Episode Five

They met in early May, during a rare Sunday that broke from the disappointment of a damp and miserable spring. Sensing a change in their fortunes, Clayham-on-Sea’s locals flocked to the beach, rabid in their drinking up of the sunshine. Still so far from summer, it was a welcome break from the drought of hope that had loomed overhead. To some, this was proof enough that the tourists would be back and that their town would continue to be nourished by the attention of outsiders.

In the summer months, locals largely abandoned any notions of squeezing themselves between masses of tourists on the sand. When the opportunity to occupy the shore unburdened by visitors arose, they flocked to the sea in droves.

Rahim and his parents ventured down to the shore after lunch. By then, it was as busy as it would get, the novelty having already worn off for some families. Groups of teenagers remained, however, and as the afternoon drew on, they began to light barbecues and the volume of their music inched up another notch.

“Honestly, do they have to spoil it for everybody?” Rahim’s mother complained, squinting at her paperback. 

Amina had been sure the late spring sun wouldn’t be high enough to strain her vision, so her sunglasses had remained at the house. She battled on regardless, refusing to admit to the stinging in her eyes, pale pages lit from above.

“They’re just having fun,” sighed her husband, Sayid.

Rahim chuckled to himself as he watched his parents play out their roles to perfection. His mother was the tide, emotional and prone to lashing storms; his father was the cliff face against which she collided, too calm and sturdy to topple into her depths. He was dependable, and when the seas weren’t lashing at the land, she was content to simply be beside him.

At the thought of one day experiencing that kind of love, a smile brightened on Rahim’s face. It soon faded and darkened, though; he had recently started to reckon that there was no guarantee of ever knowing such a feeling himself.

“I might go for a swim,” he said, quietly.

“Put some more lotion on before you go,” Amina fussed. “And don’t go too far out – it looks choppy.”

Rahim cast a glance at the sea, the gentlest waves rolling in a whisper to caress the sun. He caught Sayid’s eye and without words, they both said the same thing: Better to humour her.

“I will, mum. And it looks bloody freezing-”

“Language!” Amina snapped, appalled. Her husband stifled a laugh.

“Sorry. It looks really cold. Doubt I’ll be in for very long.”

He pulled the baggy purple t-shirt over his head, and quickly scanned the beach for any sign of prying eyes judging him. Nobody was looking, and yet still he kept his body close together, his arms folded as if doing so would fool onlookers into ignoring his skinny arms.

Leaving the t-shirt and his parents behind, he strode towards the water’s edge. That’s when Rahim noticed Victor. The water clawed at his body – toned and tall – and if any reached the fresh buzzcut being grown out atop his head, he was left unbothered by it. Rahim, on the other hand, was used to his hair taking unusual shapes and sticking limply to his forehead.

The tide met Rahim where he stood, a shiver running up his body as it made contact. He stood a little longer, lingering at the edge of the shore to steal a few more glances at Victor. In that spot, between land and sea, he felt invisible and all-seeing at the same time; nobody was watching him back.

Until they were.

Victor stopped splashing his girlfriend – a pale, plain little thing – his laughter subsiding as she threatened a tantrum. His smile remained, though faint now, like the last pinkish hue of a sunset, and Rahim claimed the smile as a consolation prize of sorts. 

Then, Victor winked. 

It was brief and Rahim couldn’t even be certain it was meant for him, but he pocketed it nonetheless. It drew warmth to his limbs, and in doing so, the wink – the mere acknowledgement of his existence – had allowed the waves to reach him without his notice.

The girlfriend who he would one day know to be Claire stormed out of the sea in a strop, splashing as she went.

“Come on, Envy. Let’s go to Foxy’s and leave this arsehole–” she said the last bit with a sharp turn of the head in Victor’s direction, “– to the sharks.”

“There aren’t any sharks,” drolled a girl with dark hair from their towel on the sand.

Unlike the two others they were with, she was clearly not a fan of the seaside, sitting uncomfortably on the sand in such a way as to prevent any part of her body from coming into contact with the sand. Likewise, Envy’s clothes reinforced the message, an oversized t-shirt swallowing up her body to hide the curves, and skinny jeans that strained against the plump thighs she hoped to hide. Rahim felt sorry for her – and related. I feel the same, said a small voice in his head.

He realised then that he’d let his attention wander towards the drama as it unfolded, watching Claire as she stomped clumsily across the beach. Victor laughed when she stumbled, further cranking up the girl’s fury.

“Oh fuck off!” she yelled back at him. Upon reaching their spot on the beach, Envy handed Claire a towel without being prompted, before securing a bookmark in her paperback. “Come on, let’s get a drink. Kristi might give us some freebies.”

“Sure,” Envy replied, watching Claire dry herself off with awkward inelegance, her limbs affording her no grace with which to move.

Envy packed up her tote bag and the two friends were off, traipsing across the shore towards the large sandstone steps leading to the road.

Realising he’d been watching for far too long, Rahim forced his attention back out towards the sea. Victor was staring at him, seemingly amused. He waded over to make an introduction.

“Rahim, right?”

“Y-yeah,” the younger of the two replied, his body attempting to shiver away the nerves and cold water. “How did you know?”

Victor leaned down to Rahim’s ear, close enough for his breath to tickle the skin.

“We’re on the same app,” he said, quietly. Even without seeing it, Rahim could hear the smirk in Victor's voice.

Rahim’s face reddened in response. His parents – although yards away – suddenly felt a little too close, a little too at risk of making contact with the part of his life he kept hidden away behind a locked phone screen and pondered over only his own mind.

“Oh…”

“No need to be shy.” Victor pulled away and inspected Rahim, his wolf-like eyes roving up and down his slender body. “You’re good-looking.”

Unsure if he was to be devoured or seduced, Rahim dropped his arms by his sides. Better to show him now so he’s not disappointed, he thought, exposing his thinness to the taller of them both. Victor showed no signs of shying away.

After a quick survey of the beach, Victor asked, “Do you want to go somewhere private?”

His voice was low again, a slither of his own uncertainty lurking in its depths, but he exuded such confidence that Rahim was deaf to it – all he could hear was his own heartbeat and the waves, and the imagined berating of his parents if they found out.

“I…my parents are over there.”

Victor glanced over Rahim’s shoulder, following the direction of his thumb.

“OK,” he said, and Rahim’s heart sank down to his feet and into the soft sand beneath him. Before he could turn, Victor took Rahim’s hand and placed it against the firmness in his swimming shorts. “But if you fancy a walk under the pier, let me know.”

Rahim gulped, daring to squeeze once before Victor released his grip. Then his hand was there voluntarily, and Rahim felt himself unmoored from all the anxiety that had ever kept him tied to the shore. He squeezed Victor’s hardness again, and felt the lust prickle beneath his skin.

Victor angled his body to disrupt the connection, his eyes flitting back to the shore. He raised an eyebrow, somewhere between amusement and incredulity.

“Maybe when your parents aren’t looking, yeah?”

“Yeah…OK,” Rahim croaked, his lips and throat dry from the adrenaline.

Once he was alone, Rahim waded further into the water, letting the coolness take away his breath. A heavy calmness fell across his body, but the heat was still alive inside of him, burning for a moment with Victor.

With his erection subsided, Rahim’s feet found their place on the sand and guided him back to land. The lie he was about to tell was only a little white one, but sharp nonetheless. It sat awkwardly in his chest, pricking his insides. He rehearsed it all the way to his parents, only to find them already packing up. Sayid shook the towel he’d been sitting on, dislodging the sand – and with it, the beach’s grip – before folding it up; Amina was dusting off her bare feet so that she could slip her sandals back on without the nuisance of sand between her perfectly manicured toes.

“Your sister called. She needs picking up,” said Sayid, making one last fold in the towel before handing it to Amina. “And your mother wanted to go home anyway. Are you coming with us?”

“Actually…I thought I’d stick around. I spotted some friends further down the shore. I won’t be out late.”

“See that you’re not. You’ve got college tomorrow and we’ll never hear the end of it,” Sayid said in a hushed tone, pointing discretely at Amina over his shoulder.

“Thanks, dad,” Rahim smiled.

He helped them to fold the last towel, hoping to hurry their departure. The falsehood had started to become caustic, threatening to burn through to his stomach, eroding his insides painfully the longer he held onto it.

“You need to keep that.” Amina pointed to her son’s towel as he held it, folded.

“I’m going to move further down the beach,” Rahim lied, a flush of heat behind his face.

“Alright, but don’t stay in the sun too much longer. I mean it. You’re already getting a little red,” she pointed out, kissing him briefly on the cheek.

Rahim stayed in place, not daring to move until he had seen them both disappear completely out of sight at the top of the sandstone steps. In their wake, he surveyed the beach, but could see no sign of Victor or the blue towel Claire and Envy had left behind.

Starting to feel a little foolish, Rahim grabbed his purple t-shirt, shook out the sand, and pulled it back on. He ambled towards the pier, carelessly kicking sand with his foot as if it might help.

And then…hope was reignited – as was the lust that roared low in his abdomen – when he saw Victor leaning against the sandstone wall beneath the pier. They exchanged smiles, Rahim’s dopey with infatuation, and Victor’s full of hunger. The latter’s smirk stretched wolfishly beneath his sunglasses, and Rahim half-expected to be devoured. 

Victor didn’t want to kiss, but Rahim wasn’t too upset by this; he feared his inexperience would become obvious if they had. Eventually, Victor let him plant small kisses on his neck while his hands roamed Rahim’s body beneath the pier.

When they were done, both spent and breathless, Victor tightened the cord of his swimshorts, squeezed Rahim’s shoulder as if he was a teammate in the locker room, and left the teen behind. Rahim, dazed by the encounter, remained awestruck. 

That night, under the covers, he scoured the app, desperate to find Victor’s profile. A catalogue of men stared back at him, watching as he scrolled on and on, looking for the lips that had gasped his name during climax. It was no easy feat. While many pairs of eyes peered from the screen, many more profiles had no photo or a sparse, vague description of their owner – or both. The search soon felt futile.

