Chapter Five



Summer’s POV

“Him and his…” Becca trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. She didn’t need to though; I knew exactly what she was going to say. Clover and his mum were together, or whatever they called their sick little relationship. “They were…” She shook her head, still not able to finish what she wanted to say.

As disgusting, sing and wrong as it was that was, it was actually good for us. If things went wrong when we attempted locking him in the cellar then we could always use that against him. I mean something like that must stay with you.

Suddenly realising something, I stood up straight and gasped. “Where is she now?”

“What?” Becca whispered.

“His mum, where is she?” I shone the torch around the room, being careful not to go too close to the window. The room was as neat and tidy as the rest of the house so I couldn’t really tell if it was lived in or not. She couldn’t be here still and there was never any mention of his mum, so where was she? “We need to find out what happened to her,” I told Becca.

“She’s probably dead; why else wouldn’t we have heard anything?” I nodded in agreement. That was most likely but we still needed to be one hundred percent sure, we couldn’t leave anything to chance.

“We need to find her name and then we can search the grave yard.” I groaned internally at the thought, searching the entire grave yard was not something I wanted to do but we couldn’t ask anyone else for help without telling them our plans. “Also look for anything that could relate to his family. We need to know if we should expect a psycho brother turning up.”

Immediately we started searching through draws, trying to find anything with her name on it.

Deep down I knew how stupid I was, doing something like this just wasn’t me, although I wasn’t sure exactly who I was anymore. I wanted to just be able to snap back to the old Summer and not let him affect me; it was becoming increasingly hard to lie to myself. The truth was I wasn’t fine.

“Sum, look at this,” Becca said, breaking me out of my thoughts. I spun around and looked at what she was showing me. It was an old torn photo of Clover, his mum and another man who must have been his dad. Clover couldn’t have been any older than four; he was smiling a toothless smile. They looked happy, his parents with their arm around each other and one hand on Clover’s shoulder. What happened to change that happy family? “Do you think his dad is still alive?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered, “But I guess we need to find that out too.”

Everything was getting a little too complicated. Neither of us had properly thought our plan through, we just knew that we had to do it. I wasn’t that naïve, I knew it wouldn’t be easy but this just seemed impossible. “At least we know he doesn’t have any brothers or sisters thought,” Becca said, trying to sound enthusiastic.

“No, we know he doesn’t have any older brothers or sisters.” I shook my head in frustration, “Let’s just keep looking for pictures and any paperwork. We can’t really be here too much longer.” I just wanted to get back home and snuggle up against Lewis.

After five minutes of rummaging through cupboards, draws and wardrobes Becca gasped and waved something around. “Summer, look at this,” she yelled in a whisper.

Looking over her shoulder, I shone the dim light on the piece of paper she was holding. It was a Clover’s birth certificate. We both smiled, we had both his parents’ full names. It didn’t look like there was anything of his dad’s in the house and the way Clover was with his own mother, I guessed he hadn’t been around for a while.

Becca smiled at me and folded it back up, sticking it in her pocket. “We should get going now, Sum.”

“Wait, you found that where?” Becca pointed to the bottom drawer of a small side table in front of us. “Anything else in there?” I asked, looking at the drawer.

“I don’t know. This was on the top. Can we just get out of here please?”

“One minute, I just wanna see…” I trailed off, kneeling down.

I pulled open another drawer just as we heard a light banging noise coming from the kitchen. We gasped at the same time and looked at each other in horror. Grabbing Becca’s hand, I pulled her towards the cupboard under the stairs. Pulling the door open gently, we slipped inside and closed the door, leaving the tiniest gap so we could see who it was.

My heart was beating out of my chest as I gripped Becca’s hands. Her body was shaking just like mine. Could it be Clover? He couldn’t have got back that quickly, right?

I felt physically sick. How the hell were we going to do this if we just hid away, terrified of seeing him again?

Footsteps echoed through the hall way, the light from a torch getting brighter as it approached us. I held my breath, waiting for whoever it was, praying it wasn’t him. Becca’s nails dug into the back of my hand as the footsteps stopped outside the door.

Oh god, please don’t be him.

I heard another step, and he was in view. It wasn’t him, it was a police officer. Breathing a sigh of relief, I loosened my grip of Becca’s hand.

“What do we do?” Becca whispered as we heard him walking up the stairs.

“They probably have to check the place out occasionally, we’ll just wait until he’s gone then get the hell out…after we finish in that drawer.

“What?” she yelled in a whisper. “Are you serious, Summer?”

“Shh. We’re so close and there’s probably more in there.” Becca’s mouth fell open in disbelief. “We only have a couple days; we need everything we can get.”

“But it’s crazy, we almost got caught!”

“You want to do this without all the information we can get? Without the best plan we can think of?” I asked her.

She sighed quietly. “No.”

“Okay so we’ll just take a quick look and then get out.” Becca nodded, sighing again.

We stayed in the darkness of the small cupboard until we saw the officer pass us again and the back door closing.

