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Unbreakable Bond

"Had she realised her mistake? Our mistake."

By Morgan Georgia BlanksPublished 6 years ago 7 min read
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Delilah knelt on the saturated ground in front of the weathering stone. She wanted to trace the engraved name with her fingertips, but each letter would only be a reminder of our disintegrating memories. Us walking along the darkened road, careless about how far we were going. The headlights flashing in front of our eyes as a white Bentley drew to a slow crawl beside our barely visible frames. Stopping, window rolling down, a face in shadow. He must have known that the car would catch our attention. It put us at ease; not like the dodgy, rundown cars that you see in films. We were caught up in a moment of rebellion and we felt invincible.

Delilah had always been the trusting one. Oblivious and naïve, stubborn but not stuck up. I was the quiet one. The wallflower. We would never have been friends if it hadn’t been for her. She was the popular one, but not popular in the sense that she revelled in attention and having everyone love her. She was simply a good person. I guess she’d seen something in me that she wanted in a part of herself. Our hearts were like-minded, our spirits even more so.

“What’s a fine pair of ladies like you doing out at this time of night?” His voice had been so casual. Its smoothness must have masked over the ringing of alarm bells.

We never should have answered. Head down, eyes on the ground, pretend you can’t hear anything. Carry. On. Walking. That was always the advice told to us. Being two young, free-spirited girls, advice wasn’t something we tended to listen to. Delilah didn’t.

The moon we had been chasing all night was now clouded. The man rested his arm out of the window. He looked older than both our parents but not as old as our grandparents. The light from a nearby lamppost reflected off his ugly silver tooth. He didn’t look as if he belonged in the car.

“Just taking a walk,” Delilah replied.

Her bouncy energy only made me appear more timid. Small. Irrelevant.

He chuckled. “Without your parents?”

His words made me think about them. My mum pacing around the house, probably calling the phone that was turned off in my pocket. His face half emerged from the shadow and half lingered back. His eyes didn’t look real; more like the glass ones that you’d find in an old stuffed bear. I tugged at Delilah’s arm, but I wasn’t persistent enough in showing my discomfort. As usual, I said nothing. Delilah shrugged her shoulders. Was she not afraid?

“We’re old enough to go for a walk by ourselves,” she said defiantly.

“I’m sure you are, but it’s getting dark.” He began to crack his knuckles, bringing to my mind the image of cracking bones. "Do you like the car?"

Delilah looked at me. We both knew that we needed to get back, so why were we still standing here?

“Yeah, it’s alright,” she answered.

The man’s eyes dropped to look at my small frame. Already I felt violated.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” He began to chuckle again before switching it off. “How about I give you a lift home? It will save you getting lost.” His teeth flashed crooked in the darkness. “You girls don’t want to get in any more trouble, do you?”

When Delilah reached for the door handle my throat lost all moisture, and my palms became speckled with beads of sweat, but I couldn’t let her get in alone. We both got in the back of the car. It stank of cigarettes and part of the carpet under our feet had been cut out so that what was left was an empty square. There was a rolled up tartan blanket in the corner that was drained of colour, as if it had been put through the wash a hundred times, but then it smelt like it hadn’t ever been washed at all.

When the car began to move Delilah looked at me and a hint of regret was exposed in her diagonal smile. Had she realised her mistake? Our mistake. The man didn’t attempt to make conversation. The silence lingered thick in the suffocating space of the car. He kept glancing in the rear-view mirror at us.

My mind flicked through all the memories Delilah and I had shared; the time when she had put a full face of make-up on me and I’d got in trouble at school; us wandering around the pet shop every Saturday just to look at the animals; filling up big buckets of water so we could have a water fight even when the weather was cold. Those memories didn’t seem possible anymore.

“Don’t you need our addresses?” Delilah spoke up.

The man didn’t reply.

“Excuse me, but this isn’t the right way.”

Again he didn’t answer her. I’d never seen Delilah go so quiet.

We continued to drive; the area becoming more unfamiliar, more sinister. The night only seemed to grow darker; even the light from the lampposts and traffic lights began to diminish the further we drove.

The car began to crawl, the low rumble of the engine an endless reverberation in our ears. Delilah reached out and squeezed my hand, our palms sweaty. The car stopped.

“Let us out!” she demanded. “Our parents will come looking for us.”

The man turned around in his seat. It was the first time we could see all his features properly; the stubble on his chin, the ring in his ear, his snub nose.

“How will they find you?”

He then proceeded to lunge across and grab me. His hands around my throat, tightening, reddening my skin. I gasped and frantically tried to scratch at his arms. Delilah began hitting the man with her fists. She kicked and attempted to bite him. His bulky figure was impenetrable. It was the barrier between me and her. There was nothing she could do.

I felt my mind losing consciousness. My breaths short, sharp, ceasing. The man released his grip on me and I desperately gulped at the surrounding air. He turned to Delilah, began beating her, each hit causing her eyes to swivel back in her head. He stopped, turned back to me. His hand was down the front of my trousers before I could even stop him; his coarse fingers grazing my skin so hard that it burned. I squirmed in the grasp of the predator. I’m not sure how long the assault went on for, but it seemed like hours.

The man stopped to catch his breath.

“You.”

He grabbed Delilah’s wrists. She screamed. He dragged her out of the car and punched her continuously as she called for help. Delilah was put in the boot of the car, consumed by darkness. He came back for me. To finish me off.

In the boot her screams were constant. Her every thud, her every cry was unbearable. My body had succumbed to the pain as he crushed it. I willed her to escape. She needed to leave me behind to save herself.

As I lay in the back of the car, darkness pouring in, I no longer felt him on top of me. My body had become numb.

Out of the window, the moon finally emerged from behind the clouds. The last sound I heard was the boot clicking open. I let myself be taken, knowing that she was getting away. Bare feet pounding on the pavement. Uncontrollable panting. She was free and I was already gone...

Delilah places the bouquet of red and pink flowers against the stone, five years since that fateful night. She has visited me every single time. I may have been taken, but I never left. She was always the one looking out for me and now I’m the one looking out for her. We would always share one thing. Our unbreakable bond.

fiction
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About the Creator

Morgan Georgia Blanks

Author of 'The Desert Island', a children's book published at eleven year's old. Been writing ever since.

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