The Dark Star - Lockdown Vol. 02

It wasn't that she seemed a deeply private girl and equally it wasn't as though she hid away when she did reside at the house. He'd only realised this in face of the futility of his and Ari's initial plan to embrace her presence and get to know her in order to discover more, in order to find weakness that could be exploited.

Siena was a shy deeply personal girl, little surprising given what he knew of her upbringing and what had transpired with her family over recent years. Once more a vision of Laura Mancini's tear-stained eyes filled his mind as she struggled, muffled by the orange gag, her cries for mercy lost into a perversely coloured gag.

"You can't outrun your past Logan Hughes" he heard the familiar voice from behind him, resisting from just over his left shoulder.

He kept his focus staring out through the open doors ahead of him "I mean fuck you're getting in shape as a result of trying but..."

Slightly disorientated his right foot caught the side of the treadmill as he closed his eyes to shut her out.

Chloe appeared now on his left shoulder stood there leaning against the front console of the treadmill. Dressed in a black sports bra top and black three-quarter length leggings that hugged her lower body.

"I mean it's funny I'm here like this" she continued "We never once worked out together.... fuck there was some physical exhaustion but never this cliche.... surely she should be here with you know the girl you literally chased...Alison...Alison the one whose husband took his life after you took his Wife..."

She smirked "...Ooh I'm poetic"

Logan ignored concentrating hard on the landscape beyond the doors, pounding the treadmill ignoring the pain of the tightness building at the rear of his left thigh. Her words goaded him as he upped the pace of the running machine an additional level.

Chloe continued goading him unperturbed

"I've still got her engagement ring somewhere...she tried moving on...rebuilding her life...but you weren't finished with her were you...couldn't let go...kept her with those other conquests at the Mills....and when she'd served her purpose...you drowned the poor cunt"

Rage built from the pit of his stomach, coursing through his body. The tightness in the back of his thigh building alongside of the associated pain, hobbling now unable to keep up with the pace of the treadmill. The stabbing pain in his thigh felt good, a deserved pain, a fraction of the pain he deserved to experience for what he had done.

Reaching a hand out he slapped his palm against the emergency stop button grabbing side rails as wincing drawing in sharp deep breaths he just about managed to keep his feet as the treadmill ground to a halt and his muscle gave way.

He didn't even bother to look down for the distance covered or the time taken to cover that distance.

"You fucking befriended and abducted her... you fucking brought her back in to my life" he snarled.

Chloe simply chuckled, a chuckle laced with a mischievous undertone, a chuckle he'd heard so many times in the past.

"Someone's grouchy," she stated, feigning shock.

Grabbing a towel, he mopped sweat from his face and upper chest, gingerly stepping from the running machine hoping for the pain to be nothing more than a cramp at best. Sitting himself down at a weights bench he draped the towel over his head looking for reprieve from the blonde.

"Did I hit a nerve," he heard her continue. "Hit a nerve because of the truth irrespective of the circumstance most of us are fucked over the minute we meet you.... Siena Mancini is no different."

"What?" He stated out loud whipping the towel from over his head and taking a confrontational stance.

"What you're planning to do to her...with her...your next victim...just like all us others," Chloe offered.

Without thinking he grabbed the one kilo dumbbell from the rack before him, turning he drew back his arm before launching the weight across the room at her. Not finding her, he was never going to find her, she wasn't there.

The weight met with an ear-piercing shatter as it hit the floor to ceiling mirror on the left wall of the gymnasium. The glass cracking and splintering out from the fine small fragments of the impact in the centre of the glass. For the briefest moment holding in place as he looked over at his own distorted reflection.

The glass gave way crashing down heavily as it fell from the wall.

"Temper...temper now look what you've done..." Chloe's voice trailing to a near whisper. "...That's seven years bad luck"

**********

She watched him from behind the voile curtain

His usual strong purposeful walk was on a slight hobble as he made his way back towards the house, through the garden, from the building that had once been a summer house.

