Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Imogen

"You've got the apartment, Imogen."

My hands shook as I held the phone tight to my ear, unable to believe what I was hearing. The sounds of customers chatting, of shopping trolleys rattling down the supermarket aisles, competed with the sound of the real estate manager's voice, but her smooth tones cut through.

"We'd like to get you down here this afternoon to sign the lease, though you can pay for the bond via bank transfer. I've just emailed all the details over."

"Yes." I said that too fast, too forcefully, so I swallowed and tried again. "I mean, yes, I'll sort the money transfer out right now…" I looked along the line of checkouts, blanching at the sight of customers starting to mass in lines, waiting to be served. I was on my break, but I'd get a call to help soon. "I'm just on my break, but it's quite busy?—"

"Before close of business is fine," the woman replied smoothly. "You'll be able to come down to the office by 5:00 P.M.?"

Jade, the assistant manager at my store came over and I knew why. Could I cut my break short? That's what she was about to ask. Before she could get a word in edgewise, I answered the property manager.

"Of course. I'll be there just before five."

Jade's eyes went wide when she heard what I said, but not with anger I quickly realised. Her mouth fell open, and she clapped her hands silently, jumping up and down in glee. When I hung up, she pounced.

"You got it? You got the apartment?"

She had acted as a referee, talking me up to the property manager, something I needed desperately.

Because for the past few months, I'd been saving and planning, getting myself ready to leave my soon to be ex-boyfriend.

"I got it." I felt like I could finally fully exhale after months of holding my breath. "I got it."

"You got it!" Customers shot us sidelong looks as she slapped her hands down on my shoulders, squeezing them. "You?—"

"Got what?" A blue haired guy appeared at our sides, looking us over in confusion. Daniel was another one of the other checkout operators at the supermarket and should be starting his shift, if Jackie, the store manager's dark look was anything to go by. "A million dollars? A boob job?" He looked down at my bust, wrinkled his nose, and then shook his head. "A new boyfriend, because girl, that guy you're seeing?—"

"Daniel…" Jackie growled from over by the service desk, crossing her arms and tapping her feet as she stared us down. "And Imogen?—"

"Is leaving at four today," Jade said smoothly. "She has an appointment, and she organised the time off with me days ago."

"Did she now?" Jackie fixed me in her gaze, her eyes narrowing. "Well, it's not four now, so back to work."

"Tell me you've got a job interview," Daniel hissed. "Waitressing, cleaning, shaking your arse, anything to get you away from this shithole."

"I've got my own place," I informed him quietly as we walked over to our checkouts, opening the lanes in time for customers to start racing their trolleys over. "I'm moving out."

"So, you're leaving that idiot boyfriend of yours," he said, stopping to look me up and down with a grin. "Damn, girl, that requires a celebration."

"Excuse me, is this lane open?" a customer asked him, about to put their groceries on the conveyer belt.

"For you, honey?" Daniel looked the older woman up and down. "Sure. Metamucil." He picked up an orange container of fibre supplements before scanning it. "Need to keep ourselves regular, huh?"

"Um, yes," the woman said, flushing slightly before stacking the rest of her groceries on the conveyer belt, but I couldn't focus on him or her, as I had my own customers to serve. I smiled at the next lot who walked up and then went to work, ringing up their purchases. Every beep of the scanner, every litre of milk or box of cereal, seemed to bring me closer and closer to this.

Freedom.

I looked up and smiled at the couple I was serving as I told them their total, watching them swipe their bank card but not really seeing it. The rest of the day went by in a blur, until four o'clock rolled around.

"Time to go," Jade announced, putting the red plastic sign on my conveyer belt, announcing this lane was now closed.

"Thanks for this—" I started to say, babbling out the words.

"No, don't." Her hands grabbed mine. "You've been working towards this for so long, and now…"

Now, I finally got to leave my idiot boyfriend.

He wasn't even that bad. Mike didn't beat me or sleep around, but… I hadn't been happy for ages. Everything in me wanted to get the fuck out of our place, our relationship, but I wasn't in a financial position to just walk away. Instead, I was forced to just endure him.

