Blood Tracks (30 page)
Authors: Paula Rawsthorne
He gripped Celia’s left wrist and yanked at the cuff of her blouse, causing the button to fly off. He pulled up the sleeve roughly, exposing Celia’s long, translucent arm, her vivid veins like blue water running under a thin layer of ice.
“Don’t do it, Max,” she said softly, but the beads of sweat springing from her pores belied her outer calmness. “Just let me go.”
He erupted, bawling in her face, the veins on his neck bulging. “Do you really think I’m going to let you go?! People were laughing at me because of you. You freak!”
“Just think about it.” She fought the tremor in her voice. “Say I bleed to death? You’ll spend years banged up in prison. It’s not worth it, is it, Max? It’s not too late. You can walk away from this right now.”
But Jenkins responded by seizing her elbow and positioning the knife so it hovered over her upper arm.
“What do you think?” he taunted her. “Should I do it, should I?”
She daren’t move, she daren’t breathe.
Suddenly, quick, urgent footsteps could be heard coming down the corridor.
Teachers
, she thought with blissful relief.
The teachers are here!
The cloakroom door flew open. The teachers froze at the sight that faced them, with only seconds to decide what to do next. Jenkins panicked, tightening his hold on her elbow.
Oh God, he’s going to do it! I’ve got to do something!
She jerked her arm out of his grip. There was a flash of silver, and a searing, white-hot pain as the blade sliced along her paper skin. She heard a short, high-pitched scream puncture the air – it was coming from her.
A big hug and huge thanks to my wonderful agent, Jo Unwin – I’ll miss you! To all at Usborne who do such a magnificent job in every department and who make me feel so valued. Special thanks to my fabulous editor, Rebecca Hill, for being patient, insightful and exacting. Thanks also to Becky Walker for all her hard work on the copyedit.
To enable the writing of
Blood Tracks
I undertook research in several areas and I’m indebted to the following people for allowing me to interrogate them and for providing such vital expertise: Mairin Casey, David Egbokhan, Cathy Scheib, Eloise Gaillou, Steve Copplestone and last, but not least, Old Sea Dog himself, Karl Bird. Thanks to you all.
I’m so grateful to my mother-in-law, Diana, and my brother-in-law, Chas, for their kindness in opening their houses to me when I needed to hide away and write.
Love and thanks to Stan, Archie and Sadie for filling our home with noise and normality and reminding me that all work and no play makes writers duller people. Finally, thanks to my husband, David, for his love and unfailing support – I’m a lucky devil!
Paula Rawsthorne was an award-winning writer before she had even published her first book. One of her very first stories won the BBC’s 2004 Get Writing competition and was read by Bill Nighy on Radio 4. Paula then became one of the winners of the Undiscovered Voices 2010 competition with her first novel,
The Truth About Celia Frost
, which also went on to win the Leeds Book Award, the Sefton Super Reads Award and the Nottingham Brilliant Book Award.
Blood Tracks
is her second novel.
Paula lives in Nottingham with her husband and three children, where her writing is fuelled by a diet of coffee and cakes.
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This ebook edition published in 2013 by Usborne Publishing Ltd., Usborne House, 83-85 Saffron Hill, London EC1N 8RT, England.
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Copyright © Paula Rawsthorne, 2013
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Cover photography: raindrops on glass © istockphoto/Thinkstock; girl © Hemera/Thinkstock.
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This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
EPUB ISBN 9781409541752
Batch no. 00892-04