Her Bad Boy (Chapter 18)

How does a girl cope when her twin flame is the definitive bad boy? (18+ Erotica)

Chapter 17 | Chapter 18: Allhallowtide

When the sounds started up again, this time Kevin knew where they were coming from.

Thud-thud-thud.

He looked up at the ceiling. “Does this house have an attic?” he whispered to Daisy.

She nodded, motioning to the end of the corridor. “You turn right at the bathroom door,” she whispered back. “There’s a cubby-hole at the end. Its hatch is above that.”

“Does it need a ladder?”

She shook her head. “It’s electric. A switch on the wall opens the door and its ladder slides down. But please be careful.”

He made a movement to go, but she held him back with a concerned stare. “It’s okay,” he tried to grin at her. “Could just be rats.”

Thud-thud-thud.

They both knew the sounds were too regulated to be rats. It was being made by someone.

Or something.

Kevin could feel the back of his neck rise with goosebumps, his body hairs bristled. He slowed his breath, and steeled his skin. He took a long step forward, and a calmness entered his limbs, like the one before a storm poised to strike.

Thud-thud-thud.

What could be making that noise? It sounded as though it were calling him. Kevin knew it was nonsense, but somehow he just couldn’t shake the feeling. He felt a strange pull, like with the writing on Iain’s bedroom wall.

The dark is coming.

Suddenly images of the horrors visited upon his team in Afghanistan flashed through his mind, sapping his concentration.

We arrived at camp only to be greeted by a bloodbath... It looked like some sick orgy gone wrong.

He tried to focus, but the images were strong. He could almost smell the blood, and the putrid stench of death having stayed too long. It was so strong he could almost taste it.

Mutilated bodies everywhere, torn limbs sticking out of gouged orifices, perverted positions captured in rigor mortis... and the poor children. God knows which village they had raided.

Teeth gritted, his hands seemed to curl up into balls of fists on their own.

And the blood... so much blood... and the smell...

Thud-thud-thud.

He had reached the bathroom door. The sounds, even louder now, brought him back fast into the moment. Turning the corner, he realised that the sounds reminded him of something. What was it? He couldn’t quite place the memory. But a vision of Hans crawled out from the darkest vistas of his mind. Hans after he had discovered the relic. Sitting on his bunk bed. Knife in hand, blade diving down, driven into skin.

He kept his eye on the knife’s blade, saw tiny slivers of his barracks buddy’s flesh caught in its perforated teeth, where it had torn the tattooed skin. “You drunk? What the fuck are you doing?”

“Writing.” His voice was in the single tone of an automaton or like a sleepwalker you saw in the movies. Words unnaturally blunted and truncated into single syllables. The voice eerily devoid of any feeling.

“Writing? Writing what for fuck’s sake?”

“His name.” Thud-thud-thud.

Now he remembered, and it was as if time stood still and paused Kevin along with it. Hans’ twitching foot, the leg rhythmically hitting the edge of the bunk as he slashed a strange pictogram into the taunt flesh of his own stomach.

“Whose name?”

“His.” Thud. “The one who will come to extinguish the flame.” Thud. “All flames. None will be twinned again.” Thud. “As flame no longer twins with flame, then shall the darkness come.”

“You’re not making sense, man.”

None of this made any sense. Hans was dead and buried. There was no way in hell Hans was up in the attic.

Thud-thud-thud.

But something was and he had to find out what. He moved closer to the cubby-hole, bathing himself in the dusky embrace of shadows cast by the shelves decorating its space and the items adorned there. Children’s books neatly lined its rows, a few toys, crayons, boxed puzzle sets. It was obvious this was a favourite spot for Iain to spend his time.

Thud-thud-thud.

He was about to look up when he saw movement out of the corner of his left eye. Daisy. He raised an open palm to stop her where she stood, but wasn’t surprised to have it ignored. She ran the last few steps to him, whispering, “Well?”

He gave her a look of exasperation. “Well what?”

“Where’s that noise coming from?”

As if on cue, the sounds called out in their regular patterned thud. He pointed above their heads to the square hatch door.

“Well, that’s the switch to it over there,” she said, the syllables snagging at the back of her throat. “Turn it to the right. The ladder has a cushioned release to slide down slowly.”

He saw the switch. A silver dial-like button situated on the opposite end of the cubby-hole, at a height that placed it out of a child’s reach. He inched closer, and turned the dial clockwise.

They watched and waited as the hatch lid flipped down on its hinges with a buzz, activating the ladder to open.

Seconds into its motion, a large black shape loomed out of the mouth of the hatch and descended upon them. Daisy screamed, but Kevin had reacted a split second before, grabbing and moving her out of harm’s way.

Thud-thud-thud.

A colourful papier-mâché piñata in the shape of a carved pumpkin, its rope snagged on the ladder, swung mournfully, hitting the wall.

“So that’s our intruder,” he grunted, loosening his grip on her waist. “How foolish do I feel right now.”

Laughing with relief, she said, “We made that as a surprise for Iain, and hid it up there. Something new to do for Halloween. I’d forgotten about it. Must have come loose somehow.”

He grinned to see her laugh. “Well all’s well that ends well.”

“My hero, saving me from a stuffed paper pumpkin!”

They both laughed this time, with a mixture of embarrassment and relief, just as the police sirens made their presence known outside.


Nearly two weeks had passed since Iain had opened his eyes in that hospital room, Sally had to remind herself as she watched Stephen and Kevin with her young brother traipsing around the fairground. His recovery had been quicker than anyone had expected. Doctor Merryweather called it a bloody miracle, but Sally was just grateful that her prayers had been answered, and she had her brother back none the worse for wear.

In fact he had become more communicative and extrovert, ever since his speedy discharge from the hospital, especially with Stephen. It was the only reason she relented to let the boys take him out for Halloween, she decided, smiling at their superhero costumes, and trying not to think how gorgeous Stephen’s bum looked in black tights.

“Penny for them?”

Sally quickly untied herself from her thoughts, and smiled at Daisy, who winked back at her, saying, “Although it’s obvious. The boys fill out their costumes very well, don’t you think?”

“What I think is that it’s still too early for Iain to be up and about.”

“No way! Look at him with the boys, and besides it’s the last night of the fair before it moves on.”

Daisy was right. Halloween was the travelling fairground’s final night, and it had decorated its rides in celebration of all things spooky. Cotton-ball cobwebs, talcum powder dust, slimy green fluorescent skeletons and animated pumpkins and broomsticks hung from every inconceivable nook and cranny. The fairground music was interspersed with ghoulish howls and witch-like cackles, while in the distance fireworks popped open in a blaze of glory in the inky obsidian sky.

“Sometimes I think it’s too good to be true, Daisy. I mean look at him, he didn’t even want to wear a coat.”

“That’s natural for a boy, and it’s warm out anyhow.”

Sally nodded. October was going out the warmest she ever remembered it. It felt more like an early spring evening than the middle of autumn. But despite the warmth, and bright, dizzying lights of the fair, shadows still loomed. “Do you think we’ll ever find out what happened for certain?”

“Best not to think about it. At least for one night.”

But all Sally did was think about it. So many things were left unresolved, whilst others had been resolved in the most unexpected ways. Her neighbour’s daughter had been found safe and sound a few hours after Daisy and Kevin informed the police of the ominously cryptic message left scrawled on Iain’s bedroom wall, and how Iain had come to be home alone in the first place.

The neighbour’s girl had decided to skip the babysitting appointment after her boyfriend persuaded her to spend the night camping, and didn’t bother to inform her mother, who disapproved of the boy and would likely have refused permission for her to go with him. But with an innocent explanation for her disappearance, they were still no nearer to the truth of who hurt Iain, or wrote the message. As her brother had no recollection of that night’s events, the local police authorities were more than willing to chalk it up as self-inflicted, and not press charges this time.

However, Sally didn’t buy for a second that Iain’s fall was as result of an autistic boy’s hyper-fear of being left alone in the dark. Official channels might believe her brother violently injured himself out of some delusional night-time paranoia, but the handwriting on the wall wasn’t going to be so easy to explain away. Someone else had broken the police cordon hours later to do that, and the hand that wrote the message and the owner of the blood used to ink it were still unknown. The authorities would only confirm that forensics had said it was blood, but could not say for certain whether it was human blood.

“Hey, I said don’t think about it.”

“I can’t help it.”

Daisy sighed, and there was more than an ounce of guilt weighted in its sound. Her voice came out hoarse with emotion. “I only wish I could go back and change things. I will never forgive myself.”

“Stop right there. People make mistakes Daisy. The main thing is that he’s okay, and that’s because you found him in time. Think on that.”

“But it was such a stupid thing to do. I don’t know what came over me.”

“At least you owned up to it. Most wouldn’t have.” There are secrets I’m keeping from you that I can’t own up to just yet. Too guilty, too much of a coward to tell you things you have a right to know.

Daisy took her hand, gripping it warmly. “I can’t take the credit for that. It was his doing.”

Sally looked across at the boys. “Kevin’s?”

Daisy nodded.

“You really like him, don’t you?”

“Is it that obvious?”

Sally smiled. “Not really, it’s just I know you a bit better than the rest.”

“You know me better than anyone, that’s why I don’t get it...”

“Get what exactly?”

“Why you don’t give up on me. I get on everyone’s nerves, I know it. Even that fortune teller kicked me out of her tent. Sooner or later everyone gets tired of Daisy, except you. You came home to find me sitting on top of Stephen - not doing the dirty granted - but still here you are. When will you tire of forgiving me?”

