Harrigan and Grace - 01 - Blood Redemption Read Online Free PDF Page B

do it?’ The words burst out of him too loudly. She tried to quieten him but he shook her off. ‘Just because Graeme —’
    ‘It’s not “just because Graeme”,’ she replied in a tight, bitter voice.
    ‘It is. Don’t you say that to me. He put you up to this and you let him.’
    ‘No. He didn’t. I mean that, Greg. He didn’t. I went after this. Me.
    I did. You can’t change that.’
    ‘Fucking bullshit!’
    ‘No, it’s true.’ Lucy frowned. She dropped her barely smoked cigarette onto the wet ground. ‘I can’t smoke, I can’t do anything. My throat’s so tight, I can’t breathe.’
    ‘Why don’t you come over to Wheelo’s? You can hide out there for a while. He’ll have something to loosen you up a bit.’
    She shook her head.
    ‘No, I don’t want to do that. I’ve got to go back and have a look.
    I’ve got to make sure I really did it. Weird.’
    They sat there for a few moments longer. People walking through the park glanced at them then looked away. A woman stared; the boy made a lewd face at her and she hurried on. Lucy stood up quickly, hoisting her backpack.
    ‘I’ve got to go. And I’ve got to see Graeme as well, I promised him I’d go and see him. He said to me last night, you know, if your courage fails you, don’t worry. You just come back here to me anyway and we’ll talk and we’ll see where we go from there. Well, I am. He’s got to tell me this is okay.’
    ‘Oh yeah, and it’s got nothing to do with him —’
    ‘You don’t understand it.’
    ‘I don’t want to. You didn’t have to do this. You shouldn’t have, Luce. You’re the one who gets to live with it, not him. You know, for the rest of your life, when you wake up in the morning, you’re always going to know you did this. But he’s not. He’s just going to lie there and jerk himself off and not give a shit. Anyway, it’s too fucking dangerous. They put you away for ever for things like this.’
    There was a silence in which they looked at each other.
    ‘No,’ she said, ‘it wasn’t Graeme. It’s me. All right? It’s me.’
    ‘ It fucking is not! ’
    The boy threw his own cigarette on the ground. She looked around, not knowing what to say. For the first time, she thought she might cry.
    ‘When am I going to see you next?’ he asked.
    ‘Later on. This evening. I’ll see Graeme and I’ll come by Wheelo’s later. I might sleep there if that’s okay.’
    ‘Yeah, that’s okay. I’ll see you there. I’m not going back to the refuge now. There’s no way I’m going to stay at Preacher Graeme’s community fucking refuge ever again after this. I don’t care if I am supposed to be living there. I don’t care what you say about him, that guy just fucking scares me so much, I don’t like going near him anyway. But I am never going anywhere near him again after this. You shouldn’t have let him do this to you, Luce. Not ever.’ He was shaking his head angrily. ‘You promise me you’ll be there tonight?’
    ‘Yeah, I promise.’
    ‘Okay.’
    He rubbed his face. The anger had gone out of his voice, now he was only sad.
    ‘Fuck you, Luce, the things you do. You be there. We’ve got to work out what we’re going to do now.’
    ‘I’ll be there.’
    She walked away, back across the park to the street, turning to wave goodbye to him as she went, and saw him, still seated and waving back to her, as she waited to cross the road.

3
    In Railway Square the traffic flowed in a solid roar and the rainy air smelled of petrol. Lucy, lost in her thoughts, barely saw the crowds around her. No, Greg, it’s not just Graeme. You should know that, you know me, we’ve been together for a while now. We’ve slept in doorways, under bridges, anywhere there was a bit of warmth. You and me hanging on to each other with nothing but old clothes and newspapers between us. You’ve seen me when I’m wasted and the only thing I want to feel is nothing. When the only thing that keeps me going is the blood