Chapter Ten



Chantelle’s POV



“You shouldn’t have run,” Clover said, hovering above me. Shouldn’t have run. He just brutally murdered someone in front of me! “You should have let me explain.” His seemed hard and full of anger. Not the soft, kind and caring person I knew. Well, half-knew.

“How could you possibly explain that?” I responded, in a whisper. My body was so cold and shook in fear. The grass this far into the forest, where the sun never reaches, was damp and the water slowly seeped through my clothes. In-between talking all I could hear was our loud heavy breathing.

“Will you give me the opportunity?”

I wanted my answer to that to be no there was nothing he could say to make that okay. But I also knew that saying no could mean that I would end up like that girl in the house. “Okay,” I agreed. Clover stretched out his hand and helped me up, and I reluctantly took it. As soon as I was up I took a step back.

“Let’s go back to the house. We can talk and get some rest.” I almost laughed. Did he really expect me still go with him? Was murdering that girl not bother him at all? My blood ran cold as I realised that he had probably done that before, that the reason he was hiding from the police was because he was a murderer. I was on the run with a killer.

Instead of replying I nodded my head and started to follow him back. My heart was crashing in my chest as I debated whether I should try running again. I needed to get away from him.

We entered the house again and I avoided looking at the blood on the floor. It wasn’t that easy to see in the dark hallway but I knew it was there, to me it was very, very visible. Clover led me upstairs and into the second room he looked in, the first one was occupied by a half-naked woman passed out on the floor.

I didn’t want to sit down but when he gestured to the bed I obliged. “Will you tell me everything, Clover? From the start?”

He nodded and looked at me. His dark eyes piercing into mine. “Yes. I’ll start from the beginning.” I started playing with my fingers to have something to do. “I told you about my parents, and a little of my childhood. Well, that was all true. However, something happened after. When I was five years old my father cheated on my mother with a disgusting prostitute.”

A disgusting prostitute. Was that what he thought of me, that I was disgusting? In a away, I was. What I did, I hated, but I had to survive.

“My mother naturally threw him out and filed for divorce. At first our lives continued as normal. But I soon noticed a change in her. She was angry a lot and would always be talking about how much she hated that woman and what she was. That woman ripped our family apart, was what she told me. She drank a lot and stopped caring about me.”

“That must have been awful.” I could relate to some of that. When someone your parent loves leaves it changes them. They’re no longer who they were, and neither is your relationship with them. That didn’t give you the right to murder though. A tough childhood wasn’t an excuse for that.

“It was. I was five and lost. My father had left and my mother had changed beyond recognition. I grew up scrubbing myself and the house to make sure everything was clean, that the germs from that woman weren’t still left behind. Of course they weren’t, but it felt like it. Mother made it seem like she was still there, contaminating our lives further.”

I shuffled on the bed, making sure I moved over a little bit more. “Don’t be scared of me, Chantelle,” he said, almost pleadingly. Hurt was clear in his eyes but how could he expect me not to be scared?

Without looking up I replied, “Can you blame me?”

“No, I guess not, but I would never hurt you.” He looked and sounded sincere but I didn’t know if I could trust him. That almost made me want to cry. Clover was the first person in years to treat me like a human, to ask me about my life, and just to care. The first person to properly speak to me was a murderer.

He sighed and continued speaking, “I found it hard as a teenager. I knew the constant cleaning wasn’t normal but by that time I couldn’t stop. Mother and I had no one but each other. Her friends had abandoned her and I never really made any, I was considered the freak boy.” Clover turned his body so he was completely facing me. “I’m going to tell you the rest but please promise me you’ll hear me out completely.”

I nodded numbly. “Yeah, I promise.”

“Mother had become increasingly anxious regarding those women.” He took a deep breath. “She brought one back to the house and she…she disposed of her.”

Everything around me seemed to be swimming. His mother was a killer too? “W-What?” I stuttered.

Clover nodded. “It was the right thing to do, I didn’t see that at first but she made me see sense. Women like that, destroying people’s lives, have no place in this world.”

I felt a warm tear sliding down my face. “What about me?” Was that really what he thought of me? A worthless disease that had to be eliminated. That wasn’t me. He didn’t understand that no one chooses that life. No little girl’s dream is to sell her body but sometimes it’s your only choice.

“You’re different, I can tell that,” he said tenderly.

Why was I not panicking more? He had just told me that he and his mother were murderers and I was still sitting beside him, crying over what he thought of me. “I didn’t want to.”

His finger gently wiped away my tears. “I know you didn’t. Let’s not talk about that now. It didn’t happen.” Didn’t happen? Was he just going to pretend I never worked the streets? That I hadn’t sold my body?

“Why you though? Why did you do it? Was it just revenge?”

“It wasn’t revenge, exactly. What we did, we did because no one else was. Look at the police force, they do nothing to help innocent families and keep these women off the streets.”

“So you took it into your own hands.”

“Someone had to.” I shook my head. “Let me explain in a different way. If you saw someone in the street, bleeding and in need of help, would you?”

“Yes.”

“So you would take the role of paramedic on.”

“Well…I guess.”

“Exactly. What I do is no different. The police are unable to stop something that is illegal so I do it.” It made sense. Sort of.