She wanted to say, I forgive you in the hope that when the day comes, you’ll forgive me, too, but instead said, “Why did you do it, Daisy? You know how much he means to me.”

“I thought he wasn’t good for you. I’m still not really sure he won’t hurt you.”

“Allow me to make that decision for myself. Okay?”

“It’s a deal sister. He’s good with kids at any rate. I can’t fault how good he is with Iain.”

As Daisy spoke, Sally watched at how patient Stephen was with Iain, as they experienced all the sights and sounds of the fair. And she knew she was sure she loved him. Loved him without knowing how, or when, or from where. She loved him because she knew no other way. She laughed at her old self, the one who had stood on this same spot weeks ago thinking she could forget him.

The impossibility of forgetting someone you loved like that dawned on her. It was like trying to remember someone you’d never met, she thought. You couldn’t erase love like that, or break it up, because it wasn’t written on paper or etched in stone. Love like that inscribed itself in your heart, and there it remained forever.

And if the best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes you reach for more, and plants a fire in the heart, then that’s what you’ve given me, Stephen. That’s what you’ve given me forever. I love you.

Stephen looked back at her then, as though he had heard her thoughts across the distance, and gave her a smile which still made her heart skip its beat, and she doubted that would ever change.

“What about love, Daisy?”

“What about it, sweetheart? If you leave everything to love to hold together, you can forget it. Love comes and goes with the air, changing minute by minute.”

“What about our friendship? About my love for Iain?”

“That’s different.”

“Is it? Really? What about Kevin? Won’t you give him a chance? If you have feelings for him, tell him. Forget about the rules or the fear of looking ridiculous. What is truly ridiculous is passing up on an opportunity to tell him your heart is invested in him.”

Daisy screwed her face up in pain. “Don’t you think I want a normal life to share with someone? But I’m a bitch. I don’t know why I am. It just happened. I’m just done. My life’s all completely messed up, and I don’t know what to do about it. Frightened I can’t change, I suppose, that I won’t fuck it up.”

“You can be married to anybody, if that’s what you’re worried about. You’re gorgeous. Men fall over backwards just to take a look at you.”

“The good time girl, that’s me. Anyone else would say that with malice, or at least a hint of jealousy. Not you. You really mean it.”

“Of course I do, Daisy. With all my heart.”

Daisy’s eyes glistened. “You look so beautiful, standing there. Like some administrating angel. I wish I could be peaceful and good like you. I envy Iain sometimes... I wish you were my real sister.”

Sally looked away, all of a sudden wanting to change the subject. There are secrets I’m keeping from you that I can’t own up to just yet. Too guilty, too much of a coward to tell you things you have a right to know.

“You okay, Sally. Did I say something wrong?”

“Of course not. I just had an idea...” Scanning the fairground she spied Madame Rosario’s tent, and called out to Stephen to let him know her plan as she pulled Daisy along with her. “Come on, let’s say goodbye to Madame Rosario.”

“What? You must be kidding? She won’t let me in her tent after last time,” Daisy protested as they neared its entrance.

“You let me be the judge of that lass,” came a muffled retort from inside the tent. They giggled involuntarily, like two schoolgirls caught out, and lifted the flaps to enter. Last time they were here, Sally reminisced as they walked through the opening, it had been Daisy pulling them in. Now it was Sally, but the scene that greeted them was the same.

Draped in multicoloured fabrics, Madame Rosario stared intently at the glass ball in front of her. She shifted her large frame in her star sequinned chair, which creaked in complaint, as she raised a hand without looking up to motion them closer. The tent shook, rattling the glass ornaments hanging from its ceiling. This time there were glittered golden crescent and star cut-outs hanging alongside the transparent trinkets swaying from its roof. The Halloween touch, Sally noted as they sat down in the empty chairs opposite Madame Rosario.

Nobody knew the future. That was what Sally had been thinking back then, knowing the only law that governed the future was the law of irony. What you expected to happen rarely ever did. And in that she had been right. Never in all her wildest dreams could she have imagined the things that had happened to her since she was last in this tent. She felt a different person. Even Daisy was different.

“I want to apologise for my behaviour last time I was in here-” Daisy began, but Madame Rosario cut her off with a beaming smile and a quick pat on the hand.

“No need, my dearie. I can see you are not the person you were... or rather you’re becoming the person you are really meant to be.”

“Er... Thanks... I think?”

Sally nudged her. “Don’t knock it. That’s high praise coming from Molly- Madame Rosario.”

Daisy gave her a questioning, sideways glance.“Molly? When did you two get so chummy to be on a first name basis?”

“I told you she visited me at the hospital-” Or I think she did? Now, sitting here, she wasn’t so sure after all. Had Sally just dreamt her visit? Stephen and her both? She remembered how she had intended to return the coffee flask, but it had vanished that same day.

“Girls,” Madame Rosario interjected, “my time is limited, and before we say our goodbyes, I want you both to raise your right palms for my final reading. Then the rest is up to you. I have done what I can, and I must go.”

The seriousness of her tone quietened the girls, and Sally thought she had never seen Daisy remain so still, as she raised her hand in unison with hers.

“In your lines I see the end of things, and the start of things... I see the struggles ahead that face you, and threaten to bury you. For something is coming... be warned both of you. Hold on to what you love. For love does not come and go with the air. Love is the air. As small, and as large. Remember that in times of need. Remember also that in love, the smallest deed may yet yield the largest reward. Your darkest hour may yet be your brightest. And even in death, there can be life.”

Sally shivered. She had not expected talk of death again after having so narrowly pulled her brother back from its jaws. Madame Rosario motioned for them to put down their hands, but Sally, mesmerised by her words, found it difficult respond. The muffled noises from the fairground outside seemed to her to have all but dwindled away, sucked into a vacuum of silence left behind by the fortune teller’s - what was she really? - unexpected tirade.

“Do not fear death, girls. It is timely that tonight is Halloween or All Hallows’ Eve... the initiate to the triduum of Allhallowtide, the seasonal gateway when the veils between the worlds thin out and the dead are honoured,” Madame Rosario’s voice boomed again in Sally’s ears. This wasn’t the image of the sweet-natured lady she had talked to at the hospital, and for a second time she felt afraid.

“There is nothing to fear, for collectively we need to bury what no longer serves life. When we do it in our own lives, we can see more clearly what is dead in the outer world, and open our eyes to love as the only real, living thing. You may think loving something is like taking a hammer to your foundations, but only together can you bring the light, only when you are apart does the dark rise... Make no mistake, the dark is coming, girls, on the tail of a strong wind to extinguish your light, to choke the very system of your souls... but before you can stand against it, you need to clear away the dead and dying, and acknowledge that love is the only paradigm worth creating, living and fighting for.”

Sally stared at Daisy, Daisy looked back at her agape. She said the dark is coming. Could it just be a coincidence, Sally wondered, or did it signify something worse?

She could hardly get the words out. “Please... can you tell me if my brother is in danger?”

“I can say no more. I can do no more. What will be, will be in your hands,” Madame Rosario said, and Sally knew the reading session was over.

End of Chapter 18

Yours in love,

Her Bad Boy (Chapter 17)

How does a girl cope when her twin flame is the definitive bad boy? (18+ Erotica)

Chapter 16 | Chapter 17: Relics of the Past

Kevin shifted his position, took the warm bath towel Daisy had draped around his shoulders to dry his damp hair.

“Go on with your story,” Daisy urged.

“We arrived at camp only to be greeted by a bloodbath,” he went on in a low timbre. “It looked like some sick orgy gone wrong. Mutilated bodies everywhere, torn limbs sticking out of gouged orifices, perverted positions captured in rigor mortis... and the poor children. God knows which village they had raided. And the blood... so much blood... and the smell...”

“Okay, stop.”

Her interjection cut the cord to the past, and he blinked at her. She had turned a deathly shade of pale. “You all right?”

She nodded, sickly. “But I’m sorry I asked.”

“I told you so,” he said gently.

“Yeah, you did,” she acquiesced. “But what does that have to do with all this?”

“I’m getting to it. A team mate of ours- H-Hans, his name was...” Kevin’s voice dwindled down. I haven’t said that name for quite some time. “He found the relic under one of the bodies. We called it in, and were ordered to leave everything as it was and return to our base.”

“You just left?”

“Orders are orders,” he said, breaking her gaze. “A soldier follows orders. Except Hans took the relic with him, without telling anyone.”

“Not all soldiers follow orders, then.”

“Hans was always rebellious, but he knew when to tow the line - just. Had he done so that time, it would have been better for him.” And for us.

“It sounds like you didn’t like him.”

Kevin’s manner stiffened. “He was a team mate, part of our pack. Liking him had nothing to do with it. We’d have given our lives for each other.” But if the truth be told, growing up outside of the army Kevin never had much time for guys like Hans. The guy’s Afrikaner parents had instilled into him a cruel, racist streak, which he hid well enough until he had too much to drink. Kevin guessed Stephen had stayed loyal to the time they spent in the army together as kids, before the man grew up to be such a class-A dick. He and the rest of the pack had often been embarrassed by his antics, but you didn’t quit on your friends or on the bonds forged in the army.

“That doesn’t mean you liked him.”

Whether she knew it or not, Daisy was skirting around a sore point. “Perceptive of you. Let’s just say I never personally would’ve got on with him... his tastes were too discriminating for my liking.” Although he wouldn’t admit it to anyone, even himself, they’d secretly suffered each other for Stephen’s sake. He hadn’t wanted to get on the wrong side of his team leader’s childhood buddy, and out of respect for Stephen, Kevin had overlooked a lot of Hans’ flaws.

