Wild (5 page)

Well. Thank God he’d been there, anyway. She might be dead in a gutter somewhere without him.

five

L
IZZIE DIDN’T BREAK
up with Harris that afternoon. By the time she got home, the hospital painkillers had worn off; leaving a dull ache lingering in her chest and cheek, and all she had the energy for was a bath. After that she planned to curl up in bed and sleep for a few days.

Harris trailed her to the bathroom, an unlit spliff in his mouth. “So how many wolves attacked you, Lizzie?” he mocked. “Want to post it on the Wolf Watch forums? They give away prizes for this kind of thing, you know.”

“Leave it, you arse,” she said, sitting on the edge of the tub and turning the hot tap.

“Oh, come on, lighten up, will you? I’m just having a laugh.”

“Harris, I could have died! Why are you being such a dick?” Frustrated tears bloomed in her eyes and she scrubbed them away angrily. Couldn’t he at least pretend to give a damn? Nick didn’t know her from Adam, and he’d taken her to hospital. “And you stole my fucking car.”

“Lizzie, you weren’t dying. That prick doctor said the wounds were mostly superficial.” Harris sat down cross-legged in the bathroom door. “Look, I know you got hurt and I’m sorry I took the car, but you’re okay, aren’t you?”

“Whatever.” She reached for the bottle of lavender bath salts on the windowsill and poured a healthy dose into the steaming water. “I could do with a little less shit and a little more sympathy, that’s all.” You’re supposed to be dumping him, she reminded herself, not checking whether or not he still loves you.

But she couldn’t pretend it didn’t hurt that he didn’t seem to care. They’d been together over a year. She’d sacrificed a hell of a lot to be with him, abandoned her studies and fallen out with her family. He should care. He should be devastated that she’d been hurt, superficial wounds or not.

And superficial my arse, Doctor Donahue. She’d been dying last night, she was sure of it.

“Oh Lizzie, of course I care!” Harris shot to his feet and went to embrace her, pulling her up into a hug that made her sides twinge in pain. “You’re my girl, right? I care. But you’re okay. It’s not like it was serious or anything.”

She pulled away from him, massaging her ribs. “You should go see Vic,” she murmured, stripping off her socks and jeans. “I told him you’d stop by today to pay for the meth.”

“You what?” Just like that, anger clouded Harris’s face, turning his sky blue eyes stormy and dark. “I thought you paid for it last night?”

“I told you on the way there I didn’t have any cash on me! I promised him we’d pay today.”

‘You stupid cow! I can’t afford to pay him for that lot and buy more! What are we supposed to do now? I need a hit! I’m supposed to be at the Job Centre this afternoon, you know I need a hit after that.”

“I don’t give a toss, Harris, to be honest.” She slowly pulled off her sweater, careful not to rip the bandages round her ribs. Feeling spiteful, she added, “maybe Vic will take a blow job as payment.”

He glared at her, hands bunched into fists. For a second she thought he was going to hit her and she tensed, preparing herself for the blow. But he didn’t strike; he just stomped from the bathroom, swearing under his breath. Lizzie quickly slammed the door and locked it, listening to the sound of plates smashing as he took out his rage on the crockery downstairs.

She stripped off her underwear and examined herself in the dusty full-length mirror on the back of the door. She was bruised and scratched all over, but they looked like old wounds already, faded and healing. Even the violent purple bruise from her and Harris’s last fight was faded now. She frowned, poking the bruise and feeling nothing.

Cautiously, she peeled the bandage from her cheek to reveal three long red welts underneath. Last night they’d been wide open, skin sliced and split. Today they looked like old marks, like the bruises. Another day or so and they’d be nothing but thin white scars, probably invisible with the right make-up.

That couldn’t be right, could it? There’d been blood everywhere. All over her. She remembered it, sticky and hard in her hair and on her face. She examined her hands, remembering how she’d scraped them several times on the pavement. There was barely a scratch to be found on her palms. Had the doctors given her something to speed up the healing? Could you even do that?

