Chapter Seven – Cracks



Summer’s POV



Walking back to the car hand in hand with Lewis, I looked up at him and smiled. “Thanks for coming with me.”

The smiled he gave me in return was forced. “Anytime.” He meant that, although I could tell he didn’t want to have to do it. I knew if he had his own way we would be miles away now.

There was very little conversation as he drove back to my house and I was constantly trying to think of something to say. Things had never been that bad between us before. “Lewis, say something,” I pleaded. It was wrong of me to expect him to be the one to make conversation and fix us, but that was what he had always done. I didn’t really know how to.

“Henry’s got a secret girlfriend,” he told me. See, he was much better at that stuff than I was.

“Really? Who?”

“Secret girlfriend,” he repeated. “He won’t tell us who she is, or even if there is a she.”

“So how do you know?”

He shrugged. “Caught him buying a huge bunch of flowers. He must have been making up for doing something wrong.”

“Guys don’t only buy flowers for girls because they’ve messed up,” I said, laughing even though I knew better than most people that men bought flowers for all different reasons, not just because they’ve done something wrong.

“Ninety percent of the time they do, except for me of course,” he said with a smirk.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, of course.” Lewis used to buy me sunflowers, or just pick them from the lady down the street when she was out! I used to love getting flowers but now even the thought of it made me feel sick.

“And if a guy buys chocolates then he’s really fucked up.”

“Who said romance was dead,” I replied sarcastically.

Lewis chuckled and pulled into my drive, cutting off the engine. We sat in silence for a few seconds. This was usually the part where we would kiss before getting out of the car; instead we just looked at each other. I had no idea what I was thinking but if it was the same as me then I was scared. Would we work out? Has too much happened? Were we two different now?

I was no longer the happy-go-lucky teen I once was and he had lost his inner child, the thing that made him so much fun to be around. The changes in us both, I hoped, were only temporary. Once Clover was back behind bars, or wherever they were keeping him, then we would be able to move on. I was almost able to convince myself that was true.

Lewis sighed. “Let’s get inside then.” I followed a step behind him as we walked to the front door. He had taken my hand, winding his own around it but it felt more out of habit than anything else.

“Are you okay?” Mum questioned, the second we were through the door.

I nodded, squeezing Lewis’ hand. “I’m fine.”

“We’re going to watch a film,” Lewis told my mum, understanding that little gesture. We had no plans to watch anything but because he’d told mum we were I put the first DVD on that I saw. 27 Dresses. Lewis was not going to enjoy that but I had a feeling neither of us was actually going to watch it. “Your taste in films suck,” he said, holding one arm out for me.

I snuggled against his side. “No it doesn’t. You’re just a stereotypical guy; all you look for in a film is cars, sex and violence.” He laughed and kissed the side of my head. “Do you want me to put something else on?” The thought of actually moving off my bead wasn’t appealing but if he really didn’t want that film on, even as background noise, then I would change it.

“No, it’s fine.”

“You secretly love chick flicks don’t ya?” I teased.

“Yep, love ‘em,” he replied sarcastically, rolling his eyes. With Lewis’ arm safely around me I started to feel tired, the lack of sleep was definitely catching up on me. Closing my eyes, I let myself drift off.

When I finally woke up the was looking like it was going to set soon I was tucked up in bed and Lewis had gone, there was a note on my pillow though.



Gone to the supermarket with Henry. Get ready, we’re going out to dinner when I get back. Love you.



Lewis and my brother had gone to the supermarket? Did they even know where it was? Their idea of shopping was searching the racks of Game for the latest COD, or something equally as boring.

“Mum?” I called, walking into the lounge.

She immediately sat up straight. “Everything okay?” I nodded and watched her visibly relax. I couldn’t imagine what she was going through. What happened to me bust be awful for a mother, to not know where your child was for eight months, and then find out all the gory details of what happened in that time. Not only that but she had to deal with a different person coming back. Her daughter, the one she knew, didn’t exist anymore and as much as I wanted her to, I wasn’t sure if I could make it happen.

“Everything’s fine, Mum. What’re Lewis and Henry doing shopping?”

She grinned. “They’re getting some things for tonight.”

“What’s happening tonight?” I asked, frowning. We didn’t have any plans. Unless Lewis and Henry were doing something. A video games night sounded like something they would be doing.

“Movie night like old times, apparently.”

