Pacifier

💔Isabelle🥀

I waited up, listening for them, watching the clock on the wall.

I felt a little sick with nerves, adrenaline. I felt a little sick with worry for Della.

And I felt a little sick thinking about Vans last words to me downstairs.

I couldn't shake the feeling that he knew my plan. That somehow he knew what I was going to do.
Like he was giving me a second chance. Giving me another option.

"be good, go to bed,"

His words rang around my head. More like the offer of a second chance than a threat.

But I couldn't take that chance. As much as I had recognised the look in his eyes.

Compelling.

Telling me not to let him down. To do as I was told. As he was telling me to do.

That look like he was reading my mind. Like he could tell exactly what i was thinking. Like he knew exactly what i wanted to do.

And what i wanted to do, was as I was told, by him.

I didn't want to let him down, I didn't want to break any of his rules. I didn't want to lie to him or betray him. I wanted to be good for him.

To behave like the little angel he was always whispering that I was.

But every time I thought about that, about how it would be a warm relief to lie down beside him, to rest my head on his chest. To be cradled and kissed by him. Treated like a princess by him. How good it would feel to be his little angel again.

I thought about Della.

About the horrors she could be experiencing at the hands of the Rieds. About how lonely she would be tonight.

I knew I couldn't save her, I knew I couldn't fight the bad guys and win, I knew I could end up killed if things went wrong, but I knew that I needed to try for her.

That if she was to die at the hands of the Reids I couldn't let her die alone.

I couldn't let her think her family had abandoned her.

Even if the rest of them had, even if her own brother had denied her very existence, she still had a sister in me and I knew I needed to be with her tonight.

And maybe we'd get out of there alive.

Maybe I had more of my big brother in me than I realised.

Thats what I kept trying to convince myself as I lay awake, waiting for Benjis breathing, where he sat slumped in the chair in the corner of my room, to slow and steady into soft snores.

But by the time he had drifted off, it was late and I was late and the window which had been left slightly open was stiff to push.

The frame rattled but the glass slipped just enough for me to bend and wriggle out.

And when my trainers rattled the fire escape, the rain was cool and soft on my skin and i was reminded of another night not much more than a month before. When my best friend had only just gone missing.

When i hadnt known Van as well as I did now.

When i hadnt known anything about my big brother and his friends life as well as I did now.

So much had happened to me between then and now, but i didnt feel any older. I didn't feel any wiser.

And I felt just as scared this time, my fingers gripping the railings like my life depended on it, the rust scratching at my hands. The rain damp on my palms, my skin clammy.