Lock Me In
‘A five star, unputdownable thriller that had me gripped from the very first page… I read it in one sitting!’ Caz Finlay, author of The Boss Shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger award Whatever you do, don’t open the door… By day, Ellie Power has a normal life. She has a stable home, a loving boyfriend, a future. But at night, she suffers from a sleep disorder. She becomes angry, unpredictable, violent. Her mother locks Ellie in her bedroom every night, to keep them both safe. Then one morning, Ellie wakes up, horrified to find the lock on her bedroom door smashed from the inside. She is covered in injuries, unable to remember anything about the night before. And her boyfriend Matt is nowhere to be found… Praise for Lock Me In ‘Intricately plotted, beautifully written’ Harriet Tyce, author of Blood Orange ‘This ambitious and wide-reaching novel had me hooked from the very first page’ S. E. Lynes, author of The Women ‘One of the best debuts I have ever read’ Clare Empson, author of Him 'A flawlessly written, jaw-dropping, chilling and twisty psychological thriller' Sam Carrington, author of Saving Sophie ‘A disturbing psychological thriller’ Rachel Sargeant, author of The Perfect Neighbours ‘The characters are fresh, the dialogue sharp’ G. D. Abson, author of Motherland ‘A stunning debut. Gripping, compelling and skilfully crafted’ N J Crosskey, author of Poster Boy
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One More Chapter
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Copyright © Kate Simants 2019
Cover design by Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd2019
Cover images © Shutterstock.com
The CWA Dagger logo is a registered trademark owned by and reproduced with the permission of the CWA.
Kate Simants asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © October 2019 ISBN: 9780008353292
Version: 2019-09-27
For Tom, who never once suggested I give up this nonsense and get a real job.
You’re the best mate a girl could have.
Table of Contents
Prologue
1. Ellie
2. Mae
3.
4. Ellie
5. Mae
6. Ellie
7. Mae
8. Ellie
9. Mae
10. Ellie
11.
12. Mae
13. Ellie
14. Mae
15. Mae
16. Ellie
17. Mae
18. Ellie
19. Mae
20. Ellie
21.
22. Mae
23. Ellie
24. Mae
25. Ellie
26. Mae
27. Ellie
28. Mae
29.
30. Ellie
31. Mae
32. Ellie
33. Mae
34. Ellie
35. Mae
36. Ellie
37. Mae
38.
39. Ellie
40. Mae
41. Ellie
42. Mae
43. Ellie
44. Mae
45. Ellie
46. Mae
47. Ellie
48.
49. Mae
50. Ellie
51. Mae
52. Ellie
53. Mae
54. Ellie
55. Mae
56.
57. Mae
58. Ellie
59. Mae
60. Mae
61. Ellie
62. Mae
63. Ellie
64. Mae
65. Ellie
66.
67. Mae
68. Ellie
69. Mae
70. Ellie
71. Christine
72. Mae
73. Ellie
74. Ellie
75. Mae
76. Ellie
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
About the Publisher
You want to know fear?
Imagine someone there, every day when you wake. Imagine knowing, without even opening your eyes, that someone is watching you.
Take your time. Let your mind get used to consciousness.
A girl. There. Not in the passage, not at the door, or by the window. Not even at the end of your bed.
Closer than that.
She stares, unblinking, her eyes burning into yours even though you keep your eyelids shut tight. You move, and for a moment, she slips away from you. But she’s not gone. You know that much.
You think, please. Not again. Your teeth tighten so hard they squeak against each other. You don’t mean to do it, but this is real, right-now fear, and your body doesn’t care what you want. Your heart starts firing out ball-bearings instead of blood. Open your eyes, you tell yourself.
You say her name, and she stiffens. You feel her do it, rigid and alert in your stomach. She is inside you. She is always inside you, listening under your skin.
When you were little, the doctors said this was a known disorder, that they could help. That this other you, your alter, the one who’s always there like an unwanted imaginary friend, could be brought out into the light. That this other girl that you sometimes became was there because, at some point in your life, you needed to switch your reality off. There must have been something, they said, that brought her bursting out of you: some trauma, some incitement, some moment of quickening. You never found it. In the end they gave up, telling you she was nothing to fear, that she could be managed, medicated, contained.
The doctors were wrong.
You feel her rising. And it doesn’t matter how much you know it’s not a physical condition, that it’s all in your head: when she fights you, it hurts. If you want your body to be yours and not hers, you have to fight back.
