Ignite

Chapter 25

Annabelle Smith is looking at me, her gaze hopeful and open in a way that makes me feel ill.

I'm suddenly certain that though seeing her was something Jake needed, it was also something I did not.

She's waiting for me to say something, to acknowledge her with more warmth and familiarity, but I don't, instead I just stare at her, my stomach churning with ever-deepening horror.

She glances at her hands, fiddling with one of her nails. I can't help but notice that prison has stripped the bleach from her hair and the alcohol weight from her cheeks.

"How are you liking Sydney?" she asks.

The normality of the question almost makes me laugh, and my disorientation condenses into a bright anger.

"I like it a lot. Jake and I are much happier away from you."

She sucks in an unsteady breath and even through my anger I can see how she's curled up on herself. A guard notices and starts watching us, but I meet his gaze defiantly and he looks away with a frown.

"How are you liking prison? You're looking better than usual."

"Prison has been good for me," Annabelle says. "It's been the wake-up call I've needed for a long time."

My face contorts with fury, but I bite down the poison that rises in my throat.

"Shame you had to kill a bunch of people to get it."

The silence that follows is weighted and I can see her struggling to speak, to say something that will dull my hostility.

"Claude, you need to understand—"

"No," I interrupt, leaning forward. "I don't need to understand how someone could drop a cigarette into the bushes on the highest fire danger day we'd had in years and bolt when it blazed. I don't need to understand how you could've gotten in your car and driven off when you knew, you knew, that Jake and I were standing on a field not one kilometre away from the chaos you'd started. I don't need to understand how you can live with yourself after the people you killed and the hell you threw Jake and I into."

The words come out of my mouth vicious and hot, chasing each other's tails like demons, and they sizzle against my mother.

"Claudia—"

I stand up, the chair screeching beneath me, and I realise the room has gone silent. The kind of silence that falls when even the shuffle of movement, of fabric against the table and shoes scuffing the floor, has stopped.

"You ruined our lives," I say, feeling the eyes of everyone else in the room drilling into my back. "If you can live with that, fine. But to me, you're dead. You were dead the moment that grass caught alight."

And I turn and barrel out. Out of the room, out of the corridor, out of the prison. Sprinting past the guards and the strangers and Jake and Peter and Sylvia, until I hit the gravel outside.

I bend over, heaving and cussing out words, hoping it will keep the panic at bay. But nothing stops the burning sadness that hurricanes inside me — that batters and tears at my skin, trying to find a way out.

"Claudia!"

And then there are arms around me, Sylvia pulling my head onto her chest and letting me scream into her sweater.

It lasts a long time, long enough to make my throat raw, but eventually I quieten and pull away from her, wiping my nose and eyes.

"I'm sorry, Claude," Sylvia says. "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have made you come here. I—"

"It's not your fault," I mumble, my voice broken. "At least I know now. I'm never going to forgive her. Never."

Sylvia nods, her gaze sympathetic. Peter is hovering behind her, his gaze sad.

"Do you want to come back inside?" he asks. "Just to sit while we wait."

I glance up at him in confusion, and realise Jake isn't here — that while I had run from Mum, he must've run towards her.

I swallow a bitter pang and shake my head.

"No, I'd rather stay out here. Is that okay?"

Sylvia nods, patting my arm.

"Of course, honey, of course. I'm just going to go back to make sure Jake knows how to find us."

"Okay."

Sylvia hurries off, glancing back at me every now and again until she disappears into the building.

I flop onto the gravel, ignoring the jagged edges stabbing into my legs and ass, and begin arranging the pebbles in front of me. Peter hovers, patting my head in a gesture that is far more comforting than I would've thought.

We're still there when Sylvia returns. She has a quick, whispered conversation with Peter and then sits beside me, pulling me into her arms and muttering small reassurances, promising movies and chocolate and lazy afternoons, but I hardly hear her. Instead, my head is filled with white noise, with a numbness that descends and descends and descends until finally, thankfully, I feel nothing at all.