Fortitude (Heart of Stone) (15 page)

“All the time, Rebecca. All the bloody time.”

“Well, I rest
my
case then.”

“You know when I get out of here,” I growled across the
room at her. “I am so giving you my middle finger on my way out.”

She sneered at me as she tried her bonds once more,
struggling with them, her body and arms yanking at them furiously.

“You’ll either burn the skin on your wrists doing that,
or you’ll pull a muscle in your arm.”

“Go to hell.”

“Right now, that is such a better option.” I retorted
with a snarl.

“My God,” she screeched. “I’m gonna go mad if I have to
spend my last breaths in the same room as you.”

“I can make that a lot quicker for you if you wish.”

She sighed then pouted childishly as she gave in and
relaxed again. “I should have finished you years ago,” she declared.

I started chuckling at that thought, which then turned to
laughter and then full on hysterics. My belly hurt at the humour with her announcement.
“Finish me years ago…” I sniggered, “That is the funniest shit I’ve heard in
years.”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “You’ve finally
gone mad.”

I nodded to her, “I think I may have. I’m actually
laughing at one of your jokes.”

“Oh just fuck off Ava.”

I laughed harder. I couldn’t help it, I think I had gone
slightly mad. The thought of spending any more time with the bitch had sent me
crazy, giving me something other than horror to focus on.

We both froze when the door opened and a tall light
haired man stood in the doorway. I didn’t have chance to engrain his features
to memory before I spotted the syringe he held in each hand.

“Oh no.” I said as I scurried backwards in a wasted
effort to draw myself away from him.

Rebecca started to cry again, her high pitched wails
hurting my ear drums before the guy put me out of my misery and sent me to
oblivion with some shit he injected into my veins.

“You okay?” Layla asked as she deposited a cup of coffee
beside me. I turned to look at her. Her face was pale, her eyes dull and sad as
she gave me a sombre smile. She sighed heavily when I shrugged.

“I’m not sure really,” I told her honestly. Most of me
was going slightly crazy, a burning inside that I couldn’t douse as the fear
crippled me. She fiddled with my hair as was usual for my best friend, her
fingers trying to tame the wild few strands that obstinately fell the opposite
way to the rest of my hair. “I’m scared shitless. I’m terrified for both her
and Bec, Bec more so cos’ if I know Ava, it will be her that kills her before
their captors do.” Layla smiled and flicked her eyebrows in agreement. “But
then there’s this part of my heart that knows Ava will survive this.” I
swallowed and grabbed Layla’s hand, holding on tightly to her. “Is that wrong?”

“Is what wrong?” She asked as her pretty face gazed at me
in confusion.

“That I’m not as worried as I should be.”

She exhaled heavily and sighed noisily. “Nope. If anyone
knows how Ava will be handling this, it’s you. She’s resilient and tough and
although it’s awful to say, she’s been through worse than a couple of people
locking her up.”

“With Rebecca” I added with a smirk.

“Ah,” Layla chuckled. “Yes, that in itself may be
trouble.”

“So no joy with Etta?” she stated as she plonked on the
sofa beside me.

“Nope, she seems to have disappeared along with Ava.”

“Are you sure it’s her?”

I shrugged. I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t ever sure who in
cases like this but I always relied on my instinct and it had usually never
been far wrong. “Nothing else springs to mind. She’s angry, I get that, George
is trying to take away her life, Ava and I ruined her life to start with…”

“You didn’t ruin her life, her parents did that all by
themselves when they started trafficking girls and picked on the wrong people.”

“Yeah. Me.” I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair.
“Do you think life will ever settle down?”

She patted my cheek as she lifted herself up, “You are
Mason Fox and you wouldn’t have it any other way.” She winked when I chuckled
then left the room as Debora walked in.

“Hey,” I smiled at her. She looked exhausted, her thick
brown hair limp, her skin washed-out and full of blemishes, her lips sore from
where she had chewed on them frantically.

I stilled when she sat next to me, lifted my arm and
snuggled into me, her arms curling around me as she sought comfort. “He won’t
talk to me, Mr Fox.”

“George? And please call me Mason, Debora, I’ve told you
before.”

