Her Guardian Angel (Part 6)

“Adam!” Caroline ran into my arms, sobbing uncontrollably. Her eyes were wide and scared and mascara ran down her cheeks. “What is it? What’s happened?” All I caught between her gasps for breath was ‘Mark.’ “Kid, Honey, you’ve got to calm down. What happened? What about Mark?” She broke down into more tears and covered her face with her hands, that’s when I noticed they were covered in blood and there were splatters on her dress. I walked towards the bedroom where she had run from when I’d crashed through the door. I stopped in the doorway and took in the scene; lamp, laptop and books littered the floor around the toppled desk chair, the framed photos and ever annoying alarm clock had been knocked off the bedside table. Mark, half on half off the bed, lay with his face buried in the bed cover. Blood spread across the crumpled fabric and the flip knife I’d left in my drawer lay next to him. I approached him and rolled him over, he slid down and looked like a life size rag doll resting against the side of the bed, his head lolled back against the mattress. Cold, dead eyes stared up at me. Three stab wounds to his neck proved to be the source of all the blood. His jeans were undone. I turned to Caroline and realized her dress and tights were torn and there was a cut above her eye. “Fuck. Caroline.” I grabbed her and held her close and a new flood of tears overcame her. We stood there, the flat silent except her muffled cries, for a long time. I finally let go and as she looked up at me, I saw the little kid I hadn’t seen in years. “Did he actually, you know?” She shook her head. “No. I got the …”

“Ok, good.” I jerked my chin at the bathroom. “Go get cleaned up. Put your clothes in a bag.” I waited for the sound of the shower before turning back to the bedroom. I closed up my knife and shoved it in my back pocket then threw Mark’s body onto the bed and rolled the covers around him. The rest of the room was clear of blood, which was going to make things easier. Ten minutes later, everything was put back in more or less the correct place and Caroline came through in tracksuit bottoms and a hoodie, carrying a plastic bag. “That’s everything?”

“Yeah.”

I didn’t want to leave her curled up on the sofa watching TV but things needed doing before the morning, we couldn’t risk Mindy wondering into Caroline’s bedroom looking for a hairdryer or whatever and finding a dead body on the bed. It was late and almost pitch black outside thanks to the crappy street lights. I waited at the door for a group of five or six girls to stagger past, their high heels echoing in the otherwise deserted street. When they were out of sight, I grabbed Mark and the clothes and headed out. He was lucky, if I’d have caught him his death wouldn’t have been as quick as it was. I was angry; again I’d failed to protect my kid, she’d had to do it herself and a girl her size it was a miracle she’d managed it. And if she hadn’t? If he had over powered her? I couldn’t stand the thought so I avoided it, concentrated on getting rid of that asshole. I took a car from the edge of town, shoved everything in the boot, stopped to fill up a couple of fuel canisters and drove to the middle of nowhere. After turning off the engine, I sat back in my seat and ran my hands through my hair, swearing quietly. The ‘what if’ thoughts started to sneak back so I took a deep breath and got out, slamming the door a little harder than intended. I doused the car and its contents in petrol and threw a match. I hung around to make sure everything was sufficiently burned then left. The walk back was worse than the car journey out, I didn’t have anything to occupy my mind so the guilt swirled around and around until my head ached. I reached for my cigarettes and was greeted by an empty pocket. That was right, I was out. “Shit.”

                The sun had been up a while when I got back to the flat and I was met by Mindy’s high pitched, cheery voice interrogating Caroline in the kitchen. “Oh hi Adam. Where have you been?” She chimed. “Got lucky with the barmaid.”

“Ooh! Good for you.” She turned back to Caroline. “So?”

“Erm … it was … disappointing. Really disappointing.”

“Oh, I’m sorry Sweetie.” She tilted her head to the side the way humans do when they feel sorry for each other and gave a sympathetic smile. “Maybe next time. I’ll make some coffee, shall I?” I gave Caroline a nod, letting her know everything was dealt with and went to shower the weight of the night and smell of fire off me.

                “I’m going to jail, aren’t I?” Caroline whispered that evening as we sat on her bed watching some movie I wasn't even paying attention to. “No, of course not. I sorted everything. They won’t identify him and even if they did, he looked like every other guy in there, no one will remember you leaving with him.” I wasn’t half as confident as I sounded. What if I missed something? What if someone did remember him leaving the pub with her? She didn’t report it; would it have actually helped if she did? There was no physical evidence, I doubt they would have classed a pair of ripped tights and a small cut on her face as evidence of attempted rape. Even if they had, would she be spared jail? I don’t know but I sure as hell wasn’t going to risk my kid going behind bars. From then on, I was her shadow; if Caroline left the house, I left the house, if she answered the door, I was right behind her. I expected the police to show up any minute and if they did I was going to be there. I didn’t know what I planned to do when they did show up; was I just going to go along to the station with her and come up with an alibi or kill everyone who tried to arrest her? I don’t know. Three months went by. Three months of the kid jumping every time she heard the doorbell or a police siren. Three months of me wondering when they’d come get her, when something I’d forgotten would lead them right to her, but nothing happened. Then it reached six months and still nothing. By the time a year had passed, it all felt like a bad dream. Although I still didn’t like her going places on her own, Caroline insisted life should get back to normal so occasionally she went out alone for a little while and I stayed back worrying about her.

                “Where the fuck have you been?” I knew yelling like that made me sound like a parent and I probably had no right to be asking in the first place. I didn’t want to sound like that, it just came out when she casually walked through the door. “What?” Mindy looked up from her spot on the carpet, cringed, quickly gathered up her books and slipped out the door behind Caroline. Cornelius followed her and a few seconds later, I heard the bedroom door quietly close.

“You left at eight this morning. You said you were going shopping with Mindy.”

“I did.”

“Mindy got back ten fuckin hours ago, Caroline. I was worried about you. I called you. I went looking for you. I don’t have some fuckin radar; I don’t psychically know where you are!”

“Adam, I’m fine. Relax.”

“I didn’t know you were fine though. You could have called or text, you could have picked up the phone one of the dozens of times I called, just to let me know you were ok.”

“Alright, I should have told you I was going for a drive. Sorry.”

“A drive?”

“Yeah, I just felt like getting out of town for a bit so I went for a drive.”

“You drove for ten hours?”

“No I didn’t drive for … Can we just leave it? I wanted to get away for a bit, I went for a drive, now I’m back.”

“If you want to get away for a bit on your own that’s fine. Totally fine. But I’m your guardian. I’m supposed to look after you. How can I look after you if I don’t even know where you are? Or at least that you’re safe. Just a text. Anything to let me know something hasn’t happened to you.”

“Alright. I’m sorry. I am.” My anger started to subside a little at her apology. “It’s just … I’ve screwed this job up enough. I can’t screw up again. But you’ve got to work with me, Kid.”

“Ok. I forgot, alright? I wanted to get away for a bit, not from you or Mindy or anyone in particular but school’s hard and the stress of this last year, I just wanted to breath.”

“I get it. Just let me know in future, ok?”

                 That’s the way we carried on. Every six months or so Caroline decided she wanted to get away from town and would go for a drive. I didn’t ask where she went or what she did. To be honest, I figured she just drove, stopped for something to eat and turned back. Now I know I was wrong. I should have asked. I should have followed her. I wish I had.

Copyright Anna Smith 2020