Scared Yet? Read Online Free Page B

hung like evenly spaced stars above the top storey. The floor underneath it, where she’d laid on the concrete, was black. Was that bastard nursing a bruised face or still thinking of violence?
    Jason reached across the space between them, patted her leg. She glanced down at his long, fine fingers onthe rumpled hospital gown and put her uninjured hand over his.
    â€˜I’m going for a record,’ she said. ‘Thought I’d see how many traumatic experiences I could string together in a year.’ She tried a laugh, turned her face away as fresh tears filled her eyes.
    He curled his hand around hers and held it as he drove. He was the closest thing to a brother she’d ever had. He and Kelly were her family. Maybe that made it okay to dump on them again.
    Kelly must have heard the car in the quiet street and hit the button for the roller door inside the garage. It started up as Jason pulled into the driveway, doing a slow reveal of Kelly in purple pyjamas then the long, dark hair that fell in waves over her shoulders as she craned her neck to get a look into the car. With a stream of soothing, encouraging words, she helped Liv out of the car and guided her into the house but in the brighter light of the hallway, her monologue was cut short by shock. ‘Oh my God.’ She looked Liv over with a horrified expression. ‘What’s the gown for? Were they going to admit you?’
    Liv opened the front panels, showing her the tattered remains of her skirt and blouse.
    â€˜Oh God, Liv.’ The shock and tenderness in her best friend’s face slipped under the fragile hold Liv had on her tears and as Kelly folded the gown back in place, smoothed hair away from her face, gently touched the sling on her arm, Liv let go and sobbed.
    *
    â€˜Oh my God,’ Kelly said it for the fourth time that night and Liv managed to laugh a little. She was sandwiched between Kelly and Jason on the sofa in their family room, her hands around a mug of tea, a half-eaten slice of toast and a strip of foil from her drug prescription on the coffee table.
    Kelly had helped her out of the torn clothes and into a pair of pyjamas, pulling pained faces every time she found another darkening mark on Liv’s body. Jason had parked her on the sofa and made her eat and drink before she talked.
    It was after eleven now, their two little girls were asleep in bed, Liv had stopped crying and told them everything.
    â€˜You hit him?’ Kelly asked.
    â€˜Yes.’ She’d been over this bit and they’d come back to it.
    â€˜What, you mean a slap or like . . . ?’ Jason mimed a punch. Liv hoped he’d never have to throw one. That fist was pathetic.
    â€˜A punch, yes. I felt my knuckle snap on his cheekbone.’
    Kelly turned Liv’s hand over like it was proof. The tip of her middle finger was starting to show blue above the edge of the taping.
    â€˜I should have tried to run,’ Liv said. She remembered the red-hot fury that had burned behind her eyes – and the hands on her breasts as she’d struggled against the car.
    â€˜Daniel Beck reckoned screaming like a psycho probably saved your life,’ Jason said.
    â€˜Daniel said I screamed like a psycho?’
    â€˜No, I’m surmising because you always scream like a psycho.’
    She frowned for a second then her mouth curled into a smile. ‘I do not. And when was the last time you heard me scream?’
    â€˜You screamed when I lit the barbecue last week.’
    â€˜ You were screaming. I was laughing.’
    â€˜She’s right, Jase,’ Kelly weighed in. ‘We were both laughing at you. But you do scream like a psycho, Liv.’
    â€˜Oh yeah?’ Liv said, feigning offence. She was grateful for the teasing. It made her feel slightly less off-kilter. Reminded her of better times, when the three of them had shared a house as uni students.
    Jason had answered Liv and