Читать книгу Her Last Secret - P Kane L - Страница 8

As the girl stumbled forward, she had one name on her mind.

She’d lost her mobile back there on the street and didn’t have time to stop and search for it; didn’t have the strength. She just needed to get to some help, maybe make it to the clubbing part of town – though that seemed like a very long way away. And she was getting tired now, breath misting in the autumn air, hardly able to focus. Little wonder – because as she touched the wounds on her chest, brushing the handle of the knife that was still sticking out, that had been left in there as she’d attempted to escape, her hands came away wet. Totally black in the moonlight.

Blood … so much blood.

Pain that had been unbearable only minutes before was dulling now, making her numb. She clutched at a wall, leaving a handprint behind her. There’d be someone soon, she’d find someone who could help her. In fact, yes, there up ahead the street was opening out. Even in her confused state, she knew where she was: the market square. Ahead of her were the stalls, empty now at night-time – not that many were used in the waking hours, either, apart from on certain days – rows of wooden skeletons, looking like the carcasses of long-dead monsters.

Monsters like the ones she’d been so afraid of when she was little. Silly really, being scared of imaginary things like that, when there were so many real things to be frightened of after you grew up. She wished more than anything at that moment – as she slipped on her own blood, righted herself and lunged towards the stalls – that she could go back in time to those days. Back when make-believe creatures under the bed were the only things to worry about. Back when life was so much simpler.

She used the stalls to drag herself along, still searching the space for … there! Someone was waiting in the middle. Or at least she thought it was someone, only to get there and realise it was just tarpaulin hanging down on yet another frame. Things were getting hazy now, her vision blurred. Time was running out. If the monsters here were dead, then she wouldn’t be far behind them. And wasn’t there a part of her that felt relief at that, because living was so, so hard? She’d always assumed it would get better, but it never really did; always thought there would be a brighter day to come. Instead, it was getting darker by the second.

She flopped onto that stall with the canvas sheeting, pain shooting through her again and waking her up momentarily. Forcing her onto her back, because the knife wouldn’t let her lie down on her front.

If I could just go back. If I could just see him one more time.

The man who’d always chased away those monsters back when she was tiny, who’d picked her up and put her on his shoulders when they’d go for walks in the park. Who’d tried to teach her right from wrong, set an example. And whom she’d treated so, so badly.

That’s why the name that had been on her mind, the name that came out – as she finally went blind, as the last of her vital lifeblood seeped out – wasn’t that of the person who’d done this to her. Their name was as far from her thoughts as possible.

No, the name she uttered with her last breath was that of the man she thought might come, as if they shared some kind of psychic bond and she was sending out a distress call. It was the person, when all was said and done, that she still trusted most in this world; the irony being that he probably didn’t even know that anymore, regardless of how true it was.

No, the name on her lips was simply this, uttered as if she was 5 again: ‘Daddy.’

Then all she knew was the dark.