I felt a little uneasy being with him. Only a little. Even knowing all that I still didn’t want him to leave me, I didn’t want to be alone again. “Is that everything? What about the girls?”

He smiled. “The girls.” Jealousy prickled inside me. “They’re beautiful, all three of them.”

“They live with you?”

“Yes.” He took my hand. It had been a while since someone was so gentle and tender with me. “I built them a place in my house.”

“What?” I shook my head. “I don’t understand. You built them a place in the house?”

“In my cellar, they have their own place, just for them.”

“The cellar? But…I don’t…” I couldn’t seem to find the words I wanted. Were there any words for that? “Why?”

“For safety and their own protection. I don’t want them around poisonous people; all they need is me and each other.”

“But they only lived down there? Not in the house?”

“That’s correct.”

“Did they want that?”

“To be protected, loved, cared for? Of course they did.”

“Okay,” I whispered numbly, not really able to believe that. Who would want to be stuck in a cellar? Even if it was a palace. We have all the time in the world to talk. I’ll answer anything you ask once we’ve had some sleep.”

“Yeah, okay.”

We got into the surprisingly clean bed and laid down beside each other. “Goodnight, Chantelle.”

“Night,” I whispered. He fell asleep quickly but I couldn’t.

I woke up first; Clover was still asleep and looked so peaceful. It was hard to think of him being the same person he told me about. He wasn’t evil, he was sick. His mum made him do things that eventually became normal. Clover needed help not condemning. I could help him. We could help each other.

It was light out but I didn’t know what time it was, probably around twelve as the sun was high. We were going to have to spend the whole day stuck in here. But it wasn’t like we didn’t have a lot to talk about.

Clover stirred and cracked his eyes open, smiling as he saw me. “Good morning, Chantelle.”

I returned the smile. “Morning. Do you have the time?”

“Twenty minutes past twelve,” he replied, glancing at his black leather watch. We still had about another seven hours before it would even start getting dark. “Are you okay this morning? You had a lot of information to take in yesterday.”

That was an understatement. “I’m fine.”

“I’m not a bad person, Chantelle; I just stand up for what I believe in. I’m not one of those people that say one thing and do another. Actions speak louder than words.” I agreed with him, up until the point that he thought it was okay to kidnap and murder. Even knowing all this, what he was, I still didn’t run in the night. I watched him sleeping for a while and my head said leave but I couldn’t go. I needed someone; I wanted someone to take care of me, to give a damn if I was okay.

We spent the entire day going over and over his life story. By the end of it I could understand why he thought the way he did but I still didn’t think it was right, although I told him it was.

As the sun set we made our way downstairs. All day we’d not heard one noise coming from the house. The night was filled with chatting and people banging around, but I guess they’d taken their drugs and were now sleeping it off.

“Be quiet, okay?” Clover instructed, as we walked down the hallway and towards the front door.

I sighed in relief when we made it out without being seen. Clover led me towards the forest, his hand was holding onto mine tightly and he stayed one step ahead. The cuts that covered his face and head looked a lot better today, now they were neat dark pink lines.

Just before we reached the edge of the forest we heard a noise that made me jump and my heart thump in fear. Police sirens. I gasped as Clover harshly pulled at my hand. We ran as fast as we could, within seconds we were disguised by the thick trees and the darkness of the forest but we didn’t know if we’d been seen.

“Faster,” he demanded. I pushed myself as hard as I could. My legs were already burning and I wanted to collapse. It wasn’t just because I was tired from having such little sleep; it was because I was mentally drained too.

Clover stopped after about half an hour of us sprinting. I collapsed on the floor, pressing my head against my knees as I tried to catch my breath. “Are you alright, Chantelle?” he asked, breathlessly. I nodded and stood up. If I stayed on the floor longer I wouldn’t be able to get up at all.

“Do you think they’re following us?”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

“This is crazy.”

“It’ll be worth it when we’ve got the girls and are living happily together.”

I frowned, brushing my hair back as it stuck to my face. “Where will we live?”

“You leave that to me, and don’t worry, I’ll make sure it’s near enough to a good University,” he promised, smiling warmly.

“Thank you. Will we all live in a house? No cellar?”

“You’ll be with me.” Was that you’ll meaning all of us or just me and him? Would he find another place with a cellar for the girls?

“What about my name?”

“What about it?”

“Chantelle. It’s not a flower.”

He stroked my arm. “Your name is perfect.” I nodded again, hiding a frown. Was I not good enough to be part of his family? Again, why did I care? “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I answered quickly.

He smiled as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. “I want you with me.”

“Really?” I asked, breathlessly, not because of the running but because his fingers gently stroked my cheek. How can someone so kind and tender be a brutal murderer? I had too many questions and nothing really made much sense. All I knew was that he made me feel like a woman.

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We need some more murders...next chapter, I promise lol!

Thank you to loveyousoomuch for the awesome trailer, for The Cellar!

This was originally going to be in Clover's POV but I think it worked better in Chantelle's, then you can really get why she's still with him. Loneleness. :(

So, I go on holiday tomorrow so no uploads for this next week. I'm going to relax and eat my own body weight in chocolate xD

Have a great Easter <3