1
’It’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you
Everything I do
I tell you all the time
Heaven is a place on earth with you—’
That was the last thing Melody Fox remembered. Not the screams. Not the pleadings. Not the whimpers. Not the dead silence, followed by the roaring inferno. Her mind had seemingly blocked out those sounds of hell, so they never floated unannounced to the surface. But now—
The song had been playing over and over in her daughter’s bedroom. It was Charity’s current Emo favourite. Like all teens, Charity Fox swayed between nonchalance and passion. Melody liked Lana Del Rey as well, but had to feign indifference rather than spoil her daughter’s enjoyment with the shock they shared something in common.
Totally uncool mum was Charity’s default attitude. Every parent goes through the same journey from hero to zero before the return on the other side. Except—her daughter would never return. She would never become the grown woman Melody would cherish with all her heart.
That was almost four years ago. The day Melody Fox also died.
They came at night. Bad men eager to do bad things. A home invasion gone horribly wrong. That was the meme from outraged tabloids as they intimately described the scene in every gory, bloody detail; from the gang they dubbed the Limehouse Monsters.
Melody was working on her laptop in the home office. Her partner Paul was in the kitchen preparing a late snack for the three of them. Charity was being dramatic in her bedroom, destroyed because her fascist mum had refused point blank to allow her thirteen-year-old a butterfly tattoo.
Their Limehouse riverside domain had been touted as one of the most secure homes in London. Ram proof gates. C.C.T.V. monitoring. On-site security. Unbeatable alarm system. Yet the men had breached their fortress.
The police assured Melody that they apprehended the three scumbags within a mile of the crime. Given the traumatic memory loss, she had to be told almost everything that had happened to her. Back then, she was inclined to believe what she was told. She was a different person today.
Melody mistook the first yell for television noise. She was doing her job: developing a psyops assignment for the Ministry of Defence. The disturbance startled her.
But the TV shouldn’t be on.
Before her brain could process that thought, the second scream hit home. No mistake. That was her daughter. Without thinking, Melody was off the chair and out of the room. The scene unfolding was one of the few vivid horrors Melody could fully remember of that night. No matter how hard she tried to forget.
God no.
Charity—her exquisite daughter, her love, her life—was being dragged by her long luxuriant hair across the living room floor. The brute was over six-foot-tall and balaclava masked. To her left was Paul: on his knees in the middle of the room, another brute pressing the barrel of a gun hard into the back of his head.
‘Don’t hurt my daughter. Don’t hurt my daughter. God, don’t hurt my daughter. Tell me what you want, please. Just tell—’
The man pulled his gun-hand back, then lashed Paul across the face with the barrel.
As Melody went to scream, she glimpsed the blur of the gloved fist steaming in from her side.
—THWACK—
The brass knuckle-duster smashed wickedly into her left cheek. The force sent her spinning down to the expensive imported Italian mahogany flooring. There was no adrenaline rush to help. No movie heroics.
And all the time that damned song was playing over and over.
’I heard that you like the bad girls honey, is that true?
It’s better than I ever even knew
They say that the world was built for two
Only worth living if somebody is loving you
Baby now you do—’
She tried to rise on all fours from the savage blow that had already fractured her classic cheek bones.
—BOOM—
A steel toe-capped boot drove into her side. The kick broke three ribs and sent Melody skidding across the floor. Her head slamming into the leg of the solid table.
Amanda Soresh, the Head of Neurosurgery at St. Michael’s who saved her life, assured Melody that this fracture alone should have killed her. She was lucky all it did was put her into a coma for seventeen months.
Lucky. Yeah, sure. Why not. Apart from the whole being attacked in your own home type thingy. What could be luckier than seventeen months in a coma?
Laying in a beaten pathetic heap on the floor, Melody tried to speak, shout, scream—but her mouth refused to move. Her body was already shutting down from the shock. More than anything, this would shame her for a long time. The bitter realization that she was incapable of protecting her family. The most primal urge we have, and she failed that test. More than most, given her job, she knew that was supremely irrational.
’It’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you
Everything I do—’
There was nothing she could have done: though that profound knowledge didn’t stop the never-ending guilt burning into her like acid on flesh.
Blood was seeping into her eyes as she lay inert where the kick landed her. She forced herself to open her eyelids. Swimming in and out of focus, she dimly saw Charity, about five feet away, on the other side of the coffee table. It would be the last time she ever saw her daughter’s flawlessly beautiful face, in life or death. All that remained were digital images, random memories and heartbreaking dreams of the woman-child. A lost girl preserved forever as a rebellious teen.
‘Mum.’ As Charity dimly choked out the word, blood from her mouth dripped onto the floor.
‘Shut it cunt.’ The monster who had dragged Charity to that spot, kicked her daughter in the belly.
Melody felt a giant sob well up. But there was no way out. It remained trapped inside, as they all were trapped in their luxury killing room.
The ghoul dressed in human skin. The beast who should be put down like a rabid dog. The inhuman grabbed Charity by the hair, yanking her up.
‘On yer feet bitch.’
‘Mummy—mummy—mummy. No. No. No. Argghh. Argghh. You’re hurting—’
Charity’s raspy words were barely audible.
Melody tried to raise a hand. ‘Don’t. Please.’
Then her daughter was gone.
She was vaguely aware of drifting in and out of consciousness. How long that lasted she had no idea. She didn’t consciously hear the gunshot to the head which killed Paul.
All the time, the song she now hated as much as she loved, looped on and on.
’It’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you
Everything I do
I tell you all the time
Heaven is a place on earth with you—’
It was the last memory she had about anything, until the very bright light shining painfully into her eyes.
‘Hello, Melody. I’m Miss Soresh. I’m your doctor. Neurosurgeon, actually. If you can hear me, blink your left eye three times. I know, I know, it’s confusing. Be brave once more, okay. You’re safe.’
Melody took a second or two to think about those words. Why couldn’t she speak out loud? She tried.
Her brain formed the words: I hear you. I’m not deaf. But nothing came out.
Then she realized why this simple idea was impossible: the tube down her throat.
Melody blinked. One. Two. Three.
‘That’s super Melody. Well done. Well done indeed. Finally we meet. It’s great to have you back.’