Free The Border: Part One by Amy Cross Page A

and years ago?”
    She nodded.
    “ That’s how upset you’d be.”
    “I wouldn’t,” Lucy said. “Just tell me.”
    “Even if I could,” Stuart continued, smiling as he glanced at his brother, “Oliver’d probably wet his pants.”
    “Shut up!” Oliver said firmly. “You’re an idiot!”
    “I know you are,” Stuart replied, “but what am I?”
    “Tell us!”
    “You really think you can handle it?” Stuart asked. He paused, looking at the rapt faces of his brother and cousin. Glancing at the house, where the adults had gathered to discuss everything that had happened over the past few hours, he turned back to them. “It was Mel Armitage. You know, that hot woman who came to town a few years ago.”
    “I know who they found,” Oliver replied. “What had happened to her?”
    Stuart smiled. “She’d been stabbed, like, a thousand times, all over her body.”
    “That’s impossible,” Oliver said, turning to Lucy. “He’s making it up. No-one can get stabbed a thousand times.”
    “Alright,” Stuart continued, “maybe not a thousand, but a lot. There were cuts all over her where someone had stuck a knife into her body.”
    “Did they find the knife?” Oliver asked, turning back to him.
    “Nope. It’s still out there somewhere, so someone could still use it on you !”
    “Shut up!”
    “She’d lost most of her blood,” he continued. “I heard Mum telling Dad that they had to take all the black bags out of the bin, and then they had to tip the whole thing over and pour the blood into a bucket. That’s how much had leaked out of her through all the knife cuts. They had to empty the bucket, like, loads of times.”
    ¨How many?” Lucy asked.
    “I dunno. Ten?”
    “That’s gross,” Oliver replied, looking a little paler than before.
    “Her eyes had been gouged out, too,” Stuart added, using his right hand to mime the action. “Like, someone had put a knife into them and then slowly turned it, and then tilted it and used the tip to lift her eyes out, and then he’d used scissors to cut the optic nerve and he’d thrown the eyeballs into the bottom of the bin, and then he’d scraped out the sockets to make sure there were no more bits of her eyes left. I don’t know why he’d done that, but he had, and then he’d cut out her tongue.”
    “No way!” Oliver said, clearly shocked.
    “Yes way,” Stuart continued, “and he’d tossed that too, and then he’d cut off her nose and her ears and put them in her mouth.” He turned and saw that Lucy was staring with rapt attention. She was barely blinking, and her mouth was hanging open. “He took her nails off, too, on her fingers and her toes.”
    He waited for Lucy to react, before turning back to Oliver.
    “He’d also taken off all her clothes,” he added, “and done some really bad things to her. Mum told Dad that the killer had taken a broken beer glass, and he’d got the sharpest bit he could find, and he’d -”
    Suddenly Oliver leaned forward and threw up, splattering the sand with vomit.
    “Loser!” Stuart shouted, as he and Lucy stepped back to avoid getting splashed. “I know you’d do that!”
    “Shut up!” Oliver replied, wiping his mouth before retching and then throwing up again, although this time it was mostly liquid. “You’re sick! I’m gonna tell Mum and Dad all the things you said!” He turned to Lucy. “And I’m gonna tell your Mum too, and she’ll be really mad at you!”
    She paused for a moment, before turning back to Stuart. “What did he do with the broken glass?” she asked finally.
    ***
    “Here,” Jack said, placing another cup of coffee on the kitchen table, in front of Jane. “Drink this.”
    “Thanks,” she replied, forcing a smile as she waited for him to sit down. “I’m fine, I swear.”
    “You’re not fine,” he said firmly. “Jesus Christ, Jane, you had to pull a dead body out of a bin, there’s no way you can be fine.”
    “Isn’t there?”
    “You’re in