Afraid (7 page)

Jackie felt immediately guilty when she saw the fear in Skye’s eyes. She hadn’t seen much of her during the weekend and had felt bad about biting her head off when she’d offered to help clear the dishes that day. But she’d had no choice, because Nadine would have made her life hell if she’d thought that Jackie was being nice to the girl. Still, Skye wasn’t to know that, and Jackie couldn’t help but feel sorry for her now because she clearly wasn’t coping very well. It was traumatic to be taken away from your family against your will, and that pain never went away – no matter how many times people told you that it would. But it was so much harder to deal with when you had bitches like Nadine, Simone and Maz to contend with.

Her conscience pricking sharply, Jackie glanced around to make sure that no one was around before jerking her chin up at Skye. ‘Come in here a minute.’

Afraid that it might be a set-up, Skye shook her head.

‘
Please
,’ Jackie hissed. ‘I need to tell you something.’

‘Tell me now,’ Skye said, staying put.

‘Not out there. Someone might see us.’

‘Promise they’re not in there?’

‘Honest to God.’ Jackie made the sign of the cross on her chest with her finger. Then, flapping her hand to urge Skye to hurry up, she said, ‘Come on. I’m dead if they find out I’ve been talking to you.’

Still nervous, but curious to hear what the other girl had to say, Skye hesitantly followed her into the toilets.

‘Nadine’s going to jump you on the way home,’ Jackie blurted out as soon as the door was shut. ‘They’ve been planning it all weekend. They’re gonna get you behind the old factory at the end of the road, then tell Col and Lucy that some girls at school were ganging up on you and they chased them off. They did it to me when I first got here,’ she went on, her cheeks reddening at the memory of the humiliation she’d suffered. ‘They said they’d cut my face with a Stanley knife if I told on them.’

Skye’s legs had turned to jelly, and she leaned back against the door for support. ‘Why do you hang around with them if they did that to you?’

‘I’ve got no choice,’ Jackie replied miserably. ‘My aunt sends me money every month, and Nadine used to take it off me. But then Lucy got suspicious so she started making out like we were mates. And I had to play along and act like I was okay about sharing it with them, or they’d have killed me.’

Skye was still uncertain, and it showed in her eyes. Jackie saw it, and tutted. ‘Look, it’s up to you if you don’t believe me, but just don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

Shocked when the girl pushed past her and rushed back out into the corridor, Skye stepped out and watched as she ran back to her classroom.
Now
she believed her, and the feeling of dread that had been hanging over her all day intensified a thousand-fold.

Now that she knew what the gang were planning there was no way she was going to meet up with the others at the front gates as Lucy had directed her to. She also couldn’t make her own way back to the home, because she had no idea how to get there. And she definitely couldn’t ask the teachers for help, because they’d be bound to question Nadine – who would then not only know that Skye had grassed her up but that Jackie had betrayed her, too.

Aware that she had little time to act before school ended, Skye made a snap decision and walked quickly down the corridor in the opposite direction from her classroom. She’d left her blazer hanging over the back of her chair, but she didn’t care about that. She just needed to get out of there.

The kids from the home gathered at the front gates after the bell went, but as the minutes ticked by with no sign of the new girl they began to get edgy.

‘What if she’s sussed what’s going down and blabbed?’ said Maz.

‘She doesn’t know anything,’ Nadine said with confidence. ‘The thick bitch is probably lost. She’ll be here in a minute.’

‘Well, she’d best get a fuckin’ move on,’ Maz said, cracking her knuckles as she peered around in search of their prey. ‘If I get grounded because of her, she’s
really
gonna get it.’

‘You can wait your turn.’ Nadine grinned slyly. ‘I get first dibs. You can have whatever’s left.’

‘Not a lot, then?’ Maz smirked.

While her friends were talking, Simone had been watching Jackie and, suspicious of the way she was jiggling around as if she was nervous about something, she asked, ‘What’s up with you?’

‘Nothing,’ Jackie lied, folding her arms.

‘You sure about that?’ Simone stepped closer and stared down into her eyes. ‘You’re acting proper shifty, if you ask me. What you shaking for?’

‘I’m cold,’ Jackie told her, fronting it out.

