Page 33 of Vying Girls (Girls of Hazelhurst #2)

I explore some more, grabbing a glass of water from the kitchen tap, flicking through the TV channels. I’m too restless and out of place to settle. I walk back upstairs, where the landing’s warm from the setting sun.

There’s a tennis court in the garden behind hers. I shake my head. So fucking pretentious. Most I had was a tiny trampoline that got hurled into the neighbouring field during a gale. It’s probably still there; Mum never tried to retrieve it.

Eventually I spot movement: Haz on the rope swing hanging from an ancient tree bough. She must have come through a gate; I didn’t hear her downstairs. I give her a moment since it’s clear she’s wanting one. Then I head down, more than ready for some company in this empty place.

‘Hey.’ I come round to Haz’s front. She eyes me blankly, like she’s wondering what I’m doing here, like I look as out of place as I feel. ‘Did you play on this when you were a kid?’

She shrugs. I take it as a yes.

‘Will it snap if I climb up too?’

Now she smiles. ‘Nope. Climb away.’

I straddle her lap, enjoying the feel of her firm thighs.

‘You look so good in this.’ I finger the collar of her white shirt, the sleeves pulled up to her elbows. Her hands around the ropes are veiny, adding to her masculinity. I eye them appreciatively, curling my own fingers around them as she begins swinging us.

‘Get everything sorted?’

‘Yep. Adulting done for the day. Can chill now.’

I wind my arms around her neck, holding tight against the g-force. ‘That’s hot. Competence is sexy.’

‘Dull more like.’

Well, kissing her isn’t dull. I feel dizzy as I close my eyes, the taste of her lips making me high as she pushes us harder.

‘I’m going to throw up,’ I laugh, burying my face in her neck. ‘My tummy’s going all funny.’

‘Something tells me you’re not the rollercoaster type.’

‘I am if I build up to it. Baby steps. Teacups first.’ I give her a nudge. ‘You know, like I’m doing with you and Elly.’

‘Elly’s a teacup, huh?’

‘Yep. And you’re the super high rollercoaster that’s terrifying but always worth it. Not that you’re terrifying. You’re actually adorable.’

I laugh when she only scowls.

‘And Nic? What fairground ride is she?’

I wrinkle my nose. ‘None.’

‘No? You two not sorting things out? Not back to being sisters?’

‘We were never sisters. Just two kids caught up in their parents’ shit.’ I avert my eyes, suddenly feeling guilty for Nic. Because we were more than just that. So, so much more.

‘She’d be the ghost ride,’ I finally say. ‘One that’s out of order.’

Haz grunts. ‘Pretty accurate. So, what have you been up to?’

‘Poking around.’

‘Yeah? Find anything interesting?’

‘You know I didn’t.’

She shrugs. ‘Nothing here.’

‘Bet there is in that attic.’

‘Isn’t. Apart from an old wasp’s nest. Maybe some spiders.’

I play with the ends of her hair. ‘Hm. In that case, you’ll just have to use your mouth.’

Haz pulls me closer. ‘Oh yeah, I’ll use my mouth.’

‘To talk. We’re here now. I want to know you, Haz. Please trust me.’

She pulls away. ‘It’s not about trust.’

‘Then what’s it about?’ I gentle my voice, stroking the soft cotton of her shirt. ‘Why do you keep me at a distance?’

There’s another twinge of guilt, because she doesn’t know everything about me, does she?

Sure, she knows about the Nic stuff, but not what happened when our parents broke up.

Not why they broke up. But that’s different.

That’s trauma, impossible to think about let alone talk about.

Maybe it’s trauma for Haz, too. I mean, of course it is.

They’re dead, and I know from Elly their deaths are something she blames herself for.

‘Because you won’t like what you see when you get up close.’ The warning tone in her voice is enough to make me shiver.

All around us, night is drawing in. Shadows are long, the air taking on a chill.

‘Maybe in your silly brain,’ I reply, cuddling close to her. ‘I might not know your past, Haz, but I know you.’

‘Then let that be enough.’

‘It’s not though, and you know it’s not. Otherwise you wouldn’t have brought me here.’

‘I told you—’

‘Yeah, Damien. Blah, blah, blah. You must think I’m stupid.’

‘Wish you were sometimes.’

I smile, my heart literally overflowing despite her gruffness. Because who else has been where I am, cuddled in this lap, prying information from her, gently, carefully, like a tooth extraction, because they care for her that much?

Something tells me nobody, because this whole time we’ve been waiting for each other.