A summer house where once she'd played as a small child, spent time on summers days with her Father and her siblings. Marco and Laura had been that little older than her, never sharing time playing games but still she recalled their compassion, the overriding love they had as a family. A family unit forged from a tragedy she was too younger fully remember, only three years old when her Mother Janella had lost her short fight with Cancer.

She clung to memories she believed she held of the kindly faced and elegant dark-haired woman but could never be certain such memories weren't constructs of her imagination. The rest of her family had cared for and protected her from that early, tender, age. Ensuring she had wanted for nothing in regard to physical and emotional support. Now they were gone, first her Father which had devastated her more than words could convey, then last year her brother murdered by a deranged lunatic. In between her sister had seemingly disappeared from the face of the earth. Siena was all alone at a time when she needed the love and the care of her family like never before.

She looked back at him as he entered the house. If he saw her, he did not acknowledge, she wasn't technically alone but he was one of two strangers that now lived within her family home.

Siena Mancini wiped fresh tears from her sore eyes. Stepping back from the window her stomach tensing in anguish but also the pain of emptiness, having not been able to contemplate or stomach food since the events of the weekend.

Mealtimes were always her favourite time whenever her family were all together the simple moments that she held on to and treasured the memories of long spun conversations always punctuated with laughter. Summer evenings all sat around the old wide table that sat itself on the patio area, the patio area that had now been replaced by the elaborate swimming pool. Her vision shattered around her as her reality scraped nails across her conscious thoughts, her eye cast back through the window drawn to the building materials that now surrounded the old summer house, building materials to build a new no doubt crass extension to the original building. A partial build so far.

A partial build under which they had buried her best friend.

Tears came to her eyes easily now thinking of not only the horror of finding Kim lay there but of what she'd been convinced to agree to in order to cover the death of her friend. The morality of her situation juxtaposing against the fear of the ramifications of Kim's death from the drugs that she'd supplied not just to Kim but to Pippa and Aleesha also.

Her fingernails dug into her own palms as she stood their looking across the grey vista. She needed her family now more than ever.

The vibration in her dressing gown pocket caused a startled jump at the unexpected intrusion. Stripping her from her twisted emotional darkness as she slipped her hand to her pocket and retrieved the device. A fresh message notification on screen invading a photo of her and Kimberley taken only weeks previous. Siena opened the new SMS message received, a little confused at first by what she read;

GOV UK CORONAVIRUS ALERT. New rules in force now: you must stay at home. More info and exemptions at gov.uk Stay at home. Protect the NHS. Save lives.

The intrusion from the outside world brought a panic to her. Immediately tensing her as she reread the same part of the message repeatedly in her mind.

You must stay at home. You must stay at home. You must stay at home.

Aware of the growing virus and its impact on society she still couldn't conceive of the notion of why she was receiving such a communication, let alone from where they'd garnered her contact details from.

Her chest suddenly feeling constricted like an invisible hand clutched tightly around her throat. Siena stared at the message on screen. The ramifications of which she could not truly comprehend but the foreboding tore at her mind. She could not stay here, not with them not with the constant reminders of what she had done, she needed freedom. The house was a toxic environment stripped of the family she'd loved. Hot tears fell down her cheeks. Inside her a resolve began to build

She could not stay here.

She would not be staying here.

**********

The raised voices carried through the house, raised voices that were nothing new, this being just the latest flashpoint in a series of ongoing going tiresome flash points.

Logan in his heart of hearts could see no point at which Ari and Siena would ever truly see eye to eye. Irrespective of any intervention be it on his behalf or from the legal perspective they both pursued. They were at polar opposites of a spectrum just as the rooms in which they both inhabited in this vast house were as far apart as they could be.

Heading down the stairs a slight twinge of pain lanced from the tense thigh muscle as he descended each step slightly gingerly.

Taking a deep breath he rounded the door into the kitchen, half expecting each of the girls to be involved in a standoff brandishing kitchen utensils at one another. There was an argument for grabbing both of them by the scruff of the neck and banging their heads together until they saw sense. If they were to see out and more importantly survive this period of lockdown then the animosity had to be moved on from, forgotten about, hatchets had to be buried by the pair of them, and preferably not buried in one another's skulls. There was only a finite number of bodies the summer house footings could accommodate.

