Final LockDown (5 page)

“I could get used to this; it’s far more comfortable than that poxy hospital bed you know.” I giggle as Angel chuckles aloud. She is so cute; I wish I could bring her back with me.

“So, your lessons; don’t get yourself in anymore trouble, and love your baby and husband when they both return to you.”

“Oh yes, I can’t wait to see them both. Do you think they’ll still love me, Angel? I am a pretty shitty wife.” I frown at my behaviour.

“Abigail Lock, it wasn’t your fault. Leighton will understand once the doctors explain what happened. He’s a forgiving man.”

“Yeah, I guess. I just want to see him now and kiss him and tell him I love him,” I sigh, heavily breathing in the clean heavenly air. I hope when I eventually leave this world I will end up back here.

“I know you do, and you will. Soon you will all be back together in that beautiful home of yours.”

“Yeah, home.” I smile as I close my eyes and allow myself to sleep on my cloudy temporary bed.

“Yeah, home.” The Angel repeats as she wallows in her own home.

She won’t stop crying. Her high pitched screams bounce off the walls, her tiny body kicking out and flaying arms clinging to me with desperation.

I am dying inside as I realise the extent of what I have done.

“Fuck!” I shout, grabbing my hair tightly, now a little thinned with my age. This is my granddaughter, a tiny innocent little girl, and I have taken her from the protective arms of her mother, a mother who seems to care so much about her.

I know there is something wrong with me, why else would I have bothered tormenting and scaring Abigail for the last three months?

Eight years I have been inside, and believe me it was the hardest thing I have ever done. Losing my wife and soul mate had been a mere walk in the park compared to the continuous replays of my horrific behaviour and the way I had treated my own daughter.

What kind of father does what I did and gets to live to see another day? I sure as hell couldn’t live with the things that I have done. It is killing me slowly and violently inside.

So why am I now torturing myself further, sitting in our family home, with my granddaughter, having just stolen her from her father and mother, having shot my own kid? Maybe it will mean I’ll get to see her again at least once more before I am killed. That’s why I had aimed for the shoulder and not the head.

I acted like a deranged arsehole when she had finally seen me holding her girl; I had said some sick things, things I didn’t even think of anymore. And as I looked at my daughter's face and the horror and fright she portrayed, it broke my heart. I could have been in her life from day one, in her daughter’s life, being a decent father and grandfather, but the loss of my Penny, my beautiful angel, ripped me apart at the seams and allowed an animal to manifest inside me. A dangerous devilish beast who was sick for revenge, and still was until a gargantuan net fell from the heavens and captured me, giving me the ability to banish them all.

I am a conflicted man. I don’t know how to deal with everything at once. Seeing her alive and well, living the life I was supposed to be living with my own forever after, stirred a nasty jealousy and made all those bad feelings rush back once more. The feeling of utter hatred towards her, I know it isn’t rational, that it isn’t actually our tiny little girl's fault my wife had taken her life, but my brain couldn’t comprehend the right from the wrong and this seems to be the only way to deal with the hate that had conjured inside.

“Shhh,” I say quietly as I hold my granddaughter, rocking her little body gently, the same way I had with Abigail as a girl, trying to sooth her gentle cries as she begs for her mother. “Oh Richard, you stupid fucking man,” I scold myself. I don’t deserve to ever touch another child again after the sickening things I have done to my own kid and even her friend.

I deserve to be strung up in the street and left for the dogs, that’s what I feel should happen sometimes, because I can’t deal with the guilt inside.

It will be near impossible to convince Abigail of my change in person. I am not the man I was back then, I would never ever lay a finger on a child ever again. The thoughts don’t even cross my mind. All I can think of as I hold my grandbaby was ‘gosh she is as beautiful as her mother was, I hope they protect her forever and always’.

“Let’s get you something to eat,” I say to the baby as I walk through the house, still bearing the photos and items of worth. Our hallways still covered in family photos, but the wallpaper and flooring dirty and scummy from my drugged up antics.

