The Reachers Collection

Chapter 16

Who was he to tell Rachel what she could and couldn"t do? He wasn"t her father. If she wanted to put her life at risk that was her business. Only it wasn"t that straightforward. If anything happened to her, if she died at the hands of Pinky Morris, it would be too much. He had to protect her; it was built into his genes and probably built into hers. And if he thought he could do it, if he was certain he wouldn"t end up putting her in danger, his head wouldn"t be pounding quite so hard.

Charlie"s legs started to buckle as he reached the edge of S"aven. He managed to haul himself to a bench overlooking a set of ramshackle sheds and collapsed. The pain in his head was so strong he couldn"t even feel his back ache. He tried to get up and failed. What was the point in getting up, he had nowhere to go.

“Hey there,” the voice was rich with insinuation.

Charlie turned his head. He could just about make out a girl with pink hair. She couldn"t have been more than sixteen. She was wrapped in a thick coat, mittens, and a heavy scarf. When he looked again he realised she didn"t have pink hair at all, she was just wearing a woollen hat. She sat down beside him without a hint of nervousness.

“Want something to take the edge off?”

It took him a minute to know what she was talking about. Then she withdrew a packet with two blue tablets inside and dangled it for him to paw at. He still had his medication. He didn"t need to play a game of chance from some teenager who had the smarts to sell a product instead of her body. But he wanted to. Roulette meant it was out of his hands. Let God decide.

“What are they?”

“Something to make it all better. You got any money?”

He did have money. Not all of it, but enough. She took everything he had and he took everything she gave him.

Charlie opened his front door. He tried to remember how he"d managed to walk so far. There was music coming from the kitchen, a faint beat he recognised but couldn"t put his finger on. He stepped into the hall, leaving his keys on the sideboard. Lilly had been scrawling at the walls again. She always drew dogs, four legs, a head and tail in as many colours as she could get her hands on. Charlie inspected the addition to the wallpaper with a smirk. The walls flickered red. Tiny, bloody handprints. He blinked and stared back at the dogs. He was getting a headache.

Sarah was chopping vegetables in the kitchen. She hummed along with the music, tone deaf and shameless of the fact. Charlie waited in the doorway, admiring the curve of her back and roundness of her buttocks. After Lilly was born she"d gained a bit of weight in the hips. It suited her.

“You"re late,” she said.

“I know, I"m sorry.” Although that"s not what he had originally said. The last time they"d had the conversation he"d been defensive and they"d argued.

Charlie stepped closer, willing his wife to turn around. “Smells good.”

She sliced a carrot so fiercely it stopped him in his tracks. “Where were you?”

“Working, but I"m finished now. For good. No more jobs.”

Slowly she placed the knife down. “No, you"re not. And I would never make you, do you know why, Charlie? Because you would be miserable. You have to work. It"s all you have.”

“I have you and Lilly. Where is she?”

“Upstairs.”

Charlie made to move.

“She"s asleep.”

“I"ll just poke my head around the door.”

“I"ve just gotten her down.”

Charlie sighed. He just wanted to see his little girl again. It felt like he hadn"t seen in her in so long.

“Okay,” he said, relenting. “Do you want a hand?”

“You, cooking?”

“I never said I"d cook. I was thinking more like I could hold your hair while you chopped,” Charlie said. He reached out, caressing her neck. She was hesitant against the first touch. Things were not good between them and they were only going to get worse, but he could snatch tender moments when they both just put their differences aside and remembered that they still loved each other. His lips found his way against her shoulder and she fell back into him.

“I"ve missed this,” he whispered.

“Then why did you keep going back to her?” There was no anger in her voice. If anything, she pitied him.

her“I don"t know.”

“I bet you didn"t even suspect what she would do while you were f*****g her!”

Charlie swallowed. Of course he never suspected. There"s no way he"d have touched her if he had known she was going to murder his wife. He shouldn"t have touched her at all.

“I"m sorry.”

“You"re always sorry,” she snapped and pulled away from him.

Charlie looked down at his fingers. They were red with blood.

“Do you know how long they cut on me? Slice, slice, slice. They cut me for so long I didn"t think there was anything left of me.” She snatched up the knife again. “And they knew just how to do it, where it would hurt the most. Then they were going to do it to Lilly. "Answer the question or we"ll make her look like you." And if I"d known the answer I would have sung it at the top of my voice.”

