Page 68 of Vying Girls (Girls of Hazelhurst #2)

‘How much do you need? I’ll—double it. Triple it.’

‘You think me a fool. Daddy wasn’t that rich. Think I haven’t checked?’

‘Damien—just—tell me how much. I can start sending it now, then we’ll sort the rest.’

Damien hesitates. His arm sways as he holds it out. I dare to move slightly, hoping to pull his attention away from Nic. To put the gun back on me instead.

‘My bag,’ he says. ‘Front pocket. My wallet.’

Nic gets to her knees, pulling the duffle bag towards her. Her eyes keep flicking back to us as she rummages inside, eventually rising with the wallet. She removes his card.

‘What’s the maximum?’ he asks. ‘Twenty?’

‘Twenty-five.’

‘Do it. I’ll be back for the rest.’

Nic nods, quiet as she copies his details into her banking app.

Twenty-five. With three zeros, I presume. For a hazy moment, I feel a surge of wonder she even has that much.

We’re both rapt as we watch her transfer the money. She’s on her knees, head bowed, fingers carefully touching the screen of her phone. In the silence of the chamber, I hear her breathing. It’s not steady, seeming to rise the longer she takes.

Damien says nothing, doesn’t move, but I feel the increase in his impatience. My own blood surges, hope mingling with anticipation. After this, maybe, he’ll let me go.

‘Is it done?’ he asks after a moment of stillness from Nic.

For half a second, there’s no reaction before she nods hesitantly. Rising slowly to her feet, she tosses his card back onto his bag.

‘Let her go now.’

He doesn’t answer but I feel him shift, his gun arm coming around me as the other searches his pocket.

Whilst he’s distracted with checking, Nic catches my eyes again.

That’s when I know, without a doubt, that she didn’t transfer the money.

With anxious eyes, she motions subtly with her hand. A dropping motion with her fingers, then three of them held up.

Drop on three.

Okay. Drawing in a breath, I give a small nod.

The seconds drag by. Every so often, Damien will let out a frustrated grunt, making me flinch.

He’s struggling with his phone. His entire body is feverish through his damp t-shirt.

I’ve seen Nic like this. A come down, I think.

Might work in our favour. With his mind that impaired, I might be able to follow Nic’s commands without getting a bullet through the head.

‘Found it?’ Nic asks. Her eyes on me.

I follow Damien’s movements, the phone held out in front of us.

‘Nearly,’ he mutters.

When he finally punches in his security details correctly, I widen my eyes at Nic.

Placing her fist against the side of her thigh, she raises first her thumb. One…

My blood pumping, heart racing, she’s on the cusp of raising her third finger when Damien finally says, ‘What the fuck, Nicole? Says you’ve only sent—’

There’s no time to drop when the chamber suddenly fills up with red smoke, from out of it flying a muscular, dusky figure.

For a moment, the three of us are frozen, then Nic reaches out to grab me. I slip from Damien’s grip, my roll on the floor dislodging both of their holds. On the ground, I spot my bag and unthinkingly scoop it up.

‘Tilda!’ I hear Haz shout.

I can’t see her or Nic anymore, just Damien kicking the smoke bomb away as he wildly looks around. His eyes meet mine the second I find my homemade pepper spray. On instinct, I raise it, the same time he raises the gun, and spray.

‘Fuck,’ he gasps, both hands flying to his eyes.

I should run but something makes me pause, my hands grappling for the gun. He stumbles, trying to swat me off him as he continues to rub his eyes. I smash his nose with the bottom of the spray bottle and he finally relinquishes it.

Then I turn and run, arms out as I desperately try and find the exit.

I don’t know which way they went. I don’t know which way is out.

More smoke bombs have been let off, the colours muted in the dim of Damien’s fading torchlight.

‘Tilda!’

I run towards the voice, Elly’s I think, my hands too full to find my phone. Shoving the spray back into my bag, I rifle around. I pass more chambers, their dark arches tempting me. I keep to the tunnels, unsure if I’m heading out or further in.

I hear running behind me.

Damien or the others?

I turn a corner, speeding up.