I stood up as far as I could in the small cupboard and carefully pushed the door open, listening out for any sign of him coming back. “He’s gone. Let’s be quick,” I told Becca, while stepping out into the hallway. I didn’t waste any time in opening the drawer again, sifting through the paperwork to find something.

Groaning in frustration, I threw the papers back in the drawer. “Shh,”Becca hissed from behind me. “We’re leaving now!” she stated, grabbing my arm and dragging me to my feet. I was pushed towards the back door and although I wanted to find more I knew it really was time to leave.

Becca looked out of the door first and after a few seconds she slipped out, pulling on my hand to get me to follow. We crept along the wall, stopping when we got to the same hole in the bush that we came through earlier. After checking out the area once more, we ran for the bush and through the gap as quickly as we could.

We both breathed a sigh of relief as we made it back to the car safely. Becca started the engine and pulled off. “Thank god that’s over,” she said, gripping the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles had turned white.

“Yeah, but the same again tomorrow night.” Becca nodded in agreement but from the horrified expression on her face she wasn’t looking forward to it, I wasn’t either but I’d promised Rose and Louise that I wouldn’t let their deaths be for nothing. “I don’t particularly want to either.”

“I know, Sum, and I won’t back out I just don’t like it.”

“We’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, we have to be,” she replied.

Becca dropped me off at just down the road from my house and I waited until I was at my front door before driving off. I turned the key in the lock slowly and opened it just enough for me to slip through. The house was in darkness, the same as I left it. After changing back, I made my way upstairs, creeping along the hallway with light movements.

I pushed my bedroom door open, holding my breath as I waited to find out if Lewis was still asleep. Though if he wasn’t I would have heard about it by now, but it was still terrifying. I let out a quiet sigh of relief as he was now lying on his stomach with his hands under the pillow.

Before getting back into bed, I took a minute to study him again. My feelings for him were just as strong but they seemed a little jumbled up, things weren’t how they were and I couldn’t figure out exactly what was wrong. We were slightly different people now, there’s no way we could stay exactly the same with everything that happened, but could those new people still make it work. I wanted it to. Maybe we just had to work at it, we’d never had to do that before, things used to be so simple and easy. Perhaps we were going to have to do the thing most couples had to do and actually work at our relationship. If that’s what it would take to stay together then I would definitely do it. I just hoped Lewis was willing to as well.

Forcing away all negative thoughts of Lewis realising I’m probably not worth the hassle, I slipped into bed, making sure I nudged him. As I planned, he stirred, rolling onto his side so I could snuggle against his chest. My face was just inches away from his. I pressed my lips to his gently, slung my leg over his and tucked my head under his chin.

I woke up to the bed dipping and Lewis whispering my name. Opening my eyes the smallest amount, I glanced at the alarm clock. It was seven in the morning. I’d only had about three hours sleep.

Groaning, I pushed myself up so I was sitting. “Didn’t sleep well?” Lewis questioned, tracing what was probably a dark circle under my eye with his thumb.

I shrugged. “Not really but I’m okay,” I replied, smiling and taking the mug of tea as he held it out to me. “Thanks.” The hot drink burned my tongue but it didn’t stop me sipping it, I needed the caffeine to wake me up. Today was going to be long and I still had to go out tonight.

“Michael called; they traced the flowers to a little shop not too far away. Apparently the lady running it only does it for friends and family now so she’s being questioned today,” Lewis told me, trying to stay calm, his tense eyes gave it away.

I nodded. “Okay, good….so she knew him?”

“I guess so,” Lewis answered, although it wasn’t really a question.

If she knew Clover then she would probably have known his mum. I would have to remember to talk to Becca about it when we went back to his house. Somehow we needed to talk to her too.

“I’m going to visit Rose and Louise today.”

He sighed. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“Yes,” I responded, not offering any reasons so there was less chance of a fight. Lewis shrugged, his jaw was tense. I could tell that he wanted to argue his point but he didn’t, probably deciding that he didn’t want us to fall out either. “Will you come?” I asked. He would anyway, I only asked so he would feel slightly better about it.

His face softened a fraction and he ran his fingers through my hair. “Of course I will.”

An hour later, I walked slowly through the graveyard, holding Lewis’ hand and discretely looking at the names on the head stones. Becca came from the other direction, mimicking my movements as she also checked for her name.

“Hi Louise, hi Rose,” I said softly, feeling the emotions quickly building up. The guilt of what happened to them would stay with me forever, even though I knew it wasn’t my fault.

Sitting down on the grass between their graves, I touched the soil, somehow feeling closer to them. All the things I wanted to say to them I couldn’t out loud, not with Lewis there, so I made a silent promise to not let him get away with what he’d done to them, and to end it once and for all.

Becca sat down in front of me, smiling and narrowing her eyes slightly, trying to tell me something. Had she found his mum or dad? My eyes widened hopefully and she gave a small nod of her head. I grinned and turned my attention back to Rose and Louise. I wasn’t sure who she had found but it whoever it was; it was a start and definitely a step in the right direction.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you again to everyone that voted for The Cellar in the Watty Awards! I got the prize money a couple days ago! :D

I seriously dislike this story right now! -.- I hope you guys lieked it anyway :)

Let me know what you think <3