Read Online Killing Woods by Lucy Christopher - Free Book Online Page B

murderer.
    â€˜Dad gets scared in thunderstorms,’ I add. ‘Loud noises give him flashbacks. And he was in a flashback that night, but he didn’t kill Ashlee. Not murder, not manslaughter!’ I push into Damon’s chest so hard he can’t say anything back. Not until I’m finished. ‘Dad’s scared of heights,’ I explain, ‘of getting lost, of people, he’s scared of everything!’
    Damon is breathing funny. Perhaps I’ve winded him. I don’t get off him to check.
    â€˜There was someone else,’ I say. ‘There must’ve been. Dad just found Ashlee that night, he was trying to help!’
    â€˜Ridiculous,’ Damon hisses.
    â€˜No! Dad doesn’t remember anything – that’s got to mean he didn’t do it!’
    Damon shakes his head. ‘No one else knows where that bunker is – Ashlee didn’t.’
    I lean closer, place my palms against Damon’s cheeks to keep his face still. ‘What did you see that night anyway? You were in the woods, you were in the car park at least!Why didn’t you see Dad if he was really watching and stalking her? You should’ve been a witness to that . . . if it happened.’
    Damon’s eyes narrow. ‘Get off me.’
    I don’t move. ‘Why didn’t you walk Ashlee all the way home, anyway? What kind of boyfriend leaves his drunk girlfriend in the woods after dark?’
    â€˜You don’t know what I did.’ His face is red – mad! His voice is fierce.
    â€˜You’re the last one who saw her alive, though,’ I say. ‘So why don’t you know anything? You should be the one giving me answers!’
    â€˜Get the fuck off me!’
    I shake my head. ‘I caught you. I did my detention.’ I’m surprised at how confident I sound – surprised at the things I’m saying to him too. But I have to make him see. ‘I’ll get off you if you admit that it might not have been Dad who killed her, that there are other possibilities . . .’
    Damon looks even more furious than he did in the courtroom. I feel his breath against my skin, see his copper-coloured eyes glaring, and the sweat beading above his lips. I watch his top lip rise, see a glint of his straight perfect teeth underneath. There’s a beating feeling inside me, in my ears and chest. For a second I want to lean further into him, press my lips on his, taste his sweat and tag him that way . . . win like this. Show him. I want him to admit that I could be right. Perhaps Damon sees this because, so quickly, he’s pushing me off him and I fall hard on to the track. He crawls away, breathing heavily.
    â€˜Freak!’ he spits. ‘Psycho! You’re just the same as him – the fucking same!’
    He gets up. He actually runs from me! I sit in the dirt, watching him go. I don’t know what the hell I just did. Why did I even say that stuff? Why did I get so mad? Why did I want to touch his lips like that too?
    I grab a bundle of damp cold leaves and squeeze them, hard. My breath is coming heavy and fast and my hands are quivering, and I’m thinking over and over, Who am I?

12
    Damon
    I get out of there, skidding through damp, stinking leaves with rain starting to piss down on me. What the fuck? That wasn’t meant to happen; I’m not the one who’s meant to be running away right now. I wipe sweat from my eyes. I want to outrun all the crazy stuff Emily Shepherd was just shouting about – it don’t mean nothing! So what if her dad is scared of storms and heights and all the rest of it? It don’t mean there was someone else who killed Ashlee! Don’t mean it wasn’t him! I should never have met her here. I need Emily Shepherd in my life right now about as much as I need a bullet in my brain.
    I grab a small branch that’s hanging down, knocked about by the wind. I use it to bash at things: whack thedead, dried heads