FRY

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Help!” I splutter.

The figure in the chair sits up and opens her eyes. But it isn’t Alicia at all.

“Jody!”

I thought you were in prison!

She must have arrived while we were upstairs and set Alicia free. The door was bolted, but it would take more than a lock to keep her out. Even a prison couldn’t keep her in. I should have known that.

And they switched places just to mess with me.

Oh how could we be so stupid? We should never have let Alicia out of our sight. Not for a minute.

“Let her go, Alicia!”

Deacon draws himself up to his fullest height, but he doesn’t come any closer. Not while she holds the blade so close to my neck.

Alicia laughs her irritating little laugh. “So – the lovebirds return. Though you took a lot longer when you were with me, Deacon.”

Deacon goes red in the face. Is that anger, or is he hiding something?

After all, she is young and beautiful – would he really have been able to resist if she’d thrown herself at him?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

But this is hardly the time to be thinking about that – I don’t dare swallow, the blade is so close to my throat.

“I told you to let her go!” Deacon says, moving closer.

“Shut up!” Alicia snaps. “You’re going to do exactly as I say.”

She turns to Jody. “Don’t just stand there gaping. Go and bring the car round.”

She must have parked further up the road, so we wouldn’t hear the sound of the engine. She trots off obediently. You’d think she was the younger sister, not the older one.

Alicia wastes no time.

“Deacon, there’s some lighter fluid in the cupboard under the sink. Go and get it.”

Deacon does.

“Good, now empty it all round the room. More vigorously, Deacon. You’re not watering the garden.”

She doesn’t move the blade an inch from my neck while she barks out these instructions. Alicia was always dangerous, but now she’s doubly so. Holding her hostage has both heightened her anger and wounded her pride. She’s got more to prove now, a new score to settle. Instead of saving ourselves, we’ve only succeeded in poking the bear.

I’ve got to do something – quickly, before Jody returns.

I take a deep breath and jab Alicia hard in the ribs. She yelps in surprise. Before she has a chance to recover, I stamp down hard on her foot, and twist round, pulling myself out of her hold. It’s a dangerous move, but it works. The blade clatters noisily to the floor and I kick it safely under the TV cabinet.

“Give me that!” she says angrily, snatching the lighter fluid from Deacon’s hand.

“Isabel, watch out!” Deacon cries, as she aims straight for my face.

But I am fast as lightning these days. I dart deftly out of her way, and she gets lighter fluid all down her skirt.

Just at that moment, Jody walks back in, seemingly oblivious to the change in dynamics. Before anyone can do anything, she produces a pack of cigarettes from her top pocket.

“Here, you want one?”

In one fluid motion, she lights it and tosses it to her sister. The cigarette floats like a feather through the air. Then womf! The flame ignites, right at Alicia’s feet.

I don’t quite know how I get away. One moment I’m by the window, the next I’m crashing through the open doorway, Deacon and Jody and I all landing in a heap at the door.

Alicia lumbers after us. She is a ball of flames.

“Help me!” she shrieks.

I watch in horror as Deacon reaches out to her, pulling her out of the now burning Tumbledown Cottage.

“Deacon – it’s too dangerous! You’ll catch fire!”

“We can’t just leave her!”

The doctor in him takes over. He throws her to the ground and rolls her over and over in the damp grass, quenching the flames.

“Release me!” she croaks, her words barely audible.

We all watch to see what happens next. For a moment, she lies limp as a doll. Then, all at once, she starts coughing, then vomiting. Molten ash spews from her lips like hundreds of tiny insects. Her eyes are yellow marbles as her whole body convulses. Her arms and legs jerk wildly, and she froths at the mouth. Deacon waits until the seizure abates and then places her in the recovery position. She lets out one last horrific roar and then there is complete silence. Not even the birds in the trees make a sound.

He leans over her prostrate body, feeling for a pulse.

“Anything?”

He shakes his head.

“There’s no way an ambulance will get here in time,” says Jody, standing behind him.

Why doesn’t she do something? This is her sister!

Because she doesn’t want to, I realise.

She doesn’t want Alicia to live any more than I do.

As long as Alicia is alive, she can’t be her own person.

The three of us look at each other.

“We can’t just… let her die.”

It feels like the right thing to say. Not because I want Alicia to live, but because I don’t want to be like the monster she’s become.

I watch numbly as Deacon goes through the motions of trying to pump life back into her body, but we all know it’s too late. Her face is drained of all colour. Even her eyes have lost their darkness.

She lies so still, so tragically beautiful, as Jody leans down and kisses her blue-tinged lips. She brushes away the ash from her sister’s kohl-smudged eyes and closes first one and then the other. I’m glad she’s done this.

Someone once told me that if a dead person’s eyes are left open, they’ll find someone to take with them.

I shiver at the thought.

Jody takes Alicia’s hands and places them together, as if in prayer. She looks angelic, peaceful even. Ready to move on to the next place, wherever that may be.

I look at Jody. “You saved us.”

“She saved herself,” Deacon says, his arms folded.

Jody bites her lip. “Go ahead. Call the police. Just give me a head start. They’ll never understand what happened.”

She takes a Swiss army knife from her pocket. I watch as she hacks off a lock of her sister’s hair, so dark and wild – so like her own and slips it into her wallet.

Something to remember her by, I suppose.

She gives Alicia one last glance, then walks way. Her gait is a little unsteady as makes her way to her dirty white escort, registration F-R-Y. I watch as she drives off down the rocky mountain road.

I look at Deacon. “It’s over!” I sigh. “It’s really over!”

I know I should feel sad and sombre and maybe even a bit guilty for my part in all this, but I don’t. I feel… incredible. Invincible, even. This is the best thing that could possibly have happened. Deacon seems to feel it too. He lifts me up and swings me round and round, and when he sets me down again, we share a long, passionate kiss. This isn’t the time and it’s hardly the place but we just can’t help ourselves. For the first time in over a year, I feel free. Much freer than the night I was released from prison. Because this time, the freedom is real. No more running, no more hiding. No more worrying about who’s lurking in the bushes, who’s waiting in the shadows. Who’s planning to torch my house while I sleep.

“I’m sorry. This isn’t how it was supposed to be,” he says, as he sticks his phone in his pocket. Neither of us can get a signal up here, and even in our excited state, we know we need to get help, before the fire spreads to the forest behind.

“This is exactly how it should be,” I contradict him. “A new beginning.”

Because from this point on, everything is going to seem wonderful, if only in comparison to what’s come before.

“Don’t you see? She can’t hurt us anymore. We get to live our lives again, as if she never existed. Well, maybe not quite the same…” I reach for his hand and give it a squeeze. He squeezes back tightly, and does not let go as we begin the long descent down to the village, under a strangely purple sky.