Twist Of Fate

Six

CHLOE

"Well?" Harry demands, his teeth bared in fury, when I don't answer.

Fear has rendered me speechless and immobile. It is all I can do to stare at him dumbly, my eyes wide and my mouth open in a silent scream.

"Get out. Get out!" he spits, and reaches into the car to close his fingers around my upper arm. He yanks me from the back seat with surprising force, and I stagger out onto a gravel floor beneath a bridge with street lamps at either side. From the sound of the traffic above, we are below some kind of flyover, although where I do not know. Amateur, mindless graffiti adorns the drab concrete and litter is strewn carelessly in the grass across this wasteland.

"I'm - I'm sorry," I stammer, and I can hear the fear in my own voice. 

"How the fuck did you get in there?"

"The door was unlocked, I -"

"Why? Why are you here?"

"I don't know, I hid, I was scared - "

"Why? What are you scared of? What do you know? What did you see?"

"Chris... I think he's dead... there are police everywhere and I just panicked!"

My hysteria is rising; my own volume along with it.

"Keep your voice down, fucking hell!"

Harry is pacing back and forth in front of me, grabbing fistfuls of his hair in his hands. His mania is infectious.

"Where are you going?" I ask, trembling. "Is this your car? Are you running away?"

"Of course it's my fucking car."

He offers no further explanation, and I watch him striding up and down for another few seconds, breathing faster as my heart hammers in my chest.

"You need to keep your mouth shut," he warns, turning suddenly towards me, pushing his face right up to mine. His eyes are crystal clear, and even in the orange light from the street lamp twenty feet away I can see flecks of darker green around his irises and his pupils dilating as he stares me down.

"Wha - what do you mean?" I gasp. "About what?"

"Don't tell the police anything. Don't mention me, or what happened earlier. Just keep your mouth shut when they come knocking."

"Come knocking?" I echo, terrified.

His eyes dart between mine, and his jaw pulsates menacingly.

"They'll want to speak to everyone," he explains, slightly less aggressively. "They'll ask you what you know; what happened. Don't tell them anything."

This whole conversation isn't making any sense to me. I am completely confused. The noise from the traffic overhead seems to be crowding my mind and my senses, echoing in the blackness that surrounds us and consuming every cell in my body.

"How will they find me?" I splutter, and he looks at me with his own confusion.

"They'll be coming round the flats, talking to everyone," he says, his brow furrowed.

"I won't be there."

"They'll find you in the pub then."

"What pub?"

His expression turns again to one of rage. "What do you mean, what pub? The Flute! Are you fucking stupid or something? You work there!"

"I left," I blurt, and his face contorts into a look of disbelief.