Disappointed, Rahim gave up and rolled over in bed, grateful for the cool air blowing on his back from the small desk fan. He was still determined to nurture the little light that had taken hold inside when Victor had spread his fingers into Rahim’s thicket of black hair, warmed by the sunlight.

When morning came, the light grew brighter; Victor had found him instead.

They began to meet beneath the pier, the spot becoming theirs, a liminal space between their normal lives and the vastness of a timeless ocean. Together, sheltered by the wooden boards and hidden in the pier’s shadow, they lived differently. There, Claire didn’t exist, and Rahim wasn’t burdened by the voice telling him he wasn’t enough; Victor thought he was enough, and these moments snatched together were plenty for him.

Sometimes they just talked, other times they were intimate, Rahim’s ecstasy drowned out by the tides, or muffled by Victor’s hand or shoulder. More than once, it rained – great meteoric drops making craters in the sand – and the pier sheltered them loyally. Victor wrapped his arms around Rahim and they both stared out at the churning sea together, wondering what it might want from them one day, in return for all the time they had enjoyed.

And then it was August, and they were discovered. 

Rahim noticed first, tapping Victor’s shoulder desperately to draw his attention to the stairs, where Havannah had momentarily paused in shock. While Victor followed, pleading for secrecy, Rahim stayed behind, frozen to the spot. Despite his lover’s efforts to stay emotionally distant, Rahim felt he knew Victor well enough to understand that he was not somebody who wanted his secrets in other people’s hands. 

He also knew Victor wouldn’t be back. 

Still, Rahim lingered beneath the pier, hoping to bask one last time in the moments they had shared together. The tide met Rahim’s feet. He fed the sea with his tears, comforted by its gentle concern. And then, he went home, all the while wishing he never had to see the pier again – never had to be reminded of what they’d had and what was lost.

The fire had followed soon after. Rahim had watched the flames consume their favourite spot from the shore, hemmed in by the crowd. Had he wished this into existence? The next morning, all alone and full of guilt, he ventured back. From the steps reaching from beach to road, he strained to see what was left. But Rahim could no longer recognise their special place, and could no longer picture any more scenes playing out there. It was done now, cleared away by hungry flames.

The tide rolled in and stole away fallen timber, floating it out to sea. Rahim watched and knew that nothing would be the same again.

***

“Do you remember the first time we met?” Victor asked, sitting with his back to Rahim’s bedroom wall, cushioned by the hood draped over his jacket collar. His head lolled towards his host, and he smiled at the recollection.

Rahim wasn’t smiling.

“I do,” he replied, wondering if Victor’s memories were the same as his. Had they both made an effort to remember the way the air turned golden when the hours stretched late, or the feeling of giddy excitement when people strolled along the pier overhead? Or was it only Rahim? Only Rahim who had returned home feeling like he’d managed to capture the last of the sunlight beneath his skin, and had imagined what it would look like with them both together once summer was over.

“It was brave of you. You know that right?” Victor pressed on, gently.

Or stupid, Rahim wanted to say. But he also didn’t want to give Victor any more of his words – no more than were necessary to ease his way out of this painful situation. So instead, Rahim just picked his fingernails from his perch on the edge of the bed.

“Did you trust me?” Victor asked, his expression remaining soft, even as it dulled. Rahim shrugged. “Did you grow to trust me?”

 “I guess,” Rahim mumbled.

For the first time since his arrival some twenty minutes earlier, Victor finally felt he might have gotten through. The first fifteen minutes had been spent in a cold silence, leaving him unwilling to get comfortable in case Rahim cast him out. Now there were words between them, he could move more freely. Shifting from his place by the wall, Victor crouched in front of Rahim. He offered his hands, palms up, fingers spread. They were as welcoming as they had been beneath the pier, but Rahim could no longer bring himself to trust them. Victor wouldn’t relent, gifting his former lover a brief, vulnerable smile in an effort to coax him closer. 

Rahim placed his hands in Victor’s and immediately felt comforted. Tears welled behind his eyes, but he simply closed them until they had ebbed.

“I promise you. None of this was a trick. I don’t know what happened to the photo, I really don’t. But she took it and has been blackmailing me with it ever since. Claire murdered her sister.”

“Prove it.”

The words tumbled out of Rahim’s mouth with a sharp edge, debris raining down from where he felt his heart had shattered. His eyes remained firmly closed.

Victor was glad to not be seen in that moment, the hurt painted plainly across his face. He let go of Rahim’s hands, rummaging in the inner pocket of his jacket for his mobile phone.

“If I show you this, I need you to trust me and know that I did nothing wrong.”

Curious, Rahim allowed his eyes to blink open, tears smearing his vision. Victor was holding the phone close to him, the screen out of sight until Rahim had given the answer he was after.

“Will you do that?”

Rahim nodded. 

Victor scrolled, his thumb tapping and sliding the screen, before pausing at his destination. The impact of the photo was evident in how his face paled, and Rahim watched his Adam’s apple dip low as he swallowed dryly. He took one last look at the screen, winced at the memory, and showed it to Rahim. Sure enough, as he had sworn over and over again, there was the photo: Victor, shocked and angry, holding onto Kristi’s body in the water. The flash had smeared some of his features and had paled Kristi unnaturally, but Rahim recognised at least one figure.

“I don’t want to…I can’t,” Rahim said, looking away. He felt sick imagining Kristi’s body in Victor’s hands, her skin already growing cold and leaden.

Victor let the phone linger where it was for a moment, hoping Rahim would turn back to see Claire’s messages above and below the photo. He wouldn’t, and so Victor turned the phone screen off and slipped the device back into his jacket pocket.

“Rahim? Listen to me. I shouldn’t have asked you to get involved. I’m sorry, OK?” Victor stood now, towering over the teary-eyed young man sitting before him. “I’m going to fix this. I’m going to sort it all out. And then…”

The words were caught in Victor’s throat. He knew what he should say – what he wanted to say – but it was all so alien to him. In the shadow of the pier was one thing, but taking what they had into the light of day seemed too much to promise.

But then Rahim looked up at him with hopeful eyes, wiping away silent tears and sniffling in an attempt to pull all the emotion back inside of himself. Had Victor encouraged that? He’d always gone cold or turned away when Rahim had tried to broach topics that might have strayed from the privacy of their shared experience, just the two of them. Was his hand still placed firmly across Rahim’s mouth, stifling any noise that might give them away?

Victor leaned forward and kissed Rahim’s forehead, and the teenager let his eyes close again, this time fluttering shut at the sweetness of the gesture. While they remained shut, Victor drew closer and pressed his lips against Rahim’s, a gift long overdue.

He heard the door close behind Victor, and hesitated to part his eyelids. To do so would be to see the world without Victor in it. And, for the first time since their time beneath the pier, Rahim dared to hope that they could finally mean more to one another.

***

It was with great irritation that Damon executed a good idea that wasn’t his own, as if to do so was to admit some small fault or vulnerability. Why didn’t I think of that? The accusation was levelled at him whenever such a situation occurred, and so he worked to limit them. On this occasion, however, there was little room to ignore a smart plan – even if it came from someone Damon would never deign to call ‘smart’.

The idea was Claire’s, words rambled at Damon rather than to him as they sat together on the sofa days earlier, her wrapped in a tatty dressing gown, him still irritated by the bathwater soaking into his shirt. 

For the most part, Damon had been distracted from her prattling by the acidity of the cheap cornershop wine she’d poured for him. Given it had fizzed when unscrewed, there was little hope to begin with, and so each sip required his absolute, unwavering willpower.

Claire had come to her senses and now perched beside him, knees close to her body, hair still wet from the bath. An oversized white t-shirt, discoloured on the collar, engulfed her comfortably as she nursed a bottle of cider found in the back of a cupboard - the last of its kind. Damon, meanwhile, slumped into the sofa, sleeves still rolled up to the elbow, masking his exasperation with a solemn stare straight ahead and the occasional sipping of the acidic wine. He was regretting sticking around.

Somewhere in all the nonsense, however, she’d asked him if he was OK, and Damon – for reasons that evaded him in the moment – told her the truth. Or at least, it was a semblance of the truth, he supposed. The blue car was weighing on his mind. There were too many unknowns chirping away in the back of his mind. Who was behind the wheel? Were they actually following Damon or had their encounters been a coincidence? Worse…was he in danger?

As soon as the information left his lips, Damon felt the regret deepen. Where most people would describe a warm touch of shame or embarrassment flourishing on their cheeks, Damon only felt a blistering sting and was all the more furious for it. He was ready to raise his voice simply to minimise the gaping vulnerability he had confessed aloud, to overwhelm the silence that followed so that Claire had no room to speak.

Before Damon could say anything – or before he could decide to do nothing, to clamp down and build a wall around himself – Claire momentarily redeemed her boring, messed-up self in his eyes.

“Isn’t there CCTV? Have you checked it?” she asked, nonchalantly between sips of flat cider.

For a moment, as Damon slowly turned his head to look at her, Claire lowered her gaze. Her fingers picked at the label, stiffened by glue slathered on the plastic to keep everything in its proper place. In Damon’s eyes, she was like prey bracing itself to run for its life or to fight for every scrap of it. She had given herself away. But the surprise was somehow more delicious than her fear. Unpredictability was just another sustenance for Damon. Only his unpredictability, of course; he needed to know what everybody else was thinking.

“That’s…actually a good idea,” he said, both exhausted by his own oversight, and at the constant feeling of watching over his shoulder. Claire’s gaze lifted, her guard dropping as Damon reached across and let his hand rest upon her knee. “What do you know? You’re a smart girl after all.”

I’m a woman, shouted a little voice inside of Claire, that was soon silenced and washed away by the overwhelming pleasure of a compliment. She blushed, pulled her hair behind her ear and accepted Damon’s lips on her own. 

