The Girl with the Fragile Mind

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Read on for an exclusive short story by Claire Seeber (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Other Books by Claire Seeber (#litres_trial_promo)

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PROLOGUE

There are plenty of beginnings, but only one end to my story.

At the police station in the small country town, they brought me tea and toast, but I didn’t touch it; I pushed it away. I didn’t trust them. Any of them, any more.

My feet were cut and bleeding; I didn’t care. They matched my sore hands. In my head I was still running, and the road was cold and rough beneath my naked feet and I didn’t care. The pain pushed me on. I was a streak of white light in a black surround, and then you were beside me, only you couldn’t keep up, so I leant down and carried you, light as thistledown, in my arms. No one could stop us; I would run and run and run—

Someone was behind me. I could feel my heart beating, I could hear the blood thumping in my ears, I could feel the breath squeezing through my ribs and out of me; I couldn’t outrun them.

My feet were hurting badly now and I no longer felt invincible, I could hear the sobs pushing out of me as the car slowed and a blue light flickered across the road between the sand dunes, and the sea hissed to the left of me: ‘Don’t stop, Claudie, or they will get you.’ But I was weak now, too weak—

The man held my arm gently. He was wearing a uniform and he said, ‘Are you all right, love, you’re freezing.’ And he led me to the car with the blue light on top, and made me sit in the back.

And then they brought me to the building in the town, and said another man, a man they called Silver, wanted to talk to me.

I didn’t give him time to sit when he came in. I had waited too long already.

‘Something’s not right,’ I said, too fast, almost before he came through the door.

He leant on the wall in his shirtsleeves, hands in his pockets, and looked down at me. His expression was quizzical but I was relieved that he didn’t look amused. He looked tired, perhaps, but not amused.

‘I see. Are you all right though, Claudie?’