Page 110 of Carbon

“You’re Emmy Black?”

“The one and only.”

“I always thought if you caught up with me, I’d end up in a body bag.”

She threw her head back and laughed. “My reputation precedes me. Seriously, though, I’m not that scary.”

Xav arrived back with seven champagne flutes and two bottles of bubbly. “Ignore her—she is. I don’t know where Gideon’s gone, but if he doesn’t come back, I’m drinking his share.”

“I suspect he went to check on Roxy,” Black said.

“What’s with him and her?” Sofia asked. “He kept looking at her funny. Like he actually cared.”

Emmy shrugged. “Dunno. He picked her up and carried her out of the bedsit, and she sat on his lap in the car all the way back.”

Xav popped the cork on the first bottle, and Cristal fizzed onto the parquet floor. He poured, we drank, and before long, he’d headed out to fetch a third bottle. In between sips, Ben and Sofia spilled snippets of their lives and found they had things in common. They’d both travelled a lot, each spoke several languages, and neither of them liked ice cream, although I couldn’t understand why.

“It’s too cold,” Ben said. “I’d rather have cake.”

“Ice cream reminds me of things I’d rather forget.”

“What things?”

“People.”

“Not from your childhood? Were things okay at home? You know, when you got left behind? I always hoped Mum was right and our dad looked after you.”

“Things...weren’t good, and I hope that witch burns in hell.”

Ben closed his eyes, and I began to regret drinking all the champagne. “Tell me he didn’t hit you?” he whispered.

“No, he never hit me. He loved me. In every way a grown man shouldn’t love a little girl.”

“Fuck.”

“Until I was nine years old, I didn’t realise it was weird for daddies to kiss their daughters goodnight with tongues.” She spoke matter-of-factly, far less emotional than I’d seen her in the last few days.

Emmy was beside Sofia in an instant and wrapped her up in her arms. “Fia, stop.”

“If I don’t say these things now, I never will.”

Ben swallowed, tension radiating from his body. “Did he...?”

“Put it this way, I was the only girl in high school who looked forward to her period each month, because it meant he’d leave me alone for five days.”

Ben’s fingers dug into my hip so hard it hurt, but I didn’t say anything, not when Sofia was pouring out her pain beside us. The poor girl must have been bottling it up for years.

And Ben’s fury leached from every pore. “I’ll kill him. I swear; I’ll kill him.”

Sofia smiled, closing her eyes as she did so at some secret thought. “No need to bother. I already took care of the problem.”

30

After Sofia’s drunken...confession? Fantasy? Whichever, the party went a little flat.

“Do you really think she could have killed him?” I asked Ben quietly as we climbed the stairs to the second floor.

When Emmy had asked what we wanted to do about sleeping arrangements, I’d offered to share my room, and his eyes had glistened as he accepted.

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