They both faced one another glaring, Ari's hands braced against the Kitchen counter, her face flushed with anger. Siena stood with her back to him hands on the hips of skin tight denims that accentuated toned legs and a pert ass. An unhelpful thought crossed his mind as he looked from the brunette back to the blonde, he parked such flippant perversion.

"Have a word with her Logan"

It was Ari who broke the stand-off first, shaking her head with an astonished expression.

"She's only looking to go fucking shopping."

Logan stepped further into the room that was already in desperate need of a clean in the absence of their recently released home help, come cleaner. He physically stepped between the two of them, crossing Siena's eye-line he flashed her an admonishing glance. Not being immediately drawn as he stepped in silence toward and opened the American style fridge freezer and grabbed a bottle of water. Breaking open the seal of the plastic cap he took a swig, quenching a thirst that still lingered from his intense exercise. Closing the refrigerator door he turned with a glance back towards Siena.

"That's hardly a good idea for a number of reasons," he stated before taking another swig of water.

"I just wanted to...." the young brunette made to offer.

"A number of reasons..." Logan cut across her reiterating his point. "Not least you're meant to be holed up in an Italian retreat...but are you that ignorant to what's going on in the world... shops...cafes...restaurants...every fucking where it's all closed...all shut to keep people off the streets to keep this virus at bay."

"I just need to... I can't just..." her protests not forming around a logical point for discussion.

"There's nowhere for you to fucking go Siena..." he realised by her startled expression he'd been a little too harsh immediately adding, "...I understand...I appreciate...what we've done what happened we need that space...the separation. I feel sick to my stomach when I think about what went on here Saturday.... to help cover for you."

Looking up he saw her stifling tears, literally sucking up her bottom lip as she teetered on the point of breaking down, diverting the attention and focus of the scenario back to her was unfair, but befitted the plan he and Ari had set in motion. To her credit Ari had fallen silent on his right-hand side, with a fleeting glance he could see even her body posture had softened, fractionally.

"I just wanted to..." once again Siena offered up but once again fell short of a compelling statement.

"I understand...I know how you feel" Logan offered empathy based on a warped reality, "You can't be seen out and about though it blows your cover. I get the desperation you must be feeling Siena trust me I really do but it's not just this situation in the bigger picture this whole country is fucking locking itself away...I've never known anything like this...it's scary...but we must get through this... we have to see this through.... collectively."

He turned to Ari then back to her, "We won't see this through tearing strips off of one another and with animosity from day one."

"I... I know," Siena offered, shaking her head but agreeing with his sentiment.

Logan threw Ari a raised eyebrow.

"I'm sorry for being so confrontational," Ari offered. "Logan's right.... We have to be more understanding of one another."

Logan was shocked by the usually acerbic blonde's reaction and words. A move so unlike her nature. He parked yet another unhelpful comment, swallowing it down with a heavy swig of water. As he looked back to Siena noting that a single tear had broken and traced slowly down her right cheek before she wiped it away.

"I know...I know," she offered.

"We'll look after you Siena...we aren't your enemy."

She broke; her emotions pouring from her as she covered her mouth and jaw in an attempt to restrain her outpouring. Not wanting to face them she turned hurriedly on the heels of little ankle boots and fled from the room, the same heels falling hard and heavy through the hallway and up the stairs slowly fading until a door was heard closing.

"Jesus fucking Christ..." Ari hissed. "We've got our work cut out with her Lo."

"She'll be fine," Logan offered about to congratulate Ari on the hand she'd played when she countered.

"She was halfway out the fucking door Logan...if I hadn't of seen her, she'd have been gone... If we are covering that girl's death in more than just concrete we need to do something about her.... she's going to take us all down."

Ari voiced a concern that Logan already dwelt on, had dwelt on the last few uneasy days.

