Free Disobey by Jacqui Rose

out from the mutilated hand.
    Mr Lee bent over and picking up the severed finger, walked over to Alfie.
    ‘Hopefully now you’ll get the message, Mr Jennings and if you haven’t, there’s always the other nine.’ He went to walk away but stopped short of the door. Turning round, he threw the finger at Alfie with a grin. ‘I think you might have more need of that than me.’

10
    ‘Here you are. I got this for you.’ Chloe-Jane handed Franny eighty pounds.
    Franny looked curious. ‘What’s this for?’
    ‘It’s for you. For me board and lodgings.’
    ‘I told you, there’s no need. Really Chloe, I’m happy for you to stay.’
    Chloe-Jane shrugged her shoulders. ‘I just want you to take it.’ She pushed the money into Franny’s hand. ‘ Please .’
    ‘Where did you get it from?’
    ‘I ain’t robbed it, if that’s what you think.’
    ‘I don’t think that.’
    ‘It’s me money I saved to come here. I told you I was going to give you some.’
    Franny shook her head, going across to the other side of the kitchen to make a cup of tea. She opened a packet of dark chocolate biscuits, offering one to Chloe-Jane who proceeded to take several, much to Franny’s amusement.
    ‘Listen, Chloe, why don’t you keep the money? You’ll need it when you move on.’
    Chloe-Jane bristled. She wanted to yell at Franny that that was the point. She didn’t want to move on. She wanted to stay, because aside from the fact she liked it with Franny, she had nowhere else to go. With a sad smile, Chloe replied, ‘Well until then; take it, it’ll make me feel better.’

    Franny looked doubtful. ‘If you’re sure.’
    ‘I am!’
    ‘Okay, what I’ll do is, I’ll put it up here in this tin, and for any reason you want it back just take it. No questions asked. Deal?’
    ‘Deal, and I’ll give you eighty pound a week from now on. I don’t want to leech off anyone.’
    ‘Well I appreciate that, Chloe. Thank you.’
    ‘It’s no problem. No problem at all.’
    It was getting dark as Chloe-Jane walked along Brewer Street, watching as the passing men ogled at her and the women gave her a look of scorn. She wore a low-cut pink top with nothing underneath, erect nipples obvious under the clinging material. Her tiny white miniskirt skimmed the bottom of her buttocks, and her high patent yellow shoes gave a swagger to her walk.
    ‘Fancy a drink, darlin’?’ A large, sweaty passing workman hollered out to her from his van.
    ‘Not with you, mate, I’d rather stick me head down the khazi and drink from there!’
    The van sped off beeping its horn, leaving Chloe to cross the road at the junction of Brewer and Glasshouse Street.
    Hanging out on the corner, a car pulled up. A man in his late fifties rolled down the window. His voice was low and Chloe could hear a Northern accent.
    ‘You doing business, love?’
    Chloe nodded, quickly looking around before getting in.

11
    ‘Just fucking sew it back on. I don’t care how you fucking do it, but there ain’t no way I’m ending up like frigging Anne Boleyn.’ Alfie grimaced at the hospital doctor as he clutched his wrapped bloody hand to his body.
    ‘She had eleven fingers, not nine, and it was her head that was cut off, not her hand.’ Chloe-Jane smirked at her uncle as she chewed on the constantly present piece of gum.
    ‘I’ll chop your bleedin’ head off if you don’t shut it,’ Alfie growled at his niece. Why the hell Franny had brought her along, fuck only knew and it pissed him off no end.
    ‘Alfie, there’s no need for that.’ Franny spoke, not unkindly.
    ‘Me hand’s fucking been chopped off and she wants to give me a fucking history lesson, do me a favour!’
    ‘One finger isn’t exactly your whole hand, Alf.’
    ‘No? Well it fucking feels like it, you should try it someday. And look at the state of me boat, do I look like a person who’s just sat watching telly all day?’
    Franny stared at Alfie, taking in his cut and bruised face. When she’d