Until now.

I grabbed my bag and waved to the others as I swept out the door and into my car.

"There were a lot of applicants," the property manager said, peering down her nose at me. My pen hovered over the rental agreement. "Many were very strong contenders, but your boss…" She looked up at me meaningfully. "Her reference sealed the deal for me. Don't make me regret giving you this opportunity."

To pay top dollar for a little one-bedroom flat in a block of ten, built well before I was even born. A unit with the original 1970s beige-coloured toilet and green and orange kitchen benches, but it would be mine as long as I paid my rent, and so I smiled.

"I won't, I promise."

And with that I scrawled my signature on the dotted line, signing my life away for the next six months.

With six months away from Mike, I could claw back some breathing room, avoiding the insanity of our place, of his friends. I'd be able to look past the title of being his girlfriend and find me again. I nodded as I stepped back, accepting the keys to the apartment with a smile before leaving the real estate office.

Everything in me wanted to go straight to the apartment and move in. It was furnished, even if the furniture looked as old as the building itself. I'd have a place to sleep, somewhere to shower and cook, so it was tempting to think about buying all new stuff and never going back to my old home, but if I could've afforded that, it never would've taken me this long to move out. I'd have kicked Mike to the curb months ago. Instead, I had to do that tonight.

"I really appreciate you giving me this opportunity," I said, clasping the keys tightly and shooting the agent a nervous smile. "You won't regret it, I promise."

I was talking too much, over explaining, but I'd been waiting for this moment for so damn long. My brain, my heart, told me to get out, get the fuck away, while playing a show reel of all the crappy moments from my relationship with Mike over and over in my head—just in case I tried to change my mind. In some ways, that would've been easier. Change hurt, people acknowledged that, but it was also really bloody expensive. The bond, the trailer I was going to have to hire to move my stuff because paying for a removalist was too damn expensive, plus all of the stuff I needed to buy to replace what had been broken, damaged, or ruined from being in this relationship. Despite that depressing reality, I was here now, ready to make that move, so I sucked in a breath, then nodded to the agent before making for the door.

I'd had a long time to think about how this would go. Sometimes it was the only thing I had to cling to as I stared down at him in bed. His drunken snores and the sour stench of beer oozing from his pores was enough to make me shrink back. The wild boy I'd fallen for when I was younger was now just… sad. That's what I felt when I walked in the door of our place.

There was shit everywhere because each time I tried to clean up, Mike made a mess again. I could talk until I was blue in the face about how cleaning up as you went made things so much easier, but he'd just nod along or bitch at me for nagging before going back to dropping things whenever he was done with them.

Why the hell would he bother cleaning up after himself if he had me?

I'd already contacted our current landlord, pleading with the property manager to take me off the lease. The fact I wasn't chasing my half of the bond helped persuade her. The other was the property inspections she'd been forced to do. She'd seen both the mess Mike made and the desperation in my eyes, along with my babbled explanations of all the cleaning I had done and had taken pity on me. Legally, I was no longer connected to my boyfriend in any way.

And now I needed to take the final step to sever the relationship completely.

Mike wasn't supposed to be home. He usually spent hours after work drinking with his workmates, and on a Friday night? He might come home sometime in the early morning when the alcohol ran out, but not before. So, when I walked up the steps to our place and saw the door was open, I approached with trepidation. Had we been broken into, or…?

"Got a fishing rod, mate?"

That voice, it was like slimy fingers trailing along my neck, across my bare shoulders. Phil worked with Mike and was at least ten years older. He seemed to have taken Mike under his wing, encouraging his worst habits. He looked up when I walked in the door, the chaos here even worse because it seemed like Mike had emptied every cupboard and drawer to look for what he was after.

"Where's my fishing rod, Imo?"

Not, "Hi Imogen, how was your day at work?" Not a kiss on my cheek or a hug, a smile to indicate that he was pleased to see me. Mike's distant nature, his recklessness, his willingness to rebel against society's rules, were what attracted me to him when we were still in school. Years later, this was exactly what exhausted me. He looked me up and down, a small look of displeasure on his face when I didn't immediately reply.

