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Liv twisted her phone in in her hands as drifting around the side of Wishing Well Cottage towards the sound of Belle’s laughter. She stopped in the opening of the barn just in time to see Belle fall back into a pile of straw with a shriek as Lachlan laughed. She flicked her hair out of her face, looking up as her eyes met Liv’s.
“Liv!” she said, letting Lachlan pull her up out of the straw. Liv tried to smile in greeting but it came across as more of a grimace and Belle seemed to notice. “Liv.” Her voice softened as she stepped forwards slightly. “What’s happened?”
“It uh—it’s Gerry,” Liv said, tapping her phone against her fingers anxiously, “the hospital called, something’s happened. Aaron and Robert have gone.”
The smile slipped off of Belle’s face and Lachlan’s eyes hardened.
“Is he—”
Liv shook her head.
No.
He couldn’t be.
“I don’t know,” she said instead, swallowing the lump in her throat. “Aaron said he’d call when he got there but… but that was nearly an hour ago and—”
As if on cue Liv’s phone vibrated in her hand. Aaron’s name flashing on the screen as it rung and Liv almost dropped her phone in her haste to answer it.
“Aaron? What’s happened?”
“Liv, breathe. Everything’s fine,” Aaron said, a hint of a laugh in his tone. “Actually, there’s someone who wants to talk to you.”
“Wha—” Liv was halfway through asking what the hell Robert could want right now but the muffled sound of the phone being passed over stopped her.
“So, you survived bein’ inside then?”
Liv’s hand flew to her mouth as she choked on a sob.
“Liv? What’s—”
Liv didn’t answer Belle’s questioning look, instead put her phone on loudspeaker.
“Say that again,” she said, pressing her thumb against her bottom lip to try and stop it trembling.
“What?
“Oh, my God! Gerry! You’re awake!” Belle’s hands flew up to her mouth as her teary eyes widened. “Lachlan, do you hear?”
But Lachlan didn’t say anything. Just stared at the phone with a calculated blank look on his face.
“Lachlan?” Belle said again, this time her voice softer, more careful.
“Hello, Lucky.”
Liv faltered at Gerry’s almost mocking tone, he never called him Lucky, the only person who ever called him that was…
Her head shot up, watching as Lachlan blanched. He moved quickly. Reaching forwards to snatch the phone out of Liv’s hand and she gave a startled cry as his nails scraped across her palm.
“What’re you doing?!” she exclaimed as he launched her phone across the barn, it smashed against the solid wall, hitting the concrete flooring with a clatter.
Ignoring Belle’s shocked shout of his name, Liv surged forwards.
“What the fuck?!” she shouted, shoving against his chest with both hands as hard as she could. He stumbled back a step but as he regained his balance his hand swung out, backhanding her across the face; hard.
She hit the floor before she even fully registered the hit, her vision darkening around the edges for a moment as the side of her head throbbed.
It wasn’t the first time she’d taken a hit and it probably wouldn’t be the last, but still…
What the actual fuck?!
She pulled herself back to the present, realising that Belle’s hand was resting on her arm, a wide-eyed look of fear on her face as she hovered above her.
“Liv, look at me,” she said, “are you alright? Can you sit up? What the hell was that?!” She directed the last question over her shoulder with a dark glare that reminded Liv that although Belle was the softest of the Dingles, she was, at the end of the day, still a Dingle and she was just as tough, if not tougher than the rest of them.
With Belle’s help, Liv slowly pulled herself up to her feet, spitting out the mouthful of blood as she came up to glare at Lachlan darkly, trying to hide the way her hands shook as the fear mixed with anger.
“Lachlan,” Belle said slowly, stepping between her pacing boyfriend and Liv protectively, her own voice wavering slightly. “Lachlan, what’s going on? Just talk to me, yeah?”
“It wasn’t supposed to go like this,” he said, running his hands through his hair anxiously. “He wasn’t supposed to wake up. Nobody was ever going to know. He wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. He’s gonna ruin everything.”
“He wasn’t supposed to tell anyone what? What are you talking about?” Belle questioned but the pieces seemed to slot into place.
Lachlan paying for the refurbishments of the B&B.
Him acting guilty whenever it was bought up.
Trying to get him and Belle out of town.
It all made sense.
“It was you,” Liv said, stepping around Belle as fury burnt through her veins. “You caused the roof to cave in. Doug was right. It wasn’t an accident. Was it?”
Lachlan faltered in his pacing, whipping back around to look at them, a twisted look on his face.
“It was his own fault,” Lachlan spat and both Belle and Liv recoiled in horror.
