Page 100 of I Would Die for You

“What the hell happened?” cries Amelia as she opens the door of her mother’s caravan and ushers Cassie in. She looks like she hasn’t slept or eaten in days. “I’ve been going out of my mind.”

“I’msosorry,” says Cassie, pulling her friend in for a hug, unable to imagine what it must have been like to watch the news unfold on TV without knowing what’s really going on. “Every time I tried to get here, the press would be on my tail. They’ve been camped outside our house all week and I didn’t want to bring them to your door.”

“I can’t believe it,” says Amelia, shaking as she lights a cigarette. “How can Michael be dead?”

“I don’t… I don’t know,” says Cassie with tears in her eyes, though they’re driven by fear rather than grief. “It doesn’t feel real.”

“B-but what went wrong? I thought you only wanted to expose Ben’s drug habit—payback for how he’d treated you?”

“That was the plan,” says Cassie, the lie rolling off her tongue.“I just wanted him to get caught with it, but he took it straight to Michael’s room and I can only assume…” Her words trail off.

“This is bad,” says Amelia, rocking back and forth as she looks at Cassie wide-eyed. “This is really bad.”

“Now, listen,” says Cassie, desperately trying to keep her wavering voice steady. She needs to be in control—to stop Amelia from losing her shit. “We haven’t done anything wrong. My sister gave me the drugs, and I gave them to Ben. That’s it—end of story.”

“But Iknewyou were doing it,” shrills Amelia. “Ihelped set it up.Iwas complicit.”

Cassie takes hold of Amelia’s trembling hands, never thinking for a moment thatshe’d be the one to restore order. “You need to pull yourself together,” she says. “None of this is our fault. The only person who has blood on his hands is Ben.”

“Do you think he did it on purpose?” asks Amelia, the sudden realization catching in her throat.

“I’d be lying if I said no,” says Cassie, the irony of her words not lost on her. “He was in such a state—saying how much he hated Michael and that he was going to kill him if he got his hands on him.”

“Oh my god,” croaks Amelia. “We set them on each other.”

Cassie shakes her head. “We may have lit the fuse, but if it hadn’t kicked off then, it would only have happened the next day or the day after that.”

Amelia gives a conciliatory nod.

“It was a bomb waiting to go off,” says Cassie, still desperate to instill the narrative that it had nothing to do with them. “We’re the innocent pawns in this. We couldn’t have known that this would be the outcome.”

“Do you think there was something wrong with the drugs?” asks Amelia, wide-eyed.

Cassie has to admit that she’s wondered the same herself. She’s heard of dodgy batches and can’t help but wonder if they got unlucky.

“I don’t think there’s any use in torturing ourselves with endless questions,” she says.

“But maybe it was too strong, maybe it was too much…” shrieks Amelia.

“Wedidn’t give it to him,” says Cassie, not liking where this is going. She knew Amelia was going to be upset, but her hysteria is dangerous.

A bang on the open window makes them both jump. “Is Maeve around?” asks a man with a mullet and dirty jeans hanging down below his underpants.

Amelia gives him a derisory glance up and down, resigned to but not liking the constant coming and going of her mother’s male visitors. “Who’s asking?” she says.

“You can call me Uncle,” says the man with a wry smile.

“What’s happened to the other ‘uncle’?” asks Amelia.

“He had a bad trip,” he says, cryptically. “He didn’t make it home.”

Cassie’s stomach turns over as she remembers the dead man’s promise that his gear would give her the best trip she’d ever have. “You’ll never go back,” he’d boasted, as he handed her a foil package behind the shower block of Amelia’s caravan park.

If Nicole hadn’t failed her by allowing her cowardice to win out over retribution, then Cassie wouldn’t have had to take matters into her own hands. But now it seems that perhaps her sister wasn’t as weak as Cassie had her down for. Nicole had obviously got hold of some drugs herself and is now of the mind that it was those that led to Michael’s demise. And for Cassie’s part, it’s not a bad thing. It won’t hurt for Nicole to take some responsibility for what’s happened; it’s the least she can do after everything she’s put Cassie through.

But as much as Nicole deserves to share the guilt, a sickening sensation creeps along Cassie veins. What if therewassomething wrong with the drugs she’d bought from “Uncle”? What if itwasthe same bad batch thathe’ddied from? And what if Michael’s overdose could be traced back to her?

“I can’t go to prison,” cries Amelia, as the man walks away with his unsold stash still buried deep in his trouser pockets.

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