Shit, am I even going the right way? The thought of losing myself deeper in this death labyrinth makes me want to stop and reorient.

It’s still full of smoke though, a sure sign they’ve been here.

My hand is slick on the gun, the metal warm. My finger keeps slipping on the trigger, my body giving an internal shudder every time. I secure them around the handle instead. I don’t know guns, don’t trust them. I’m just aware that it’s loaded and primed to kill.

My phone light bounces off the smoke. It makes me cough, so thick I can barely see through it.

Badly lost and out of breath, I pause momentarily in one of the chambers. My breathing’s too loud, my heart sounding like it’s in my head. I tighten my grip on the gun, listening closely.

The footsteps are getting closer. I tense, ducking further around the corner. A shadow fills my vision, a body glancing off mine. Then a hard shove brings me to my knees, a gasp forced from my lungs.

I scramble back up, gun out in front of me.

Nic stares back wide eyes.

‘Tilda,’ she breathes, before falling into my arms.

She cradles the back of my head with a palm, chest rising and falling quickly against mine. Holding her back, I keep my eye on the archway, so aware of the gun in my grip.

Pulling back, she cups my cheeks. She doesn’t say anything, looking at me with those dark, fierce eyes before glancing back over her shoulder.

‘Where’s everyone?’ I pant.

‘Don’t know. Lost them.’ She takes me in again. ‘You okay? He hurt you?’

I shake my head despite hurting all over. It’s not the time for that. My girlfriends are still out there, and so is Damien.

Nic takes my hand, leading me back into the tunnel. She glances at the gun. ‘Careful.’

I nod, shining my phone behind us. The smoke’s clearing, hanging in thin ribbons like morning mist. This whole thing is like something out of a horror film.

I think of our final project, a chuckle almost escaping.

How weak compared to this. The dissipating mist and ancient walls, the bones buried further down and the drugged-up murderous psycho on the loose. I want to ask Mark for a redo.

‘Nearly out,’ Nic says.

We turn a corner, almost colliding with six bodies stood on the other side. My heartrate spikes at the sight of Damien, facing away from us, arms heavy at his sides. Before him are Elly and Haz, their faces growing alert upon spotting us. Blakely and Fina are there too, along with Tommy.

Out of all of them, he’s the only one not holding a knife.

Damien looks over his shoulder, face darkening at the sight of us. Raising the gun, I nudge it towards him.

‘Tilda…’ Nic warns.

I step around her, trying to keep my arms from shaking. The right one still throbs, as does the side of my head where he also hit me.

Over Damien’s shoulder, Blakely smirks, swinging her knife so the blade faces down. Handing the show over to me.

Uneasy with having the gun pointed at Elly and Haz, I gesture him to the next chamber.

‘In there.’

For a moment, I don’t think he’s going to comply. There’s a blankness to his face, like he doesn’t care either way what’s about to happen. I wonder over his earlier words. Has he really come here to die? Are there really people that hell-bent on killing him?

But then he takes some shuffling steps into the darkness of the chamber. I reach back with my phone, feeling it relieved from me so I can put both hands around the gun. Pisses me off that he doesn’t even raise his hands, that he seems uncapable of feeling the same terror I had.

He stands in the same manner, eyes fixed but unfocussed, swaying lightly on his feet.

The gun jerks when hands land on my hips. Nic pressing into me, mouth at my ear.

‘Careful,’ she says again.

I don’t feel careful. I’m something I’ve never felt before. Is it power? An urge for vengeance? Something headily potent, anyway. Can’t tell if it’s exhilarating or terrible.

After a tense moment, Damien begins to smile. ‘Reckon she’ll do it, Nicole?’

I line the gun up with his smug face, teasing myself with the trigger.

Nic’s hands tighten on my hips. ‘Maybe not her.’

I feel steady with her behind me. This is her show too, it’s only right. A chance to correct the wrongs done to us. I’m not sure what justice looks like, but it feels like we’re on the track to it.

‘The world would be better,’ I tell him.

‘Will it?’ He tilts his head. ‘I like to think the damage is done. Shooting me—well, it won’t stop what Nicole’s daddy did to you all those years ago, won’t stop Nicole from leaving.