But it wasn't Mike's look that worried me.

There was something hungry about Phil. He seemed to suck in the details of my body with a greedy slurp, like someone eating a bowl full of noodles. Those pale-blue eyes creased slightly as he shot me a sly smile. He made me uncomfortable, but more than that, he liked my reaction.

"Hall cupboard," I said in my most neutral tone.

Mike's eyes were slightly unfocussed, his mouth a little slack, so it was fair to believe he'd been drinking. This was when he was most volatile. He never hit me, I clung to that over and over, but that didn't mean this wouldn't devolve into an argument that lasted for hours and hours. One he would continue on his own even if I locked myself in our room. I felt a rush of relief when he pulled away, walking down the hall to drag out the ironing board, our suitcases dropping to the floor.

Saved me from getting them out later, I reasoned.

With a sound of pleasure, he pulled out his wrapped roll of fishing rods and his tackle box, then went staggering towards Phil.

But Phil wasn't focussed on Mike.

His eyes hadn't left me during the entire exchange. I'm sure he noted the way I took a step backwards without thinking, and that had his smile widening.

"Ready!" Mike announced, hoisting both items in the air.

"Nice gear." The relief I felt when Phil finally glanced down at Mike's equipment was palpable. "We'll be fishing up a storm with that. Let's head out to the fishing spot and eat fresh fish all weekend."

They were going on an impromptu fishing trip for the next two days? I sent up a quick prayer of thanks to any deity listening. Work had me doing a couple of shifts over the weekend, but I'd manage to drop in before and after them to grab the rest of my stuff.

"We'll meet the others out there," Phil continued. "It'll be wild. The other fellas are bringing their women." My whole body went stiff as he turned to me. "You should bring Imogen."

I didn't want that, some instinctive part knowing that going out bush, far away from the city, from people, from the police, was a very bad idea. My head moved of its own accord, shaking slightly back and forth in denial.

"You bringing your wife and kids?" Mike asked, peering at him owlishly.

That was exactly the wrong thing to say.

The hunger in Phil's eyes intensified and transmuted, fusing with rage to become something truly terrible. I didn't give a shit about my clothes, my sentimental keepsakes, right now. Get out , my heart thudded over and over. Get the fuck out. But I'd been forced to ignore that frantic beat over and over for months now, so I guess it was no surprise when I did just that now.

"No, mate." Phil put on a veneer of civility like a mask, clapping Mike on the shoulder. "They're not coming, but Imogen." Stop saying my name , I thought furiously, but didn't say a thing. "She could drive us out to the fishing spot. Means we could drink on the way."

"Like we wouldn't anyway." Mike's sloppy smile contrasted with my memories of news reports of people dying from being hit by drunk drivers. The impulse to bring that up rose and died, viciously smothered. He'd just get pissed and start arguing if I mentioned it. "But yeah…" It felt like my boyfriend looked at me for the first time since I'd gotten home. "You can come, Imogen."

Gee, thanks , I thought, remembering the times when my heart would've leapt at the chance.

"I've got work—" I replied, my usual defence against his demands.

"Call in sick," Phil said, the look in his eyes daring me to say no. "A weekend out in the bush is better than standing behind a cash register ringing up haemorrhoid cream and tampons."

"Yeah—" Mike added, a belligerence that had nothing to do with me in his tone and everything due to alcohol and Phil's presence.

"And then I'll lose my job." I stared at Mike, seeing the cogs in his mind turn slowly. We'd struggled to make rent, buy his precious beer, when I'd lost my job before due to his bullshit. His lips thinned and a familiar mulish expression on his face had me worried for a second.

"She can drive us out there then." Mike nodded sharply even as Phil's brows drew down. "Take us out and then pick us up."

Nope, that wouldn't happen. I'd drop the two of them off and then make a run for it. Whatever I couldn't fit into the car tonight would just be left. It was time to go, and all I needed to do was this one last thing before I was free.

"Fine," I said. "Where are we going?"