She slowly unwrapped her ribs, hands shaking as she remembered the gaping wound that had been there last night. It had been black with blood, a mess of raw meat and shredded skin. Taking a deep breath, she pulled off the last of the wrappings.

The wound still looked bad. She’d had stitches, she noted, running her fingers over them. Nick had said she’d need stitches, she remembered him saying that. Had he checked her wounds out? She didn’t think so. The injury didn’t look as bad as she remembered. Nowhere near. Nothing like the result of an attack by a wild animal.

Puzzled, she lowered herself into the hot water, sighing with relish as it lapped over her aching limbs. Had she just imagined how bad her injuries were? A hallucination caused by shock? Or meth? It wasn’t impossible, she guessed, but she was so sure it had been worse. She couldn’t have been that out of it – Vic hadn’t given them enough for that.

Even as she thought it, her head throbbed and burned, and she found herself craving a line or a pill or a smoke, something to take the pain away. Maybe she would put off breaking up with Harris, just for a few days. Just until she was properly recovered and had figured out where to go. She couldn’t kick him out of here – it was his place. And she didn’t have anyone else. Her family was in London and her friends… her friends were all users. Or dead.

Lizzie sank under the water, running her fingers through her hair. Her dark curls were matted and sticky from rain and blood. She shampooed twice to be sure she’d washed it all out.

She emerged from the water in time to hear the front door slam. Harris on his way to Vic’s, hopefully. Another sharp knot of pain unfurled in her head and she prayed he’d come home with something to take the edge off her cravings.

She was just starting to doze off in the cooling water when the phone rang in the lounge, startling her awake. She jolted upright, sending water sloshing over the edge of the tub, and hopped out of the bath. Wrapping a towel around herself, she rushed downstairs to the phone. “Hello?”

“Hey, kid.” Her older brother’s voice was lazy and soothing, and it unknotted some of the tension in her. “How’s it going?”

She sank to the carpet, picking at a few crumbs lodged in the weave. God this place was a tip. “Fine. I’m fine,” she said, surprised to find it was true. Apart from the occasional shiver of pain, she felt great. Hardly even aching anymore. Strong, almost. “How are you?”

They hadn’t spoken in months – what prompted this call? Was she due another lecture on the evils of drugs already? Didn’t seem fair.

“Yeah, I’m good. Mum is too, in case you were wondering.”

She grimaced. Her mother was even worse than Piers. They’d done the whole “I have no daughter” routine last Christmas after her mum found Harris snorting coke in the bathroom. “Great.”

“Listen, I’ve got some news,” Piers continued, ignoring her lack of familial warmth. “Me and Bernie… well, we’re pregnant. We’re having a baby.”

“I know what being pregnant means, Piers.”

He rolled over her again, as if her responses weren’t really that important. “We’re really excited – everyone is, it’s a big deal, and I thought this might be the time to bury the hatchet, Lizzie.”

“God, Piers –”

“You could come home,” he said. “Leave that waster and come home. Start over. You’ve got no reason to stay there, have you? You’re not working, you’re not studying, you’re just…”

“Getting high,” she finished for him. She tried to keep the bitterness from her voice. He was right after all, wasn’t he? She was pissing her life away up here, and for what? Harris? Fuck that. Maybe moving back to London was the best thing. A clean break. A fresh start.

She rubbed her temples. A stinging headache was forming behind her eyes. “I’ve got to go, Piers.” Then, before he could admonish her for avoiding the issue, as he was bound to, she added, “I’m leaving Harris. Soon. This week. Maybe… Maybe I’ll come and stay with you for a bit, if that’s okay?”

It was his turn to sigh heavily, relieved. “Oh Lizzie, thank God. It’s about bloody time. Of course you can stay with us.”

His instant agreement sent a warm glow through her. “I’ll talk to you soon, Piers.”

“Take care, kid.”