“You think he’s the one doing this?”

Maybe, if he wasn’t dead. Stephen killed his best friend to save my life, you see. “That’s impossible.”

“Why?”

“It just is.”

“But you recognised something up there. I know you did.”

Kevin moved his head up and down slowly, in an almost imperceptible nod. The towel, now cold, fell to the floor. “When we got back to base, Hans started acting strange. At first he was just mumbling gibberish in his sleep. About souls forged in flames. And the end of the world. Stuff that didn’t make any sense. Then he stopped sleeping. And eating. We tried our best to pick up his slack, but it was just getting harder and harder.”

“You should have told someone.”

“We thought we could handle it. Rather than squeal on a mate, we covered up for him as best we could. Then...”

Then on the morning of that fateful night he found Hans sitting bare-chested on his bunk, eyes in a glaze, hands in a frenzy carving a symbol on his stomach. Kevin tried to knock the army regulation combat knife from his bloodied hand.

“You drunk? What the fuck are you doing?”

“Writing.” His voice was in the single tone of an automaton or like a sleepwalker you saw in the movies. Words unnaturally blunted and truncated into single syllables. The voice eerily devoid of any feeling.

He kept his eye on the knife’s blade, saw tiny slivers of his barracks buddy’s flesh caught in its perforated teeth, where it had torn the tattooed skin. “Writing? Writing what for fuck’s sake?”

“His name.” The blade dived down.

“Whose name?”

“His. The one who will come to extinguish the flame. All flames. None will be twinned again. As flame no longer twins with flame, then shall the darkness come.”

“You’re not making sense, man.” Kevin made a second move for the knife as it came back up, and this time managed to knock it out of Hans’ bloody paw.

Hans was unmoved. “I bear his name. The one who will bring the dark. The dark is coming.”

“No shit it’s coming. We’re on night duty tonight, so you better get it together.”

“The dark is coming. The dark is coming.” He sounded like an audio glitch on loop, increasing in speed. “The dark is coming. The dark is com-”

“Listen to me,” Kevin spoke over his ranting. “If you keep this shit up it is very likely they will lock you up and throw away the fucking key. Do you want that?”

That seemed to reach him. He fell silent, swaying ever so slightly on his bunk bend, his blood stained fingers tracing the strange looking hieroglyphic he had carved into his skin. Then the glazed eyes cleared and Kevin saw a semblance of the Hans he used to know return to his features. “Kev? What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here? Are you fucking shitting me? You’re the one carving up his stomach and chanting like some possessed freak.”

“Am I? Oh... yeah, kind of cool, huh?”

Kevin stared at him, long and hard. “If you pull a prank like this on our patrol tonight, so help me, I’ll shoot you. Got it?”

Hans grinned at him in reply, and cocked two fingers in the shape of a gun at Kevin’s head. It made his blood run cold. “Not if I shoot you first,” he said, giving him a wink. “Not if I shoot you first.”

“Kevin?”

Daisy’s voice from out of the ether. He responded almost automatically, “Yes?”

“You said, then? Then what happened?”

“Then one night he went insane. Wrote that same message you saw upstairs.” In exactly the same handwriting, he omitted to add.

“But what does it mean?”

He drained the mug of cold tea, and wiped his lips. “You’re guess is as good as mine...”

“Could it have something to do with the relic he stole?”

“Can’t see how.” He got up and stretched. “I really need to sort out some clothes. Else greeting the police in my underwear is going to be one for the books.”

Daisy jumped up. “I put your clothes on the central heating to dry. They might be wearable by now. I’ll go see.”

He watched her return with his jeans. “Still patchy in places,” she said.

“It’ll be fine,” he replied, taking them from her with a grateful smile.

He sat back down and proceeded to put them on, while Daisy persisted with her line of questioning. “Well? Could it be something written on the relic? Did you ever find out what it said?”

Standing, he pulled his jeans up to his waist. Zipped and buttoned, he stretched again. “As far as I can remember the relic was a chant to some Minoan god. But what god I don’t know. His arrival was meant to spell the end of the world. If Hans was right...”

“Like that Mayan calender a few years back?”

“In a way. But that was a calendar that just stopped at a certain point, so we just assumed it meant the end of time. As I recall the chant on the relic clearly stated the end of the world. Something about flames. And darkness.” He remembered the words, remembered, too, the knife’s blade as it dipped into Hans’ stomach, shining blood red.

The one who will come to extinguish the flame. All flames. None will be twinned again. As flame no longer twins with flame, then shall the darkness come.

“The dark is coming,” she whispered, a myriad of shivers fluctuating in the high timbre of her voice.

“Come here,” he said, taking her in his arms. “Everything will be okay, you’ll see.”

Her breath was hot and hurried against his skin as she spoke. “But how can you be so sure it isn’t this Hans guy doing this?”

Because ghosts don’t leave tracks. “Just trust me on this one, it can’t be him.”

He felt she was finally about to relax, when a muffled thud resounded from somewhere in the house.

“That wasn’t a knock at the door.” She gripped his arm. They stared at each other.

In a low whisper, he said, “Stay here.”

“No. I’m coming with you.”

He lowered his voice further. “Stay here.”

“No. I’m coming with you.”

He gave up, signalled for quiet, and listened out for the noise again.

Thud-thud-thud, then again, thud-thud-thud.

He couldn’t shake the feeling they were becoming the plot to a horror movie as he rose on the balls of his feet and tiptoed across the kitchen to the door. The imposing silence was back again, booming in his ears.

Thud-thud-thud.

His mind raced through all the possibilities. It was too far away to be coming from the living room. But too clear to be coming from outside.

Thud-thud-thud.

It was coming from somewhere inside the house, he was sure of that now. All his instincts told him they were not alone, that the silence which had made him feel uneasy had been the presence of a third man all along.

Thud-thud-thud.

Upstairs. The sounds were coming from upstairs. He turned back and motioned to Daisy not to follow him, but she shook her head.

He tried once more. “Stay by the front door. If you hear me go down, make for the car.”

But she was adamant. “Why don’t we do that now? Leave whatever is up there and just go?”

But he was adamant, too. “I have to do this. I have to know.”

Thud-thud-thud.

He looked at her, and in her face saw something of himself. This really is one gutsy girl, he thought. He turned towards the sound.

Thud-thud-thud.

He was at the foot of the stairs now, and the sounds were definitely coming in that direction. But they weren’t the sounds of footsteps. What were they? He strained to listen, trying to work out what could be making that noise, and the best plan of action to surprise it.

Thud-thud-thud.

Was it hammering? Or a foot banging on the floor? Or had recent experience skewed his instincts? Was it just Iain’s open bedroom door banging against its frame, pushed by a breeze coming in through the window?

That was the rational explanation, although every sinew and muscle in his body said different. His attuned senses had caught the smell of something not quite right, and they were primed for danger. He moved noiselessly up the stairs. With each step the noises got louder.

Thud-thud-thud.

And louder.

Thud-thud-thud.

And louder.

Daisy stuck close behind him, as he braced himself at the top of the stairs, but the corridor was empty.

Likewise Iain’s bedroom. The door was firmly shut.

He waited out for the sounds again, his back against the wall, but was greeted only by that familiar creeping silence from before, which had seemed to make itself at home in Sally’s house.

End of Chapter 17 | Read Chapter 18

Yours in love,

Her Bad Boy (Chapter 16)

How does a girl cope when her twin flame is the definitive bad boy? (18+ Erotica)

Chapter 15 | Chapter 16: Dead Surely

Kevin’s stomach muscles tightened as he re-read the words clawed out across Iain’s bedroom wall.

The dark is coming.

He had seen this somewhere else before. His jaw clenched, feelings churning deep in the pit of his stomach. It was Afghanistan all over again. He felt Daisy’s fingers inadvertently brush across his navel as she took a fearful step back towards him in an instinctual search for cover. When she looked up with large and fearful questioning eyes, he tried to belie the fear he felt in his voice.

“We need to call the police,” he said, placing his hands gently on her trembling shoulders and guiding her out of the room.

“Wh-what is going on? Who would do that? What the fuck could it mean?”

He felt anything he said would break the dam of everyday logic that kept the nightmares at bay, so he said nothing, camouflaging his thoughts in the sudden dead of sound. The rain had stopped its onslaught again, but the silence it left behind was ominous. Like an infected boil pregnant with pus, about to burst and leak out to merge with the encroaching shadows outside.

She peered up at him, intently. “You know something about all this, don’t you?” Her voice rose higher in surprise when she realised she had surmised right. “You do know something, don’t you?”

“Not really.”

She snorted, her fear suddenly gone and the old defiant Daisy back in its place. “What sort of answer is that? You either do or you don’t.”

“Both. I do and I don’t.” Something drew him towards the writing on the wall. He placed Daisy at a safe distance in the corridor, and walked back to the wall in the young boy’s bedroom, an arm outstretched in the air as if in a dream.

“Don’t...” she whispered.

“It’s okay. I just want to see if...” ...it’s fresh. He ended the sentence in his mind. Tentatively his fingertips touched the wall, tracing the shiny letters daubed into it like bleeding cuts. It felt wet to the skin. He brought his hand back and sniffed his fingers. A coppery smell. Possibly blood. An animal’s maybe. Done recently. Very recent.

“Well?” she asked.

“Let’s go downstairs. You put the kettle on, then call the police.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Take a quick look round outside.”

Her voice startled itself into a stammer, but Kevin felt a rush of admiration at how quickly she got it under control. “S-so... you think whoever did this could still be around?”