I can feel it, this warm energy cording from my heart to hers and back again.

With anyone else, I’d be scared to push like this.

Scared they’d get angry and call it quits with me.

I don’t worry about that with Haz. Sure, my thoughts might insist otherwise, but my intuition, my truth, knows I’m safe.

I lean forward and softly kiss her lips. ‘Let me know you.’

Haz

She wants to know me? Alrighty. I shoot to my feet, hauling her up with me. Fucking bring it.

I march her back towards the house, dropping her near the front gate. She stumbles on the grass, struggling up the slight incline.

I get the garage open and push her towards the car in there. ‘Get in.’

‘Where are we going?’ she asks, waiting for me to unlock the doors.

I slam into the driving seat and throttle the engine. ‘To where it all fucking ended.’

Night falls as I whip the car around the estate, through the village, and onto the narrow, winding forest roads.

Pine trees crowd us from both sides, reminding me of Hazelhurst, something that brought me comfort when I started there.

With the window open, the air in the car smells damp, an indicator of the reservoirs dotted in the area.

I take solace in the cold wind in my hair, cooling the fever Tilda’s whipped up in me. She eyes me with trepidation, probably wanting to tell me off for driving so recklessly on these kinds of roads. After all, it was what finished them off in the end.

But she doesn’t say anything, no, because she’s gagging to know me. Doesn’t care if it opens old wounds. I could bleed out and she’d be on her knees lapping it up, just happy she finally got a taste.

I stop the car with a jerk barely twenty minutes later. Tilda grunts with the force, hand flying out to steady herself. She follows me with her eyes as I get out the car and step up to the No Access gate on our left.

This used to be a through road but after one too many accidents, they shut it for good. It’s local legend now, with hordes of spirits said to haunt the winding pass, marked on maps since Roman times. If they had to die, makes sense it would be on this road.

I lift the gate with little trouble, eyeing the dark, desolate road beyond, something cold lodging in my heart. I glance back to Tilda who watches with shadowed eyes. Fuck’s sake, I don’t want to be here. Why did she have to push?

Pissed off, I get back into the car and launch it down the unlit road. It might as well be midnight now, the sun long set beyond the trees. To our right is the vast stretch of the reservoir, the water coloured black by the dense trees lining it.

‘Where are we going?’ Tilda utters again, her voice meek.

I don’t reply. We’re nearly there. This will work better with a little show and tell.

I keep an eye on the window to my left, slowing down so I don’t miss it. Been years since I’ve been here, for a panicky moment I’m sure I’ve past it. Then I spot the dented sign pole, right above Tilda’s head like it’s staked her.

I pull up the handbrake and stare at it, aware of Tilda trying to catch my eyes.

I unclip her seatbelt. ‘Get out.’

She folds her arms as she looks around. She’s only in a thin top, no time to grab a coat. I resist the urge to bring her into my body heat. She fucking wanted this.

The headlights beam along the road, alighting the metal of both the pole and the useless barriers edging the water. If they’d crashed that way, they might have survived, the water dousing the fire instead of it ravaging them.

I nod at the pole. ‘This is where they crashed.’

She stares at the dented metal, everything it represents. ‘Were you in the car with them?’

‘Yup.’

She looks at me, sympathy racking her features. She reaches out to take my hand.

‘My fucking fault they were driving in the first place,’ I say hollowly.

She gives me a look that says I’m wrong. ‘How old were you?’

‘Eleven.’

I shake my head. I don’t even know where to begin. It was so fucked, just all of it, just soup in my brain whenever I think back.

‘They hadn’t wanted a kid, not even a little bit.

They were drug addicts, the both of them.

But the highly functioning kind, the kind that only took them at parties.

Except the parties were every fucking night.

At our house, at our neighbours’. I didn’t really get it back then, but now it’s just…

They were swingers, all of them. Mine were the only ones with a kid.

With all the drugs and the drinking and the protections they took, they never knew how it happened. ’

I take a breath, feeling my mother’s accusing eyes like brands.

‘My mum grew up religious. She was atheist by adulthood, but I don’t think she ever really let that side of her life go.

I think she felt a lot of guilt for the lifestyle they led, just fucked it, shot it, drank it away.

She used to call me the antichrist because of how miraculous my conception was, how much it fucked everything up for them.

I couldn’t have been an accident, not to her.

I dunno, maybe she was joking, but I don’t think she was.

’ I breathe out a laugh. ‘She was fucking vicious.’

Tilda moves closer, wrapping both hands around the one of mine she holds.