Scarlett - Cathy Cassidy [42]
I slip through the gap in the hedge and into the woods, my feet crunching through broken twigs and last year’s dried leaves. All those years, I thought that my Dad was a total loser. Now I know he was just a guy in an unhappy marriage, a guy who fell for someone else and took his chance of happiness. Can I blame him for that? Not really. After all, when I thought I could have that happiness, too, all the anger dropped away and I grabbed for it with both hands. I nearly had it, too.
The trouble is, I’ve had no practice at being a big sister. I wanted to make Holly happy. I wanted her to think I was cool and wild and clever, and I let myself be blackmailed. Would she really have told Dad and Clare about Kian? I don’t think so. Not Holly
Don’t go, she said, but it’s not like I have a choice. I can’t stay there now, because they know how stupid, how bad, I really am. Bad enough to stab my little stepsister through the lip.
It’s not like that’s all, either. I need to find Kian. I was wrong to stay silent about the dark-haired men who were looking for him, and I need to put that right before I go.
He’s down by the lough, a hunched figure in the darkness. He is sitting on a rock beside the water, next to a small fire edged with stones and fuelled with fallen branches. An empty tin of beans, blackened on the outside, lies in the embers, and Midnight stands at a distance, gazing out across the lough.
‘Hey,’ he says, as though it’s the most natural thing in the world for me to come strolling out of the woods at past one in the morning.
‘Hey, yourself.’ I sit down beside him, hugging my knees, holding my hands out to the fire. ‘Don’t you ever sleep?’
‘Sometimes.’ He laughs. ‘I’ve just been sitting, thinking, that’s all. I kind of lost track of time.’
My eyes slide over to the wishing tree, to the long scarf the dark-haired man in the hat tied on to a branch this morning. I can see it silhouetted against the night sky.
‘Some guys came to the lough this morning, looking for you,’ I say in a rush. ‘Two dark-haired guys, one with a hat, one with a moustache. I didn’t know what to say, so I pretended I didn’t know you, and they went away. The younger one tied a scarf on to the wishing tree.’
‘Yeah.’ Kian sighs. ‘My dad. My dad and my uncle.’
‘I should have told you,’ I say ‘I’m sorry. I was going to, but then you saw the scarf and I thought it didn’t matter any more.’
Kian sighs. ‘It doesn’t matter, Scarlett,’ he says. ‘At least I know they were here, they were looking.’
‘Looks like we’re both in trouble,’ I say heavily. ‘I can’t stay here any more. I messed up at Dad’s, hurt Holly.’
‘You hurt her?’ Kian repeats.
‘It was an accident, but yeah, it was my fault,’ I say. ‘They know what I’m like now. I’m trouble, I’m hopeless. It’s time to move on.’
Kian stares into the fire, his face highlighted in the dull red glow. I guess this is the bit where I want him to suggest we run away together, away from the dark-haired men, away from Dad and Clare and Holly. We could ride Midnight up into the hills, find a ruined cottage and live there in secret – just us, no school, no adults, no hassle.
‘Scarlett, you’re not going anywhere,’ Kian says. ‘You just made a mistake. They’ll forgive you – they’ll get over it.’
‘They won’t,’ I say in a small voice. ‘I’ve let them down.’
‘You would if you ran away,’ Kian says.
The injustice of this hits me like a slap. ‘It’s OK for you, though, isn’t it?’ I fling at him. ‘To run away? To let people down? Your dad and your uncle, they were looking for you. This wasn’t the first place they looked and it won’t be the last, either. They were sad – your dad especially. They wanted to find you. So don’t preach at me about running away! You did it yourself!’
Kian looks at me, his face shadowed. ‘I did, I know, but you don’t know the reason for it,’ he says. ‘It’s a good reason, OK? Not just some family squabble that could be patched up if you’d just grow up and sit tight and accept that you were wrong.’
‘It’s not like that!’ I splutter.
‘Isn