Page 107 of The New House

kyperlife

harper to the rescue!

LIKEDISLIKE

Welcome back, my lovely Kyper peeps! I know you haven’t heard from me for a couple of days and I’m super sorry about that, but it’s been a crazy week. The good news is, this time tomorrow I’ll be back with my boys and Kyle at our teeny little rented mouse-house, though we’re not going to be there for long. I can’t tell you how I know that, but just trust me, OK?

Look, I wasn’t going to say anything, and maybe I shouldn’t, but I’ve just got this badfeeling, you know? I’m sure everything’s going to be fine, but just in case – God, I’m sure I’m being super ridiculous and superstitious, but you know when you just get thatsense?

Anyway, I can always delete this afterwards. Like, I’msureI’ll just delete this later. Because it’s all going to turn out fine—

[Pause]

Fuck it. I’ve had enough of playing this game. I’m going to delete this as soon as I get back anyway, so I might as well drop the act and just spit it out.

So. Stacey Porter, our big-hearted, award-winning, ‘People’s Choice’ national treasure, is the one who crashed her car into me. She tried to kill me to shut me up about her pension-stealing husband, but that’s not the big reveal.

Millie Downton’s ten-year-old son, Peter, was in the car with her. Bit of a twist, huh?

Actually, not so much, not if you’ve met him. This kid’s a total freak show. He tried to drown Stacey Porter’s son in a swimming pool a few weeks ago, thoughno one will admit it. You’d think Stacey might be a bit upset, but instead she practically adopted Peter Downton and then took him on a homicidal joyride to take me out.

I haven’t told Millie he was in the car. I can’t quite bring myself to burst her bubble, not after everything she’s done for me. And I didn’t put two and two together myself and realise it was him till yesterday morning, when I saw him in profile drinking a glass of milk and the penny dropped. But when I tell you I think the kid’s involved in Felix Porter’s mysterious disappearance, I’m not messing around.

Doesn’t matter he’s only ten. He’s super creepy and kids like him, theyhurtpeople.

And the thing is, Millie’s missing. She and Peter have been gone all night, and we don’t know where they are. Millie’s husband says he’s not worried because she sometimes stays out all night, and she did text him yesterday to say she was taking Peter on a road trip or something. But she didn’t turn up to work today, the hospital’s already called three times, and I don’t care what Tom says, something’swrong. I know this family has its own way of doing things, but I don’t know why he’s not more worried about her. She sent Tom a really weird text last night about taking Peter for a walk in the woods or something, it didn’t make any sense. I made him ping her phone this morning and it shows her located somewhere in Abingdon, of all places. But Peter’s not with her.Hisphone is still at Stacey’s house. According to Tom, he walked all the way there from school by himself yesterday, which is fucking weird to begin with. Millie told Tom she was going to the Glass House to pick him up. And now she’s totally fallen off the grid.

So, anyway. I’m going to go to the Glass House now to see what’s happening for myself. Tom says we should just wait for them to come back, but I told you, I’ve got thisfeeling.

[Pause]

If I don’t – if anything happens to me– then this will automatically upload to my vlog in twenty-four hours. I’m sure it’s all going to be fine, and I’ll delete this and go back to playing KyperLife, God help me.

But if it’s not. If I don’t come back.

You know where to look now.

chapter 65

millie

It’s pitch black in here: absolute darkness, crow black, blacker than night. It’s impossible to know how long we’ve been down here, or whether it’s day or night outside in the real world, which already seems as hazy as a distant dream, a vacation taken long ago.

The protective effect of the adrenaline has worn off and the pain in my butchered hand is agonising. I can’t seem to quite stop the bleeding, either, though the tourniquet has slowed it. The cold from the concrete basement floor is seeping into my bones. I just want to sleep, but if I do that, there’s a real risk I might not wake up, and if I die, my son dies with me. So I drag us both across the floor to the cellar wall and force myself to sit upright, cradling Peter in my arms, reciting the periodic table and the bones of the human body and the steps of a coronary bypass aloud in an attempt to keep myself awake.

‘Mummy?’

His voice in the darkness jolts me. ‘Peter! You’re awake!’

‘I’m cold,’ he says.

‘I know you are, sweetheart,’ I say, unable to keep the relief from my voice as I tighten my embrace and try to infuse what bodily warmth I have left into his limbs.If he’s cold, he’s awake. If he’s cold, he’s going to live.‘I’m right here, Peter. Try to move your legs if you can.’

He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t ask any questions. I don’t know if his torpor is physical or psychological, but I need to get him moving. I need him tofight.

‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Up we get. Come on, Peter,’ I urge, as he slumps, inert, in my arms. ‘We have to get up. We have to move and stay warm.’

Fireworks explode behind my eyes as I force the two of us to our feet, the pain in my hand so intense I have to steady myself against the wall. Peter whimpers as the blood starts to circulate in his legs, piercing him with pins and needles, but I refuse to let him rest. We stumble across the cellar in the dark, and when we reach the opposite wall, I turn him around and propel the two of us back. I’m grateful for the darkness so he doesn’t have to see Felix’s bloody corpse on the bed.

---