Their conspiracy relied on Siena Mancini's cooperation, unwitting or otherwise. Emotionally it was obvious that the young girl was not standing up to the pressure. A pressure they'd piled on her, a perceived weight on her shoulders that she alone was responsible for the overdose that had killed her friend. A line of argument suggested this wasn't far from their exaggerated truth but in the bigger picture Ari wanted greater leverage and abused the opportunity that had been presented. Conversely, he could not risk the exposure the forensic evidence that the foolish liaison in her final hours would bring. Kimberley Adams lay encased in concrete in the footings of the Summer House for different reasons for all three of them.

Siena wasn't aware of anything beyond the need to protect her from the association to the young blonde's death. She couldn't know the truth about Logan involvement, and she'd never knowingly agree to anything that contributed to Ari's selfish plan. A selfish plan with no other motive than to usurp Siena of her claim over the property they stood in.

"What do we do then?" Ari stated calmly.

"I'm open to suggestion," Logan offered his response with an almost nonchalant shrug.

"There's one idea..." Ari offered. "You won't like it but..."

Her words cut short by the intrusion of her mobile phone ringing loudly with a piercing ring tone. Raising a finger towards him to hold the thought that she was about to speak out loud as she answered the call.

Trying not to pay any attention, despite the call seemingly not being private, Logan drained the remaining contents of the bottle of water. If she had an inclination, he wouldn't like her plan he wasn't sure if he even wanted to hear it, let alone contemplate the further web of deceit it could spin.

He was acutely aware of Ari's motives, predominantly motivated by the personal greed of the wider circumstances.

"Sure, look we... I mean I understand," she offered a look of resignation mixed with concern in her voice.

"Call me when you think you can return," she offered bluntly and hung up on the call without so much as offering a goodbye.

"Well, our issue isn't getting buried any further for the foreseeable future."

Logan threw her a confused look in response to the ambiguous comment.

"That was the Builders..." she qualified, "...Due to this fucking lockdown they can't carry on working and have to put the Summer House Project on hold."

"Fuck," Logan offered. "Not ideal...but then I guess she's not going anywhere."

"Who?"

"Our little Oh Dee victim," Logan darkly answered.

Somewhat ruefully Ari shook her head at him. It was to be expected given the current uncertainty and while he quipped even the day's work that the unwitting builders had put in the day before, laying concrete blocks on top of the set concrete footings in the trench was a step towards permanently hiding the body.

"I thought you meant Siena," Ari interrupted his thoughts. "I'm serious Logan we need to nip her behaviour...immediately."

"You were about to share.... something I wouldn't like," Logan offered

He watched as Ari slipped across the kitchen and took a handbag from a stool. Placing the bag on the breakfast bar she rooted through the plethora of crap she seemed to deem essential before plucking out an item which she clenched in her hand. Looking up at him she held her hand outstretched.

Instinctively Logan stepped towards her and held out his own right hand

"Just a suggestion," Ari stated squeezing the item into his hand.

Logan took the small plastic baggie she handed him, staring at the contents that were ominously visible. His blood ran cold in his veins, he drew a shuddered breath.

"I hear they're effective," Ari suggested.

"Where did you even get them?"

"I run a nightclub with a dubious reputation." was her solemn response.

A response which brought back a thousand memories, very few of them good. Even though the small blue tablets in the bag had little direct correlation to his time at the Dark Star, there presence did more closely link to the darkness of the Stirchley Grange Mills. Suppressing dark thoughts that raced through his mind he looked up at Ari. Immediately spotting the sardonic glint in her eye.

"I've the plan this time" she offered

It wasn't Ari's voice he heard as she spoke the words, it was Chloe's.

He listened to her plan, took on board the simplicity and the cruelty that was patently achievable in their current circumstances. He agreed with her plan with little or no coercion despite the dread he felt. Despite the darkness that seemed to creep into the corner of his vision

There was no other option.

"I guess it's up to me to show her some concern then.... as well as doing the cooking."

Ari looked up at him as she bent over the kitchen counter, a view which offered him a tantalising glimpse of her cleavage under her white string vest top.