At some point, the cider spilled on the sofa, and wine leapt from the glass, but neither were grand enough distractions to stop Damon from coaxing Claire onto her back, to opening her legs, to letting himself inside of her.

If she knew Damon was thinking of her sister as he thrusted purposefully and grunted beside her, Claire didn’t say a word. Nor did Damon’s gasps ever let the wrong name slip into her ear. Blissfully unaware, Claire smiled at the ceiling, a tear escaping her eye and her hands clasped around Damon’s neck.

To him, it was both a small reward for her thinking and a means of keeping either of them from having to further acknowledge that Damon hadn’t been the one to think of it.

He left straight after he finished, buttoning up his trousers and grabbing his coat with little ceremony. Claire listened to his mumbled excuses but heard only words of dedication and trust. Had he known she believed herself to be falling in love with him, Damon might not have gone through the pains of having sex with her. But he was hurried in both his thinking and his action.

That night, however, the arcade had been closed; he’d arrived to find the machines dim and only his own ghost staring back at him, a reflection lost in the glass and trapped in the dead arcade. He’d rattled the bars of the door, shouted for Howie, and eventually given up. It would have to wait for another day. In the meantime, all Damon wanted to do was to traipse home and wash the scent of Claire from his body before it became too deeply attached to him.

For days, Claire’s idea pestered Damon, repeating itself over and over in his ear. The resolution to a mystery held such promises of fulfilment that he could barely sleep. Each day, he checked in on the arcade, asking for Howie when it was open, cursing his name when it wasn’t. The owner was away, according to one of the listless teenagers he employed. When the boy couldn’t answer when Howie would be back, a woman with wrinkled and smoke-stained skin spoke up from inside the change booth. The three plastic sheets keeping her behind the counter were smeared with fingerprints and her voice would have rattled around inside were it not for the small intercom speaker.

“He’ll be back tomorrow, but he’s only in until two,” she rasped, slowly blinking eyelids stained with cheap blue mascara.

“I’ll be back tomorrow, then,” he promised.

Keeping his word, Damon had indeed returned, bringing a dark cloud with him. The weather threatened to turn from overcast to downpour at any moment. More depressing than the chance of rain, however, was the arcade itself. In the middle of the day, Damon could only sneer at the skiving youngsters and chronic gamblers laughing and cheering as they huddled around machines, their raucous behaviour worrying parents passing with their toddlers.

Despite the regulars with nothing better to do or an addiction to feed, vast swathes of the arcade were uninhabited, games left to ping and zap all by themselves, echoing in lonely corners. Some were completely dead and Damon passed them without looking, unnerved by their silence. Worse still was the smell of copper coins, old nicotine, and cheap candy floss stuck to the carpets and the air. This was the first time Damon had been able to aptly describe the sickly stench, though he quickly wished he’d simply held his breath the entire way through the arcade.

Damon let himself into Howie’s office, partly out of a desperation to escape the uneasiness of the arcade and its various smells and sights, but mostly because he felt he had the right to. Where in this town could he not go? Nowhere, he reckoned.

At the sight of Damon sweeping into his office, his black coat like a shadow lunging after him, Howie flinched. The arcade owner was stuck between protecting himself or the second-hand desktop he had just finished setting up only days earlier. As a result, one hand reached for the screen, while the other tightened around the arm of the chair.

“Don’t come any closer! I’m warning you!”

Damon rolled his eyes and took a seat opposite Howie.

“Hello, Howie. New computer?”

Instinctively, like a mother duck shielding her newborns, Howie reached forward and hugged his monitor. The weathered plastic casing creaked under his embrace. All of this amused Damon no end, a smirk deepening the fine lines forming at the sides of his eyes.

“What do you want, Damon?” he snapped.

“You’ve got yourself an upgrade,” Damon teased, leaning forward to inspect the back of the monitor, before easing his way down to eyeball the PC itself. The computer’s fans couldn’t keep up with the dust choking Howie’s office, whirring loudly and producing an uncomfortable amount of heat beneath the desk. Damon straightened himself back up the moment Howie mirrored his movements to protect the computer.

“It’s me mum’s monitor. It’s a loan. I had to replace it after some lunatic broke mine!” Howie followed Damon back up so they were looking at each other across his desk. Once again, his hands reached forward to protect the screen.

“I was doing you a favour,” Damon said, menacingly. He tapped the PC twice with the end of his shoe, incensing Howie so that his face flushed purple and red. “You should’ve gotten a new PC as well. This one you’ve got is shite.”

Howie looked like he was about to explode, which would have amused Damon more than he would admit. It was delicious, the palpable fury building in the other man, like a boil readying to burst. But he knew Howie had gone as far as he was willing to; like Claire, the man was just prey to Damon – and he was done playing with his food.

“What do you want, Damon?!” Howie repeated, his voice becoming a little shrill now.

In reply, Damon slowly made a show of looking about the office, inspecting it for something. Howie followed his gaze with great interest, nostrils flared with irritation, but lips sewn shut by fear; he wouldn’t be rushing Damon for an answer.

Damon saw what he was after, over to his right, against one of the office’s walls.

“Ah! That’s the ticket.”

“What is?” Howie asked, watching in horror as Damon rose to hone in on his discovery. He followed, if only to protect more expensive equipment and treasures from Damon’s uncertain wrath. 

“This,” Damon said, resting his hand on a bank of small monitors atop the CCTV box. Only two were working, but that was less important. “This is what I’m after.”

“Well…well you can’t have it!” Howie declared, words emboldened by outrage. He seemed like a petulant child to Damon, who just turned to look at him with a pitying look.

“I don’t want your shitty little CCTV system, Howie.” 

Damon made a show of inspecting the buttons and dials closely to figure out how it worked. It wasn’t all an act, however; the system was older than he recognised. Patrick had employed something similar for the pier, only a little more updated than Howie’s. A sting of familiarity prodded at Damon’s insights, quietening him as he searched for the right button.

“Oh…right. Well, what do you want then?” Howie asked, his rage deflating and his exasperation at not having an answer to his questions growing minute by minute. Curiosity curled at the edges of his being and it tasted bitter and frightening; he had questions but not the courage to ask them.

“I want the tape from the night I came in.”

“There aren’t any cameras in here.”

Again, Damon looked at Howie – a pitiable creature – with the same disdain he might have spared a spoiled child. An eyebrow raised as he caught sight of Howie throwing a glance back at his computer, hoping it had gone unnoticed.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Howie, give it a rest. You got a nice new monitor didn’t you? Well? Didn’t you?”

“W-well it’s s-second hand.”

“It’s new to you though, right?” Damon reasoned. 

“It’s a loan,” Howie repeated, licking his lips and swallowing in the hopes of bringing some moisture back to his mouth and throat.

“I’m not here for any of that. Besides, I remember it being an accident. A happy accident with a happy ending. Don’t you agree?” 

Again, Howie nodded, even though Damon wasn’t necessarily looking at him. Whether it was the threat Damon posed, the last of his subsiding rage, or the heating being choked out of the computer, Howie wasn’t sure; regardless of the cause, the sweat on his brow and under his armpits was growing profusely.

“Good, I’m glad we agree. Because we’re friends, aren’t we, Howie? I like to think so, anyway.”

Damon moved away from the CCTV console and its bank of monitors, and started for Howie with an almost farcical attempt at friendly bonhomie. It was a trap, Howie knew – or at least, some deeply hidden part of his brain was telling him as such – and yet he fell for it. The sign was in his weak little smile, creasing his forehead so that the sweat slowed and rolled at an angle. He even gave out a small chuckle and nodded.

“Y-yes, I suppose we are. Old friends.”

“Yes, Howie. Old friends. And old friends do favours for one another, don’t they?” At Howie’s silent agreement, Damon stepped aside.

“How about it, then? Will you get me the tape from that night? I just need the car park.” He watched as Howie hesitated, more questions taking shape behind those yellowed eyes, before adding, “Please?”

The word proved its magic, melting any remaining resistance Howie might have been inclined to lean towards. Disarmed, the arcade owner strode forward, fiddling with the controls. In response, one of the working monitors turned black and then flickered into life. A day in the life of the arcade whizzed across the screen, before the view went black once again and the car park appeared instead. Easing their way through time, Howie waited for Damon’s instruction to stop, sensing the man’s proximity as he watched over his shoulder.

“There,” Damon commanded at sight of the blue car. Howie did as he was told, freezing the scene. The number plate was just about discernible through the grainy footage. “Perfect.”

Damon pulled out his phone and switched to the camera app. The blue car, rendered in pale greys, but recognisable nonetheless, was captured on the phone’s screen, freezing at the touch of a button. Damon tested the legibility of the number plate by spreading two fingers across the screen to stretch the image wider. Success.

“Is that everything?” Howie asked, the tremble in his voice subsiding. Damon’s happiness hadn’t calmed him. If anything, it had only served to frighten him more. The sweat continued to pour.

“That’s everything I need. Thank you, Howie,” Damon replied, memorising the number plate’s letters and numbers. He tucked the phone back inside his coat pocket and drank in the sweet daze of relief at once again having the upper hand. He squeezed Howie’s shoulder tightly. 

“You’ve been a real pal, Howie. Thank you. Now I’d best be off; I’ve got some calls to make.”

The arcade owner simply nodded yet again, relieved at the departure of his unwanted guest.

“I’ll see myself out.”

As abruptly as the shadow had arrived, it left. Howie was alone once again, just him and the pained whirring of his desktop computer. To be sure Damon was gone, Howie watched as his dreaded shape of his coat stalked through the arcade on the other working monitor. Upon witnessing Damon’s disappearance into the bright light at the top of the screen – the threshold of Howie’s kingdom – Howie sighed with relief. It was the first noticeable exhalation since before the door had swung open, and his body unclenched as he welcomed stale air into his lungs.

