The Other Side Of Her by B.M. Carroll

Author:B.M. Carroll
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Published by Affirm Press in 2023
Published: 2023-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

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Mia drives on the return journey, pressing hard on the accelerator, the tyres spinning as they seek traction on the dirt. Trees rush towards them and separate at the last minute. Ryan is suddenly overwhelmingly exhausted. He breathes a sigh of relief when they finally exit the dirt road. Mia slows down to take a long, scrutinising look in the direction they came from.

‘Well, at least you can’t see any smoke from here.’

Then she puts her foot down and they fly along the dead-straight country road, as empty of traffic as it was on the journey in. The car feels like it is skimming the road surface. Ryan feels like he is in a dream.

‘Slow down, babe,’ he murmurs. ‘The last thing we need is to get pulled over.’

‘I’m doing the limit,’ she insists.

She is not doing the limit; from this angle, the speedometer is at least ten over. Mia has a habit of speeding and flatly denying it when challenged.

He studies his wife’s profile. Her black tank top and tanned shoulders. Her tattoo: the tree.

‘The roots are the most symbolic part,’ she said proudly, after she got it done. ‘They represent how grounded we are. The three of us. We can withstand anything.’

It’s a nice sentiment, but is it true? Ryan feels the opposite of steady as the car whizzes towards home, his wife’s knuckles protruding as she grips the wheel. He stole someone’s car and set it alight in an area susceptible to bush fires. Both crimes could see him sent to jail but that’s not the full extent of what he’s done. He broke into Beth Jenkins’s house, he followed her, spied on her and her young daughter. Eighteen months ago, he sold her a car that had a dark, rotten history.

Mia joins the main road with barely a glance at the oncoming traffic, then immediately overtakes a car she perceives as going too slow. Ryan grips the door bar. For a while, as they watched the car burn, he felt a sense of peace – but it didn’t last longer than the four minutes it took the Corolla to become engulfed.

The guilt and shame of what he’s done to Beth. In addition to Tara, poor, poor Tara. All their excuses and crazy justifications. For the sake of Elliot and their family unit. For the sake of love.

As Mia overtakes another car, the speedometer at well over a hundred and twenty, Ryan makes a silent resolution. He has done his last terrible thing. No matter what happens from here, he is done.

The question is, will Mia allow him to be done? They call themselves a team, but she is the leader, the mastermind, a force he cannot stop.

He blinks and sees a bright-yellow warning sign already upon them. Reduce speed. Dangerous bend.

For a moment Ryan fantasises about the car losing control, skidding and pirouetting off the road into oblivion.

A high-speed crash. Two dead. Then they would be done.

Mia takes the bend with no issues. She accelerates again.

The faster she drives, the more certain he is that the past is catching up with them.

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