“One day, when he was nine, I came home to find him sitting on the kitchen floor. Heathan was covered in blood. There was a knife on the floor beside him and he had cuts all over his body, wounds he had clearly inflicted upon himself. He was rubbing his blood into the skin on his arms and face, only to stop and write ‘Tick tock’ on the kitchen floor with his finger, using his own blood as the ink. I snapped, and I tried to take that cursed watch from his hands.” Her cheeks paled. “That boy of mine. He . . . he shot to his feet, put his hand on my throat, and forced me back against the wall. He threatened that if I came near him again, that if I dared take the watch, he would kill me in my sleep.” She stared at my uncle. “And he would have.” She straightened her back. “That was the day I drove him to the Earnshaw estate and gave him to his father. I couldn’t take it anymore.”
My uncle shook Mrs. and Mr. Lockwood’s hands and got to his feet when the interview had finished. I followed. As we left, Mrs. Lockwood put her hand on my uncle’s arm and said, “I don’t know what he’s done, but that boy is trouble. Nothing or no one will ever get through to him. He will never let anyone in to try.”
That was where she was wrong. Because the girl he let in once belonged to me. An extroverted blond, five foot one and weighing no more than one hundred pounds, now had the full attention of one Heathan James. She returned the favor.
The most fucked-up pairing I’d ever seen.
We drove back to the Ranger base in silence. I couldn’t stop thinking about what Heathan’s mother had said. How even as a child he would kill. Hours passed as I worked at my desk. Just as I had signed off on my last report concerning the tea-party massacre, another file landed on my desk. I groaned and looked up at the junior officer.
“Don’t blame me. Your uncle told me to get this to you as soon as it came through.”
Turning my lamp back on, I picked up the file. “Earnshaw,” the label said. I ran my hand over the file. It was old.
The false report.
I turned the page and began to read . . . and I didn’t stop until I reached the last page. I sat back in my seat and ran my hand through my hair, feeling sick to my bones. The clock on the wall struck three, the loud chimes reverberating around the deserted office.
Yet I remained, eyes closed, knowing that what I had just read was real. And it had mentioned Ellis. Little Ellis. Innocent, fragile, little Ellis.
And Heathan.
It had mentioned Heathan James too.
I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, fighting the bile that had risen to my throat. And to no one and everyone, I opened my mouth and whispered, “Jesus Christ.”
Chapter 14
The Jabberwock
Dolly
“Did you like your picture?” I asked Rabbit as we drove down another new road.
Rabbit shrugged. “I don’t care about the picture.”
I leaned back in my seat and thought of the picture in my head. As soon as I switched on the TV this morning, I had seen a picture of me and my Rabbit. It was drawn in pencil. “SICK FUX” was displayed along the bottom of the screen. I couldn’t read the rest so good; the words went by too fast. But Rabbit told me it had said we were “Serial Killers.” It had said we were on the loose. It described what we wore, and told people to watch out for us.
I didn’t care about all of that. I just liked the picture of me and my Rabbit. I wanted a copy. I wanted to put it in a frame. “You looked so handsome,” I told him and turned to give him a smile.
Rabbit raised his eyebrow. I laughed at his moody face. “You’re the most handsome boy I ever did see.” Rabbit glanced at me from the corner of his eye and smirked.
I turned up the music. My mummy’s music blasted at us. I thought of what was coming up. I hugged my doll to my chest when my stomach began to drop and shivers broke out all over my body . . .
The Jabberwock.
I swallowed, feeling something I had never encountered before when facing the bad men. Fear. I felt fear as I looked down at his card. Rabbit had given me the card this morning. He had told me that the Jabberwock was mine to kill.
The Jabberwock was the fiercest bad man of all.
He was the evil one who hurt little Ellis the most.
He was the one who put a baby in her stomach . . . then ripped it all away.