Read No Child of Mine for Free Online Page B

you, I’m not going nowhere, especially not with those sado-wackos who tried ...’
    ‘You’re not going there,’ she assured him.
    ‘Look at me, sister, I is not going anywhere.’
    ‘The police already have a Protection Order, so I’m afraid you don’t have a choice.’
    ‘Fucking bastards,’ he retorted, but he seemed to be more intent now on what was going on outside.
    ‘Talking about Her Majesty’s police again?’ Paul Bennett sneered as he came back into the room. ‘Sorry,’ he said to Alex, ‘should never have left you alone with this little shit.’ He advanced on Daniel. ‘Have you got any more weapons tucked away there, dude?’ he demanded.
    ‘Get away from me, scumbag,’ Daniel hissed.
    ‘Charming, isn’t he?’ Bennett commented.
    ‘Who’s that out there?’ Daniel asked nervously.
    Paul eyed him meanly. ‘What are you afraid of, Danny boy?’
    ‘I’m not scared of nothing.’
    Bennett grinned. ‘It’s who you think it is, boy, so I’d say it was time to make your choice. Either go with Alex here, or stay and have a nice little chat with the lowlife who reckon your old dad’s been trying to dump one of theirs in the crap. Let me think, how was it they treated their last hostage? Oh yeah, that’s right, he doesn’t talk or walk so well any more, does he?’
    ‘Please,’ Alex cut in sharply. ‘There’s no need ...’
    ‘Step back into your sandals,’ Bennett warned through his teeth.
    Alex moved forward and put her back to the detective. He might think he was in charge here, but the boy was now her responsibility. ‘Do you want some help packing?’ she said to Daniel.
    ‘I told you, I’m not going nowhere,’ he shot back.
    ‘Then I’ll have to pack for you,’ she sighed.
    ‘I’ll wait and make sure he doesn’t scarper,’ Bennett told her as she started out of the room. ‘Don’t reckon you’re in a hurry to be going out there though, are you, Danny boy? Not when the baddies might get you.’
    ‘They don’t scare me,’ Daniel snorted, though it was evident from the way his eyes kept darting to the door that they did.
    In truth they were unnerving Alex too, since the grudges some of these families had against social services, never mind each other, went back a very long way, and not many of them would care that she personally might not have been involved in their issues.
    She could think of at least three families right now who’d very much like to make her pay for removing their kids. It was the main reason she always hated coming on to this estate, it actually terrified the life out of her at times, but it was her own fault, no one had forced her to apply for a job in the North Kesterly hub. She could always have gone to the southern region, which didn’t have anything like as many poor housing developments, or the same kind of racial tensions – plus it was a lot closer to home – but she’d always known she’d come here. This was where she’d been born – admittedly in a house that no longer existed, and that had actually been a part of old Temple Fields – and consequently she felt as though she shared roots with these people (not that any of them knew it). The whole reason she’d become a social worker was to do what she could to help protect the children of this estate.
    It was no surprise to her to find Daniel’s bedroom in such a sorry state, with a coarse blanket draped from the window acting as a curtain, bedding that looked as though it hadn’t been changed since new and a carpet with morecigarette burns and stains than it appeared to have pile. The posters on the walls were mostly of bruising men in leather and black shades brandishing machine guns, or machetes, or seeming ready to inflict all manner of gruesome torture on the world at large. Touchingly though, there was one of an early Harry Potter movie. In a scorched saucer next to the bed she found an old needle with a candle and belt close by, evidence that someone – hopefully not