That pain, it wasn’t just from daddy dying, was it?

’ He looks at Nic, that unsteady smile on his lips again.

‘As for her, I’ll be inside her forever. Like an eternal tattoo.’

‘More like a poison,’ Nic counters.

‘You’re wrong,’ I say shakily, struggling to keep the gun steady. ‘It will bring Nic back.’

I feel her push into me again, a light kiss deposited on my shoulder. ‘Already here.’

Damien follows the movement, something so viciously jealous flaring in his face it almost makes me take a step back.

‘You won’t make it,’ he says quickly. ‘I broke her. I made her mine, and I cut her into a thousand pieces and she’ll never be rid of me, and you’ll never have all of her because I took it. I took the most important pieces. They’re mine.’

I’m stunned by this torrent of words. His fervour for Nic. It makes my guts twist. Blood related or not, they’re cousins. It’s appalling to be in the presence of such a sick fuck. Like if I breathe in too much, I’ll become infected with it too.

After a pause, those hands leave my hips, traveling along my arms to cradle the gun as well.

‘You can’t take from an empty shell.’ Nic replaces my finger on the trigger with hers. ‘There was nothing there for you.’

Damien eyes her emptily. ‘And I suppose you’ve got everything now?’

‘Everything,’ she breathes, melding the two of our bodies completely.

Oh, and this is power. This right here. The future at my back, ready for me to turn around and take it. And the past in front, backed into a corner and ready to be snuffed.

An electric moment passes before my gaze is snagged by movement to my right.

‘If you want this to end cleanly,’ Fina says, her voice disturbingly calm, ‘we can take it from here. Properly this time.’

The air in the room pauses as I breathe in tandem with Nic. It’s like she’s within me, without me, the very oxygen I breathe.

‘Nic?’ I prompt gently.

She hesitates too, readjusting her hands on mine.

‘Any mess there is, though,’ Fina goes on, coming to lean against the chamber wall, ‘we’ll make sure to clean.’

‘No stains?’ Nic burrs.

‘Nothing at all.’

So she’s leaving it up to us. To Nic. This is her ghost. As much as I want to cave his face in with a bullet, this has to be Nic’s choice.

Against my back, she sighs. ‘Look at you,’ she all but coos.

‘Not where you expected to end up, I bet. You’ve fallen so fucking far, Damien.

A teenage king, student president…taking from the wrong guys and wanted for dead.

’ She huffs against the back of my neck, making it tingle. ‘The very image of pathetic.’

Her breathing heightens. I feel it against my back. ‘God, I hate you. I fucking hate you.’

My breath catches when she raises the gun higher, her grip tight.

‘I want you to die so much,’ she rasps.

Damien blinks heavily, barely reacting. He looks on the cusp of passing out. Indignation grips me. The bastard’s not even aware enough to understand the gravity of what she’s saying.

‘But here’s the difference between you and me, Damien.

Because that’s what you’d do, isn’t it? Be consumed by the blackness.

Let it spread like a virus. An unbroken curse.

And it’s easy. It’s so fucking easy when you’re weak like you.

But I don’t want to be like you. I want to be like me.

Little me. The Nicole before you. Before Dad.

The Nicole she knew.’ Nic nudges me lightly, making my whole heart sing.

‘So I’m not going to kill you. But you are going to be gone for good.

Last chance. Show your face again, for any reason, and I won’t hesitate to shoot it. ’

‘And I won’t hesitate to bury it,’ comes Blakely’s grinning voice.

‘Do you understand?’ Nic asks when Damien just continues to stand there.

‘I don’t think I’m able to understand,’ he finally utters, his voice breaking.

Pathetic, Nic had said. She was right.

With a disgusted sigh, she loosens her grip, my body cooling the instant she steps away.

She says something to the others, something I don’t hear as I continue watching Damien. I think I’m the only one to see the smirk form on his face, something in his eyes saying he’s won.

Rage takes over me. My hands tighten on the gun.

‘You fucker,’ I spit, just before pulling the trigger.