I sniffle back a tear as I look upon a photograph of Penny, myself and Abigail at about three months old. We were so happy, sure Penny had her issues but we were coping, she was coping. “God baby, I’m so sorry,” I say as I stroke my wife’s face, her happy smile looking back, but all I see is the disgust and utter rejection I know she will harbour after looking down upon my vile attacks on our girl.

“You were supposed to protect her, to keep her safe and loved,” I can hear her saying. At night, in my cell, all I could hear was her. Telling me how disgusting I was, how she wished I would die and rid this world of evil, how she wished she had never met me. It had changed me, forced me to confront the living Lucifer I was. At least he had loved his father, me... I would never get that love from my girl, I didn’t deserve anything from her.

It angers me to no end that I could have in fact ended her with that bullet, piercing her skin. The blood had been pungent and sickening in the air causing an unwanted gargle of vomit in my stomach as I looked at my daughter's dying body. That was it, the last straw of my humanity as I had easily shot the gun and torn through her beautiful flesh.

She has become something great, something stunning and pure. I want to castrate myself and jump from the closest cliff into the cascading violent waters below, just so I can give Abigail that chance in life again, that fresh start.

I have often thought of her as I lay incarcerated, often thought of her blue eyes and blonde hair, how she would look now, how she would laugh, if it would still hold that beautiful high giggle she had had as a toddler, if she has become something great. I suspected not, I suspected she had fallen to the pits after her horrendous life with me, her father, her protector.

I warm a jar of baby food in the microwave and perch the baby on my knee, her green eyes piercing and deep as they stare at me with beautiful innocence. She has calmed down, having gotten used to me a little.

I spoon a little food, feeding it to her. Her mouth opens freely and her tiny lips clamp down on the spoon. She swallows it down and then smiles and jumps up and down for more. I spoon more into her mouth, her childish giggles and jumps warming my fucked up heart a little.

This isn’t fair; to be denying her mother the warmth and comfort a baby brings you. I miss this, miss my daughter being this young and cheeky. I had ruined her childhood from the moment her mother had left this world, blaming her and calling her vile names, hitting her and eventually taking that innocence a girl possessed that can never be given back.

I begin to cry again, my tears falling into her dark blonde curly hair. I hadn’t meant to scare Abbi the way I have over the last few months, leaving messages and taking her baby when she slept. I had just wanted to meet her and hold her before Leighton ended me, because I knew he would. And I’d go easily and willingly, I deserved to. I would die happy just having seen my daughter and granddaughter one last time, whether my daughter was dying or not I have seen her adult self.

“We’ll take you back to mummy and daddy tomorrow princess,” I tell her, juggling my knee up and down and stroking her soft little cheek. I know people say someone like me will never change, that it is in our blood, but I have. I feel such a raw regret for everything I have ever done.

The baby claps her hands, now a little messy from food, and clucks her tongue. “You miss them hey?” I ask her, knowing she isn’t going to answer. She goo’s and gaa’s at me, staring intently into my eyes. I hold the same deep blue hue my girl did, but they are not precious and perfect like hers. No, they hold an unwanted darkness that no matter how much I try to rid myself of it, it stays there, reminding me every second of every day, how much I am undeserving of this life.

“Tomorrow, it all ends angel.” I look to the ceiling, now cracking and chipped. “I’ll be there soon,” I whisper to the heavens, hoping my wife is forgiving enough to allow me beside her in heaven, that god thinks me redeemed enough to be up there because I don’t think I can live eternity in hell, alone and scared.

“You’re just like your mamma, you know that poppet. Yes, she was just like you, same chubby little cheeks, and cheeky smile. Same giggles and glittery eyes. You take care of her, she’s going to need you in life, will need your support and strength when the darkness returns. Me being here will bring it all back princess, I’m sure of it, but you keep smiling, show her how the light can return and I know she’ll be okay. Do not let her join us in heaven too soon. You must keep her strong.”