There was a second – between the jolt of excitement as his nerves steadied themselves, and his hearing the siren call of his computer – during which Howie lingered by the CCTV system. The top right monitor remained frozen, capturing the image of the car and its owner, barely visible through the driver’s window.

He was tempted to look, of course. In a fantasy where he was a braver man, Howie imagined reaching out to the car’s owner, saving a wretched soul like himself from Damon’s wrath. Then again, he could destroy the tape… 

Neither fantasy was as loud as the desire to preserve his own safety and sanity, and so Howie spared one quick glance at the screen before unfreezing the image and switching it back to a live feed. The car was gone, like a ghost that had vanished before his very eyes; and like a haunting, Howie was glad to have it be over.

Thinking on it no more, Howie returned to the comfort of his desk chair and reopened the solitaire window, happy to be none the wiser as to Damon’s affairs or what had been set in motion.

***

If she imagined hard enough, Claire felt sure that she could manifest anything she desired. If, for example, she visualised Rahim reaching for his phone and reading yet another of her messages, then it must be so. Reality could bend to her world, she was sure of it.

This belief had bred only disappointment; her phone was silent and still, and Rahim’s silence grew ever louder as a result.

It was a strange feeling for Claire – to be wronged and yet desperately seek forgiveness from another – and her perplexity had kept Claire weighted to her bed all day, wrapped in sickly pink bedsheets that had long grown musty with sweat.

Envy forewarned of her arrival with a rap on Claire’s bedroom door. Light crept in with Envy’s soft voice as she asked after her friend’s feelings. The cup of tea she held in her hands was placed delicately on the floor next to the bed.

“Any reply?” Envy asked, curbing her disapproval to keep Claire on side.

“No,” Claire mumbled, her face squished against the pillow. She didn’t look away from her phone, still concentrating on bringing her wishes to life.

“Listen, I don’t really understand what’s going on. I feel like I’ve walked into something…complicated. But I don’t want to leave until you feel better.”

“I do,” Claire lied with a small, child-like voice. “I’m fine. You should head back to university.”

Fighting the urge to roll her eyes, Envy perched on the edge of the bed and summoned all the patience she could muster.

“I’ve got a reading week coming up and a friend is taking notes. I can’t leave you like this.”

“You left me before.”

The words were delivered so flatly and quietly that Envy felt their impact should have simply slipped by. They didn’t. They lodged themselves in her ribcage, finding spaces into which they could wiggle and jab at her insides. There was a brief warmth swelling in her eyes, but she blinked it away and cleared her throat.

“I’m going to do you a shop. It’ll just be the basics, I’m afraid. Student loan isn’t in yet. Is there anything you need in particular?”

Claire shook her head slowly, her hair rustling against the pillow, stained with countless nights of falling asleep wearing makeup. She switched the phone’s screen off, dropped it onto the carpet below, and rolled over to face the window.

Envy stood and left. Where there had once been a softness that would have kept her hanging around, fawning over Claire’s feelings, there was now something much simpler and firm. Her friend had remained a child, and Envy wasn’t ready – or willing – to start parenting her again.

Downstairs, Envy took a quick inventory of what Claire was missing – milk, bread, butter, something for the freezer – and jotted it down on the back of a scrap of paper she found lying about. It already had items scribbled on it, a list started over and over again, but Envy drew a line through what was there without second thought.

As she opened the front door, lost in the music pumping out of her chunky headphones, Envy jolted in surprise. Standing in front of her was Victor, a small bouquet of roses in his hand. The petals were deep scarlet, and one or two had already begun to turn, their edges curling and brown. A price sticker remained on the plastic wrap.

“Three pounds fifty, hey? Where’d you find them, the side of the road?” she sniped, lifting the headphones and letting them sit cosily around her neck.

“I’m not here to fight,” Victor responded, reaching a hand out as if to keep away an angry animal.

“What do you want?” Envy sighed.

“I’m not here to–”

“I heard that bit,” she interrupted, hurrying Victor to his point.

“Is she in? I promised Rahim I’d talk to her,” he replied, leaning to glance behind Envy.

“And you brought flowers?”

“I did. I thought maybe they’d help.”

“Honestly, I love the girl, but I don’t think she needs any more flowers. I had to throw some out already this morning.”

They smiled in amusement at the same time, but it wasn’t together – it wasn’t shared. Envy was relishing landing another blow on the young man who had intimidated her so severely a few months earlier; Victor was smiling because he genuinely agreed. Both smiles faded, small flames smothered by the blanket of silence. 

Victor cleared his throat.

“You really do, don’t you? Love her, I mean.”

“Don’t start with this,” Envy threatened, getting ready to put her headphones back on, signalling an end to his entreaties and this conversation.

“No, no, it’s a good thing,” Victor insisted. He reached for her but stopped when Envy angled herself away – a reflex from the previous night. His arm fell to the side and he swapped the flowers between hands. “I admire it.”

“Who is Rahim to you? You know each other, clearly. And you put him up to something. I just can’t figure out what.”

Victor took a deep inhale and shuffled his feet awkwardly. He towered above Envy, but the gesture made him seem so small to her, a child, afraid of recrimination.

“I can’t tell you. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Just…let me speak to Claire first.”

“I’m not her keeper. Go right on in,” she said, unlocking the front door and stepping aside. “But if I were you? I’d let things lie for now.”

A brief smirk tugged at the corner of Victor’s mouth.

“What?” Envy inquired, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“Nothing bad. You’ve changed, is all. You’re more confident. It suits you.”

Envy gave a small, uncertain thanks. “Flattery will get you nowhere,” she half-joked.

Neither would admit it, but something was melting between them, cooling the disdain that had kept them both at a distance, even as they maintained simultaneous orbits around Claire. It almost felt like being comfortable in one another’s presence, but that was not a sensation either had the words to describe. Overhead, the clouds broke to let loose a burst of low winter sun. It was supposed to rain soon.

“I’m sorry about last night. And for everything, I guess. I’ve been a prick.”

“We can agree on that, yeah,” Envy jibed, before relenting. “But I appreciate the apology.”

Victor nodded and started for the door, Envy for the street. She paused as they passed one another.

“And for the record, Victor, I don’t necessarily think you’re a bad person. The two of you just… aren’t good together. I don’t think you make each other happy. And you’ve got your own shit to deal with.”

“Thanks, Envy. You know, you were always my favourite of Claire’s friends.”

Envy let out a short, sharp laugh.

“I’m her only friend,” she retorted. Her laughter died down, but the amusement remained and softened into gladness as she tilted her head a little in his direction. “You and Rahim could make each other happy though.”

Victor squirmed, though did little to hold back his denial. He owed Rahim that much at least.

With great curiosity, Envy sized him up and, for the first time, was willing to accept their similarities. She smiled one last time, turning back to the front door and unlocking it.

“Please don’t prove me wrong.”

“I’ll try my very best,” Victor replied.

In the absence of her sister, Claire had grown accustomed to the silence that swelled within the house. Even moreso, she had come to recognise all the sounds that echoed within the space. The clunking in the pipes was the hot water; the creaking on the landing was a floorboard aching in the cold; the tapping on a window was a tree whose branches hunched over towards the glass; it could all be explained away.

By extension, however, this also meant she was always listening out for unfamiliar noises, her muscles wound tight without her ever noticing until, like a spring, they uncoiled quickly and she rushed to attention. 

The footsteps downstairs straddled the thin line between what she recognised and what shouldn’t be; their rhythm spoke of someone she knew, while their being there when Claire was supposedly alone demanded investigation.

“Hello?” she called out, her throat dry from the hours spent in bed, refusing water. The tea Envy had left beside the bed was already growing cold and had joined another mug and a stale glass of water from the night before.

“Can we talk?” came Victor’s voice, after a moment of hesitation.

There was no rush of fury, no demand to be left alone. In fact, there was nothing going on at all; Claire simply got out of bed at a steady pace, pulled on a sleeping gown, and headed down to greet her guest.

When she turned to face him at the bottom of the stairs, Victor was leaning against the kitchen breakfast bar, the flowers beside him. He quickly grabbed them, offering the half-wilted roses with a feeble smile. It looked unusual on his face, and Claire was sure she was dreaming.

“For me?”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Victor replied, bemused. Who else would they be for?

“Thanks, they’re lovely,” Claire said, sniffing them tenderly.

“Look, about last night.”

“I know. I haven’t told Envy.”

“About…?”

“About the photo,” Claire said, much to Victor’s visible relief.

She took the roses over to the sink, poured some water into a pint glass, and dropped them in. They fell collectively to one side, propped up by the splashback. In the nearby bin, the ripe stench of Damon’s flowers made her nose twitch.

“Can we talk?”

“I guess,” she replied. “Take a seat.”

Victor did as he was told, moving a pillow and a spotted duvet from the sofa to make room. Claire sat beside him, casually positioning herself, legs curled up, head resting on a hand steadied by the back of the sofa.

“What did you want to talk about?”

“Last night, mainly. I don’t want Rahim being dragged into any of this. It’s not his fault – none of it. I asked him…I asked him to delete the photo from your phone. He was trying to help me out.”

“You could’ve just asked,”

Victor scoffed.

“You’re joking, right?”

She shook her head, before prowling closer towards him, the proximity more awkward than any distance could ever be. Victor was too baffled to protest.

“I only kept it so you wouldn’t leave. Don’t you understand that?”

“But I did leave. You refused to delete it and I left. And you’ve been blackmailing me with a lie ever since.”

“Well, you’re here now. Back where you’re supposed to be,” she smiled, sweetly. It made Victor sick to his stomach.

“Claire, I–”

Before he could speak, she drew even closer, one hand on his shoulder, the other squeezing his thigh through blue denim.

“I’ve missed you,” she purred into his ear, eyelids fluttering shut. Hairs stood to attention on the back of Victor’s neck as Claire’s breath teased against his skin.

“Stop it!”