A movie night? I was half excited. Our movie nights were the best and it would be really nice to do something normal and that I used to enjoy. But, we didn’t have much time and we had to get down in the cellar again before he came back. That was the thing I was dreading the most, returning to that cellar. If there was another secure room we could lock him in then I would take that instead and avoid the room that made me feel like a terrified little girl.

“Sounds good,” I replied enthusiastically, mentally trying to figure out how to get away tonight. Movie nights usually were an until the sun rises deal.

I hung around Mum for a while, she seemed to like having me where she could see me, for obvious reasons. We managed to actually have a conversation that didn’t involve what happened to me. It was so refreshing to be treated like Summer again and just chat about things we’d done. We even laughed occasionally too. Mum grabbed the slab of Dairy Milk chocolate and we started eating our way through that, chatting about going to a spa or where our next holiday would be. Deep down neither of us knew if that would actually happen but it was nice to talk about it.

The atmosphere became tense and serious when Lewis and Henry returned. Lewis frowned at me as I placed my glass on a coaster, something I never used to do and would always get told off for. My neatness wasn’t something that I could control though, most of the time I didn’t even know I was doing things. Once you’d been repeatedly beaten for not cleaning up behind yourself, you quickly learn to do it automatically.

“Got all your weird favourites,” Lewis told me. “So pick some crappy chicks flick and we’ll eat our body weight in junk food.” I smiled gratefully. He was trying.

“You’ll watch them without whining?” I asked teasingly.

“Can promise there won’t be any whining but I’ll tone it down,” he responded, looking at me almost how he used to. I wasn’t sure if he was aware he looked at me differently now, he said he didn’t feel differently about me and he still looked at me with the same love admiration in his eyes, but he also looked at me like I was going to break at any second. “We need to leave in half an hour, our reservation is for six.” So the reason for the early dinner was the movie night. Hopefully Lewis would get so bored of watching my films that he would fall fast asleep so I could sneak out with Becca.

I raced upstairs to get ready in thirty short minutes. My wardrobe choice could now be whatever I wanted it to be but I found it a little hard to pick sometimes. I hated that Clover still had that over me and I wanted so badly to break it, I guessed it would just take time.

“You look amazing,” Lewis enthused. I was wearing a long top and leggings, nothing special but the way he was looking at me made my heart skip a beat.

“Thanks. You look alright,” I said, shrugging and trying not to smile.

Lewis smirked and kissed my forehead. “Let’s go, I’m starving.” Nothing new there then. It was good to see that some things hadn’t changed.

We sat opposite each other in silence. It was like we had nothing to talk about anymore. Everything he wanted to say lead to an argument and the things I had to say I couldn’t tell him. I didn’t want to lose him but I just couldn’t see a way of making things better between us.

“What are you ordering?” he asked, scanning the menu. That wasn’t something he would usually ask before; we would be too deep in conversation to talk about what we were going to eat.

I smiled weakly. “The barbecue chicken burger. What about you?”

He shrugged, sighing heavily. “Steak.” Nodding my head, I chewed on the inside of my cheek and pretended to further scan over the menu. We needed to actually talk about something a little deeper than food or the weather.

“You think when all this is over we could go away for the weekend?”

Lewis’ head snapped up. “You want to go away?”

“Yeah. Maybe to that Inn your parents went to last year? It looked really nice in the pictures.”

“Okay,” he agreed, frowning slightly from shock.

I grinned. “There’s a theme park near there too.”

“Yeah, you wanna spend the day screaming your head off and panicking that the bolts holding the rollercoasters together don’t look properly screwed in?” he teased, chuckling at the memory.

“That wasn’t funny! You have to admit it didn’t look safe.” I loved the thrill of a rollercoaster but when I had no faith in its ability to stay together I hated it.

“Sum, it was fine. Anyway, you really think one little bolt falls out and the whole thing falls apart?”

I stared at him blankly. “Not the whole thing but enough of it to throw us off the track and to our hideously painful death!” I exclaimed.

Lewis laughed, his eyes lighting up like they did when he was happy. The atmosphere had completely changed with the talk of going away and what we wanted to do. I found myself really looking forward to it. That meant my doubts about mine and Becca’s plans deepened.

“Stay at mine?” he said suddenly.

My heart dropped. “What?”

“I know you want to be around your family and I get that but ,Summer, he knows where you live. Please, just until he’s caught, just stay at mine. It’s not running away like you keep saying you don’t want to do.”