“No chance,” he said quickly, though not too quickly. She certainly had guts, but he didn’t want to frighten her any more than she had been already. “They’ll be long gone by now, especially after all the noise we just made.”

“And you’re going to go out like that?”

Talking about his lack of dress, he noticed her eyes were firmly fixed on his face. He gave her his best grin under the circumstances. “Well if they’re not long gone by now, seeing me in my underwear is bound to frighten them off. Not unless, of course, you’ve got a pair of jeans that happen to fit me?”

She shook her head. “The only thing of Iain’s that’d fit you is his duvet cover.”

“Not my colour. Now come on, downstairs with you. Put the kettle on, I won’t be long.”

She dug her heels in at the top of the stairs, bumping against him. “Hey, why am I making the drinks?”

“Would you like to take a look around while I start a brew?”

Daisy relented. “Point taken. But be quick.”

“As quick as I can. Does Sally have a torch about the house?”

“Yeah, I’ll grab it for you.” He followed her slim frame down the stairs, admiring once more the surety of her gait, which hid what he could only assume was a reflection of the terror he was finding difficult to reign in himself. Because she couldn’t possibly imagine what the writing meant. Of the evil that must have followed them from Afghanistan. Of what it was capable of.

At the front door, she took hold of his hand and placed a small, luminous green cased flash-light in his large palm. “Be quick. Don’t be a hero,” she spoke softly, keeping hold of his hand.

He tried to grin again, but realised he was all out. “Why lass, I didn’t know you cared.”

“Piss off,” she replied, dropping her hold. His arm fell back down to his naked side, heavy as stone. “I want you back so you can tell me exactly what the fuck you think is going on here. So just be quick, okay?”

“I’ll be back,” he said, opening the door and slipping stealthily into the shadows of the night. He saw through her bravado easily enough. Could she see through his? He shut the door behind him.

Her muffled voice called out to him. “K-Kevin?”

“I’m okay. Lock the door,” he called back to her. Hearing the turn of the key and the click of the bolt fall into place, and satisfied the door was secure, he stood still for a moment, taking stock of the situation.

Allowing his eyes to accustom themselves to the dark, he listened as Daisy’s footsteps faded away from behind the door, taking her towards the relative safety of the centre of the house. Good. Making a drink and calling the police would occupy her thoughts, keep her busy. Not that he thought the police were going to be able to help. If what he feared was true, they were all in greater danger than anyone could imagine.

Now outside and in the cover of dark, he allowed himself to think back to his last tour of duty in Afghanistan. Of what he thought they had left behind them. But hell is where the heart is, he thought grimly, scrupulously scanning the area, and silently stepping further into the shadows cast by the house, letting the small, but strong beam of light from Sally’s torch lead the way. You can’t go into the heart of darkness and not expect something evil to follow you back out.

And something had. Something that had affected one of their team. Turned him insane, and turned that insanity into a murderous killing spree, unleashing it on the innocent lives of civilians. Painting the walls with their blood. With the same message.

The dark is coming.

But what really chilled him to the bone wasn’t that they were the same words, but the writing itself. It was an exact replica of his team mate’s maniacal handwriting. Which was impossible because he was dead. Stephen had taken him out. Just in time to save Kevin’s life from being the last fatal casualty of an army buddy gone murderously renegade.

He thought back to that night he unwillingly revisited most times his head hit the pillow. To that time of being completely cut off and stranded by one of your own, tied up by an army buddy you’d been prepared to give your life for under different circumstances, forced helplessly to watch him rape and maul innocent civilians. Then stand in front of you, naked and bathed in their blood, and without flinching, without a word of explanation save for the mad scrawling, shoot you in the head.

His memories were shards of glass. Untouchable. I wish he’d shot me first. That had been his last thought, or what he thought would be his final on Earth, until he woke up in the army hospital. And he had opened his eyes to a whole raft of changes. The brass, afraid of a local tribal insurrection, wanted the massacre hushed up at the highest levels, and it had got what it wanted. It always did. Due to his head wounds he was given an honourable discharge for his silence, while Stephen was put up for a commendation for saving his life.

But as their team leader, Stephen took it harder than the rest of the pack. A son of a decorated Field Marshall, that was Stephen all over. Kevin had tried to get him to talk about that night on his daily visits to him in the hospital, but by the time Kevin had come round his friend had retreated far into himself. Marooned in silence, Stephen blamed himself for the murders, for killing a team mate, for not getting there in time to save more lives. His silence had said as much.

He had lasted just five days after Kevin gained conciousness, and Kevin knew it was the cover up that galled his team leader the most. So his mate refused the commendation and quietly told their commanding officer he was quitting the only life he’d known. When the news reached Kevin, he couldn’t believe at first. Because Stephen would die first, rather than quit.

Don’t run and don’t quit, that was the motto of their barracks, don’t run, don’t quit and pray for the luck of the angels. In their own ways, they had done both, and lost their faith in the third. But he didn’t blame Stephen for quitting. It had shaken them all more than they would ever admit. Had Kevin not been offered a discharge as a way out, he might have quit, too. Only what he did was lie in a hospital bed and wait for a new head of hair to grow over his scars.

So the official line for Stephen’s resignation was the death of a close friend, while he was honourably discharged for head wounds suffered in the course of his duties, but unofficially there was more to it than that. There always was. Except Kevin hadn’t realised how much more, until Stephen had come up from England for a visit and finally opened up to him about that night.

How Stephen had to answer rapid fire from a childhood pad brat, using the bodies of girls and boys as young as six and seven as human shields until he could get a clean shot. And going in for the cold kill, how the image of fear and remorse on his friend’s face on the point of his death haunted his team leader most of all.

The dark is coming.

And if Kevin knew anything, it was that telling lies didn’t come easy to the man who had risked his life to save his own. If the man who dragged him out of that hell hole said he killed a man, then you could be sure that man was dead.

So, what are you doing looking for a dead man in the dark?

He had a lot of questions coming up with answers that didn’t make any sense. Dead men didn’t come back to life and travel thousands of miles to exact revenge. Or to announce their presence by signing the walls of their young victims with fresh blood. But something obviously had. Someone who knew the real story the army had tried to bury out in Afghanistan, and who wouldn’t let the ghosts of the dead rest. He knew that much the minute he set eyes on the writing in the bedroom.

But he knew he hadn’t come out searching for a dead man, either. Ghosts didn’t leave tracks. When he left the house, it was to see if there were any clues to who - or what an almost inaudible voice chimed in his head - it could be. He scanned the last length of the periphery of the house with the torch. And more than that, it was an opportunity to collate his thoughts, compose himself and figure out just how much he should tell Daisy.

Speak of the devil.

He spun around, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end at the sound of approaching footsteps. Although he recognised her tread, it took all the years of military training ingrained in him to quickly regulate the fight-or-flight responses kicking in, quashing any fluctuations in his body rhythm.

And she shall appear. “I thought I told you to stay inside.”

“Aren’t you cold? My goosebumps have got goosebumps. And I’ve got clothes on,” she whispered, her eyes hovering around his face.

“I thought I told you to stay inside,” he repeated.

“You didn’t actually. You told me to lock the door.”

“So why did you unlock it?”

He watched her bite her bottom lip in that naughty schoolgirl way he was quickly growing fond of, as she begrudgingly said, “I feel safer out here with you than I do in there alone.”

He let her words sink in, before asking quietly, “Tea done? Police called?”

“Yes and yes. Found anything?”

He made one last sweep with the torch’s beam. “No.” Ghosts didn’t leave tracks. He took her by the hand. “Come on, let’s go in.”

The warmth of the kitchen seemed to reawaken the numbed senses of his skin as he sat down at the kitchen table. Daisy wrapped a large white bath towel across his shoulders. It felt good. “Hey you warmed this...”

“You sound surprised,” she gave a small chuckle, placing a hot mug of milky tea in front of him.

“I sound grateful,” he said, taking a long sip from the mug. “This tastes great.”

“Glad you’re not fussy.I didn’t ask how you take it.”

“This time I am surprised. It’s just how I like it. Thought you remembered from our breakfast.”

“All I remember is how you nearly pulled my arm out of its socket.” She pulled a breakfast bar stool over, and sat down next to him, giving him a long look. He stared back, reading her look correctly. He picked up Sally’s torch and rolled it back and forth under one palm on the table, its plastic casing quietly growling against the grain of wood.

She spoke first, taking the torch from him. “No more small talk. Tell me what you know.” She pointed upwards, indicating Iain’s bedroom. “Tell me about that.”

“You want me to tell you what I know,” he said in a low voice, “but the truth is I don’t know what that is any more than you do. I only know I’ve seen it before.”

“Where?”

“Afghanistan.”

“And?”

“And? There is no and. Not yet.”

“Look, I think I’ve already figured out how much you hate being in the dark. Well show me the same courtesy.”

“I don’t think what I have to tell you will shed much light on any of this. Might just put you more in the dark,” he warned.

“Let me be the judge of that,” she said. “I’ll never forgive myself for what happened to Iain. Don’t add to it. I need to know if he’s still in danger.”

The silence encroached again as he retreated into his thoughts. He imagined the shadows expanding outside, growing in momentum, pushing up against the walls outside, slimy and slick from the clamminess of rising mist. Pushing their way in with the creeping silence.

As though Daisy had read his thoughts, she edged closer to him, scuffing the feet of her stool on the tiled floor. “Just tell me what you know,” she said.

He nodded. Where to start?