“Lachlan, no…” Belle’s voice broke as a sob caught in her throat and nausea twisted in Liv’s stomach. “Gerry’s our friend. You were his family. Why would you want to hurt him?”
“Because he couldn’t leave it alone!” he roared and tears burnt at Liv’s eyes.
“Leave what alone?” Belle questioned. “What was so bad that you tried to—to kill him for?”
“Belle…” Liv warned softly, watching the fury flash across Lachlan’s face. He’d already tried to kill one person when he didn’t get his own way. What was two more?
“The car crash. Couldn’t he just see it as an accident and blame it on Robert like everyone else? He kept questioning Rebecca, trying to get her to remember and then he went digging for the voicemail…”
A dread filled silence hung in the air. There was only one reason Lachlan would be so desperate to keep people away from it… from an accident that got two, nearly three, people killed. An accident that Robert still blamed himself for.
A protective anger surged up inside of Liv. “Robert and Aaron were right about you right from the start. First Alicia, then you shot Lawrence and I know what you were going to lie and say about Robert. But the car crash… Gerry. You really are a proper little psycho, aren’t ya?”
Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say because before she could dodge out of the way, Lachlan lunged towards her, shoving her back against the wall; his hand coming around her throat tightly. She struggled in his arms, trying to claw at his face and his hand but his grip just tightened and her air supply was cut short.
“Lachlan, what are you doing?! Let her go?” Belle shouted, rushing to his side. “Liv’s not done anything wrong. You don’t need to do this.”
“She poisoned your mum. I’d say that’s something wrong,” Lachlan sneered.
“And I turned myself in,” Liv managed to spit at him.
“You could do the same,” Belle said, practically pleading with him, panic clear on her face. “But Liv’s a Dingle and nobody’s going to thank you if you hurt her in retaliation for what happened with mum.”
At any other time, after what had happened, Liv’s heart would’ve soared if she heard those words, especially from Belle, but now all she could feel was pure terror.
“Lachlan—”
Belle broke off and everyone tensed as her phone rung, the ringtone echoing shrilly through the quiet of the barn. Slowly, she reached back into her pocket and brought her phone forward; looking down at the screen, she swallowed thickly.
“It’s Aaron,” she whispered.
Just as quickly as Lachlan’s hands were on her, they were gone. He let her drop to the floor as he snatched the phone from Belle, cutting the call.
Belle knelt next to Liv, carefully brushing her hair away from where it was sticking to her bloody lip as Lachlan went back to his pacing.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” Belle murmured, too quiet for anyone but Liv to hear. She tried to shake her head but the movement hurt her neck.
“’s alright,” she said instead, her voice hoarse and cracked. “Aaron’s gonna come, Robert too. We’ll be okay.”
“He killed Chrissie and Lawrence,” Belle said in a horrified whisper, sitting back against the wall next to Liv. “He tried to kill Gerry and I—I was trying to start a family with him.”
Just the thought of it made Liv feel sick.
“We’ll be okay,” she murmured again, reaching out to lace her fingers through the older girls’. Trying to ignore the way her head pounded and the world spun every time she moved her head.
Lachlan paced from one end of the barn to the other and back again several times before he stopped dead in the centre, his eyes fixed on Belle.
“C’mon,” he said, reaching forward to pull her up by her arm.
“Get off me!” she screamed, trying to pull her arm out of his grip, but like Liv, she wasn’t strong enough.
“C’mon,” Lachlan said again, dragging her towards the door. “We’ve got to go. You’ve got enough money from Whingles that’ll get us by for a while and then we’ll sort something more permanent later on. But we have to go now.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Belle protested and those words were the ones that finally made him stop. He froze, looking down at her in a mixture of horror and confusion like she was the one that had just confessed to two, almost three murders.
“What do you mean?” he asked, his voice quiet and dangerous.
“You murdered your mother and grandfather. You tried to kill Gerry. Why would I go with you?” Belle said.
Lachlan reached out, with the same hand that had just been cutting off Liv’s air supply and cupped Belle’s cheek with surprising gentleness. Behind him, something caught Liv’s eye. A shadow drifting across the wall from the door.
“Because I’d never hurt you, Belle,” Lachlan said.
“Yeah?” Belle said, her voice soft as she shifted her feet. “Well, you’re hurting me right now.” Using the split second of surprise it gave her, she yanked her arm out of Lachlan’s grip, stumbling out of his reach as somebody, Robert, Liv realised a beat later, rushed in, tackling Lachlan to the ground with surprising force.
