Free Lemonade and Lies by Elaine Johns Page B

he relied on brute force, rather than finely tuned mental skills or athletic grace.
    I squirmed onto my front, bringing me face to face with him and tried to scratch his eyes but only managed to gouge a thin, red line in his already ugly face. The blood trickled down towards thick fleshy lips and he licked it. Too little, too late.
    The manoeuvre exhausted me, but at least it gave me a look at his face. It also upset him. The immense dough-like features arranged themselves into an even more unattractive, snarling expression and he let go a terrifying growl.
    Viciously, he jerked my head up by the hair, sending a jarring pain, like a gigantic toothache rolling through my skull. But at least I had the satisfaction of throwing up all over his boots. Cowboy boots.
    Small feet for such a monster, I thought, inanely, when I should have been thinking of other, more useful stuff. And the boots had tassels dangling from them, like he was about to go line-dancing. Effeminate was a word that came to mind. Maybe it was true that overuse of steroids shrunk certain things and stripped away the very masculinity these great hulks of bodybuilders were searching for.
    Shit! Why does my brain do that? I tried to concentrate on the job in hand, getting back to my kids undamaged. But my head wouldn’t listen. It hurt so much that I figured I might have concussion or something worse. And I threw up again. Same target. He wouldn’t get much for those boots on Ebay now.
    The guy became very angry and swore in a language I didn’t recognise. He started yanking me by the hair, bumping me even harder over the rough ground like I was a rag doll. Sand and grit worked its way into my mouth and I coughed and gagged on it. In one final attempt to break free, I flailed out weakly with my arms and legs. But my struggles were puny, for I had little strength left.
    Desperately, I tried to halt my progress towards the cliff edge by digging my trainers into the ground, but it didn’t work. He just pulled harder and I couldn’t get a foothold. Nothing, it seemed, could stop the inevitable.
    I felt the breeze rippling along my body, and knew now I would never feel it again. Images of my children bounced around inside my head and I could hear myself sobbing, but was detached from it. A sudden, sharp pain invaded my skull. Then somebody mercifully turned the lights out and put an end to my misery.

Chapter 11
     
     
    “What the fuck were you playing at? You were meant to stick to her like glue.”
    I heard the angry words, but they made little sense. My eyes were gummed together with some sort of sticky substance that only let me look through the filigree of my lashes.
    As I moved my head towards the voice, I could just make out the vague outlines of the room’s sparse furnishings and the decoration. Bland and clean. Very clean. Not my place then.
    My eyelids were heavy, they must have weighed at least a pound apiece, but with perseverance I managed to prise them open.
    I tried to pull myself upright in the bed, and though I willed my body to do it, it refused to budge. For one panic-riddled moment I thought I was paralysed. Then logic rescued me. Of course I wasn’t paralysed, I’d already moved my head and most of my body was feeling some kind of pain.
    They say pain can be exquisite. That’s bullshit. This made me want to fill my lungs with venom and scream curses until somebody pumped me full of drugs to take it away.
    Another voice joined the first.
    “I think she’s coming out of it.”
    I tried again and the result was remarkable. At least I was proud of it. I must have shifted at least an inch. And the grunt that escaped my lips was gratifying, for it meant I could make sounds as well. Not bad. Especially when my throat felt like I’d been chewing razor blades.
    I did a stock taking of the small group. There was Alice, Jamie (did I call him Jamie? Well, that proves I’m not my normal self) and someone whose face I vaguely recalled and whose