AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How much is that worth?” Madrox said matter-of-factly, at the same time that I said, “No.”
“What is it, diamond?”
“Yes. But I can’t. Please. I can’t.”
“Your choice,” Madrox said with a shrug. “You wanna call it off, I’ll transfer you back the Bitcoin and we’ll dump the phone.”
Fuck. The unshed tears had swollen in my throat into a hard lump, so painful I could barely breathe, let alone speak. Fuck.
“How much is it worth?” Madrox said again.
“Please,” I whispered. My voice was so hoarse and cracked I wasn’t sure he could understand the words. I swallowed hard. “Please, I’ll send you the money. I swear.”
“Oh, fuck this,” Madrox said now, irritably. “My contact’s already gonna be pissed off I came back with some piece-of-shit engagement ring. I’m not dicking about here while you make up your mind. You want this deal, or you don’t?”
I shut my eyes. Pictures flitted through my mind. Gabe, kneeling on the sand on a beach in Norfolk, holding out the ring. It’s an antique, he’d told me. Seventeenth century. The diamond, it’s not very big. And you can see how hard they tried to shape it, no proper cutting tools. But I thought… I thought you’d prefer it. It’s a bit wonky, a bit unique.
And I had picked it up and cradled it, and then slid it onto my finger, where it had rested like it had always belonged.
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head, but even as I did so, I was twisting the ring, testing whether I could get it off. Twisting. Twisting it up my finger, hard against the bone. “Please, no.”
It came out like a sob, but the ring was already scraping against the edges of my knuckle.
I put my finger in my mouth, ring and all, feeling its hardness against my tongue, remembering Gabe’s lips against mine, his body, his touch, the feel of him in my mouth.
I shut my eyes. I tasted blood. It hurt. Oh God, how could such a small thing hurt so much?
And then I was holding out the ring, my knuckle bruised and bloodied, one more loss, one more wound to add to everything that I had taken already.
“It’s worth three grand,” I said, my voice husky. I couldn’t cry now. I couldn’t. “Keep the fucking change.”
Madrox gave a broad grin as the ring fell into his palm, a grin that might have been triumph but which I thought, more likely, was relief.
“Received. Thanks for the custom, ReddyBrek. Here’s your phone.” He held it out.
My fingers closed around it, and for a second I thought my knees might give way. I had done it. I had done it. But at what cost? The blood was singing in my ears, my legs felt like wet bread, and everything hurt.
“You need any more swapped, just let us know, yeah?” Madrox was saying, though his voice sounded as though it was coming from very far away. “My contact’s good for most networks.”
“Thanks,” I said, but the truth was, one way or another I was never coming back here, and we both knew it.
I watched Madrox as he disappeared across the rainy car park and then, finally, I let my legs give way, and I sank to my knees in the muddy grass, the rain pouring down my face like tears.
I knew in my heart that it was probably stupid to go inside the service station. It was full of cameras and CCTV, and if Bill the lorry driver had recognized me, there was a strong chance he wouldn’t be the only member of the public to do so.
But I was soaking wet, chilled to the bone, and a growing part of me no longer cared. I needed a bathroom, and a plate of hot food, and, more importantly, I was now holding a phone linked to Gabe’s number, which meant that CCTV was the least of my worries. Every time that phone pinged a cell tower, it was leading the police right to me.
Inside the service station I went first to the bathroom. It was empty, and I locked myself into a stall, peed, and then sat in the cubicle, pressing my hand to my side and wondering if I should check what was beneath the dressing. In spite of my shivery-cold flesh, the wound itself felt hot, even through my clothes, the dressing swollen and mushy with what could have been seeping blood or something worse.
In the end I stood, stripped off my anorak, pulled up my T-shirt, and peeled back the dressing.
It looked very, very bad. But what made me most worried was not the wound itself, but the dark red streaks spreading out like tendrils across my skin. For what felt like a long time, I simply sat there, looking down at my side, and trying to control my rising panic. I knew that this had gone beyond first aid—that I was risking septicemia, organ failure… even death. But what could I do? Turn myself in? Not now. Not when I was so close to solving all this.
In the end I did the only thing I could—I threw away the soiled dressing, and then dug in my rucksack for a fresh one.
As I drew it out, I realized that the box was almost empty. I was down to the very last one, and I had no money to buy more. But there was no point in thinking about that. If it came to that, I had no money for anything—food, water, a place to sleep. My side was only one of a list of problems that were about to become very pressing indeed, problems that shoplifting wouldn’t solve, if indeed I could pass under the radar of any security guard now, which I doubted. Pushing the thoughts out of my head, I peeled back the plastic and pressed the clean white square to the wound, holding my breath as the pain surged and then subsided again.
Then I shouldered the pack and made my way shakily to the sinks.