Nadine noticed them having words and gave them a questioning look. ‘What’s going on?’

‘It’s
her
.’ Simone nodded at Jackie. ‘She’s acting weird. I reckon she’s warned that bitch off, and that’s why she hasn’t come out yet.’

‘No, I haven’t!’ Jackie protested, her cheeks blazing with guilt. ‘I haven’t even seen her since this morning.’

‘You’d better not be lying!’ Nadine pushed past Simone and shoved Jackie up against the railings. ‘You know what’ll happen if I find out you’ve gone behind my back.’

‘I haven’t said anything, I swear!’ cried Jackie. ‘Like you said, she doesn’t know her way around yet so she’s probably just lost.’

Nadine stared down into Jackie’s eyes for several long moments. It did seem a bit suspicious that the new girl hadn’t turned up yet, and Jackie was decidedly nervous about
some
thing. But would she really have the guts to betray the gang? Nadine doubted it somehow.

‘Right, we’re gonna have to leave it for today,’ she said. ‘But if I find out this is down to you …’ She left the sentence hanging and gave Jackie a fierce look before walking away.

Jackie cast a worried glance back at the school before following. She had regretted her decision to warn Skye as soon as she’d done it, and had been praying that the girl hadn’t gone straight to a teacher to tell on them. If she had, there would be hell to pay when they got back to the home. But the real punishment would come tonight, after lights out.

Skye had no idea where she was going after she’d squeezed her way out through the fence at the back of the school. But she kept her head down and walked quickly on down the road, desperate to put as much distance between herself and Nadine as possible.

The further she went, the more run-down the area became, and her stomach twisted into a huge knot as she passed row after row of scruffy houses and boarded-up shops. Just like the children’s home, every building she passed seemed to have razor wire protecting its entry points; and the people who were hanging around on the street corners looked shifty and dangerous.

Half frozen without her jacket, and despairing of ever finding her way out of the area alive, Skye cried out with relief when she spotted a bus up ahead that was bound for the city centre. Remembering that she still had the twenty pounds that she’d borrowed from Hayley stashed in her bra, she slipped her hand inside her shirt and tugged it out as she raced towards the bus stop. She would easily find her way home from town, and then all she had to do was hide until her dad came out of hospital and put everything right.

And he
would
put it right, she was sure, because he loved her and would never have told the social worker that he couldn’t look after her. The bitch had either lied about that, or had caught him at a low point and
made
him say it. Either way, he was bound to change his mind once he saw her.

Over an hour later, Skye was glad to be back on familiar territory. It was already dark enough by then that she felt safe to walk the streets without fear of being spotted by anyone she knew. But she kept her head down nevertheless, and scuttled home via a series of short cuts.

A police car was driving slowly towards her when she turned the corner onto her road, and she instinctively ducked behind a wheelie bin and squatted down to watch as the vehicle pulled up outside her house. Two uniformed officers climbed out and one knocked on the front door while the other cupped his hands over his eyes and peered through the living-room window. After getting no answer there they went next door, and Skye strained to hear whatever they were saying to the student who answered. She was too far away to catch their words but it didn’t take a genius to guess that she’d been reported as missing when she failed to arrive back at the home with the others.

When the coppers climbed back into the car and drove away a few minutes later, Skye waited to make sure that they didn’t come straight back before she slipped out from her hiding place and darted down the back alley.

It was dark in the yard and she had to grope around for the brick under the kitchen window beneath which her dad had stashed a spare key for those times when her mum locked him out. She let herself into the house when she found it, then bolted the door and leaned back against it as an overwhelming sensation of relief settled over her. The air smelled really bad, and she was sure she could hear mice scurrying around. But it was home, and she had never been so happy to be there.

Afraid to switch on the lights in case the police had told the neighbours to keep an eye out for her, Skye tiptoed down the dark hallway and into the living room after a while. The curtains were partially open in there, and the dim beam from the lamp-post across the road highlighted the dark patch of blood on the carpet where her dad had been lying when she’d found him. Her legs wobbled at the sight of it and she staggered back against the couch, knocking her mum’s mobile phone which had been sitting on the arm onto the floor.

