Fallen Angel (The List #3) (37 page)

Friday 20
^th
January 2012

10:56pm

“
L
ook, I’m sorry you thought you meant more to me
than just sex. I’m sorry if I didn’t make that clear. I don’t want a
relationship with you, with anybody. I don’t have time for that in my life.”

I pull into her street and park across the road
from her house.

“So you don’t feel
anything
for me? I
don’t understand. You can be so tender when we’re together. You make my body
feel so good, like no other man has before. I
do
love you, so how can
you say that you just had me coming back for sex? When we made love—are you
saying that was just sex for you?”

“It wasn’t even that, Clo. It was fucking.
That’s what I do. I work hard and I fuck harder. That’s what I’m about.”

There’s no point beating around the bush here.
I don’t like to see her cry but she needs to know that there’s no chance of us
ever being in a relationship.

She reaches into her handbag for a tissue then pulls
out a small square envelope and throws it at me.

“What’s this?”

“It’s the reason you’re going to stay with me
and stop sleeping around. It’s the reason you’re going to let me move in with
you and let me love you the way that I want to.”

Is this what love does to you? I’ve just told
her I only ever wanted to fuck her but she’s still degrading herself, saying
she wants me. For fucks sake, I need to get this shit under control fast.

I open the envelope as she wipes her face.

“A scan picture?”

“Yes. You heartless bastard. It’s a picture of
my baby, our baby.
Now
try and tell me that you don’t want anything to
do with me.”

“Clo, an hour ago you were snorting coke up
your fucking nose and now you’re sitting here telling me you’re pregnant?”

I check the hospital details on the scan and
confirm it’s hers.

“Yeah well, I’m going to stop all that. It’s
early days so, if I stop now, a friend of mine said it won’t hurt the baby. But
I can only do that with your support Joe. I need you.” She takes my hand and
places it over her stomach. “We
both
need you.”

I yank my hand away, stuff the picture back in
the envelope and throw it on the dashboard.

“If you think you love me and you want to be
with me, why would you be fucking other people?”

“
What?
I haven’t. There’s only been
you.”

“You’re lying.”

I despise liars.

“No I’m not. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Clo, you’re still missing the point. You can
fuck whomever you like, it wouldn’t matter to me because you’re not mine and I’m
certainly not yours. I don’t want you. I never have and I never will.”

Fresh tears fall from her pasty, guilt ridden
face.

“I’ll go to the papers. I’ll tell them I’m
carrying Joseph Carter’s unborn child and that he isn’t going to take
responsibility.”

“You can spin that bullshit to whichever
reporter’s stupid enough to give you the time of day. But the fact still
remains that I know you’re lying and I know that that baby isn’t mine. So I
think we’re done here.”

“But I love you.”

“No you don’t, Clo. You’re delusional. You
don’t even know me. Look, I never set out to hurt you.”

“I
do
fucking love you. I want to be
with you Joe. I need you, please.”

She reaches for my hands but I throw them up in
surrender and shake my head.

“It’s never going to happen. Just go, Clo. Take
care, yeah.”

“Take care? Take
fucking
care?” She
flicks the top off the large ring she’s wearing on her middle finger and snorts
the coke out of the concealed pot inside. “Fine. You’ll never see me again.”

I look at her with a newfound disgust. She’s
carrying a child inside of her and pumping that shit through her bloodstream.

I’ll make sure to get some of my people to find
her the right help through one of my charities, but I can’t have her in my
life. She’s a loose cannon. I can’t have anything more to do with her, not
personally. She’s a live wire, which makes her unpredictable, which makes her a
liability that I cannot afford.

“Goodbye then.”

She shakes her head seemingly in disgust at me,
then scrambles to get out of the car and onto the pavement. Bending down to
look back at me, I think she’s going to say goodbye but she just slams the
door. She looks at me through the window as a lone tear streams down her
mascara stained cheek.

Was I careless? Is it my fault that she’s
standing, crying on the pavement, freshly fucked, pregnant and on drugs?

This time my feelings of disgust are pointed at
me too.

A new wave of tears begin to fall down her face.
She suddenly looks so lost and vulnerable. I should get her back in the car and
deal with this now.

I press the button to pull the window down.

“Clo.”

Instead of coming back to the car, she clutches
her handbag tighter to her chest and scurries into the road without so much as looking
back at me.

She doesn’t say goodbye. She hates me.

I watch her walk away into the night and the
answer to my questions falls unequivocally into place. Yes, this is completely my
fault.

The next thing I see is Chloe’s body catapulted
into the air. It’s as quick as a flash but seems to play out in slow motion.
Next, I see the driver. Just for a second as his old black estate car goes
flying past. Chloe’s body lands in a heap with a thud, a few meters away from
my car.

