‘But this is even better than I could have imagined,’ he said, kicking her in the back.
She tried to move like a spinning wheel as her body cried out in pain.
‘I swore to myself I’d make it last, that I’d savour every second, but it’s too tempting to just beat every last breath from you.’
Kim felt a rush of rage as his foot met with the back of her neck. If only she could get either of these ties off. She could either fight back or try to avoid the blows.
She used her thighs to try and yank her feet apart. The tie wrap barely budged.
‘Nice try, bitch,’ he said, taking a good kick at her left hip. The pain shot down her leg and back up through her pelvis.
‘So many body parts,’ he said, using his foot to roll her fully onto her stomach. He brought the sole of his foot down forcefully onto her left kidney.
She tried to roll away, but he pushed her back and repeated the move on the other side. She coughed up something wet that got caught against the tape across her mouth.
Every movement was excruciating. There was no part of her body that wasn’t contributing to the overall agony coursing through her.
‘Okay, enough pissing about – let’s get to it,’ he said, kicking her in the face. With her arms tied behind her back, she couldn’t shield any part of herself.
The pain tore through her body like fire running through her veins.
The hits kept coming, one after the other – his fists, his feet, faster and faster as his momentum grew. Blow after blow. Kick after kick.
No one was coming. She’d given up her lifeline for the girls and she thanked God she had. She knew she’d done the right thing, and she knew she was going to die.
She closed her eyes and tried to put herself outside the pain. She thought of her brother and all the years she’d spent without him. There was comfort in the knowledge they would be together again soon, and if God would grant her one last wish, she would get there before her mother and he would never be alone again.
She wasn’t sure how much more her body could take, and every blow now took her closer to him.
She thought of the people she’d leave behind. Stacey, Penn, other colleagues, and people she’d known. They would grieve and they would miss her for a while, but they would go on. Leanne might feel guilty for a short while, but she’d be on to the next.
For a moment she considered her mother, lying on her own deathbed, being eaten alive by the cancer that now consumed her. Kim felt no loss and only the sense of relief that she’d be there to protect her brother just as she’d always been when he was alive.
I’m coming, Mikey, she thought as she felt her eyes begin to droop. She wished she could take him news of their father, but his identity was held by the one person who would not occupy her final thoughts.
Her body travelled towards unconsciousness. Despite the pain, she could feel her toes and fingers growing cold. The time between her breaths was growing longer, and yet she could hear her breath louder.
She knew her body was shutting down.
A picture of Barney came into her mind. Her companion and in some ways her saviour. He had absorbed every part of her: her fears, her joy, her regrets and asked for little in return. Charlie would keep him. Charlie would love him and take care of him for the rest of his life.
As the blows continued to rain down on her, she felt herself travelling towards the darkness that was grabbing at her, trying to enfold her.
She suddenly thought of Bryant. He would feel her loss most. He would never forgive himself for not being there to save her. He would live with that for the rest of his life. Her death would weigh heavily on her one true friend, and that saddened her to the core.
A single tear fell from Kim’s eye as she took her long, final breath.
EIGHTY
Penn glanced across the grave at Bryant, who was probably having the hardest time of all of them. The car carrying the coffin was slowly ascending the hill to their current location.
Given the circumstances, he was touched that the man had taken the time before the service to pull him aside and tell him he hadn’t fucked up by not identifying Reece’s real last name earlier. He appreciated it, but he didn’t believe it. He pushed away the thoughts of what mistakes had led them to this moment. There were too many to count, and they would all second-guess their actions for years to come.
This case aside, he had felt the thin line of tension between them from the day he’d joined the team. It wasn’t overt or particularly obvious. The man was innately pleasant with impeccable manners, which prevented him from appearing hostile, but the easy relationship Bryant had with Stacey was nothing like the relationship with him. There was genuine warmth when he spoke with the detective constable, an underlying fondness that had grown over time. When Bryant conversed with him, there was an edge of tolerance, a slight tightening of the jaw. He had never addressed it and had accepted that they were never going to be friends.
But recent events had made him question whether or not he should address it. Had Bryant opened the door for an honest conversation by approaching him before they’d entered the service, and was now really the time to have that talk?
He hadn’t worked with the boss for as long as the others, but in that time he had learned more from her than he had from any other superior officer. Her actions over the years had taught him lessons on integrity, passion, drive and, most importantly, courage. A small voice told him that the boss would want him to do it.