Page 21 of Golden Burn

How did I think this was ever going to be a good idea? I should have stuck to my original plan and spent the rest of my life hunting down everyone with Lombardo blood running through their veins.

I groan, knowing I have one sleeping in a room on the opposite end of the house.

“What did I do?”

“You exist.”

I know I shouldn’t have said it. I didn’t even mean it in the context she thinks. But the moment is gone, and I created the outcome. I distract myself by updating Dom.

Odin:We’re being watched.

Dom:We suspected as much. I can have everything organized to leave in an hour.

Odin:We can leave tomorrow. Rushing off now will just give a bad impression.

Ford:You’re right. Let him think we’re confident. Better than if he thinks we’re chickens.

Dom:Also, thought you should see this.

A video pops up just after the messages. It’s the camera feed from inside the middle of the house. It shows Dr. Lewis tip-toeing around—despite it being three in the morning—searching for something. My guess is the car keys. She opens draws and cupboards for twenty minutes, being meticulous to make sure she keeps quiet. I can attest to her efforts that it was successful. I didn’t hear a thing. And since I didn’t get an alert, Dom must have been watching the cameras at the time and interrupted the notification. My sleeping habits are atrocious enough, his aresignificantly worse. Ford must not have tired him out as much as he’d hoped. I’ll be looking forward to dangling that in front of him later.

The video keeps playing. Harriet has given up her search for the keys. She sits on the lounge for another ten minutes with her head in her hands. It’s a sad image. An image worthy of enough weight to have sympathy stirring in my chest. I know what it’s like to feel nothing. To be as dead inside as the bodies buried beneath a cemetery and still have your heart beating, keeping you alive, drawing out the days when it would be better if they ended all together.

It wavers and then retreats when Etta stands, heads back to the kitchen and finds the biggest knife possible to take back to her room.

Odin:Can we put a lock on the outside of the door?

Dom:No. That’s distrustful. She’s not going to hurt any of us unless provoked.

Ford:Odin, that’s on you. Be a nice pirate. Not a haven’t-been-happy-in-years pirate.

Odin:I’m cutting your wages.

Ford:I’m screwing your accountant.

Dom:Go make her breakfast. Include the mangoes.

Odin:I’m not her personal chef.

Groaning, I put my phone away and head out into the house proper. It’s just past eight, and the sun is pooling through the windows, illuminating the space in a crisp orange hue. Outside, the world looks like a winter fairytale, a far cry from the nightmare happening inside. Harriet is nowhere to be seen, and after searching the kitchen, no evidence of her escapade was left for me to find.

As much as Dom’s advice frustrates me, I know he’s right. But I’m not making the food for her, I’m making it for myself.

Taking a few ingredients out of the fridge, I get them in order to start making some eggs, bacon, and potatoes. I’ll leave the mangoes for her to get herself. She’ll know it’s an easy ploy to gain her trust.

As I’m readying the coffee machine, grief taps against my skull, wanting to show me an image that has gone fuzzy around the edges. I’m too weak to ignore it.

Gen sits across from me at a cafe in Australia; her blonde hair shines like gold and her brown eyes ripple like melted chocolate. “Breakfast and lunch combined. I’m a fan!” she says as she shoves the huge breakfast burger in her mouth. I start to laugh as the yolk from the egg explodes and dribbles down her chin. “What’s so funny?”

I reach across the table and wipe her face with a napkin. She grins like a fool as she takes another bite, and the barbeque sauce gets on her nose.

“You’re terrible,” I say, smiling.

“You love me.”

The coffee machine squealing to life knocks me out of the memory and into the bleak and barren present. Grief laughs quietly as I shake it off and distract myself by frying some food.

Snow drifts like icing sugar onto the fields behind the house. Through the window at the back of the kitchen, I can see the lights on in Dom’sand Ford’s cottage. I’m sure they’re enjoying being alone for the first time in weeks. I take my phone out of my pocket and send a text.

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