“But they didn"t kill Lilly,” Charlie stated.

“No. They took her away to be experimented on like some goddamn animal. They just killed me. She killed me.”

SheHe knew it all already. He was there for most of it.

“I"m so sorry, Sarah. It should have been me.”

“You"re damn right it should.”

Charlie turned away. It wasn"t his wife. It wasn"t her voice, or her words. He so wanted it to be, but he could never recreate her the way she was. His mind would never be that generous.

“And look at you now, moping about like you"re the victim. Poor little Charlie Smith, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. No good to anyone. Not even his own daughter!”

“I"ll get her back, Sarah. I promise you I will find her.”

He could feel her behind him, pushing into his side as though she were really sitting with him. But she wasn"t, and when he gathered up the courage to face her he remembered why. Her cheeks were slashed open, still dripping thick clots of blood onto the white shirt she had been wearing. The rest of her face was swollen purple, disguising the gap in her left socket where her eye should have been. Big brown eyes, he used to adore staring into them. Her untouched left hand scratched at the tacky blood on her right stump. The hand had been removed at the wrist. It went with one smooth slice. God, he had loved her and she had been so much more than this.

Sarah snorted. “You can"t even take the first steps, Charlie. The Reacher girl was your best shot. But look at you, running away because you"re too scared of her dying. Shame you didn"t afford me that luxury.”

her“Rachel"s so young,” Charlie defended.

“No younger than I was when you dragged me into your life.”

Charlie sighed. “You were different. I was different.”

“It"s no different. You saw me and you used me, Charlie.”

“That"s not true.”

“Oh, really. So why did you leave me when I wanted out?”

He swallowed the rising bile in the back of his throat.

“Is it because she"s a Reacher? Is that why she"s too good to die for you?” Her voice was venomous. She reached out for him but Charlie moved away, backing towards the wall.

“You were too good to die like this. Because of me,” he murmured, but those words would never matter to dead Sarah.

“You"ve finally found someone who might be able to help but you won"t ask her, will you? You coward! You can screw your own family over, but not another Reacher!”

“It"s not like that! I can"t have another death on my conscience.”

“Except your daughter"s.” Sarah folded her arms, the stump sticking out awkwardly towards him. “You"re pathetic, Charlie. You always have been. I"d have stopped at nothing to get Lilly back home safe. And what are you going to do if you ever get her back? Let her join the family business?”

He slumped to the floor with his head in his hands.

“Look at you, someone stands up against you and you can"t handle it. You have to run off and pop pills like some backstreet junkie.”

“I"m not a junkie!”

“Baby, you are having a drug induced hallucination and this isn"t even the first time it"s happened. You know John knows about all this, he"s just pretending everything"s fine because he thinks you"ll try and kill yourself, again.”

“I didn"t try and kill myself!” Charlie shouted.

“But John doesn"t think that, does he? He saw you with that bottle of pills and he thought you were doing yourself in, doing what you should have done a year ago. What would he think, knowing that his big brother is a piece of s**t addict?”

She leapt at him. The nails of her left hand scratched into his face. He pushed her back and she rolled across the floor, her broken legs clattering in the air. Her laugh was unholy.

“Why are you like this?”

“Because you made me this way.” She sat up with unnatural ease. Her solitary brown eye glared at him with intensity.

“I don"t know if I can save Lilly; she might be dead already.”

“Oh boo hoo.” Sarah poked out her bottom lip, “ "She might be dead already." What kind of father would rest until he knew there was no hope?”

Charlie rubbed the scratches on his face. “Do you really think Rachel can help?”

Sarah rolled her eye and yawned. “How many times do I have to tell you; I am a figment of your imagination. I don"t think anything.”

“You"re right,” Charlie paused. “Or I"m right. She"s what we need, someone with a clear head. And she wants to do it, from the minute she learned about Lilly, she wanted to help.”

“If only you weren"t about to overdose.”

“What?”

“At least we"ll be together again,” she smiled, running her left hand over his face. Her image flickered again. If only he could remember what she was really like. If he could just hold onto what she had been.

He didn"t want to die, not like this.