She reached down for it, but quickly snatched her hand back when her fingertips plunged into something soft and squishy. Terrified that it might be one of her dad’s eyes, or a piece of his brain, but unable to keep herself from looking closer, she leaned down and peered at it. As her vision began to sharpen she realised that it was actually a chocolate. There were several more scattered around, and she traced them to an upturned Dairy Milk box. She felt sad when she saw that, because she guessed that her dad must have bought them for her mum as a way of saying sorry for the argument – and the crazy bitch had thanked him by sticking a knife in his back.

Her gaze was drawn back to the blood now, and she shivered, wondering how her dad could possibly have survived losing so much.

Maybe he didn’t
, a little voice in her head piped up.
Maybe he’s dead, and the social worker just told you he was okay to shut you up.

On the verge of crying again, Skye snatched the phone off the floor and fled to her bedroom. All she wanted to do was climb beneath the quilt and go to sleep, but the police were bound to come back before too long so she needed to find somewhere to hide – somewhere where no one ever would think to look for her.

The attic
!

The thought came to her in a flash, and it was perfect. The ceilings in this house were high and there was no ladder up to the attic, so no one would ever dream that she could have climbed up there. She had long ago discovered that she could haul herself up there by standing on the banister rail and holding onto one side of the hatch while throwing her legs up through the gap. Her mum and dad didn’t even know she could do that, so she’d be able to stay up there for ages without anyone realising she was even in the house.

As she stood up, her heel clipped the laptop that was sticking out from under her bed and she slid it out and wrapped it in her quilt along with her mum’s phone. Then she ran quickly down to the kitchen and grabbed whatever she could find in the cupboards that was edible and didn’t need cooking before going back upstairs and hauling her stash up into the attic.

There were no boards on the floor up there: just beams, between which lay wires and sorry-looking strips of glass wool that were so old they were crumbling to dust. Glad that she’d brought the quilt, because it was even colder up there than it was downstairs, Skye wrapped it around herself and perched on a beam with her back to the wall. She could hear the muffled sound of music and laughter filtering through from the students’ side and the whistle of the wind creeping through the gaps in the roof where several slates had been dislodged. Glad of the faint sliver of moonlight that was shining through those same gaps, Skye switched the laptop on, and then reached for her mum’s phone while she waited for the computer to boot up.

Tears burned her eyes when she pulled up her dad’s name, and she bit down hard on her lip to prevent them from spilling over as she stared at it for several long seconds before pressing the
Call
button. Disappointed to hear a recorded message informing her that there was insufficient credit on the phone to make outgoing calls, she sent him a text instead, reading:
Dad, it’s me. Ring me if you can see this, I really need to talk to you.

She waited a few minutes for a reply, but when none came, she sent another, saying,
Please come home, Dad. I’m scared xxx

Aware that there was nothing more she could do, and praying that her dad would answer soon, Skye turned her attention back to the laptop.

A few streets away, Hayley had just switched her own laptop on. This latest chest infection seemed to be easing, and she’d been looking forward to going back to school next week and catching up with Skye. But then the police had called round to ask if she had seen or heard from Skye, and she was unable to sleep now for worrying about her.

The police hadn’t given any details. But news spread like wildfire around their way, and when her mum had told her about Skye’s mum supposedly stabbing her dad, and Skye finding him straight after leaving here that day, Hayley felt guilty that she hadn’t thought to ask if Skye could stay for dinner, or even a sleepover. At least then somebody else might have found her dad, and Skye wouldn’t have had to go through the trauma of it on her own.

Desperate now to speak to Skye, Hayley logged into Facebook and checked her messages to see if her friend had tried to contact her. There were no messages, but when she went to her newsfeed and saw some of the vile comments that their so-called friends had posted on their walls about Skye and the stabbing, she was disgusted. They didn’t know what Skye had been through, and it upset Hayley that they were slagging off her friend just because her mum was mentally ill. Hayley was lucky; her parents loved each other and would never dream of laying their hands on each other in anger. But Skye’s parents were horrible – to each other
and
to Skye. It sickened Hayley when she heard some of the stuff that her friend had gone through, but she had long ago learned to keep her opinions to herself when Skye confided in her, because Skye could get really,
really
defensive when it came to anyone criticising her parents.