The sudden demand startled Claire, and she drew her face away, though her hands remained pawing at his body. In an attempt to end her predatory contact, Victor placed his hands firmly on her shoulders and kept them there as he stood up, only letting go once he was satisfied there was enough space between them.

“Fucking hell,” he cursed, pacing back and forth in front of the television, hands running across his scalp. “You’re mental, Claire. I think you need help.”

“No, I’m not,” she protested, firmly, but her voice was too quiet to be certain.

“Yes, you fucking are!” Victor roared, arms outstretched. 

She was used to seeing his impatience, but it had been so long since those ugly days that the sudden rise in volume made Claire flinch. Tears immediately swelled at the bottom of her eyes, swamping her vision. There was a ringing in her ear – a distant bell out at sea – but at least it kept the tides that usually swallowed her up at bay.

Victor knew everything; he’d been there with them, on the pier and in the water. In his presence, Claire was afforded the space to share the guilt of that night. But the more he pulled away, out of her grasp, the louder the stormy waters became again. The ringing wouldn’t last, and once he left, she’d be all alone with the drowning.

“I’m sorry,” Victor said, exhaling with his hands clasped behind his skull. On a second exhalation, he dropped them back to his sides and then returned to his seat on the sofa. 

“Me too,” Claire offered, keeping herself at a respectful distance, even as her hands – unable to reach out and grip onto the one person who might keep her afloat – balled into fists on her lap. Chipped nails dug into soft flesh, the discomfort keeping Claire present enough to listen.

“I shouldn’t have snapped. I’ve realised a few things over the last couple of months,” Victor began, head in his hands. “Here’s what I think: I don’t think you meant to do it – at least I don’t believe that you did. I think what happened was all in the moment, and now you’re hurting.”

He looked up then. Claire, pale and glassy-eyed, was huddled in the corner of the sofa, arms wrapped around her body.

“Worst of all, I think you’re lonely right now, and you’re hoping that us sharing the same experience is going to make you feel better, but it won’t, Claire. It can’t. I think you need help and not the kind I can ever give you.”

Claire looked up to meet his gaze. Her lip trembled. If he could’ve heard the pounding in Claire’s chest, he might have come close to knowing how right he was - she simply didn’t have the words to tell him that, to tell anyone at all.

At the sight of her cowering at the weight of his words, Victor softened his voice.

"We've spent a lot of time hurting each other and I don't think either of us mean to. Maybe that's just who we are as people."

"Maybe."

“But I’d like to make that right and be there for you now. If you’ll let me be. We weren’t good for one another as a couple, but we could be good to one another as friends.”

Claire nodded, shaking the tears loose from her eyes. She started to frantically wipe them away, but they hurried down her face. The entire ocean was threatening to pour forth. The ringing in her ear was gone, swallowed by the tides it warned of. Once again, she could hear the rushing of water and the sting of salt in her chest. Claire would surely drown, and there seemed to be no comfort in the knowledge that it would be witnessed.

Just as she felt herself starting to unmoor from reality, her breathing becoming ragged and heavy, Victor moved closer. He wrapped his arms around Claire’s shoulders and pulled her closer to him. She felt like the night after her mum had died; he’d held her closely then too. Even the smell of his cheap, peppery aftershave was the same as that night. There hadn’t been any tears back then, but still it had felt comforting to be wrapped up in somebody’s embrace; in the present, it was a life raft in a stormy sea.

Claire’s breathing cracked, her silent tears becoming a loud, violent sob. Her face contorted at the force of the pain pouring through her. The entire damn ocean had been loosed upon the world, a deluge of guilt and misery flooding everything. 

But there was Victor, holding her steady just as she’d been hoping for.

Once the sobs had subsided, Victor stayed where he was, rocking them both gently back and forth, his hand caressing the back of Claire’s head.

“I would’ve kept it a secret. You know that, right? You didn’t need to dangle a threat over my head,” he said, quietly.

“I’m sorry,” came the muffled reply from where Claire’s head was pressed into his shoulder.

“It’s OK. It’s all going to be OK.”

Claire pulled away and he took in the sight of her. Still plain, but with eyes swollen from crying, and a sadness that was etched into different parts of her face: a down-turn in the corners of her mouth, an angry red spot where greasy hair had propagated zits on her forehead, dry lips from crying out all the liquid in her body. For months, Victor had carried a hot, heavy rage towards his ex-girlfriend, worsened by the continuing injustice of it all. Now, it melted into a cooling pity.

She smiled, and he was reminded of a patch of sunlight sneaking through thick storm clouds. 

Without thought, Victor kissed Claire. It was brief, his lips retreating from hers almost as quickly as they had collided, but then she closed the gap with enthusiasm and the former couple found themselves clinging to one another with a shared, passionate hopelessness.

None of this was planned. From one second to the next, Victor had no idea what he was going to do. First he’d kissed her, then she’d moved him backwards so as to straddle him. He let his hands move to familiar places, and felt himself acting on memories of moments in their relationship that still felt comfortable and known to him; in that silent, heated proximity, the only person Victor hadn’t been sure of was himself. Now he was.

Claire pulled off the pink dressing gown that had hung slack over one shoulder and tossed it behind the sofa, towards the front door. Then, she moved to Victor’s shirt, teasing it up from the bottom hem and drinking in the familiar sight of his body.

"Wait, wait,” she said, stopping suddenly. They were both a little breathless.

“What is it?”

“Before we go any further… this isn't because of the photo, is it? You’re not doing this for that, are you? Because you should know, you don’t need to worry about it anymore.” Claire drew closer, bending herself forward so that their lips were close to touching. “We have nothing to worry about.”

Grateful, Victor closed the distance between them, the thrill of freedom electrifying his movements as they pulled at each other’s clothes and skin and hair. In the soft light of the living room, they were safe to reenact the passion they’d once felt towards one another.

Outside, the sun had dropped, the day still ransom to winter’s encroaching darkness. And in that waning light stood Envy, watching from the other side of the window. She pulled away in disgust. The two plastic bags filled with groceries seemed even heavier in her hands now. Rather than take them with her, she dumped them both outside the front door, not caring if the eggs cracked or the lemonade became riled up in its bottle. It was time to leave Claire to her own mistakes.

***

Claire saw Victor off with a mixture of emotions. On one hand, she felt better than she had done in months, as if the weight of all that had happened had been momentarily lifted from her shoulders – or at least shared between her own and Victor’s. And then, on the other hand, there was the compulsion to overplay her reignited infatuation, texting him immediately and scaring him off.

Upon his departure, he had given her a hug and thanked her, and that was enough. It had to be enough. Victor was a relief to her; to ruin that would be to make everything so much worse.

Light spilt out of the front door as Claire watched him turn down the cul-de-sac, hands buried in his pockets. Just like old days, she thought, swooning against the doorframe while he did anything but look back at her. In the half-light, the corner of two white plastic bags caught Claire’s eye.

“Shit,” she said aloud, giggling a little at the thought that Envy had caught them, as if it was nothing but a lark.

She grabbed the bags and struggled to bring them indoors, all the while tutting and rolling her eyes in amusement. It was a silly thing, and Envy would surely be OK about it. Hell, she might even be happy for me, Claire thought. Somewhere in the watery depths that haunted her, a voice of contradiction tried to make a sound, though it was too deep and too quiet to be heard in the presence of Claire’s new-found contentment.

In the kitchen area, the bags and their contents crumpled as Claire grabbed her phone. She dialled Envy’s number, putting the shopping away while the phone rang.

At last, Envy answered.

“Hey! Thanks for the grabbing those bits,” Claire said, her voice wobbling with manic giddiness. “Where did you go?”

"You looked busy," Envy replied, dryly. At first, Claire mistook it for nonchalance and laughed it off. Then she heard the sharp edge to her friend’s words. "I didn't want to intrude."

"What do you mean?” Claire giggled, hoping to keep the seas inside of her calm and the voice trapped in the dark. She carried on putting cans of food into the cupboard. “Stop messing about. How much do I owe you?"

Envy sighed.

"Honestly? More than I think you can ever pay back."

"You’re being so dramatic!" joked Claire. “What does that even mean?”

"I mean that I can’t do this anymore. I mean I'm tired of trying to help you navigate your life and watch you make the wrong turn over and over again. I'm done, Claire. We can't be friends. This never works out. I think you're selfish and I know that you're going through a difficult time, but what about me? You haven't even asked how I'm doing.”

A silent, expectant pause followed. Much like the sunshine Victor had imagined on a cloudy day, Claire’s own brightness faltered and then faded. She stopped putting the shopping away, the life draining from her.

"I lost my sister..." came the reply, flat and distant.

But everything is fine.

Envy sighed again. Claire was sick of the sound of it. She wished people would stop sighing whenever she spoke; why couldn’t they just listen and feel sorry for her? Why did Envy have to find a problem to fight about now, after things had taken a positive turn with Victor?

Somewhere, the depths deepened and began to rise to meet Claire.

But it’s still fine. Everything’s still OK.

"I know...and I'm sorry about that – really, I am. In fact, I'm fucking heartbroken over it. She was like a big sister to me."

"Well she was my sister,” Claire interjected, her voice wavering. “My actual sister. Not yours."

“You know what I mean, Claire. Why do you have to be like this?”

“Like what?”

Her voice was shrill now, so high and light and glass-like in its fragility that it might be taken away by nothing more than a breeze.

Another sigh followed. It blew like a gale.

Everything is fine. Nothing’s fine. Nothing is OK.

“Stop sighing!” Claire screamed down the phone. 

“I didn’t-”

The call ended.

All at once, everything was broken.

Nothing was OK and it never would be again.

The groceries were swiped at in a rage, mascots and off-brand colours all faces jeering at her. Screams pierced the air. With clenched fists, Claire swung at herself, swatting at her own thighs and biceps and skull in a fury she could only direct inwards.