“Please don’t, we were finally having a nice time!” He sighed. He was doing that a lot lately. “Look, I get why and all that but I don’t want to leave my house, and I doubt he would come to my place knowing my whole family where there,” I said, exasperated.

The fun mood that we had only just managed to get was instantly lost. In its replace was the tense atmosphere, again. While I was in the cellar, Lewis was the only person I let myself think about. Every single time I imagined what it would be like when we were reunited was so far away from this. I wanted what was in my fantasy. I wanted him to hold me, for us to laugh and mess around. It wasn’t his fault it was like this though. My fantasy was just that, a fantasy. Reality always had a way of slapping you in the face.

Lewis rubbed his jaw roughly, he looked tired and stressed. Guilt prickled inside me but I knew it wouldn’t be for long. Soon Clover would be back and we would make him realise what he’d done and then hand him in. After that was done, I could make it up to Lewis.

“I don’t want to fight so please, please don’t keep bring it up,” I begged. “You said you wouldn’t anymore.”

Lewis nodded. “Okay, but you need to understand something; I can’t lose you again, Summer.”

I took his hand and smiled as my heart fluttered at the touch. “You won’t.” I hoped. “I love you, Lewis.”

“I love you too.” We were able to get things back to some sort of normal after that. There was a silent understanding between us, Don’t talk about Clover.

When we were safely back at mine we put the first DVD on and cuddled up in bed, munching on popcorn, sweets and chocolate. Henry made a crap excuse so he wouldn’t be joining us; I was glad of that though. Lewis joked that he was going to his secret woman’s house and Henry actually blushed. I had a feeling the reason he wouldn’t tell everyone was because of me. Was he afraid of being happy while all this was going on? I really hoped not, I wanted my brother to be happy and in love.

Halfway through the third film Lewis fell asleep. I let out a tired sigh of relief and forced my eyes to stay open. To help myself stay awake, and just because it was natural now, I tidied up the bowls of food and stacked my DVD’s back up on the shelf.

Once everything was clean I changed into some black joggers and pulled a dark hoodie over my head. Before I left to meet Becca, I kissed Lewis on the forehead.

It was less eventful this time, no cop showed up to check the place out this time but we still didn’t find much, just some photo albums, bills and other paperwork.

We knew Clover lived alone, was an only child, had an inappropriate and disgusting relationship with is mum, his dad wasn’t around his mother was dead. What we didn’t know was why he and his mother ended up like that, and why his dad left. I had a feeling they were related though. I guess the only way we would find that out is if we asked Clover himself.

“So tomorrow we visit the flower shop?” Becca asked, confirming our plans. I nodded. “Maybe the lady that works there will know why his family broke up?”

“Hopefully. I wonder if anyone knew about him and his mum or if they kept that a secret?”

Becca shrugged as she stopped a little way from my house. “Who knows, I imagine it was a secret though or we probably would have heard by now. We’ll ask though….We really need to go down there, Sum.”

“I know,” I responded with a sigh.

We had gotten to the door of the cellar and completely froze up. Neither of us could even reach out our hand for the door handle. I hated myself for not being able to do it, for Louise and Rose especially.

“Yeah. See you tomorrow.” I gave her a slightly awkward sideways hug and got out of the car.

As I crept back into my room and slipped into bed beside Lewis, I couldn’t help feeling frustrated with myself. We needed to go into the cellar soon but I just couldn’t seem to make myself to do it.

Whatever happened, tomorrow night I was forcing myself to go in there. No matter how hard and fast my heart beat or how much my body shook in fear.

I wrapped myself around Lewis and buried my head in his neck. On the outside I felt calm being with him, but inside I was dreading tomorrow night and having to see the room he raped us in, the place where Louise was stabbed and where we all slept. Would Louise’s blood still be all over the floor, and mine on the wall? I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed myself to Lewis tighter. We couldn’t get any closer but I still felt so far away from him. Tears steadily rolled down my cheeks as I worried about seeing Clover again and going down into the cellar, but mostly I worried about losing Lewis completely.

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I'm back!!! Hope you enjoyed the chapter although not a lot happened but the relationship between Summer and Lewis is important.

The Cellar has a new cover, it's on the side and was made by XKellyAshtenX I LOVE IT!!

The trailer was made by brookieismyname and I've put it on the first chapter too. <3

Thanks for reading <3