She nodded and sighed as we both stared through the
window. “I’ve told him that he can do things properly, you know through the
courts and that to gain access to Jamie the proper way instead of just whipping
him from under Etta, but he says that’s not enough, he wants full custody.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

“It’s not that, I don’t mind bringing him up with George
but I don’t think it’s right the way he’s doing it. It’s not fair on Etta, and
it’s certainly not fair on Jamie, he needs his mum… we all need our mum’s.”

I gave her a squeeze and kissed the top of her hair. The
poor girl had had an awful upbringing, shipped from uncle to uncle, fighting
for her mother’s attention. In some ways I wished that I had been her dad,
maybe I could have given her more of a stable childhood but it hadn’t been… it
never had.

“Do you…” she gulped heavily as tears choked her throat.
“Do you think she’ll come back?”

I closed my eyes as her distress burrowed deep within me,
her despair now mine. “I don’t know, Debora. I can’t lie to you and say that
she will because I don’t know.” I held her tighter, “But I can tell you that
Ava will do her all to get them out of there alive.”

“Yeah?” she scoffed. “Even my mother?”

I smiled secretly. “Even your mother.”

“God, I need to wee.”

“Good luck with that.” Rebecca huffed as she wriggled on
her own backside. “I’ve needed one for the last few hours. But the bastards
have just left us here to rot… and piss ourselves.”

I sighed, “Well you’d think they’d appreciate we’re
women.”

“Do you always have to be so sarcastic?”

I rolled my eyes as I shifted position and tried to
alleviate the pressure on my bladder. “Whatever, Rebecca. I’m too tired to
fight with you.”

“Well, wonders never cease. You always want to fight with
me; the chemo must have shrivelled your bitchiness.”

“Fuck you, you heartless bitch.”

“Ooh,” she murmured as she smirked at me. “Have I hit a
nerve? By the way, loving the new hairstyle.”

I blew out a slow breath, wondering if my death could be
any more torturous than this shit. She tipped her head and studied me with a
slight incline to her eyebrows. “What?” I asked with an irritated sigh.

“It’s blonde.”

I nodded and shrugged. “Yeah, new growth, completely new
colour and texture.”

She pursed her lips and nodded faintly, “Well, it suits
you.”

“Eh?”

“Your hair,” she gestured to my head with a tilt of her
chin, “I like the colour. It’s kind of a really light copper blush, but with
blonde streaks. It might be something I’d consider doing to mine.”

“What?”

She squinted at me. “My God, are you always this stupid?
I – like – your – hair. It gives you a pixie appearance too. Makes your chin
more prominent and defines your cheekbones.”

For Christ’s sake.

“Right.”

She shifted again as her toilet needs began causing her
problems. “Ava, I’m just gonna wee in a minute.”

“Go for it,” I sighed. “I’m sure we’ll be here long
enough for it to dry out.”

“Oh don’t say that,” she whimpered.

I shrugged and rested the back of my head on the metal
support behind me, closing my eyes to try and gain some concentration. We’d
been there ages and the only person we’d seen was the guy that put us to sleep.
It wasn’t making sense.

“I’m scared.”

I opened an eye and peered at Rebecca. Her eyes were full
of fear, tears rimming over and spilling down her cheeks as she looked at me. I
nodded; it was all I could do. “I know.”

“Are you?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah,” I answered with a nod. “Yeah, I am. I can’t seem
to get a hint at anything.”

“A hint?” she asked as her gaze roamed the room.

“Yeah, something that will help me understand the
situation, why we’re here and who is doing this.”

She nodded then groaned as she shifted again. “If I ask
who you’ve upset you’ll take it the wrong way.”

I scoffed but nodded, “Yeah, that’s a possibility.”

She huffed and smiled to herself. “I’d say it’s a given.
If you weren’t here with me I’d have said it was you doing it to me, but you
are so that’s out.”

“Well done, Miss Marple.”

She glared at me but then something miraculous happened… her
lips twitched and she smiled at me. Fuck, life was all wrong. Everything was
upside down and inside out. I didn’t like it. It made me nervous and wary.
“Don’t smile at me Rebecca, it makes me nervous.”