Sex with Victor had been a mistake; he’s probably laughing about me.

She lashed out at the flowers next, tossing the pint glass onto the floor with such force that the glass shattered in every direction, scattered to the furthest corners of the room. Then it was the lamp nearby, pulled from its table, followed by whatever she could find that was within reach.

Panting and exhausted, Claire could make no attempt to fight the sensation of drowning. The kitchen floor was dry, she knew that. So why was there so much water? Where had it come from? 

Victor’s fucking Rahim, isn’t he? And he’s a fucking liar. Made me look like an idiot. I thought he was my friend.

The noise in her head grew and grew, but so did the heat – the pure, animalistic, furious heat she had come to know all too well. The ocean she imagined splintered and shattered like glass as everything – everything – bore down on Claire in a single moment. Every awful voice taunting her, every guilty deed she held onto, every tiny annoyance and criticism and injustice and spot of misery and–

Fucking Envy, always sighing and judging. I hate her. I’d rather be alone.

Claire was adrift now in a sea of panic. She could no more process all the feelings crashing down upon her simultaneously, than she could drink every single drop of water in the ocean with one gulp. Her body tried though, only for her to realise it was desperately gulping for air rather than seawater. But a tightness in her chest stopped Claire from getting a single breath in. Something was blocking it, something sharp and heavy and so fucking aching.

Even as all of her senses became overwhelmed with panic, there was one voice of sanity and reason screaming in the middle of the tempest. Call for help, it pleaded. Call for help now. But who to call? Who was there left?

Collapsing onto all fours, Claire scrambled for her phone as her body squeezed and tightened. There was only one person left she could call.

***

Dusk stretched teasingly across Clayham-on-Sea, the afternoon stepping casually into evening. Far from where Damon was parked, the last fragment of pale sky shone through the clouds, mocking the winter-sick town with the promise of more daylight. It would soon fade in the gap between blinks, leaving behind only the gloom of a premature night.

Despite the bright lamps casting spotlights onto empty spaces, the gym car park felt like the darkest spot in the whole town. At its edge, thinned trees lined the perimeter, while the glow from the gym itself was stunted by privacy glass. Paired with the faint, ghostly thumping of workout music reverberating from within the squat building, it very much felt like a modern haunting.

Across the way, the blue car waited obediently for its owner. Damon, not willing to be tricked, had blinked sparingly, determined to keep his eyes firmly on the vehicle. This game had lasted an hour already, starting with a frantic phone call from one of the few associates he had clued into the situation. They had been selected for the same reason as Damon chose Howie. Namely, they were individuals who were both loyal and afraid, who he allowed to push back against him just enough to make them feel confident and safe, like they could be honest with him without repercussions. In truth, this simply made it all the more intimidating when he snapped, varying the point at which his patience ran out to keep them all second guessing. Those lucky few whose fear he trusted had each received the clearest frame from Howie’s CCTV footage and a single instruction: call him as soon as they saw the car and its owner. This had been the first fruitful alert so far, the others coming either too late or at too inconvenient a time for him to race over to where the vehicle had been sighted.

Although he clung to the idea that the wait would be worth it, Damon was starting to grow impatient by the time the top of the hour rolled by. A pilates class finished, the music fading into the memory of an echo as a sweaty group of women stumbled through the gym doors, chattering and laughing like birds dwelling in the youngest parts of the evening. There was near silence for a few minutes, before another class started, its music filling where the air had become empty. A few more stragglers appeared, further whittling down the number of cars parked outside the gym, until at last it was just Damon, the staff, and his prey.

Luckily for Damon, he considered himself to be a patient man. 

An hour and a half had passed – an hour and a half spent sitting in the dark and the silence, waiting for a ghost to reveal himself – before the trap finally sprung.

Damon watched as the owner of the blue car spun his keys casually – mockingly – around his finger, making no attempt to hurry to the nearest lamppost even as the trail of light snatched shut behind him. 

From the safety of the lamppost’s dim glow, the stranger scanned the car park. Damon leaned backwards in his seat, staying rigid and still to blend in with the shadows. Despite his confidence at going unseen, he watched as the man quickened his pace, moving to the next patch of light, and then the next.

Finally, he reached the blue car, one of only four other vehicles left unclaimed. Damon checked his phone one last time, zooming in on the number plate. He had done this a dozen times over the last one-hundred-and-twenty-six minutes, but it seemed too important to not check one last time. That was how mistakes were made. Not this time, though; this was the guy he was looking for.

Slowly, in an attempt to muffle any sound in the car’s joints, Damon carefully pulled on the door handle and let himself out. Like a wild animal caught trespassing, even a faint light switching on had been enough to alert the owner of the Fiat Punto.

Watching the stranger fumble with his keys, Damon was confident that he had time to spare. He opened the door behind the driver’s seat and slid a crowbar out from across the back seat.

“Oi!” The boom of Damon’s voice split the dark. 

Spotlights fell on the two men, the rest of the car park drowned out by the darkness. The stranger messed up, letting his keys slip momentarily from his grasp, before catching them again. Damon used the opportunity to quicken his pace, striding across the tarmac with ease. Behind him, his black coat billowed menacingly, as if the shadows themselves had come to life.

“I just want to speak to you,” Damon promised, gripping the crowbar even tighter in his right hand. “I just want to know why you’ve been fucking following me.” 

The roar of his voice came in time with the first strike of his crowbar, its hooked end ploughing straight into the boot of the blue car.

The swinging motion had distracted Damon from what the owner was doing, and the second swing of his arm missed as the car’s lights burst into life. He squinted, shielding his eyes from the brightness as the driver hit the accelerator, dropped the handbrake, and turned the wheel sharply. The vehicle’s front wheels momentarily rose onto the tree-lined curb before dropping back to the tarmac as they turned. Damon landed another strike against the metal body, though it was weakened by the angle at which he struck leaving nothing but a scratch. Not willing to lose his prey now, he sacrificed the chance of another hit and instead hurried back to his own car.

Inside, the crowbar clattered off the passenger seat and into the footwell as Damon turned the key in the ignition. The car jolted and stalled in protest at the quick movements, but seemed to bend to Damon’s anger, coming to life on the second try.

By the time Damon had pulled free of the parking space, the Fiat Punto had already escaped the gym’s car park. Still, chances were that its driver had turned left, out onto a barren stretch of road sparingly punctuated by just a few street lamps. That road would take him back into town, while the right turn would lead to the depths of the industrial estate and an eventual dead end.

Taking a chance, Damon took the left turn and quickly flitted through the gears until he was racing towards the roundabout that guided traffic either out of Clayham-on-Sea or further into its depths. 

Despite the chase, the blue car’s owner had exercised more respect for the law than Damon; he caught up as the Punto exited the roundabout with more politeness than could realistically be afforded. That, Damon determined, would be his stalker’s downfall. He charged through the lanes with little respect for any drivers who might join the fray, turning off suddenly to keep his foe in sight.

The streets blurred all around them. Even in the darkness, the freshly-washed blue paint was lit like a beacon for Damon to keep his eyes fixed upon. As the distance between them shrank, his tongue ran itself across his lips, hungry for the taste of what was to come – whether it was collision or confrontation.

The bumper of Damon’s car drew closer and closer and–

And then the call came. 

The trill of his ringtone echoed throughout the vehicle, his device picked up by the bluetooth and patched straight through. It was a distraction he couldn’t afford.

“Fucking thing,” he yelled, switching his view from the road down to his phone as he tried to swipe away the invitation to answer. In doing so, Damon took his foot from the accelerator, and the gap between the cars widened once again.

The ringing ended, only to immediately start back up. In his anger, he missed his quarry taking a sharp left turn, and by the time Damon had returned his attention to the chase, he was alone, the only car on the road – a ghost among amber streetlights.

With a sharp jabbing of his foot, Damon slammed on the brakes. As the car screeched to a halt, Damon lurched forward.

The ringing began for a third time.

“Fuck!”

Gripping the steering wheel as tightly as he was gritting his teeth, Damon turned into a residential street and parked up to answer.

“What?!” he spat, demanding some spectacular answer to pay for losing his prize – to make up for hours wasted waiting for an elusive foe.

Instead of any satisfying response, there was only weeping and ragged breathing, like somebody drowning in air. Now at a complete stop, he picked up the handset to check the caller.

“Claire? What is it? Are you OK?” Damon asked, trying to inject even a hint of genuine care into his voice, though his patience had deserted him some time earlier.

“No,” came a small reply.

Damon held in a sigh as he listened to the gasping and occasional sobs.

“I’m on my way.”

***

Silence was the last thing Damon was expecting when he arrived at Claire’s house on Bishop Close.

Once parked, he had called Claire back in the hopes that she would wave him away with a flippant remark, her instability playing to his advantage. She hadn’t answered, and so he found himself at the front door, half-afraid of what he might find.

With a keen eye, Damon surveyed the street for any sign of life – a watchful neighbour, his recently-escaped stalker, any indication as to why the front door of Number Thirty-Three was ajar – but caught sight of nothing. He let himself in, warily stepping across the threshold into a place darker than the evening he was leaving behind.

Shadows clung to every shape and corner. Only a faint light drifted down from the upstairs landing. The steps carved the glow into elongated rectangles, stretching across the ground floor and stitching together the two separate spaces. 

In the kitchen – closest to the stairs – the light cut across the scene, providing occasional hints as to what had unfolded. A bag of white rice had split open violently, bleeding tiny white specks right across the floor. Dented tin cans were lying helpless and bulging, while a glass had shattered across the imaginary border between kitchen and living room.

As he ventured further into the abyss, shards of glass crunched under Damon’s shoe. The more his eyes adjusted, the more chaos he could see; a side table had been toppled by the sofa, a drawer was hanging crookedly from its rails by the sink, and any order previously reinstated had been undone in one rage-stricken tantrum.

“Claire?” Damon called up the stairs, his voice hoarse. 