God this life is so hard, so hard to keep myself grounded when all I want to do is have my daughter’s forgiveness before I end my self-hatred and join Penny.

“I won’t be in your life as of tomorrow princess, but know, I love you to the moon and stars and from the heavens I will protect you and your mother. I know I've done wrong by her, that I shouldn’t even be here now, but I will make sure nobody ever hurts you ever again. I know she will never forgive me, and when you grow up and learn all about the hurt I’ve caused, you will look at my memory with disgust, but I am not that man anymore baby girl. I would never hurt you. I’m sorry I hurt your mummy but I was scared to see her, I panicked.”

She giggles at me, not having a clue what I am saying and I grasp onto her innocence and tiny little body with everything I have, everything good I can give. “That’s right bubba; you keep on smiling and breaking all those hearts. Just know if any guy ever hurts you a quarter as bad as I did my girl, I will possess his fucking body and kill him from the inside out, slowly and painfully.”

She finishes her food and then I change her nappy with a clean one I have brought from the shops on the way here. I sit on the chair in my old lounge, her petite body snuggled into mine. Her eyes flitter closed effortlessly, her tiredness overtaking her. “Goodnight. I love you,” I tell her, kissing her wispy hair and allowing myself to sleep for the last time before my heart seizes to beat.

“I’ll see you soon Pen, we’ll be together forever and eternity,” I say to myself as I let sleep overcome me.

“His old home, are you fucking kidding me? He’s taken my daughter to the place he raped his own fucking kid. We’re leaving now Ant!” I scream as we track the car to the old London home.

“Get the fucking keys now, Leigh,” he replies standing from his chair alongside me, the both of them crashing against the opposite desk.

“CALL THEM!” I shout at him again as I run my house to the front driveway where my car is parked. We both jump in and I speed from the driveway without even fastening my seat belt.

I hear Antonio’s ramblings in the background as he tells my men of the whereabouts of my daughter. I am scared for when I get there, scared to see what she is like, what he has done to her. It makes me sick to my stomach and red with rage. I wasn’t able to protect my own fucking daughter.

“Leigh, put your belt on,” Ant commands me and I turn my face harshly to his.

“Fuck off.” I reply bitterly, pressing my foot harder to the pedal, the speedometer accelerating over one hundred and thirty miles per hour.

“You crash, that airbag isn’t deploying and you fucking die. Now put the fucking belt on now,” he bites out harshly and I am quick to obey as his voice penetrates me and kicks my common sense into gear.

“So, what’s the plan?” he asks me and I scoff back sarcastically.

“Oh I don’t know, have a cup of tea and ask politely for my daughter back. Sounds nice and civil doesn’t it.” I laugh manically and it makes me shiver at the malevolence I can harvest. Nobody other than my boys have seen what I am capable of. Abigail has only seen a slither of the temper I possess, but has never seen how creative I can actually get.

“Leighton, be serious,” he demands, and I look at him and smile evilly his way, returned by a similar look. He knows what I have planned; he agrees and is probably plotting his own course of action.

“Nobody fucks with my family Antonio, and I suggest if the boys can’t handle the level I am going to enter then they take my daughter and fuck off, but man, I need you there.” He is my best friend, and in a lot of ways, especially when I have to block everything else out and enter the mind-set that I know is dangerous, he is my backbone.

“Of course man, always there.” He places his hand on my knee and squeezes slightly. It doesn’t affect me the way it always had done before, instead of the attraction I have always felt, I feel warmth and love, like a brother.

“Let’s do this,” I say simply as my car eats the tarmac at a hundred and thirty.

*****

I speed to a stop outside an old, dirty, London townhouse. The windows are cracked and some broken. The door is graffitied and the handle a little busted. This is where Abbi had grown up and had her childhood destroyed? The house looks like everything it represents, filth and utter disgust.