“Our team were on a scouting expedition in northern Afghanistan,” he began. “It’s relatively peaceful compared to the all-out war zones in the south and east of the country, and we’d been sent to reinforce the German-led Regional Command North on an excavation. It was all hush-hush, and our orders only told us we were to act as glorified look-outs for the German troops in a joint operation. We didn’t much care. We thought we'd hit the lottery leaving hostile territory for a few days. Little did we know.”

In between his pauses the silence continued to grow, but Daisy didn’t seem to notice. She remained still, listening, as if an unwitting victim of Medusa turned to stone, the hush of night crowding ever closer in on them. With a shrug of his shoulders, he continued with his tale: “Rumours had trickled down to us from chain of command, as they do. Something had been accidentally found after a mine explosion. In a cave, hidden in a mountain.”

Daisy stirred from her suspense, her curiosity piqued. “What was it?”

“An ancient disc. They had sent some archaeologists and linguistics experts over before we got there to examine the hieroglyphs on it. One of them called it a four thousand-year-old mystery that had finally been solved. Or so we read in his notes. He wasn’t around to tell us. No one was. When we got there everyone had been slaughtered, soldiers, academics, staff - everyone.”

Daisy inhaled sharply. “By what?”

“By each other,” he replied. “Are you sure you want me to go on?”

“Dead sure,” she said, rather uncertainly.

End of Chapter 16 | Read Chapter 17

Yours in love,

Her Bad Boy (Chapter 15)

How does a girl cope when her twin flame is the definitive bad boy? (18+ Erotica)

Chapter 14 | Chapter 15: The Dark and the Deadly

The rain had stopped its onslaught in the city, but once they had taken the route towards the market town it had started up again, harder and faster this time. Unrelenting, darkening clouds had begun to collude together, cutting off the sunlight, and turning the day murky.

Despite the Land Rover’s heater blasting hot air into the car, and wrapping herself in Kevin’s jacket, the scene outside gave her goosebumps. “I’m not going to ask you to stop, because you’ll only think I’m stalling again. But this weather is getting pretty bad.”

“We’ll be fine.”

“I can hardly see outside for the rain to give you directions. What have you got? Laser vision?”

He sent an irritated glance her way. “What do you want me to do? Stop in the middle of the motorway?”

“You could slow down for starters.”

“Your wish is my command.” He eased his foot from the pedal, until the Land Rover visibly slowed. A car from behind honked its horn, and flashed its headlights. “Anything else I can do for you, while I’m at it?”

She didn’t bother answering. Except for the swish of the windscreen wipers and large drops of rain on the windows blurring their vision, they rode in silence for several minutes. Finally, they reached the junction that headed east to Montrose.

She leaned her head back against the seat, appraising him, studying his taut jaw, the frown lines that pulled at the corners of his mouth. Her pulse picked up. “When will you stop being angry with me?”

“I’m not angry with you.”

“Not much you’re not,” she retorted.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Well, if I am can you blame me?”

“Oh, I get it. Teach Daisy a lesson, is that it? Put her on the naughty step.”

He gave her a hard stare. “This isn’t a game.”

“Neither is sulking. It isn’t very manly. Anyone ever told you that?”

“Well, you’re the expert on sulking.” He paused. “And men.”

Anger pinched at her heart. “That was a cheap shot.”

“What can I say? You bring out the best in me.” He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “Look, we all say things we don’t mean. We all say things we can’t take back. How about we just stay quiet and minimise the damage?”

“How about you grow a pair of balls?” she shouted, her quick temper releasing the knot of frustration inside her. She watched his jaw tighten at her response, and she decided she liked it.

“You must have led your dad a merry dance when you were young.”

“That would be difficult as I never knew him.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. No, strike that. You don’t want my pity, right?”

“Right.”

Blowing a deep breath through pursed lips, he narrowed a troubled gaze on the wet road. “We keep putting our foot into it. Do you think we could stop? At least until we get out of the car?”

She thought about telling him to go to hell, but decided to keep her first response to herself. “I’ll give it a go if you will.”

“It’s a deal.” He gave her arm a gentle squeeze, and his thumb skirted across her wrist. Before she could pull away, it traced the scar that was there.

When he glanced at her this time, his eyes held such sadness that her heart contracted. Returning his hand to the steering wheel, he asked in a softened tone, “Do you want to talk about it?”

After a moment of tense quiet, she said, “What is there to say. I’m still here. It- It was a long time ago.” She shifted in her seat, more shaken by the way he’d looked at her, than anything else. She’d never seen a man look like that before. Not at her. It had touched her more than she could say.

Trying to compose herself, she turned away from him to look out the car window, when her smartphone rang to drag her away from the precipice of the moment. Feeling grateful for the diversion, she dug in her pocket for the phone. It trilled, displaying a number she didn’t recognise. Curious, she swiped her finger across the brightly lit screen. “Hello? Who is it?”

“Daisy? Where... you? ...calling from hospital...”

“Sally?” She watched his pensive expression as she poked a finger in one ear so she could hear over the static on the line.

“When... back? ...have news... Iain...” Sally’s broken words filtered through the bad connection, courtesy of the rain, she assumed. It seemed strange the weather would be the culprit, but what else could be playing havoc with the service? They were near the coastline, and there were no mountains for miles.

“Sally, say that again. What about Iain?” She strained to hear Sally’s response. “No fucking way?” She punched the air, and gave a whoop for joy. “He opened his eyes? What does old man Merry say?”

Kevin gave her a silent thumbs up, and a wink. She winked back. “OK, we’re still on the way to your place. But I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Despite the garbled connection, she managed to relay the basics of the weather situation to Sally. “Yeah, Kevin and I are driving over together... OK, I’ll tell him. Right, see you then.” She keyed off the call and jammed the phone back in her pocket.

“Good news, huh?”

She gave an emphatic nod. “Great news. Suddenly I don’t care that I have to tell Sally what I’ve done. I’m just glad Iain has opened his eyes. At least he is going to be OK, even if I’ve lost a friend.”

“Don’t shout fire ’til you see the smoke. I’m sure she’ll forgive you.”

She shrugged, blinking hard, and wanting to change the subject. “Sally says thanks for the breakfast by the way... but the line was bad. I must have understood her wrong.”

“Why?”

“Tunnock tea cakes and bacon?”

“And what’s wrong with that? I thought women liked chocolate treats?”

“With bacon? For breakfast? Seems I got off lightly having breakfast with you.”

“It’s what I usually eat for breakfast.”

“I can tell you’re not married.”

“I was,” he said in a low voice.

“Was? Divorced?”

“She took her own life.”

She instinctively touched the faint scar mark on her wrist, understanding more clearly the look he’d given her. Turning on her seat to face him, she pulled at her bottom lip for a moment, deciding if she should say anything. Better not to, she thought. There were times words did more harm than good.

“We all have a choice, she made hers. But it’s the people left behind who have to live with it. You think about that, OK?”

She huddled deeper into his jacket. “I did it at a time when my mother had just died. I thought I had no one to leave behind, except Sally, and it would have been one less burden for her.”

He directed the car heater’s slatted vents towards her so that she got the full benefit of the heat. “Your mum made you think you’re a burden?”

“God, no. But being a single mum is still frowned upon in our town. She lost her job when I was born. My mum was housekeeper for the McMasters,” she explained.

“And she never married? Or tell you who your dad was?”

She shook her head, thinking back to her teenage years, and how she was made to feel an outcast by the small-minded conventions of a market town. She remembered how much it hurt having to silently endure the taunts at school, and she hadn’t wanted to inflict that knowledge on her mother. So, she never pestered her about her father. And anyway, if the bastard hadn’t wanted to know her, why she should want to know him?

“She didn’t give you up, though. She must have loved you very much.”

“I think- I think she felt guilty that I didn’t have a father. So, she tried to love me enough for two parents. And she did a good job, I was just a lost cause.” She had grown up loved, but the secret nature of her parentage had made her feel unwanted. There was a difference, and it was one that had festered in her, poisoning her against men.

They were all two-faced bastards, the lot of them, she thought irately. Willing to take notice when they wanted her to spread her legs for them, but acting as though she had the plague around their womenfolk.

“No one is a lost cause. Don’t say that.”

Glancing over her shoulder, she narrowed a curious gaze on him. “You’re a tough guy to figure out.”

“There’s more to you than meets the eye, too.”

She raised her chin. “I’m not as stupid as I look, is that what you mean?”

“You act stupid, but you don’t look stupid.”

“You need to work on your compliments. Have I told you that lately?”

He gave her a big smile. “You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. How’s that?”

She hadn’t seen that coming, or maybe she should have done. Placing a finger in her mouth, she pretended to be sick. “Please!”

“I mean it.”

Something in his voice made her stop. “You looking for a pity fuck? Or what?”

Instead of taking offence, his face lit up with amusement. “Or what. I don’t need to go through this hassle to get a woman. Even one as pretty as you. Take my word for it.”

She eyed him surreptitiously, and knew he was right. When a woman looked at him they probably saw every romantic hero they’d ever lusted after. He was tall and muscular, with dark blue eyes, and golden brown hair, straight and well cut, while cast across a strong chin was a light shadow of stubble, roughing out his perfect edges.

But it was his hands that had taken most of her attention. Thick, and strong, and yet with the capacity to be so gentle... It made her knees shiver just thinking about the way his thumb had stroked her wrist. “So, why the compliment?”

He turned the wheel towards the intersecting junction to her town. “You’re very suspicious. You need to be more trusting. Not all men are evil.”

“They have their uses... but I do wonder how you lot run the world, when you don’t have the basic intelligence to put the toilet lid down once you’re done.”

