Glass Dolls by D E White

Author:D E White [White, D E]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781789313512
Publisher: JOFFE BOOKS crime, thrillers and mysteries
Published: 2020-03-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-eight

My footsteps echo on the wet pavement, and the street lights cast dancing lights across my path. The bus stop is only a fifteen-minute walk, and although rundown, this area is well lit and has a busy road.

I hold my rucksack tightly, phone in my other hand, walking briskly, head high. A car goes past with a swish of tyres, splashing water onto the pavement, soaking my trainers. Another, driving slower, approaches. I glance to my right, checking the vehicle’s reflection in the puddles at my feet.

A taxi depositing a customer. I can hear laughing from one of the houses on my left. A door pops open, and loud music bounces out onto the street.

I’m passing waste ground now, fringed by the river, eyes focused on my phone. The text I thought I’d sent about grabbing a lift hasn’t gone, and perhaps my voicemail sent an hour ago hasn’t been picked up. Frustrated, and shivering in my thin top and leather jacket, I try again, but the signal is weak.

As the rain continues, the sensible part of me suggests I go back and wait at the party, phoning from there and getting a pick-up outside the door. The idiot in me continues walking towards Tesco. I need to clear my head, which is full of the party and my boyfriend. My boyfriend, who now thinks we need to “take some time out”, the total bastard. I walk faster, stamping my boots. That’s another reason I can’t go back and wait at my friend’s house. He will probably still be there, drinking.

And that’s how it happened. One little mistake, one wrong choice defined the rest of my short life. I was a normal teenager, and then, in a split second, it all changed.

Past the derelict sheds on the edge of the waste ground, I see a familiar car. What’s he doing here? But relief at the prospect of getting out of the cold means I don’t think as I walk into the car park, rounding the corner of the building to see three figures.

I’m about to call out when I realize something is very wrong. For a moment, my mind can’t process what I’m seeing, before the horror and disbelief wells up like a fountain in my chest. It must be a mistake . . .

They spot me as I start to run, my polished brown boots slipping on the snow and slush, my heart pounding with such intensity I think I might die here and now.

I hear footsteps behind me, gaining on me . . . The man who grabs me from behind wrenches my arm with such force he almost breaks my wrist. His breath is rank in my face and he is unfamiliar, which means that someone else is standing, watching . . .

I yell his name, my voice hoarse with terror, twisting round to see where he’s gone. But the van is already moving, bumping away from me across the dimly lit tarmac.

Then I know I’m on my own, and I fight back with everything I have.

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