Page 75 of Skin Trade

“Oh yes. Everyone. You were so sick, you remember? Down with that fever, couldn’t keep anything down?”

She remembered that. Yes. She remembered being kept in her room for fear of contaminating anyone. No one knew what was wrong with her and her fever was so high they were worried she’d not make it through the night. “It was awful.”

“Yes, and then the hospital.”

“Hospital? I wasn’t in the hospital. I was at home, in my room.” She’d been in her room for weeks, practically locked in there. She’d been asleep when the men had come to take her, and she’d been woken by being lifted out of her bed. “I was in the house. I went missing. Those men …”

“Men? No. Payton, you went to the hospital. Your father called an ambulance because your fever got so high you had a seizure. Don’t you remember?”

“No. I was in my bed. In my room. We … men came and took me away. I screamed.” She remembered that part because she’d tried to get her scream as loud as possible. She remembered calling for her father and screaming for someone to help her.

Nancy laid a hand on top of Payton’s. “Those were the paramedics. You wouldn’t let them anywhere near you. Screamed the place down like they were trying to kill you or something. Your fever was so bad we couldn’t even touch you. Your dad wanted to hold you and he couldn’t.”

She tried to place what Nancy was saying to her. It made sense it would be paramedics. She remembered being sick. But the men had come in and it had been dark. Was it possible she’d turned that image into something else in her mind?

No. They’d held her tight. “They gagged me. I pulled at it.” She demonstrated with her hand.

“Oxygen mask. They had to hold it in place because you’d not let them have it there. Don’t you remember? It was almost a blessing when you went unconscious. They thought they lost you once, before they even got you in the ambulance. You had a seizure again, we thought that was it. By the time we got to the hospital. Well …” She paused. “You didn’t make it. Dead on arrival they said. They burnt your body. Gave your father your ashes.”

It was normal to burn the body right away. No one wanted whatever disease had struck to spread around and take down more people. Incinerate the body as soon as possible, that was the order.

“I had a teddy. No. A monkey. Stuffed monkey. One of the men, he snatched it off me.”

God, she’d not thought about that monkey for years, but being in this car with Nancy, it was as if she’d just lost it. “My mother gave it to--”

“Your father gave you that when you were sick.”

“No. Not my father. I had it a long time. Not my mother. Someone.” The stuffed monkey had been her friend. It was torn and tatty, but she’d had it longer than she could remember. It meant something. “One of the men had torn it in two.” She’d loved that thing. Had slept with it since forever, pressed her face into it just to inhale its scent. It smelt like home, like something deep and seated within her body. Even when she was younger, that monkey was her solace, her friend, the one thing in the world guaranteed to make her feel better. But they’d destroyed it.

“Oh, Payton,” Nancy said. “I’m sorry.”

Sorry … Payton had to bite on her lip. Sorry didn’t seem right. Didn’t seem to match everything right then.

“We’re here.”

The office block was easily the tallest there was. It was dark and grey like the others if Payton looked up, but at ground level, it looked like any other government-style building she’d ever seen. The brick work was white, pristine. There was a sign across the door that said, New Mont, a new Hope for all, and there was a picture of a family under it.

To one side, there was a model of the town itself, housed in a glass cabinet. Probably a view of things to come. “My father works here?”

“Yep. His office is right up there.” Nancy pointed high up.

This place wasn’t so far removed from Seth’s place, in that it was big, tall and inside of it was a foyer. Everything in her day was a constant reminder of him. She could put her mind elsewhere and a second later, she was back to Seth. She could only calm herself because right now he was asleep and would have no idea she was gone. But as the day passed, she was sure she’d start to feel it, feel the dread and the shame. She should have told him. Should have tried to wake him at least.

It was hard to imagine Seth waking and realising she was gone. Part of her heart broke with the idea of it, but it broke for herself too knowing she’d hurt him. She never meant for this. Never meant for any of it. But his words in the kitchen, they were a knife in her already fragmented wounds. If he had just let Tasha’s hate-filled speech stay with her. If he’d let her believe that and not told her that she was more than that … more.

She let her eyes close for a long second. Whatever she was to Seth, she needed to do this. Needed to find her father. Maybe even more now.

“Your father’s office is on the twenty-fifth floor,” Nancy said, as they stepped into the lift.

“What will you tell my father?”

“Well, I don’t think trying to tell him you’re here is a good idea. He’ll never believe me anyway, think I’ve gone stark raving mad. I’ll maybe tell him there’s an emergency he needs to deal with. Get him in this evening.”

“I think that’s better.” So much as she wanted to see her father right now. She could wait. It was only a few more hours.

Her father’s office was bigger than the room she had at Skin Trade. It was bigger than Seth’s room even, with a desk in front of the window complete with computer and everything else an office desk would hold. He had a television and a fireplace, with two sofas that created a sort of cosy area. Her father was a workaholic. She guessed some things hadn’t changed, and one wall was lined with bookshelves filled to the brim with what seemed to be legal books.

“Wow,” she said. “This is my father’s office?”

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