“You never hear us complaining when women don’t leave the lid up, do you?”

She let out a weary sigh, and stared out the window. The fight had gone out of her. The day seemed to get darker, and the rain was refusing to let up. It looked like it was nearly ten in the evening, instead of ten in the morning. “How am I going to direct you in this?”

“My trusty steed might be old, but we do have one or two modern tools.” He indicated for her to open the box department by her knees. “I have a sat-nav in there. Take it out and we’ll punch in your postcode.”

“We could just use my smartphone?”

“My sat-nav is military grade. More reliable.”

Once the gadget had been set up and attached to the dashboard, she told him the address and postcode. Settling back for the last leg of the journey, she asked, “Did you really mean what you said?”

“I’ve said a lot of things. Be specific.”

She squirmed uncomfortably. “About me being beautiful.”

“Yes... but if you’d let me finish before you started throwing up, I was going to add that for someone who has battled with the issues you have, you have a lot more to offer than just your physical appearance.”

“Thanks... Now I sound like a charity case... So, what is it you think I have to offer? Apart from these babies,” she said, cupping her breasts.

He chuckled. “You’re strong despite what you’ve been through. I find that beautiful. It takes a lot of strength for someone to release their anger. But it also takes a lot of support for someone to grow and become a better person.”

“If that’s true then Sally could lead a beauty pageant. She’s always been there for me. Always. She’s forgiven me everything.”

“That’s what friends are for. You need to start returning the favour.”

“Some things are unforgivable though.” She looked at him pointedly when he didn’t come back with a smart response. “What no clever comeback? This is your chance to make me feel guilty yet again, and you’re not taking it?” She stretched up with her hand, barely managing to reach his forehead. “Are you running a fever?”

“I made a deal with you, didn’t I?” He made a zipping motion across his lips, but she absorbed the sudden expression he wore like a physical blow. It twisted at her insides.

“So, what’s that look for?”

He shrugged his large shoulders. “Forget it.”

“No, come on. What gives?”

She regretted pushing him for an answer the minute he asked the question, “Do you have feelings for Stephen?” His brusque manner twisted her up even more. “Well?”

She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak, feeling as though they had gone back to a line they’d broached before Sally’s call. He wouldn’t let the matter drop, however.

“He’s happy with her, even if he won’t admit it. I’ve seen them together, and if they decide this is what they both want, why would you interfere?”

Rallying herself in response, she said, “I thought I recognised the type. He may think it’s what he wants, but in a few years, he’ll get restless. He’ll feel trapped. But Sally isn’t like that. She isn’t like me-”

“She sure isn’t,” he cut in.

She clenched her teeth, shoving down the sour spike of guilt that churned in her stomach as she crouched into his coat. “Or maybe I was just jealous. That he’d take away my only friend.”

Her skin burned with shame. Why had she vented like that? What he must think of her? A sad, lonely bitch no doubt. Wincing at the thought, she felt herself go even redder from her toes up. “You tell me why I did it. You’ll have a better explanation. You always seem to.”

He said nothing for a moment, then said, “It took a lot of guts to tell me that. I don’t know your reasons for doing what you did, but what matters is you know now it was wrong.”

She rolled her shoulders uneasily. “So, you’re not angry with me any more?”

“I never was...”

“Sure, I believe you. Millions wouldn’t. You never make mistakes, I suppose.”

“I’ve made more than enough. But you have a talent for making people crazy.”

“I do rub people up the wrong way,” she admitted. “Maybe that’s why I’m no good at making friends.”

“You know, you don’t have to be lonely and Stephen going out with Sally doesn’t have to mean you’ll lose your friend. He can be a good friend, if you let him.”

“Looks like I ruined any chances of that.” She looked straight ahead into the dark, wet slurry beating outside the car window. “And what about you?”

He checked the sat-nav, and turned the wheel right. “We should be there in a minute. You got the key?”

She fumbled in her pocket. “Yeah... but you didn’t answer my question.”

“Do I need to?”

“No.” Clearing her throat, she leaned back and glanced away.

The sat-nav gave a long beep to signal arrival at the keyed destination. He stopped the car, and looked directly at her. “Get under my jacket, you’re going to be soaked otherwise.”

She looked at him, dressed in just a shirt and jeans. “What about you?”

“I’ll be fine. I’m a big boy.” He peered outside. “But I don’t see the house.”

She gave a small smile. “This is just the driveway. The McMasters mansion is further up that way.” She pointed to her side of the window. “You’ll see its outline as you drive up.”

“What are those wires fences?”

“The new company have already started sectioning off the old mines. They are going to start drilling soon, if the town can’t stop them... It was on the radio.”

“Right, of course.”

As he started the Land Rover up, and they began the long drive up to the mansion, memories of finding Iain injured and unconscious dug at her senses. Had the intruder been there, too?

She tried to divert her intruding thoughts with small talk. “You must have heard of the McMasters? Even in Dundee? Mr. McMasters tried to completely disinherit Sally, but the executors went against the old man’s wishes saying he was crazy or something. They couldn’t save her losing control of his company though...” She fell quiet with an involuntary shiver, failing to stop herself from imagining some psychotic intruder stalking the grounds.

“You all right?” He shone the car’s fog headlights, white beams penetrating the prevalent Stygian gloom, made denser by the absence of street lighting. The bleak clouds hung lower.

Stop scaring yourself you idiot, she thought. “Yeah, just being silly. Damn, it’s as dark as night out there.”

His warm hand wrapped around her arm again. This time she placed her hand on his own, only releasing it when the wrought iron gates of the mansion and its imposing skyline finally came into view. She sat upright. Blue police tape lay torn on the ground. The cordon had been broken.

He responded calmly to her startled expression. “Don’t worry. The storm may have done it.”

Despite his assurances, however, a cold emptiness settled in her chest as he drove slowly through the open gates, stopping at the main entrance a few yards in. With the sound of the engine cut, the muffled rain seemed to beat louder against the metal and glass. “Give me the key. I’ll get out first,” he said. “I’ll come get you after I’ve had a look around.”

She grabbed at his hand. “No way am I staying here on my own. We go out together.”

He didn’t argue with her. He got out and walked over to open the door for her. “Get under that coat,” he said in a raised voice, “and give me your hand.”

She pulled his coat over her head, and reached out to him. He took her hand, and led her out, closing the door behind her. He began to run across the gravelled pathway to take them up to the font door, but she pulled him back.

“Not there. She closed up the main house when her dad died. They live in the old lodge next door.”

“You could have said before we got out the car.”

“You never asked! Come on, we’re getting drenched!” She took his hand and guided him down the gravelled path that led down to the garden grounds, around to a smaller, two storey building that looked like a large cottage. The downpour began to beat and trickle down the confines of the coat.

At the front door, she steadied her hand to put the key in the lock. She turned the key right until it clicked, and pushed the door open. Bounding in, she quickly took off the jacket and shook the excess water off.

“Come in and shut the door, quick! Oh, wow-” She threw a hand to her mouth when she caught a look at Kevin. He was standing in the open door frame, completely sluiced by the rain.

“Don’t you dare laugh...” he warned, stepping in and shutting the door behind him.

“I thought you were a big boy and could handle it?”

“Someone forgot to mention we’d need to take a detour down a garden the size of a football pitch to get here. We could have taken the car.”

“Yeah...” She watched in horror as he started to strip off his wet clothes. “What are you doing?”

“What do you think?”

For the first time she could remember, she felt shy with a man, and tried not to look at him, as he plucked his shirt off like a wet sheath, and undid his belt. He placed one hand against the door, and yanked his jeans off, first one leg, and then the other.

“Could you get me a towel, or do you want me to just run about to dry myself?” He stood there in the cool semi-darkness, wearing only black briefs. There was a Calvin Klein label on the waistband and a bulge below. Her gaze shot up. His bare chest had tight abs, rounded pecs, broad shoulders, and skin with a smattering of curly light brown hair that arrowed down his huge chest and kept on going.

“Towel, right,” she muttered, thinking it wise to get as far away from his perfect proportions as she could get. She switched on the hall’s lights, and made a quick dash for the stairs. As she reached the top, she heard him call out.

“Where’s the heating?”

“Switch is in the kitchen,” she called back.

She tried to get the image of him standing in his briefs out of her mind, as she quickly made her way to the bathroom for a towel. The wet look sure suited him, but she didn’t want him catching pneumonia.

On the second step, something caught her eye. Did Iain’s bedroom door just move? She must be imagining things. She stood there, instinctively wanting to call out to Kevin, but she steadied herself. There was nothing to be frightened of! If she called him, and there was nothing there, she’d never hear the end of it.

The creak came next. A creaking sound behind the bedroom door. Could it be the storm outside?

Her heart pounded in her chest and reverberated in her ears, as she clutched her hands together, breathing hard. She stayed absolutely still, listening out for more sounds.

Now the creaking was coming from behind her.

“What’s taking you so long?”

Turning around, she threw her hands up in the air, and screamed into Kevin’s surprised face. “Oh, you scared the fucking life out of me!”

“What’s wrong?”

She hugged herself. “I don’t know. Nothing. I just thought I heard a sound coming from Iain’s room. I must be imagining things.”

“Well, let's see shall we?” He walked over to the door and turned the handle. He stood her back, and pushed open the door, protectively positioning himself between her and the doorway.

Her breath was unsteady. “See anything?”

“Look for yourself,” he said, making way for her to enter. Hesitant and apprehensive, she peeked in.

