BooksBarbecue
Back The Game
Chapters (68)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. NOW
  4. One
  5. BEFORE
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. NOW
  26. Twenty-One
  27. BEFORE
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. Twenty-Four
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. Twenty-Seven
  34. Twenty-Eight
  35. Twenty-Nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-One
  38. Thirty-Two
  39. Thirty-three
  40. Thirty-Four
  41. Thirty-Five
  42. Thirty-Six
  43. Thirty-Seven
  44. Thirty-Eight
  45. NOW
  46. Thirty-Nine
  47. BEFORE
  48. Forty
  49. Forty-One
  50. Forty-Two
  51. Forty-three
  52. Forty-Four
  53. Forty-Five
  54. Forty-Six
  55. Forty-Seven
  56. Forty-Eight
  57. Forty-Nine
  58. Fifty
  59. Fifty-One
  60. NOW
  61. Fifty-Two
  62. Fifty-Three
  63. Fifty-Four
  64. Fifty-Five
  65. AFTER
  66. Fifty-Six
  67. Acknowledgements
  68. About the Author

There was pain growing inside him as he tried to breathe. His hands were clutching his side, but he didn’t know why. When he took them away, they were sticky.

Muffled shouts came from a world away. A scream. Then someone’s hands on him, pulling at his shoulders.

‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’

He turned his head, trying to locate where the voice was coming from, but all he could see was a body on the floor. The light from a phone, shining into his face.

John, his head turned in his direction, a smile across his face.

Then the world shifted again and darkness crept in.

AFTER

Fifty-Six

She wasn’t a survivor.

That’s why she was there, talking to a group of teenagers. A politically driven course of meetings, which would supposedly stop what happened to her and Emily, and Joanna, and Holly, and so many others, from happening again.

She wasn’t a victim.

She didn’t know what she was.

It would take a while to get used to seeing her photograph in the paper. Her story of what had happened that night.

Not that she remembered much of it.

Parts of it were vivid, stark, horrifying. Other parts were blurred and malformed. She was remembering more of it day by day, but wished she wasn’t.

Ignorance can be bliss.

The end was a memory that was one she actually remembered well.

She remembered the feeling of the rope around her neck. The burn of it, the weight of it.

The end had been there. Waiting for her.

She remembered Mark. The hurt and anger on his face, as she’d lied.

The feeling of the rope and tightening around the leader’s throat, before she’d realised what had happened to Mark.

She had visited him while he was in hospital. The blood loss was a worry, but they always knew he’d come through it.

The fear in those other men’s faces, as they had been joined by the other detective working the case. The voices soon growing in number, as arrests were made and the boys – because that was what they were – suddenly realised how serious it all was.

She remembered a young lad, a couple of years younger than her, lying bloodied and beaten on the ground.

She knew she had done that. Lashing out in a blurred haze of violence. Fighting for her life.

She hadn’t seen Mark Flynn since he’d been released from hospital. She’d see him soon, she imagined, at the trial. She didn’t know if she wanted to be in the same room as him. He was considered a hero by all. He had stopped the lad from killing her, after all. That’s what everyone was saying.

She had a different memory of him from that night. Of him not acting quick enough.