The Cult by Abby Davies

Author:Abby Davies [Davies, Abby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2021-08-23T17:00:00+00:00

Chapter 33

LILY

Now

Lily drove too fast. Her head throbbed. She wrestled a packet of painkillers out of the glove compartment and choked them back. She started to imagine Hannah and Greg and a whole host of scenarios splintered her thoughts. They were being held to ransom – locked in someone’s basement – chained to a wall – forced to pose naked while some bastard pervert took their pictures before posting them on an obscene child porn website … or – no – she couldn’t let herself continue. She’d fall into an abyss of despair and never be able to pull herself back out. And she needed to have all cylinders firing. They had to track down whoever wrote that letter. She felt it deep in her gut. Deeper than before. Yes, it didn’t make much sense, but none of this made any sense. Yesterday, she and John had had problems, but the world had made sense. Today was a nightmare come true.

Lily yanked up the handbrake and scrambled out of the car. She left the engine running. She wouldn’t be staying for long. Once John understood how to help her, they could leave together to find the other girls in Greg’s class.

With a steadying inhalation, she hurried inside the house, and froze, heart somersaulting nastily.

A woman was sitting in her kitchen. A woman with long black hair in a skin-tight T-shirt and butt-hugging shorts.

Juliet Pickering.

Juliet was in her kitchen, sitting at her kitchen bench opposite her husband, one orange hand outstretched on the counter as if it had been resting on top of his.

‘What the hell’s she doing here?’ Lily said, staring murder at Juliet Pickering’s tangoed face. She’d seen a car outside her house. A fancy white thing. Juliet’s new car, she realised.

John looked pained. ‘I should have told you. Ju—’

‘I knew it!’ Lily laughed. It was a high, manic laugh. She laughed again and clapped her hands. ‘Well done, John. Well done for completely and utterly ruining our lives.’

John frowned and got up. Juliet frowned too. They both stared at her as though she’d done something wrong, as if she was crazy, not them.

Fighting a savage need to hit one of them, Lily glared at Juliet and stabbed a finger at her inflated chest. ‘You. Couldn’t you have had the decency to wait until I was fully out of the picture? And you—’ she whipped her head in John’s direction, ‘how could you? Hannah and Greg are missing! I needed you and here you are, sneaking around with her the second I leave the house. I knew something was going on. I just knew it!’

‘No. Lily, it’s not like that. It’s not what you think,’ John said, taking a step towards her, hands up as if she were a caged animal about to attack.

Juliet was looking at John and nodding. They were both looking at her, acting as if she was stupid.

Juliet stood up and reached out a hand, wafting too-sweet perfume all over the kitchen. ‘Lily. This has nothing to do with anything like that.

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