Fury - Page 73

“Or you could just stay here. And I’ll keep you safe.”

“I’m not sure I’ll be in even more danger if I stay with you, Fury. Besides, what we’ve had. It was nice. Fun. But that’s all it was. A quick fling. Good for both of us. I’ll be going back satisfied and you can keep going through women like you do your boxers.”

“Nah. I don’t wear boxers. Remember?”

Heidi patted my hand. “See. Told you you’d get over it.”

But she hadn’t and I wouldn’t.

From the road, two lights bobbed, growing bigger and bigger as they got closer and closer.

“My taxi is here.” Heidi unwrapped herself from my arms and walked to her case.

She was going, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Nothing at all. How could I stop her? We barely knew each other. She was just a fuck. Nothing else. But even uttering those words in my mind made my stomach drop, nausea flooding the space it had once been.

I should have stopped her, locked her in the room, tied her up, begged her. I should have done lots of things. Everything. But I didn’t. I watched her leave. I watched her drag the case out of the room, heard her bump it down the stairs, and then a few minutes later I watched two red lights drive back up the road. And just like that, I let her go. That was real love, wasn’t it? I was in love with her. And if you loved someone, sometimes you had to let them go. And now she was gone.

Chapter Thirty Four

“Fury! Fury!” The voice broke through my sleep. A deep, uncomfortable sleep.

I pushed upright, my cheek almost ripping where my skin and beard had become stuck to the bar top. I pushed a handful of hair back behind my ear where it had worked loosed from the ponytail.

“What?” I groaned, eventually, my dry eyes struggling to focus on anything at all.

My head pounded like a thousand bass drums were signalling for battle and my mouth felt drier that Father Leverett’s sex life.

“The grave.” The words seemed to jumble in my ears. “Ste’s grave. Someone’s wrecked it. The headstone and everything has been kicked to shit.”

“Fuck,” I grumbled, unable to summon the energy to even be annoyed someone had desecrated our old president’s grave.

“Come on. Indie wants us down there.”

“Why, Magnet? What we supposed to do about it?”

“Work out who did it.”

I knew who would do it. And so did Magnet. But I pushed up off the bar stool at the Dog on the Tyne, where I’d been drinking hours ago and not moved since.

“You’ll have to drive, mate.” I tossed the truck keys at Magnet, my wrist going limp just before the keys left my hand and dropping to my feet. “Fuck,” I grumbled, bending down to pick them up and staggering forward, Magnet catching me before I face planted the floor

“Shit, Fury. How much did you drink last night?”

“Not fucking enough, that’s how much.” I shrugged.

“You know there’s plenty more women out there, don’t you?”

“What the fuck you talking about?”

“You mate. Heidi. She’s long gone. Has she called? Text? Anything?”

I said nothing, trying not to dwell on those words, because it was all I’d thought about for the last week. And I didn’t need Magnet saying them out loud.

“Get in the fucking truck, Magnet.”

Ste’s grave was in a state. Someone had torn up the topsoil, the flowers that were left after the funeral shredded, and the fresh ones that were laid since, stamped into oblivion. Over the headstone, red paint dripped. I reached forward, dipping my fingers into a red blob that sat on the very top, the paint still wet, clagging to the black marble but no longer dripping.

“They’ve dug his fucking grave up!” Reap breathed, disgust showing in his voice.