FUCK! NO!

I burst out of the car and fly over to Chloe,
whose twisted, groaning body is lying motionless on the tarmac.

As I drop to my knees, I look up at the car to
see if it’s stopped. The brake lights flick on, giving me chance to catch the
registration plate. Just as I think he’s going to stop, the red lights go out
again and the car accelerates out of sight.

“Clo, Clo. Can you hear me?”

“Joe.” She’s trying to speak but there’s dark
red blood gargling out of her mouth. “Help me. Please.”

I grab my phone from my pocket and call ‘999’.

“I’m here darlin’, it’s okay. I’m with you.”

“I’m sor-ry. I lied.”

The emergency services ask me which service I
require and then the line goes quiet as they connect me.

“Don’t say sorry. That doesn’t matter.”

As the call connects, I tell them that a woman
has been seriously injured in a hit and run accident. When I say the words, I
can’t quite believe it myself. I am looking into Chloe’s eyes as I speak and
the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach is already telling me that she’s
going to die. She is going to die lying on this cold road, in the middle of the
night, outside of her house.

Her tears—the ones I put there—have been washed
away with the blood now.

In her panic stricken face, I see the sweet
girl that I met a few months ago. Not the hollow girl she seems to have
transformed into.

I end the call and throw my phone on the
ground. I shrug my jacket off and cover up her legs. If she looks down, I can’t
have her seeing how her bones are protruding or the deformed angle that they’ve
broken into.

I think the fact that she’s not screaming in
agony is more evidence as to how fatal her injuries are.

“I’m scared… Joe.”

I’m fucking scared shitless.

“Sssh. There’s no need to be scared. Everything’s
going to be okay.”

They say never to move somebody who’s been in a
collision, but I know in my heart that she’s taking her last breaths. Her body
is already surrounded in a shallow pool of blood that’s spreading around my
knees. I can’t have her die like this.

I hook my arm carefully around her neck, soaking
my white shirt with blood. It’s the most vivid red I’ve ever seen. I move
forwards and lean closely over her so that my face is right next to hers.

I try my best to cradle her, to comfort her. I
put my free hand in hers and she latches onto it with a frail, trembling grip. The
haunting look in her eyes penetrates straight through me as though to cement
itself inside my head for eternity.

Chloe blinks slowly, coughing up more thick blood.
She has lost so much in just a few short minutes.

She sobs, “Joe, I don’t… wanna die.”

“Good, because you’re not going to. I won’t let
that happen.”

“What about my… baby?”

“The baby is going to be fine. You’re
both
going to be fine. The ambulance is nearly here, I can hear it” I can’t. “Don’t
worry, I’m going to take care of you.”

I watch her expression ease slightly as she
finds some comfort in my words and clings on to it.

“But I can’t… feel my body.”

Her words are slow and faint and strained.

“You’re just in shock darlin’. It’s good. It’s
good that you can’t feel any pain.”

“Joe, I think… I do love… you.”

“I know you do. I love you too Clo. I was just
scared when I saw the scan. But I do love you.” I don’t mean it but I need her
to believe it. I need to say whatever the fuck I can to try and ease some of
the pain and misery I’ve unintentionally caused her. “Everything’s going to
work out,” I whisper, “you’re going to be a beautiful mother. We’ll be happy
together.” She never looks away, only to close her eyes slowly. When she
reopens them this time I can see her slipping away from me. I hear her
struggling to draw air into her lungs. “Listen to me Clo, I promise—I swear to
you that I will find the person who did this and I will make them pay. I promise
you both.”

I need her to hear every one of those words.
It’s the only true thing I’ve said and ultimately it’s the most important.

Chloe nods her head slightly in acknowledgement
and I hear an eerie rattle echoing from her throat. This time when she blinks,
she doesn’t open her eyes again. I urge her to, but she doesn’t.

Kissing her lips, I feel her last weak breath
escape and she slips away silently from this cruel, fucked up world.

The light grip she had on me has eased away at
some point but I squeeze her limp hand nevertheless, hoping this isn’t it but
knowing that it is…This is the end.

The end of her innocent life and the start of
my guilt ridden existence.

“I promise.” I mutter into her ear with a
fierce determination. “I will find them and make them pay for this.”

I wipe away her blonde hair from where it’s
sticking to her face. It’s more like pink now, matted with her blood.

My shoes scrape across the bloodied tarmac as I
adjust myself to bring her body onto my lap.

Wrapping her in my arms, I rock her gently. I
recite the registration plate over in my head obsessively. Closing my eyes, I
make sure to embed that evil bastard’s face inside my head for life. I carve it
into my mind, piece by motherfucking piece, where it’ll stay until he’s paid
penance.