“Oh fuck you!”

“No thanks.” I retorted.

“No, same here. Why would I want you when I can fuck your
husband?”

I clenched my teeth as nausea rolled up my throat and
attempted to make an appearance. My stomach twisted with jealousy as her hatred
speared my chest and made it difficult to breathe through.

I tried to ignore her as I pulled my legs up and turned
my back on her as far as I could but the vision of her words assaulted my mind
and all I could visualise was her and Mason, fucking and even worse… enjoying
it.

***

“You know,” Rebecca whispered into the darkness that had
descended into the room, bringing a chill into the air with it.

We’d been silent for a long while, both of us imagining
how to kill the other as our hatred lay thick in the atmosphere around us.

“I have far more reason to hate you than you me.”

I shook my head in bewilderment. “And how do you work
that out?”

She hesitated and I swear I could feel her sadness eat at
me. It radiated from her, even in the darkness, even through the chill, its
potency thick and rancid as she struggled to find her voice. “Because although
you believe I took him from you,” she choked on a sob and I winced at the
sound. “You took him from me, Ava.”

I turned to look at her. She was watching me in the dim
light from the moon as it streaked into the room and gave off a faint glow. I
remained silent, waiting for her to continue. Her eyes slid to the window, “Six
years we’d been together.” She smiled painfully, although not at me, her throat
bobbing as she tried to swallow back the lump in it.

I rolled my head around my neck as I tried to ease the
tension and dropped my eyes from her. “We’d been friends for years. I’d had
such a crush on him since I was twelve.” She chuckled slightly and smiled
wider. “Our families were friends and would always holiday together. I remember
one year,” she paused and I turned to look at her. She didn’t return my look;
her eyes were still fixed on the moon as she lost herself to her memories. “He
took me fishing. He’d have been, what? I was fifteen... So he must have been
around seventeen.”

Her expression lightened and she giggled. “He’d caught
this tiddly little fish, I mean it was so weak and weeny but it seemed to beg
with its large, round eyes for me to help it, free it. So I unhooked it and
threw it back in.” She shook her head in humour. “Mason threw me in after it,
said if I couldn’t catch any with a rod I should use my teeth.” She slipped her
face to mine, “He used to call me a horse.”

I smiled and nodded. “Yeah, I can see that.”

She narrowed her eyes on me and sighed but carried on.
“And then on my seventeenth birthday, he kissed me… and I fell in love.” A tear
rolled down her face and I watched it slide off her chin and drop onto her
cream silk shirt, the drop splattering against the dirt that now spoiled the
pristine material.

She smiled then looked at me. “It was my first ever kiss
and…” she swallowed and shrugged, “… and it was perfect.”

“Rebecca…”

“No,” she cut me off quietly. “I’m not telling you this
to hurt you. I just want you to… well to understand.”

“Why?”

Her teeth pulled at her bottom lip and a sob made its way
out of her. God damn, that was not my heart aching, no it was hatred burning
up. “Because I’m tired, Ava. I’m tired of fighting for something… someone that
was never really mine, but God, I so wanted him to be.”

I sighed and looked to the floor, her heartache hurtful
to watch. “Have you ever wanted something so bad that you would kill for it,
Ava? You would humiliate yourself, degrade yourself and do some… shameful
things just for the slightest bit of attention from someone who held your
heart.”

I nodded, “Yeah, I get that.”

She nodded and smiled tightly. “But then you always had
him. You never had to fight like I did, you never took his disgust. You never
had to take the humiliation of grabbing onto the scraps he threw you.”

“If that’s the case, why didn’t you let go?”

She scoffed and shook her head as her cries became
louder. “Because I love him, Ava. I’ve always loved him. I turned to coke
because of him. I let him take whatever he wanted from me. I let him share me
with other men and all I wanted…”

I growled as a tear rolled down my face and wiped it away
with a lift of my shoulder. “All you wanted?” I urged her on.

She stared at the floor whilst she tried to control
herself, blowing out lengthily until she had her weeping under control. “All I
ever wanted was to hear him say I was beautiful, to whisper in my ear that he
loved me.”