Page 51 of A Secret Escape

Lila

F rom the bedroom window, I catch the sweep of headlights turning into the drive – another car. My stomach plummets, a cold rush of dread flooding my veins. For a second, I can’t breathe.

A jagged bolt of energy slices through the fog in my chest.

I don’t stop to think – I have to warn Marcus.

If Chris isn’t alone, we don’t stand a chance, and at least if I can get downstairs, I can try to get my phone to call for help.

The knife lays discarded on the third step from the bottom, and I grab it tightly, my heart pounding.

The scene in the living room is fucking chaos. Chris is hunched over by the kitchen island, clinging to Marcus’s waist as Marcus punches and kicks with everything he’s got. The living room shutters hang wide open, shattered glass glittering like ice across the floor.

The front doorknob rattles – someone is trying to get in.

I sprint past Marcus and Chris who are now grappling on the floor, grab the key and fling open the French doors leading to the patio.

“Marcus! Get him out!” I yell, grabbing his attention .

He looks up, scrambles to his feet and hauls Chris out through the doors by his neck, just as someone slams into the front door hard enough to rattle it in its frame.

Chris screams as Marcus continues hammering him, fists and feet landing blow after blow, rage spilling from his lungs as he shouts.

“ You come here. You follow us. You break into my girlfriend’s flat and destroy her things. You. Fucking. Piece. Of. Shit.”

And even in the middle of all this – my chest tightens when I hear him call me his girlfriend.

But I don’t have time to process it. My eyes lock on the front door as I stand on the edge of the patio, ready to run, when out of the corner of my eye, I notice one of the unopened wine bottles we bought on the kitchen counter.

Two weapons are better than one. And it may just save our lives.

I move quickly, grabbing it and smashing it against the edge of the kitchen island. Wine sprays everywhere, soaking me with red as glass explodes at my feet, but I jump back, gripping the bottleneck like a weapon.

Another crash – the front door bursts open and two men stumble in.

My blood turns to ice.

We’re so fucking screwed.

I step behind the kitchen island, holding up the broken bottle in one hand and Chris’s knife in the other, suddenly realising the fact that I’m still only wearing a bra on top must serve as a good distraction as their gaze fixes firmly on my chest for a moment.

“Stay back!” I shout, praying Marcus hears me.

Both men freeze, hands raised. No weapons.

They’re dressed in button-down shirts and slacks .

What kind of gang dresses like that?

I stare harder. I know them.

One is definitely the guy I spotted from the café this morning.

And the other –

Before I can fully place him, the second man pulls something from behind his back as I brace myself to attack.

“Police! Freeze!” he shouts, flashing a badge.

It hits me like a punch to the gut. They’re the two officers who took our statement on Friday night. Plain clothes now instead of uniforms.

No wonder I didn’t recognise them – Friday feels like a fucking lifetime ago. A time when I wasn’t Marcus’s girlfriend.

“Oh my God, thank fucking God!” I cry, tears rolling down my face from relief.

I drop the bottle onto the floor, glass slicing the side of my foot, but I don’t react.

“He’s outside! Please!” I point to the open doors, heart pounding. “He tried to kill us!” My voice is a shaky cry, but it gets the message across.

They bolt outside and I follow, shards of glass cutting into my feet with every step, tears blurring my vision as pain sears through me.

The officer whose name I now remember to be Torres pulls Marcus back as the other one hoists Chris up off the ground, twisting his arms behind his back.

I flinch at the sight of blood streaming from Marcus’s arm, immediately followed by a wave of relief. It’s bad, but it’s not fatal.

He’s alive. And he saved me. He saved us.

I look up at the stars and whisper ‘Thank you’ to whoever may be listening.

Both men are panting hard, but the officers’ grip on them holds firm.

“Alright,” the officer holding Marcus barks. “Someone explain what the hell is going on here!”

The voice confirms it. It’s definitely the officer from Friday, SIO Torres, the one who was mentioned in the article.

The last of my fear breaks, replaced by shaky gratitude.

“Get off me!” Chris shouts, trying but failing to wriggle free from the second officer’s grip.

Marcus looks spent, head dropped, chest heaving, so I speak up, wiping tears from my cheek.

“This is Chris Whitehead,” I say, trying to steady my breath. “He’s the one who killed someone in Manchester on Friday.”

“You’re fucking dead , you whore!” Chris roars, struggling against the officer’s grip.

The officers exchange a look, confused.

“He broke into her flat,” Marcus says, his jaw tight. “Trashed it. We came up here to hide.”