The fresh surge of adrenaline pumping through his system had reinvigorated a body weary from the evening’s chase, but had dried his throat in the process. Or…maybe it was anxiety, the scene far too quiet for him to feel anything but a deep sense of unease. Unwilling to have chemical reactions undermine his confidence, Damon choked the bannister, cleared his throat, and tried again – louder, calmer.

There was no response. Not from a human, at least. But there was a faint hint of music, muffled and familiar, peeling back the silence.

Pulling his coat to one side, Damon slowly climbed the stairs. He took each step one at a time, treading as lightly as possible so as not to liken the silence to the kitchen debris, shattered and messy.

On the landing, the gloom gave way to a half-light; one of two bulbs – one illuminating the top of the stairs, the other pointed further down the hallway – had been cracked, stifling the light. The darkness pooled beneath the disturbed light fitting, sticky and sickly. Damon flicked both switches off.

The music was coming from the bedroom on his right. Shadows skirted away from beneath the door, repelled by an uneasy glare that Damon recognised as a toppled table lamp.

Despite knowing the bedroom wasn’t Claire’s – there was only her left, after all – Damon still found himself gently calling her name as he knocked and eased it open. She didn’t need to answer; he’d found her.

Claire was sitting on the floor of her sister’s room, surrounded by the disarray that had erupted all about her. Clothes had been pulled from the drawers; papers and books were torn apart, fragments of pages scattered about; and Claire had emptied everything from the wardrobe. It was as if she had clawed her way through her sister’s history, excavating everything about her, layer by layer, only to find herself empty-handed. Whatever treasure she was looking for, Claire hadn’t found it.

Damon lingered in the doorway. Even when no longer alone in the silence and unknown, his deep unease had not abated. He returned the fallen lamp to its perch on the nearby desk. When the portable tape player ceased to sing, and the machine whirred and clicked, Damon reached down and turned the power off.

Silence flooded the room, filling in the void left behind. All Damon could hear was a slight ringing. But then, he didn’t need his ears to tell him how the walls were haunted by echoes of Claire’s upset. He could feel it. 

“What happened?” he asked, his voice suddenly feeling so small in the vastness of the bedroom. Maintaining a hold on the door handle, he tried to take in the sight – tried to understand what he was witnessing. The mess unnerved him. The way everything was strewn about…he could taste the bitterness and fury in Claire’s actions. But deeper than that, there was an anger that rippled the very surface of Damon’s being, and promised to emerge if he dared to find the words to express himself.

The more he looked, the more destruction Damon caught. A small ornament of a horse had cracked into pieces; an amateur theatre trophy had been broken from its base; a shirt he remembered Kristi wearing had been torn in two. All around them both, Kristi’s life had been whipped up and hurtled around, caught in Claire’s maelstrom. Where was the respect? Where was the sanity?

Cautious of his own growing aggravation, Damon swept into the room and crouched in front of Claire. He shook her, hoping to rattle loose some sense.

“What have you done?”

Claire remained silent, rocking back and forth at his command. She seemed empty, a husk abandoned or a puppet whose strings had been snipped.

Up close, Damon could see the toll Claire had inflicted upon herself. Thin scratches marked where she had clawed at her own face, a dry bottom lip bled from where the skin had split as she sobbed, hair distraught from being pulled at once it had grown too painful for Claire to smack her own skull.

“Come on, get up,” Damon demanded, wrapping his fingers around one of her biceps. It felt like nothing more than bone beneath his grip, ready to snap if he clamped down too hard.

At first, she remained a dead weight. But Damon was stronger and more determined, lifting Claire until her feet made contact with the ground. At that point, it became easier for Damon to hoist her the rest of the way. 

Damon let go of Claire’s arm and tried to make eye contact. No matter how hard he tried, shifting and forcing his way into her line of sight, he couldn’t hold Claire’s unfocused gaze.

“What’s the matter with you?” he insisted, shaking her again.

Damon turned away, calculating where to start with tidying up the debris. He thought of Kristi and how she stirred his desires; he thought of the car chase, and how the stalker had slipped through his fingers because of Claire. There were better places he could be right now.

A nearby mirror leaned awkwardly against the wall. A crack ran vertically from the base to where the theatre trophy had collided with its surface, the glass kept precariously in place at the wooden frame’s discretion. He grabbed Claire again and dragged her to the mirror. Her reflection met them there, bisected but present.

“Look at yourself,” Damon sneered, his fingers tightening as the memory of Claire’s intrusion on his evening came back for a second look. If he followed the memory, he could trace the regret back even further; had she not ever stepped foot in his office with the voicemail messages, Claire wouldn’t even be a footnote in his story. He commanded her again with an aggressive jolt. “Look at yourself!”

Finally, Claire raised her gaze enough to meet the reflection staring back. Slowly, her eyes roamed the fractured glass, exploring the image with the same curiosity as a feral animal, unsure of who – or what – was looking back at her.

It was a stranger. She could determine that much. The girl in a pink woollen jumper that slipped off her shoulder; the girl with messed-up, greasy hair; the girl whose face was still caked in a smattering of foundation haphazardly applied the night before, in an attempt by Envy to cheer her up.

None of it was convincing to Claire; the charade fell apart upon looking more closely. Once, she had been aware of a chasm of need that drew everybody and everything into it, suffocating the people she wanted to keep close. Then it had become a void that suffocated her instead, her breath held between knives that threatened to cut skin loose if her thoughts ever strayed too closely to the truth. 

And now, after experiencing all the regret and guilt breaking free from where she had imprisoned it, the chasm was a spotlight. In her mind, Claire was, at last, exposed as the fraud which she knew herself to have been all along – her own greatest lie, told so convincingly that even she had started to believe it.

Damon watched as Claire’s facial expressions stirred into life. Every landmark reacted. Puzzlement flourished above her eyebrows, while her eyes grew glassy with tears; misery tugged at the corners of her mouth, followed by a twitch that seemingly rippled across the entire landscape of Claire’s face.

Damon let go. She was weaker than him, smaller and more frail. Still, he felt his body prime itself.

The screaming – furious, heartbroken, primal – that arced out of Claire’s mouth was as unrecognisable as the pained face that contorted itself in the mirror. She folded at her centre, arms tight to her sides and fingers covered in her sister’s blood clawing at herself. The mess was an entire life, torn apart and discarded on an unkept cream carpet. Claire found her way to meet it, collapsing to the floor where she began to sob hysterically once again. Had there been any energy left in her frail body, she might have thumped the carpet with her fists. There was nothing left, however, and so she simply let her fingernails dig into the worn fibres instead. The reflection joined her there, the splintered glass drawing battlelines between Claire and herself.

Claire turned from the mirror and collapsed even further onto the carpet, writhing among her sister’s possessions as she lashed out at herself with flailing limbs.

Damon, who had taken a step back in surprise, put further distance between them, unsure of how to help – or if he even wanted to. Meanwhile, Kristi’s name taunted her. A voice – sometimes her own, sometimes not, and sometimes just a trick – repeated it over and over again. If only she could say it, everything might be OK. But doing so would break the spell or make her sick or summon the sight of her sister’s spirit in every reflection and every drop of water, and she would never be free of her again.

But Claire realised she was hardly free now. 

The sobbing turned to choked, desperate breathing, the last of the tears plummeting onto the carpet. Even with Damon present, Claire was alone, distraught on somebody else’s bedroom floor. Overtaken by desperation, she pushed herself onto all fours and began to frantically grab at Kristi’s things, scrambling to pull them all close to her. Loose papers and magazines with photos they’d cut out together; make-up brushes and half-empty mascaras; a broken framed photo and the last drop of her sister’s favourite perfume. Claire scrambled to collect every fragment of her sister, apologising over and over again to a ghost that could never forgive her.

For Damon, this was simply too much. 

He had never witnessed such emotions from one person; they threatened to sweep him away, already overwhelming any lingering annoyance he had been harbouring. The situation was spiralling away from him. And so, Damon defaulted to what felt familiar and safe. He took control.

“Claire, I need you to calm down.” He swallowed his discomfort as he spoke, attempting to stay firm as he approached Claire again. The crying and scrambling and rocking continued, even as he crouched in front of her, his black coat spilling over the debris of Kristi’s life. “What’s happening here? I need you to talk to me.”

Claire stopped. It was sudden enough for Damon to once again brace himself. She knelt, locking eyes with him as she started to speak. Despite the engagement of her eyes, Claire’s voice was distant, a person calling for help from far out to sea.

“I ruined everything.”

“What have you ruined?” he asked. A chill ran through Damon’s veins as he contemplated what that could mean for him. After all, he was the one she’d called, and there was still a chance Claire’s instability had seen her hand over the incriminating voicemails to somebody who shouldn’t ever know about them. Damon asked again. “What have you ruined, Claire?”

With shaky legs, Claire stood up. Although he reached out to help, she managed it alone.

“Everything.”

“I’m sure that can’t be true.” Damon tried to soothe her, catching a growing impatience between clenched teeth. Whether it sounded sincere or not, Claire responded with a shake of her head and a step back.

“It is.”

“Tell me how,” he offered, forcing a gentle tone.

Claire crossed her arms tightly and shook her head again. Damon tried to close the gap, but she took another step backwards towards the window.

He tried a different tactic.

“Why won’t you tell me? Aren’t we friends?”

Damon lifted his foot to step forward once more, but gently lowered it instead; Claire retreated regardless.

“You’ll hate me,” she started to snivel.

“I promise I won’t,” Damon reassured. “Though I’ll be honest, Claire, I’m starting to get a little annoyed with all this nonsense. So it’s probably best to just tell me what it is that you so obviously want to tell me.”

Claire backed into the window sill, the radiator below it clanging as she made contact. There was nowhere else to go. 

Once again, she was back on the pier. 

