Unspoken: A story of secrets, love and revenge T. Belshaw (good books to read for beginners txt) 📖

‘Wait,’ I said.

I put the knife down, put my winter boots back on, and pulled my thick coat over my nightgown. Frank was still standing by the overturned brazier as I walked down the steps to the yard.

‘I should have been there for her,’ he whimpered.

‘Yes, you should have,’ I said as I walked towards him. ‘Have you been to her grave yet?’

‘No. I only got back in the early hours of the morning and I didn’t want anyone to know I’ve been in her house.’

‘Where did you get the drink?’ I pointed to his pocket where the top of the half-bottle protruded.

‘It was in my room at her house. I’ve already had one bottle,’ he said, as if it was an achievement to be proud of.

‘What are you going to do now? You know you can’t stay here, not after what you did.’

His mood changed suddenly.

‘What I did? You deserved every bit of that, and more. You treated me like a bloody skivvy for months, and all the time you were having it off with that sodding lawyer.’

‘I wasn’t, Frank, that was the first time, but that’s irrelevant. What you did was both unforgivable and—’

I didn’t get to finish my sentence; his hand shot out and grabbed me around the throat.

‘Slut!’ he hissed.

I struggled to get free, but suddenly his right arm drew back, and he punched me on the forehead. I staggered, my knees went weak, then he hit me across the face with the back of his hand. I fell into the snow and lay there, unable to move.

Frank stepped towards me, bent down, grabbed a handful of hair, and hauled me to my feet.

‘It’s time for that lesson I promised you,’ he growled. He punched me hard in the stomach. I doubled over, gasping for air, but before my lungs could fill, he hit me on the back of the head, and I went down again.

‘Stop that, you big, fucking ape,’ Amy screamed at him from the back doorstep. I lifted my head and tried to focus.

‘Amy, no,’ I whispered.

Amy couldn’t have heard me, but nothing was going to stop her anyway. She picked up the long-handled axe that Frank had dropped, and bare-footed, wearing only her nightdress, she ran across the yard with the axe held in both hands. When she got close, she swung it at him, but the axe was heavy and she didn’t have the strength to land a telling blow. Drunk as he was, Frank easily avoided the weapon’s arc. He grabbed hold of the shaft as Amy tried to lift it again, and snatched it from her hands.

‘Now what are you going to do?’ He laughed at her and tossed the axe towards the barn.

Amy wasn’t put off; she lunged at him, fists flying. She caught him a good hard blow on the side of his head that made it jerk to the right. I tried to get up, but my head was still spinning and it was all I could do to stop myself from throwing up.

Amy let fly with her claws and drew blood from the same cheek I had scratched a few months before. Frank pulled back his arm and hit her with a crunching blow to the temple. She collapsed in the snow, her nightdress up around her waist. Frank leered down at her.

‘Isn’t that a sight for sore eyes? I always did fancy having a go at you.’ He got hold of a handful of Amy’s hair and dragged her towards the barn. ‘Let’s get comfortable,’ he growled.

I got to my hands and knees as Frank yanked open the barn door and dragged the still unconscious Amy inside. I crawled through the snow towards them, shouting at him to leave her alone.

Inside the barn, Frank grabbed hold of Amy’s shoulder and rolled her onto her back. He lifted her nightdress up to her neck, and unbuckled his belt.

‘I hope you’re a better shag than her,’ he slurred, as his denim trousers fell around his ankles. He bent over and parted her legs, just as she was coming to. She shook her head and stared groggily up at him as he pulled down his underpants.

‘NOOO!’ she wailed.

By this time, I was on my feet, albeit in an unsteady manner. I picked up the axe that Frank had thrown into the snow, and moved forwards with it held over my right shoulder. Unlike Amy, I was used to wielding it.

‘Leave her alone, Frank,’ I yelled.

Frank took a quick look over his shoulder and straightened up. ‘Fuck you,’ he spat and turned back to Amy.

‘Fuck you, Frank,’ I screamed, as I brought the axe head down.

The axe hit him on the right side of his neck and went in deep. A fountain of blood spurted out from his severed jugular and formed a black pool on the floor of the barn. A small cloud of steam rose from the film of snow that had blown under the door. I shuddered and dropped the axe. Frank looked up at me, stupidly, and tried to hold the gaping wound together with his fingers. Thirty seconds later, he keeled over onto the hen-shit-covered straw on the floor of the barn. I stepped over his still twitching body, took hold of Amy’s arm and pulled her outside as Frank bled out.

We held onto each other for what seemed an eternity, then, as the snow began to fall again, we staggered back to the kitchen and huddled together in front of the stove.

I got a thick pair of socks from the clothes horse in the parlour, and pulled them over Amy’s frozen feet, then I took her thick winter coat from the hook on the back door and wrapped it around her shoulders. I put the kettle on to make us a drink of hot, sweet, tea, and we sipped it, still shaking, both from the cold, and the shock.

Eventually, Amy felt able to talk. She rubbed my arm