Silence falls.

“Did you know it was him the whole time?” Torres asks.

“No,” I tell him honestly. “Not on Friday.”

“That’s fucking bullshit, Lila!” Chris spits, wincing as the second officer yanks his arms.

I close my eyes, picturing running the knife still grasped firmly in my hand into his gut.

I take a breath and look directly at SIO Torres.

“I didn’t recognise him,” I say firmly, doing my best to steady my voice.

“I hadn’t seen him in nearly ten years and it was dark.

I thought he looked familiar, but… it wasn’t until he showed up at my door late th at night that I connected it.

He recognised me, and threatened to kill me if I told anyone. ”

“How did you know him?” Torres asks.

Chris laughs – the sound grotesque and sickening. “Go on Lila, tell ‘em. How do you know me? Huh?” He coughs, splattering blood onto the pristine white snow.

“We dated. A long time ago, in school,” I say.

Chris laughs again. “Is that what you told your little boyfriend here?” he mocks. “Did you tell him about how I popped your cherry in the backseat?”

Marcus lunges, fury twisting his face. He nearly manages to break free, but Torres manages to restrain him, just barely.

I watch, weirdly impressed. Marcus is taller and noticeably bigger than Torres. I don’t imagine many people would be capable of holding him back at his current level of rage.

He spits on the ground. What is it with men and spitting?

“It was nine years ago,” I say quietly, to the officer but to Marcus as well. “Which is why I didn’t recognise him. I haven’t seen him since, and I didn’t know it was him until he turned up at my door.”

“What brought you two all the way up here then?” Torres asks, the question seeming too casual for what still appears to be, at least on the surface, a very tense situation.

“We came here to hide,” Marcus says, his voice low and raspy.

“We left late hoping we wouldn’t be followed,” I add, trying to take the pressure off him.

“Except you were,” the officer restraining Chris mutters.

I whirl to Chris, rage now building in my voice. “If you followed us, why wait until tonight? Have you been watching us this whole time? ”

“I didn’t follow you, whore,” Chris spits. Another spatter of blood lands on the snow.

“Then how did you find us?” I demand.

He laughs again. “Your iPad. Only thing worth anything in that dump you live in.”

“What?”

My mind races. I knew he had taken it but couldn’t think of how it could have possibly given our location away.

“A picture showed up with a location tag. Forgot about a little thing called the Cloud?”

Fuck. I can’t believe I didn’t realise that.

The snow starts coming down heavier around us, the icy flakes stinging my bare skin.

“Why?” I shout as fresh tears sting my eyes. “Why do all this?”

“ You fucking saw me!” Chris screams, his entire body shaking, his face bright red from the skin on his cheek being split open.

“Saw you doing what?” the officer restraining him demands.

When Chris doesn’t respond, the officer yanks his arms again, gripping them tighter as Chris winces in pain.

“She saw you doing what?” he repeats, his voice sharp and angry.

Chris’s voice breaks into a sob as tears roll down his face.

“Did you kill the man that was found on Chando’s Grove Friday night?” Torres demands.

Chris doesn’t say anything, but his head nods ever so slightly.

“Why?” the second officer barks.

When Chris doesn’t speak, he yanks his arms again and repeats the question, louder this time. “ Why ?”

“He owed us money,” Chris says, his voice barely a whisper. “It was part of my initiation. ”

Something flickers inside me – a momentary pang of compassion as tears roll down his face and fall on to the icy ground.

In that millisecond of a moment, he’s just that seventeen-year-old boy that had got in with the wrong crowd and got into a bit of trouble, not a hardened murderer.

But my pity ends there as the hurricane of emotions swirling within me rises and I remember the terror that gripped me when he showed up at my door.

He killed someone.

He threatened me.

Destroyed my home.

Stalked us.

I say nothing, my gaze softening as I look at Marcus.

I want to crumble into his arms, but he’s still being restrained, which is probably for the best, as otherwise another murder may have happened here tonight.

I look at the two police officers and suddenly, the pieces slot together in my mind. They’ve been the ones following us. Torres I placed earlier as being the one I saw from the coffee shop, and the other I now realise was the one I saw watching us in the library.

“Thank you,” I say, directing my gaze to the officers. “We may have both been dead if you hadn’t arrived tonight.”

Torres smiles lightly. “I doubt that, darlin’. When we got here, it looked like your partner here was more like the one doing the killing.”

A fresh wave of panic crashes over me, squeezing my chest tight. Is Marcus going to be arrested?