Fire raged overhead. Below, cold sea water waited to greet her. But this – retreating towards the heat – wasn’t the choice she had made that night; Claire was all too aware of the lie she was telling herself. No. The white-hot fury piercing her insides had sought to keep itself alive, and Claire had chosen to surrender to it. She had followed her sister into the water. And then she drowned her.

“I…I did it…” she whispered aloud, narrating the reckoning unfolding in her own mind. Before Damon could ask for more, Claire looked directly at him and made her confession. “I killed her.”

At the last syllable, the fragile defences Claire had erected to protect her mind from her own deeds finally shattered completely. Guilt cascaded through her body, though where she had expected jerks and tremors, wails and tears, there was only silence and stillness. In the distance, the sound of the churning sea lessened to a hum, and then nothing.

Worst of all – more painful than the guilt and more shameful than the truth – was the sense of loss that poured over Claire in that moment. She had wanted so deeply for Kristi to never leave her, and yet…surveying the remnants of her sister’s life strewn about the room, Claire realised she had been the one to cause her to go.

And she’s never coming back, taunted a voice from the back of her mind, one last cruel thought as the tide receded back into the dark.

Damon laughed. It was a small, confused chuckle at first, but rolled into a hysterical bark of disbelief. Although it came to a sudden stop, Damon continued to smile incredulously.

“You killed Kristi? Is that what you’re telling me?” He looked about the room at the mess and the drama and rolled his eyes with relief. “Give me a break, Claire. This is ridiculous! Your need for attention is ridiculous.”

He went to leave, and Claire reached for him, tugging on his coat.

With hardly any effort, Damon swiped her away from him before rounding on Claire with a sharply-pointed finger.

“You’re fucking sick. Do you know that? All of this for what? Another five minutes of it being about you? Or another pity fuck, maybe. It’s pathetic.”

“It’s not…I–”

“How did you do it then?” Damon challenged.

Claire dropped her gaze to the floor, which told Damon he was right. But as he started once again for the door, she spoke.

“She hit her head. On the pier. We were fighting. And then we were in the water.”

Damon ran cold. He looked back at Claire, inspecting her face for any hint of a lie. There was nothing; no twitch at the sides of the mouth, no frantic blinking or looking away. There was only honesty and exhaustion. He turned his whole body back towards her.

“Go on…”

Claire stared up at Damon as she finally let him approach. There was no more backing away from this; too much had been said already.

“I held her head under.”

A moment passed where Damon’s breath caught in his chest, his whole body tightening around this one inhalation. If he let it go, time would move forward, and he would have to choose which of the competing emotions would be triumphant.

“Damon?” Claire asked, her voice so small she could barely hear it herself.

“I’m thinking,” he snapped, chewing on his thumb and pacing as he considered all the possibilities. When he next spoke, it was to ask for information. “Does anybody else know? Did anybody see?”

“What? No. No one saw,”

Detecting a falsehood, Damon drew himself closer and loomed over her.

“Don’t lie to me, Claire. This is really important. Does anybody else know?”

As much as she tried to avoid his eyeline, it was impossible; her teeth were already pressed into dry lips, forming the shape that would make Victor’s name. 

“Victor. Victor was there.”

“Can you prove it? Claire?” Damon shook her again before guilt could serve as a distraction. “Can you prove Victor was there?”

“I had a photo,” she mumbled.

“Had or have?”

“Had.”

“Shit.” Damon began pacing. “We can restore it. If it’s on your phone, we can restore it from the deleted items. The police do it all the time.”

“I can’t do that, Damon,” Claire said, her voice wavering with cowardice even as she spoke with conviction. 

“You can and you fucking will,” he sneered. “I’ve got the CCTV, though honestly I was bullshitting you with that. I didn’t actually think it’d be useful. So either you can give me the photo and let me fix this, or I can take that to the police instead.”

As Damon’s tone traversed the new landscape forged by the revelation, dipping into rage before climbing high into elation at his own forward-thinking, nausea started to overtake Claire. She clutched at her stomach as Damon continued to pace and make plans aloud. The trick with a man like Damon, her sister used to say, is to never take your eyes off him.

“Aren’t you upset?” Claire asked. Damon stopped moving at the intrusion, his expression becoming thunderous again.

“About what?”

“Abou–? Jesus, Damon. Did you hear what I said?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. I heard exactly what you said, Claire. And I’m trying to help you. Honestly, I think I’m relieved it was this and not…”

“Not what? Not me giving the voicemails to the police?”

The threat was thinly-veiled and clumsy, but it was enough to sit awkwardly between the two of them – and enough to have Damon’s demeanour respond to one of condescending jest.

“I think we’re a bit beyond that now, Claire. Nobody’s going to give shit about a bit of arson and insurance fraud when there’s murder they can splash across the front pages,” he laughed. “I can see the headlines: Local Sweetheart Killed by Jealous Sister.”

“I’m not–”

He spoke over her, framing the fictional titles in the air with his hands, a showman at mockery.

“How about Crazy Killer Drowns Sister?”

Claire’s knuckles whitened.

“Or – bear with me – or, Surprise! Suicide Ruled as Murder?”

She swung for him, but Damon simply leaned back and let it pass.

“What’s wrong? Can’t handle the consequences of your own actions?” Damon spat, drawing closer to Claire’s face. She could smell cigarettes and fire and coffee on his hot breath.

“No, I bet it’d be more personal. Kristi’s Crazy Killer Caught,” he taunted, prodding Claire in the chest, a firm finger straining against bones and muscle. “I like that one, it has alliteration.”

A familiar flame flickered into life deep in the empty caverns of her chest. Claire had finally cried all of the tears from her body, and now the rage that could not survive in the damp conditions of her mourning and misery was finally able to burn again.

“Don’t say her name. You don’t get to say her name,” she said, the edge of her words hardening.

“I’ll say her name as many fucking times as I want to, you little psycho freak. Kristi. Kristi, Kristi, Kristi.”

Unlike the shrieks that had already vibrated off the walls of the house that day, Claire’s scream was something more barbaric and warlike. It served as the only warning Damon would get before she started swatting at him with her hands and nails.

“You don’t get to say her name!” she yelled, viciously.

Taken aback, Damon moved to protect his face, but Claire was able to complete a few swipes before he could bring his arms up. Even then, she didn’t relent, raining blows down upon him in an explosion of fury whose familiarity felt all at once terrifying and strangely comforting.

“You fucking bitch!” Damon yelled, struggling to push Claire off him. “I was going to help you!”

The screaming stopped before Claire unleashed another flurry of slaps and scratches, if only to conserve her breath. But the flailing was already beginning to lose focus and power, and Claire had only gained a small amount of ground.

“Stop it, you crazy fucking bitch!” Damon yelled, shielding his eyes even as Claire aimed for weak spots lower down on his body. Her feet joined the fray, lashing out with kicks and raised knees, which he fought to block as best he could.

Eventually, though, Damon’s patience expired.

He grabbed Claire once again, eyes half-open out of caution, and fingers no longer caring if her twig-like arms snapped in their grip. As he forced her away from him, his head connected with hers, dazing the young woman. Feeling her grow flaccid in his grasp, Damon slammed into the chest of drawers knocking the wind from her lungs and disrupting the swinging of her limbs.

To reinforce the point, Damon repeated the action, all the while spitting, “Bitch! Stupid fucking crazy bitch!”

As Claire’s anger dissipated and she grew limp, Damon began to feel in control once again. He shoved her to the floor with ease, finally able to take a moment to react to where she’d caught his face with fists and nails. 

The cracked mirror welcomed Damon back as he inspected the scratches and reddening skin.

“For fuck’s sake, Claire,” he panted. “You need to work on that anger of yours if you want to get away with…with what you did. I’m still willing to help, you know.”

As he checked a mark to the side of one eye – a near-miss from early on in the fray – Damon noticed the blood, dismissing it initially. But then the mirror’s fractured surface gave a malicious half-grin, reflecting back the reality of the situation. Both versions of Damon paled at the realisation that the carpet was starting to bloom in scarlet. Although he could see the truth reflected in front of him, he didn’t dare turn around. That would be making it real.

Claire opened her eyes then and looked at him, stunned but full of accusations. She tried to sit up, but only made it as far as propping her body up with one hand. The other reached to where her greasy hair had become matted with blood, stained fingertips confirming that she was indeed bleeding from Damon’s careless self-defence.

Her arm gave way as Damon approached, his body casting a shadow across Claire’s entire life. Maybe everything had been leading here after all; the threads of her mistakes – of her choices – lay at her feet.

“I was going to help. I just wanted to help,” Damon said, with genuine sincerity. He planted a knee either side of her body. “Everything would’ve been OK.”

Claire strained to reach for something to use as a weapon, but her limbs were heavy and there was nothing of use to be found. A lipstick, a necklace, the edge of a rug now starting to soak with blood – none would help her to fend him off.

With Damon’s full strength applied to her neck, a desperate and frantic energy returned to Claire’s limbs. She began to thrash in resistance, her heels thumping against the bedroom floor.

“I think I loved her. But I would’ve looked after you,” Damon said, tearfully. “I just wanted to look after somebody. Nobody looked after me.”

His confession would have no witnesses. Damon closed his eyes before tightening his grip; he’d watched his hands do many things people would consider to be terrible, but he couldn’t watch them do this. Bruises bloomed on Claire’s skin, lilacs and daffodils beneath his fingertips.

The scent of saltwater that had haunted her those last few months gave way to the stench of copper and Damon’s aftershave.

Eventually, the desperate thumping of Claire’s feet against the carpet grew tired as the struggle left her body; eventually, Damon’s grunts stopped as he loosened his grip; and eventually, the house finally fell completely silent – save for one final question, whispered aloud in the dark by a man who now feared the reflection he knew would be staring back at him should he look anywhere but at his own hands, where blood was already drying.

“What have I done?”

He lowered his hands and fixed his eyes on the parted lips where Claire’s last breath had escaped. For the first time in his life, Damon didn’t have an answer.