Page 120 of Devilish Ink

Our bed in the glare of the streetlamp looked particularly empty. But I imagined it in a few months’ time full. Practically overflowing. Me and Liam and our baby.

We’d lie on our sides, a thumb for each of our baby’s perfect hands. We’d look into each other’s eyes over the downy fuzz of his or her head. We’d discuss a new mattress. A bigger one. In a new place. And we’d have the money for it.

Once Liam got back…

I thought sleep might run from me like the end of a rainbow. I’d been expecting a long, drawn-out battle for rest.

But when I tugged an extra pillow toward my chest and breathed in deep the musk of Liam’s shampoo and the lingering hint of engine grease, I found myself calm.

My thoughts grew heavy. I squeezed the pillow toward my belly. Felt the pressure. Trusted Liam would give anything in the world to have his hand right there, right now…

I smiled sleepily, halfway dragged under when I heard the front door unlock. He’d decided to come home.

That was okay. We’d find the money some other way. Liam, here, was all I needed. All I wanted.

But his footsteps sounded…heavier than usual outside the door.

He hesitated just a little too long before he turned the bedroom doorknob.

As I lay with my back to him, snuggled beneath the blankets, ready for him to slip in behind me, it was not his satisfied hum that caused the hairs on the back of my neck to rise.

It wasn’t Liam.

I spun to face the intruder.

Fingers clenched around my choked scream like iron shackles.

“Well, aren’t you just all that I remembered,” Balor cooed.

LIAM

“Strange,” I muttered as the dial tone rang out.

I’d tried Peter’s number three times now to let him know I was on my way to Cork, but he still wasn’t picking up.

It was weird because he’d practically called me every hour on the feckin’ hour in the days leading up to it to make sure I was still going, what time was I leaving, what time did I expect to be in Cork by?

The way his voice had trembled with excitement, you’d think that bike was a fucking woman he was in love with. And he’d transferred a 50,000 Euro non-refundable deposit into my account without blinking.

So why had he now just…disappeared.

The yellow lines of the road dashed by, getting swept under the wheel like fall leaves. The silhouette of the trees blurred past the windows against the low-hanging moonlit clouds. I’d driven plenty of times at night before, but never had the road seemed so endless, the destination so far.

Why couldn’t I shake the feeling that leaving Dublin was wrong?

I rolled down the window a crack and tried to breathe in the country air. I thought it might revive me. Maybe it was just too hot in the car, the air too stifling.

I just needed to think straight for a moment or two. I was doing this for a reason. Leaving Ry. Driving across the country. Hauling back our future.

Two million euros was a sum I never could have imagined before Peter happened, as if out of the blue, to walk in the door of the shop.

My stomach turned despite the cascades of icy air across my outstretched face.

“We need this,” I told myself as I forced my foot down harder on the pedal. “Ry needs this. Our baby needs this. I am doing what isright.”

At night, with the glare of the headlights casting the surroundings into an even darker black, it was easy enough to imagine familiar hills. Long stretches of desolate land I could call to mind with perfect detail by just closing my eyes.Home.

I wasn’t near my father’s farm. But in my mind’s eye I saw the fence that needed mending. I saw the birds diving into the pond circled in reeds, the only place of happy memories, like a single ray of sun between the clouds. I saw the house in the distance.

---