
I'm totally happy with this, but then I'm not happy with the whole thing, so I'll edit at some point and make it all how I planned it from the start.
Hope you liked this chapter...yeah! Haha. Let me know what you think.
<3