Page 53 of Swiping Right (and other disasters)

“Hi, Lou,” said Chrissie in a small voice, her eyes still red from crying.

“Hi,” said Lou, then turned to Kiera, grabbed her arm and gently tugged her into the kitchen. “What the hell is she doing here?”

“She was in serious trouble, Lou. You remember all those jokes I made about Lucian and his hippy friends being part of a cult? Well, turns out I was closer to reality than I thought. He’s taken all her savings, deprived her of food and freedom, the works.”

“Her savings?” whispered Lou. “Weren’t they your savings too?”

“I’m not thinking about that right now,” said Kiera, her brain at risk of overflowing with everything that had happened. The one clear thought she had was that Chrissie had no one else. Someone had to look after her.

“Christ, Kiera, this is heavy stuff. Shouldn’t we call the police?”

Kiera sighed. Lou was probably right, but Chrissie seemed jumpy and fearful. Would she even agree to that?

“I saw Seymour at the café,” added Lou. “What have you done? She looks awful.”

“We were together, last night,” said Kiera, suddenly ashamed of that fact, despite the joy and connection it had brought the previous evening. “Then this morning Chrissie rang.”

“And you ran out?” Kiera nodded. “God, mate, no wonder she looks terrible. I mean, I sort of get why you went, but what did you tell her?”

“Nothing. I just said there was something I needed to do.”

“So now she probably thinks you freaked out and never want to see her again.” Lou’s lips were pursed again.

“Well, I don’t know that. But I guess she won’t be feeling great. Honestly, I feel terrible. How do I explain this?”

“Tell her the truth,” said Lou. “Your deadbeat ex-wife got herself subsumed into a crazy cult and you had to rescue her, but that you have no intention of ever getting back together with her again.” Kiera looked up, but didn’t speak. “That’s right, isn’t it? You’re not getting back together with her?”

“Um, sorry,” came a voice from the doorway. “I just came to get some more water.” Chrissie scurried in, filled her glass and scurried back out again.

“How much of that did she hear?” asked Kiera.

“Does it matter?” retorted Lou.

“It does sound like a lot of what was going on before was because of this guy and his controlling ideas.”

“It doesn’t make it ok, hun,” said Lou, her voice softer. “She stole from you. She abandoned you. She cheated on you. Regardless of who else was involved, she did those things. She did them. I know you want to be supportive and understanding, but you were moving on. You’ve met someone new.”

Kiera didn’t speak.

“Please don’t let her drag you back into everything now, just when you’ve finally got away from it all,” said Lou, who was still holding her car keys. “Look, I don’t think I can be much help here right now. But think about your new life, think about Seymour. I’m going to go, but call me later.”

Kiera watched Lou leave. What she’d said made sense. But at the moment her brain was a swirling mess of feelings and worries. She felt like she’d been taken back in time, somehow. She knew she needed to talk to Seymour, but she didn’t know where to start. How could she explain something she wasn’t sure even she understood?

She returned to the living room. “Chrissie, I think we should call the police.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chrissie relayed the story to the police officer who had been dispatched to Kiera’s flat, going back to the day Athena and Hari had returned to their cabin.

Lucian refused to let them in, berating them for their lack of trust, their lack of respect, their selfishness and their disregard for the group. He told them they could never come back.

“I could see them, looking tired and cold through the window, carrying bags of shopping. There was something else in their eyes too, though. It was like they knew something we didn’t, like something had happened. He turned them away. They tried to leave the food for us but he wouldn’t let them. We didn’t see them again. I don’t know what happened to them after that.”

“What happened to you after that?” asked PC Phillips, who had told Chrissie to call her Geri.

“He punished us for not stopping them from going. For three days we had no food and weren’t allowed out of the cabin at all. I was afraid. I thought he was going to kill us; he was so angry. It was then I started to notice that while we were all looking pale and thin, he looked healthy and still had a rounded tummy that peeped over his belt. I started to wonder whether he was telling us the truth. Then on the fourth day he set out a feast of all sorts of food and congratulated us for passing the test.”

It was at that point that Chrissie realised she needed to escape and never come back. The rollercoaster of fear and hope and disappointment and anxiety and relief was unsustainable.

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