The room was empty. Daisy heaved a sigh of relief. Except- Glancing around the room she noticed something that hadn’t been there before, and reaching out for the wall switch, turned on the light. What was that over there? On the far right wall. She blinked twice. Was she seeing things?

With a gasp, she pointed to the writing someone had left there. In large, red letters. As though scribbled in blood.

The dark is coming.

End of Chapter 15 | Read Chapter 16

Yours in love,

Her Bad Boy (Chapter 14)

How does a girl cope when her twin flame is the definitive bad boy? (18+ Erotica)

Chapter 13 | Chapter 14: Sally’s Secrets

“Sally, what just happened? Did I say something wrong?”

Motherhood. Just one more high wall to climb. “No... I’m OK. As OK as I can be.”

He saw much, but for reasons vague to her for the time being she wanted to hide how she felt. How talking about children and motherhood grabbed at her heart. So, she tried to feign some kind of assurance, hoping he wouldn’t see in her eyes the rising fear she was trying so desperately hard to push down. But it was like bile in her throat.

“You sure?” Stephen’s words seemed to stretch and echo inside her mind. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No. It’s just... you know.”

“Of course I do.” But he didn’t look convinced. He was right not to be.

I have so many secrets, Stephen. So many. That I want to tell you. But...

She instinctively knew they both had their share of secrets they needed to tell each other, if whatever they had between them was going to pull them through this time. Because she knew first hand how secrets kept people apart. They built walls between people. They closed in on you, so you felt you couldn’t breathe with the knowledge that you’d bricked yourself in by your own fear.

But secrets shared could also push people apart... and which secret would be the one to do that to them? She worried whether they would survive her secret fears of motherhood, how she would probably never be a mother. Then there was Daisy... And at the top of that list was Iain. Trying to get used to the idea she’d never have children, she’d focused all her motherly instincts on her brother.

She didn’t even want to think about life without Iain, and if anything happened to him now, she didn’t know if she could survive, let alone know whether a relationship with Stephen would. First her mother, then her father, but to watch helplessly as Iain fell into the same chasm of darkness would be too much... For her, Iain’s loss would be the most senseless of all.

Yet he was a responsibility Sally felt she’d no right to ask anyone else to shoulder with her, because it meant denying them a normal family life. Not even Stephen, who despite what he thought of himself, was a natural with kids. She remembered how good he’d been with her brother when she introduced them. He’d been patient and kind, taking a polite interest in Iain’s books, and on his second visit had brought with him a box full of the things. She could see he would make a great father one day, and that was something else she’d no right to deny him.

“Have I upset you, Sally?”

“Upset me? Oh, if you only knew just how much it means to me having you here.”

For many people family was what made the purpose of life good, but her parents had shown her that love was also a powerful force that could tear people apart. You don’t always get to choose who you fall in love with. Who had said that to her? Was it Molly? She wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter, because if she could choose, she knew what her choice would be. And that was the point, wasn’t it? The thing that separated them from her parents - and his?

But just as you don’t always get to choose who you love, you don’t always get to be with them, either. It was heartbreaking, but true nevertheless. She knew how much it hurt when Stephen left, and it had frightened her to discover just how little power she wielded over her feelings. Initially she’d thought the responsibility Iain had presented might have made him take up with Daisy... but she realised now how wrong she’d been.

This time, though, she needed to be certain which way the wheel turned for them, even if she had no idea where to start looking for the answer. A voice spoke from somewhere inside. Love is the answer. She could almost hear Molly’s voice saying the words. Of course, it had been Molly. You don’t always get to choose who you fall in love with. Or maybe she had made that choice a long time ago.

She felt she knew better than most how real love could take a long time to come around. You never knew where love would strike, so you had to be open to it at all times, and not let it slip away - but how could you know it was the real thing, when you had nothing to compare it to? It seemed cruel. Life was short, but the chance at love seemed even shorter.

In her mind, the search for real love, identified with ideals like passion and truth, had just been stories in the books she’d read. In those pages, it was worth taking a risk in love, to follow your heart, she thought, because there was nothing to lose. In the real world, though, there were huge plot holes you could fall into.

And there was her baby Iain, lying so still in the heart of all her indecision. She wouldn’t be able to think straight until she saw him out of that hospital bed. She was trying her best to put on a strong front, because it was expected of her. It’s what a McMasters would do. But moreover, she knew that screaming and crying wasn’t going to help her brother. Not now.

“Your brother is one tough cookie. He is going to get through this.”

“When I hear you say that, I just about believe it.”

He moved closer to her. “Believe it.”

They stared at each other, and she felt the full force of their magnetism speak. Still undefined between them in any term other than sexual attraction, it had the power to close the space their secrets threatened to push between them. All Stephen had to do was look at her and her doubt would dissolve. She sensed that he was part of something eternal in her, like the stars were to the sky. The imagery brought their heated moments at the fairground to her mind.

She blushed red, tried to look away, but he directed her gaze back to him. He raised a finger to her lips, and his touch gave her a heady thrill, skittering across her skin, as he softly traced a line down the side of her cheek. “We take it slow. OK?”

“How slow?” Her blood clamoured at the knowing edge to his voice. Her brother was lying right next to them, but he could have taken her there and then if he wanted. This was hunger of a different kind. “You know those things we did. You were my first.”

“It showed.” He planted a gentle kiss on her forehead. “So we go as slow as it needs to be. OK?”

Her colour deepened, as his finger traversed further down her body. “OK. I hear you. Slow.”

Cheek to cheek now, his lips barely touched the lobe of her ear as he spoke, but his breath stoked the fires raging below. “You know, there was a time I’d have just fucked you here. But now... you’re a bad influence, Miss. McMasters. You’re a mystery to me...”

“Is that why you chatted me up? You wanted a challenge?” she asked, her voice cut down to whispers. “Is that how you saw me?”

“No, but I bet guys round here peg you down as the spoilt brat of a rich father. Couldn’t be further from the truth. Good thing then I’m not from around here. I just saw you. But it was like you’d put a distance between you and the world... And what did you think of me? A bit of rough to smooth your lonely nights over with? A wild beast to tame?”

“I saw the real you inside.”

“And it didn’t frighten you?”

“No. Like you, I wanted to touch what no one else could...”

“You’re braver than me, then.” He pulled her to him. There was still a conversation going on, but now it was a conversation of body language and facial expressions, and all she could see was the way she was reflected in his eyes.

“Stephen... I-”

Before she could get the words out, they were interrupted by a quiet knocking from behind the door. The swing of mood suddenly reversed, they pulled away as the door opened, and a new duty nurse Sally hadn’t seen before walked noiselessly in. The nurse raised her eyebrows at the scene in front of her with more than a modicum of surprise.

“I’ve just come on my shift and I thought I’d let you know the doctor will be in shortly, Miss. McMasters.”

“Thank you,” Sally said, standing up and brushing herself down. “Does he know I’m here?”

“Yes, he does.” The nurse stared pointedly at Stephen, still seated on the floor. “That is very unhygienic young man, and you really shouldn’t be in here you know. Visiting hours are not until ten, and this is a restricted area for family visits only. Are you family, may I ask?”

Stephen began to make his apologies, but Sally intervened. “He is family,” she said firmly. As she spoke, she caught him glancing at her, and it was a look that scattered her fears far into the shadows. For now, at least, she thought. She couldn’t say for any certainty whether love was a cosmic truth, but staring back into his honey coloured eyes just then, she needed to be blind to doubt what she had seen in them.

What passed between Sally and Stephen went unnoticed by the nurse, who walked over to the bed, and satisfied nothing was amiss on the instrument read-outs, gave a quick shrug of her shoulders. “Well, not much longer, then. Please make sure you’re gone before the doctor arrives.”

“The doctor is our family physician and friend. He won’t be any trouble.”

“Who me or the doctor?” Stephen asked with a grin, jumping to his feet. It was infectious, and the nurse found herself smiling with him. He picked up an unopened tea cake from one of the boxes and presented it to her, as she made her way to the door. “A peace offering.”

She accepted it graciously. “Thank you.”

“I should thank you for being so understanding. Here, let me,” he said, opening the door for her.

“I’m glad chivalry is still alive and well. There’s not many left like you, young man.”

Stephen winked. “What else are we good for?”

“He’s a keeper,” she said to Sally, before taking her leave.

He closed the door behind her, and they were left alone. Eyes darkened with concern, he dropped the joking demeanour she knew had been for the nurse’s benefit. “If your doctor doesn’t come soon, I’ll go looking for him. Isn’t he semi-retired? What’s taking him so long?”

“Now, how on earth do you know that?”

Stephen told her about his conversation with Tony. She said, “That’s just one of his many secret visits. The official line is he’s retiring, but it’s just to give him more spare time to help those really in need. If he isn’t here yet, it’s because there’s someone more in need than us. I’m sure he’ll be here as soon as he can...” Conversely, the doctor’s absence had been one of the thin threads of hope she’d been holding on to, but it sounded as though she were trying to reassure herself more than Stephen. “To be honest, it makes me feel better he hasn’t rushed over. I’m hoping on hope it means he thinks Iain is going to be OK.”

Looking unconvinced, he said, “Whatever the reason, he should be here now.”

“If he thought his condition was really serious he’d have spent the night here himself,” she said, adding as way of explanation, “Dr. Merryweather has been like a father to both of us.”

“I have to say I’m kind of envious of this doctor of yours.” He walked over to her, and took her in his arms. Her heart began to beat in her ears, louder than the torrent of rain raging outside the window. “He must be a very special guy if he can get your eyes to look like that. Should I be jealous?”

