Page 30 of A Dark Mafia Christmas

I sit on the edge of the bed. Tomorrow, everyone will wake up excited, happy, smiling faces eager to open gifts and pitch in with preparing Christmas dinner. If I stay, I’ll experience the kind of family festivities I’ve only ever dreamed of. The holidays will never be the same for me again because nothing else will ever live up to this.

Ever.

I take a deep shaky breath. I know what I must do.

When the house is slumbering, waiting for Santa’s arrival, I put on the clothes I arrived in, drag my shoes on over a pair of Fianna’s thick socks—I’m sure she won’t miss a pair of socks—and find my jacket hanging in the wardrobe. It won’t provide much warmth, but it wouldn’t feel right stealing one of the warm coats from the mud room.

Leaving Granny Mary’s ring on the dressing table, I open the door a crack and peer into the shadowy hallway. Silence. Tiptoeing outside, holding my breath, I close the door behind me with a gentle click.

I don’t breathe as I hurry past Emmett’s room. I can’t hear a sound above the thump-thump of my heart, and the blood gushing around my veins, but I keep moving down the stairs and outside through the mud room which is furthest away from the bedrooms.

Outside, I stand on the doorstep taking deep breaths and wait for my pulse to regulate. The ground is covered with a fine film of white frosting. Just bloody perfect! Tomorrow the family will wake up to a white Christmas, and who knows where I’ll be.

Because it’s only just hit me that there’ll be no public transport running on Christmas Day.

No turning back. If I don’t leave now, I won’t pluck up the courage a second time. Instead, I’ll play happy families for the next nine days, getting to know Emmett’s family the way his future wife would, and it’ll be even harder to go back to New York when the holidays are over.

Deep breath. Come on, Mary, you can do it.

I step out onto the gravel driveway, my shoe crunching on icy frost. A snowflake lands on my nose, and I tilt my face towards the sky. The sky is gray-white, heavy with the snow still to come. I start walking, and it seems that with each step, the snowflakes grow larger, thicker, colder.

Fuck my life.

Head down, I pull the collar of my jacket up around my ears, hunch my shoulders, stuff my hands inside my pockets and keep walking. One foot in front of the other.

My blister is stinging before I reach the end of the driveway. My fingers are numb. Why didn’t I pick up a pair of woolen mittens from the mud room before I left? Hypothermia is a thing, especially when someone has no clue where they’re going.

Recalling the trip to pick up the Christmas tree the day before, I turn left when I reach the road and follow it back towards the closest village. I have no idea how far away it is or how longit will take me to walk there, but I hope I reach some form of civilization before morning.

I can’t feel my toes. It’s like walking on two blocks of ice, my shoes skidding occasionally on the fresh layer of snow. I haven’t gone far when I start shivering uncontrollably. There are no street lamps along this rural road, and I’m surrounded by silent skeletal trees in both directions.

I shouldn’t have drunk so much Prosecco. My eyes keep straying to the darkness lurking behind the thick trunks, imagining pitch-black eyes following me, my ears straining for the snap of a twig.

The shivering is making it hard to walk. This was a mistake, but I can’t go back now. No one will be awake to let me into the house, and besides, I don’t want to ruin their holidays if I wake up with a fever in the morning.

Especially whennone of this is real!

My brain feels frozen too, locked onto the mantra: right foot, left foot. Where is the village? I was so absorbed by Emmett’s closeness in the car that I can’t remember how long it took us to drive there.

I’m so cold, chilled to the bone, that even my blood no longer feels like it’s pumping around my body, and I almost cry with relief when I spot a small bus shelter on the side of the road.

My legs are trembling when I reach it. Made of toughened plastic, there’s a wide opening, and a narrow wooden bench running along the back of the shelter, barely wide enough for me to lay on. Out of the snow and the wind, the immediate warmth provided by the meager shelter makes my eyelids heavy.

Huddled inside my jacket, my face resting on the cold bench, I close my eyes and drift off to sleep.

11

EMMETT

Christmas morning, everyone gathers in the kitchen for a fried breakfast. We’ve always done it this way for as long as I can remember, Buck’s Fizz, breakfast, then gift opening around the tree in the living room.

The twins come running into the kitchen with the tray left out the night before for Santa. “He ate the mince pie.”

“The reindeer only nibbled the carrot.”

“Santa drank his juice though.”

Mom and Dad exchange glances. It’s always been family time, the only time of the year, according to Mom, when everyone switches off to what’s going on outside these four walls. She’s probably right. I haven’t thought about work since I rode Jupiter down to the stream yesterday with Mary.

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