She placed the phone back in its cradle and leaned back against the worn green velvet couch. Like the rest of the furniture in the house, it had seen better days – though probably not many – and it clashed horribly with the peachy walls and rusty red-brown carpet. She hated all the furniture in this room, but when would she or Harris ever have the money to replace it? All their benefits went on bills, food, and drugs. And their ever-mounting drug debts.

Wrapping her towel more securely around herself, she began finger-combing her curls, trying to ignore the headache. Harris would be back with something soon and she could chase away the pain then. She had her own secret stash of pills, but if she took one now, he’d know when he got back and that would just start a fight she didn’t have the energy for.

Feeling lethargic and heavy, she trudged to the bedroom and threw on a worn pair of black jeans and a purple v-neck sweater. As she dressed, she examined herself once more in the mirrored wardrobe doors. It was incredible really, how quickly she’d healed. Maybe she
had
imagined the severity of the wounds.

Except … she’d barely been high. And there was this nagging feeling of wrongness about that idea. She couldn’t figure it out, but it was there. A little pulse in the back of her throbbing head.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Everything was wrong.

six

S
HE PACED THE
living room, trying to walk off her anxiety, talk herself out of it. Superficial wounds, Donahue had said. They wouldn’t have let her walk out of hospital if she’d really been on the verge of death. And Nick had been so calm when he found her, as if he dealt with this sort of thing all the time.

Well. Maybe he did. What did she know about him, after all, except that he abandoned people to die in nightclub toilets.

She hugged herself, shivering. I need some pills. I need to get out of here.

Her secret stash beckoned again. She ran up to the bedroom and opened her jewellery box. It was ancient, the moon and stars pattern faded off the outside and the blue velvet inside rubbed thin over the years. The top tray lifted out to reveal a second compartment where, amongst a tangle of necklaces she never wore, she kept a small bag of pills and enough weed for a couple of joints.

Harris didn’t know about it, of course. He’d go ballistic if he knew she was keeping drugs from him, especially times like now when they didn’t have the money for much. But she needed this secret. Not just because she needed the drugs – although she did – but because it felt like she had some power over him. Something he couldn’t touch or control.

Fuck it. She took a pill, too desperate to wait for him any longer. She’d just lie if he asked, say the doctor had given her a few painkillers before she left the hospital.

Waiting for the pill to kick in, she wandered out to the street, a vague idea of driving away in her head. Just get in the Mazda and drive into the gathering dusk. No direction, no plan, just drive away from everything.

The street was quiet, lights glowing under curtains in the neighbouring houses. The car stood under a streetlamp at the edge of the pavement, yellow paint gleaming in the pool of white light. The space beside it, where Harris’s bike usually stood, was empty. Lizzie was seized again by the desire to leave. Get out before he returned. She stood trembling in the harsh light, skin tingling with the thought of it. Leave Harris. Just get in the car and drive.

A dog howled somewhere nearby, sending her heart jackhammering around her chest. Panic gripped her, a pair of glowing red eyes hovering in her mind’s eye. Her chest ached, as if her body remembered the crushing pain of the wolf on top of her.

The rumbling rev of a motorcycle engine broke through the flashback. She looked up, only to be blinded by the flash of headlights as Harris’s bike pulled into the space in front of the Mazda. “Alright babe,” he greeted her once he’d pulled off his helmet. “What are you doing out here?”

“I wanted to clean the car,” she muttered, barely aware of her answer. He smelt of engine oil and beer, a rank combination.

“In the dark?” He ran a hand through his tousled hair and frowned at her. “You okay, babe? Maybe you shouldn’t be out here.”

“Probably not.” The sight of Harris stirred drug-hunger in her gut despite the pill she’d just dropped, setting off a fresh wave of need and driving away the image of the wolf. “You get anything?” she asked.

“Yeah, I went round Vic’s and paid him back for last night. He gave me a little meth and some acid to see us through. Couldn’t get any pills though.”

Liar
, she thought. She was certain he had his own hidden stash for emergencies, probably a bit of coke tucked away somewhere. She’d looked for it once, when her own supplies had run low, but never found it. Harris had been doing this a lot longer than she had; he was better at the deceit.