Aaron and Cain were half a step behind him. Cain ran to a stunned-looking Belle as Aaron dropped to his knees next to Liv. She looked up at him slowly as she realised he was calling her name, but his voice sounded so far away like she had her head under water.
Lachlan killed his mum and his grandad.
Lachlan tried to kill Gerry.
Lachlan had tried to kill her.
It all seemed to catch up with her at once and she launched herself forwards into her brother’s arms and let herself cry.
.
The front door’s alarm buzzed through the flat and Liv tensed in her seat, her arms curling protectively around Seb for a brief second before Gerry nudged her. She looked up at him, startled slightly, and he smiled softly. Giving her a gentle reminder that she was home now; safe.
“I’ll get it,” Robert said quietly from where he was making hot chocolate in the kitchen.
On her other side on the small sofa, Aaron went back to playing with her hair absently as Robert disappeared into the corridor to unlock the security door and Liv went back to staring at the TV screen without taking in any of what was playing.
The front door opened a minute later and everyone looked up as Robert guided a pale, shaken looking Belle into the flat.
She stopped short just behind the armchair, pulling out her other earbud, twisting them around her fingers tightly and even with the TV on at a decent volume, across the room, Liv could clearly make out the lyrics to Belle’s music.
Liv sat up straighter, ignoring the way Seb whined in protest as Aaron slid out from next to her, rising to his feet as he exchanged a worried look with Robert.
Everybody knew if Belle was wandering the village looking pretty out of it with headphones in that it couldn’t mean anything good.
“Belle,” Aaron said gently, stopping just in front of her, his hand hovering between them, like he wanted to reach out and hug her but thought better of it at the last minute.
Belle flinched slightly at the sound of his voice, looking up at him, her lips parting in surprise.
“Aaron,” she said in return, her voice flat.
“What’re you doing here? I thought you were going to stay with Cain and Moira until Lisa ‘nd Zak get back?” he said and Belle nodded slightly.
“Yeah,” she said. “I am. He er— went to see Sarah and Debbie. I told Moira I was going for a walk. I didn’t—I couldn’t—”
Her face crumpled and Aaron reached out, drawing her into his arms.
“It’s fine,” he said softly, “you can stay here for as long as you like.”
“I’ll let Cain and Moira know,” Robert said quietly, pulling his phone out of his pocket.
Aaron drew away, gently unwinding the wire from around Belle’s fingers. “Have you taken your meds?” he asked, using what Liv had donned his ‘dad voice.’
Belle hesitated as she considered his question and then slowly nodded.
“Alright, well, you can stay here as long as you like,” he said, stepping back slightly, “wanna hot chocolate? Robert’s making.”
Belle nodded, drifting further into the room, hesitating in front of the sofa, she looked at Gerry.
“I—I’m sorry. I should’ve noticed or seen or—” she broke off with a frustrated sigh.
Gerry, in the way that only Gerry could, smiled warmly and shook his head.
“’S not your fault. None of us knew until it was too late,” he said, “and besides. I could’ve found a better way of asking him than in a building site.”
Belle’s lips twitched and Liv rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, let’s not confront potential murderers in a dangerous place,” she said, shifting Seb higher up onto her lap as he tried to crawl towards Belle.
“Or, how about we just don’t confront potential murderers,” Aaron said in his usual judgy tone as he set three mugs on the coffee table and Robert held a bowl and spoon of Seb’s food along with a muslin and a bib.
“Want me to take him?” he asked as Belle hesitantly sat on the edge of the seat next to Liv.
Liv shook her head. “I’ve got it,” she said, “as long as Belle doesn’t mind being a chair.” And before Belle had a chance to protest, Liv passed Seb across to her, letting her situate him in her arms as she accepted the bib and muslin from Robert, setting them in place before reaching for the bowl.
Robert gave a slight smile of thanks before he went back to the kitchen to finish sorting dinner. Liv settled back against Gerry as she scooped up a spoonful of gross smelling banana mush, aeroplaneing it through the air towards her giggling nephew as she forced herself sink into the feeling of normalcy.
Not thinking about the way Belle kept twitching at the voices only she could hear, or the way Gerry would wince every time he breathed. The way Aaron’s eyes would linger on her for a second longer than necessary in worry or even how Robert’s gaze would fill with guilt whenever he would look at any of them. And she forced herself not to think about how she wanted nothing more than a bottle of vodka and to cry.
Things weren’t okay now and maybe they wouldn’t be for a while, but now they could start to properly get back on track. Without hospitals or police or toxic relationships and suspicion. Just a normal little family and a normal life… or as normal of a life as you could get in Emmerdale Village.