“The man’s been happily married for nigh on forty years. I think his wife would have something to say about that, don’t you?” Wanting to keep herself busy, she forced herself out of his embrace. Before I start seeing stars again, she said to her herself, and began picking up the food boxes from the floor, transferring them to a bin in the corner of the room. “And you said yourself Iain is one tough cookie, though I don’t know who he takes after.”

He looked at her. “I do.”

She sensed him staring at her, and deflected his gaze behind a crumpled piece of greasy cardboard. “Oh yeah. Regular Rocky Balboa, that’s me... You hardly ate anything.”

“Neither did you.” He made a move for Molly’s flask, unscrewed the cap and poured himself another pitcher of coffee. Cup in hand, he walked over to the window, and looked out at the rain hammering at the window.

She suddenly sensed one of those walls lift up between them, and she wanted to knock it down. Secrets. Secrets everywhere. By the slant of his neck, she could almost imagine the muscles in his back tightening. He was reliving some time in his past that she was still locked out from.

He took a gulp of his coffee, then raised the pitcher to the framed sunlight. “Is there anything stronger than coffee in this? Makes you feel like you can say anything.”

“If it gets you to talk, I’ll ask Molly to patent her coffee.”

“Ha-ha.”

“I’m serious.” The coffee never seems to run out or go cold, she found herself thinking. Maybe it’s not even the drink, but what the drink is in.

She inspected the flask, wondering not for the first time where she had seen one like it before. It was as mysterious as the owner. It seemed to be some type of super container, and it hadn’t gone unnoticed by her that the coffee always stayed the perfect temperature to drink, tasted delicious, and never ran out. It was the drink that kept on giving, that was for sure.

“It’s better than the vending machine slop she brought me, at any rate. But it sure makes me want to talk.”

“So talk. Tell me about Afghanistan,” she said, clearing away the last of the boxes. Take my mind off my fears. Off the sounds of the beeping and hissing that makes me want to cry. Take my mind off the waiting, even though I want to wait. I want it to take forever for Dr. Merryweather to come through the door. Because I’m afraid of what he might say. Because he may also have stayed away thinking there’s no hope for my brother. Nothing more he could do...

Sally was about to say something, when Stephen spoke up as though he’d heard her plea. “You know the army is the only real family I’ve ever had. My father was married to the army, sometimes I think I joined to try and finally make him see me...”

He hitched his shoulders in a tense little shrug that echoed through her. “But getting recruited was an improvement on home. Shit, the army was my home. No other home, there never was, not much at least. My mother died when I was born, so I never knew her, but her death gave my father the excuse he needed to beat me with it every chance he could get. And he beat me into the man you see now.”

His voice sounded hollow, and his words seemed to hollow out her insides, too. “Problem is, Sally, it’s our family that instructs us, tell us who we are and how we should be. Without that, we find it hard to make sense of ourselves, what we want, what is right. The army did that for me, and then it sent me to war...”

He stopped for a moment, lost in a previous time, and a sudden silence fell, punctuated only by the sound of raindrops. It was a silence loaded with his torment, and as she waited patiently for him to speak, not wanting to obstruct his flow of thoughts, his pain cut into her skin as though it were made of paper.

“You know, it’s funny how developed countries have no horizon... You ever noticed that? Look out of a window here and all you see are things getting in the way. In Afghanistan all you see is the horizon. Over there you feel you should be able to breathe more under all that sky, but it’s not the horizon, just you that’s stuck in a box.” He turned around and his gaze fixed on hers, so serious and earnest that her heart stilled in her chest. “Then you get sent home in one, or walk around in one for the rest of your life.”

“You were strong enough to walk away from it,” she replied with sincerity.

“Strong? I didn’t feel strong, I felt a coward. I’d deserted my family.” He took a slow sip from the pitcher, before saying in a thickened voice, “I’m damaged goods, baby. I left a war behind, only to find out it hasn’t left me. I’m still fighting it, and I don’t want you to get hurt. I’ve killed too many already. There’s a long line of casualties behind me.”

She’d never heard him sound so vulnerable. He doesn’t talk like he’s scared, but that’s what his act is about. It’s just that he’s scared. She never realised that he could be scared. When people grew up they learned not to show when they were scared, and she guessed Stephen’s military training helped him to do that more than most. But everyone got scared at one time or another.

That’s where he is right now, he’s scared he’s not going to be do right by you. By anyone. She didn’t know where that piece of wisdom had come from suddenly, but the realisation that he was scared moved her. She imagined him as a young boy, with no mother, and a strict father, and her heart went out to him.

It was as though she had in that instant discovered how his peripatetic military childhood had helped to shape him. He had no idea of family, and neither, if she were honest, had she. The failings of their parents, their insecurities... there was a lot that was similar about them, she thought. She knew exactly what family life did to you and there was no need to empathise. As he stood there, she became him. She was him.

He said, “You never believed that bullshit line I fed you about leaving to fight for world peace, did you?”

“I thought you were making fun of me.”

“I thought it would be what a woman would want to hear.”

“All a woman ever wants to hear is the truth, Stephen. You have such a way with the ladies, I’m surprised you don’t know that. You don’t need to impress me, or frighten me off with lies.”

“I’ve never wanted to lie to you, but are you so sure the truth is something a woman shouldn’t be protected from? The truth isn’t pretty. Especially ones in Afghanistan. You don’t want to know about that, and it’s a subject I’ve no business talking about with anyone.”

“You can’t leave it all blocked inside. You have to talk to someone about what happened to you out there. About how you feel. I want you to know, when you’re ready, you can tell me. I won’t judge you.”

He turned around and looked at her again, and his eyes were the darkest she had ever seen them. Deep, unfathomable, unreadable. Another brick in the wall. “No one can judge me as harshly as I judge myself,” he said. “Things happen in war. You do what you have to do. Then you live with it.”

“You don’t have to live with it alone.”

“Sometimes alone is better, it narrows the risk down to one. The truth is I’m a fuck up, Sally. I make a mess of things.” he said.

“Whatever you think you’ve done, or how bad it was, I won’t believe there wasn’t a good reason.”

His eyes lightened a shade. “You so sure of that? So sure I’m not a monster?”

I couldn’t love a monster. “Open up to me. That’s all I’ve ever wanted you to do.”

“That’s all, she says... before I met you I didn’t- I don’t do feelings. Opening up gets you killed where I come from.”

“And not opening up can kill you, too, inside. Don’t keep it all bottled up. Talk to someone. If not me, then Kevin. Or anyone. I would rather it was me... I know I’m not a great substitute for someone who was there, but I can listen.”

“I’ll make you this promise. If- No, when we get through this, and Iain is out of this bed, then we can bare our souls as much as you like.” He dug his hand in his pocket. “Besides, you have your own fair share of secrets.”

“You’re right I do. But some aren’t mine. Some were forced on me.”

“Like Daisy?”

“My responsibility to Daisy is part of it. But her secret isn’t mine to tell.” She sighed. Another legacy from the great Paul McMasters left for her to deal with. “Not until I find the right time to tell her first. Daisy has a right to know before anyone else. But I’ll hold you to your promise, Stephen Granger.”

“And I’ll see that you do, Miss McMasters. Maybe I should have done that in the first place to get you to quit me.”

Realising what he had just said, he tried to backtrack, but she stopped him. “Just don’t do anything like that again. I recovered once, but I’m not sure I could do it a second time and still live to be your friend. And that’s what we have to do. Get to know each other. And I mean really know each other. Become friends first, lovers second.”

“The right way round this time?”

She nodded, taking hold of Iain’s hand. “We’ve all done things we’re ashamed of, but if we keep secrets we’ll always be strangers, and we need to be friends, Stephen. We never gave ourselves a chance to be friends. We need to take a risk with our secrets. Be honest with each other.” Deep, lasting relationships grew out of friendship and mutual respect. No good loving someone if you didn't take the time to get to know them. Worse, maybe that was what tore you apart.

“You want honest? Right then.” He drank the coffee in one go, as if summoning up the courage to speak. Gripping the pitcher to his chest, he gave the impression he was about to give a pledge. A drunken one, at that.

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Do you mind? I am trying to say something to you here.” He placed the pitcher on the bedside table, and took hold of Iain’s other hand. “I want your help with this sister of yours, OK?”

With his free hand he reached out to her, and they bridged hands across the bed. “I promise to share my soggy bacon with you.”

“Thanks... I think.”

“That’s not all. I’ll open every door for you.”

“For me and all the nurses in the world? I’m honoured, but unnecessary.”

He ignored her quip. “But most of all, I promise I’ll always want to wake up next to you.”

That caught her breath. She was lost for words.

“And however far away I am, I will always wake up next to you.”

Alight with emotion, their eyes seemed to set fire to the room. The rain died down. Bright sunlight followed, filtering its peach haze through the window blinds, filling out the shadows. The glow of the room enveloped them; three linked in a circle standing in the silence and the growing light.

Like moonlight, she thought. But why does it make me think of Molly?

In that moment, a gentle tremor fluttered in the palm of her hand. She thought she was trembling at first, but looking down she saw it was Iain, moving his hand in hers.

Do that again!

Fighting back her tears, she stared into her brother’s face, coloured by the same burning light of the room, not daring to hope. For some reason she thought of Molly again, as his eyelids flickered the tiniest sign of life.

And when the Moon burns, miracles happen.

“Iain, baby. It’s Sally. I’m here, sweetheart. Open your eyes! Please open them!”

And slowly, he did.

End of Chapter 14 | Read Chapter 15

Yours in love,