\u201cYour\nnumbers up\u201d said Gypsy Rose, \u201cif you want to know more you have to cross my\npalm with silver, or in your case, make it a twenty.\u201d I\u2019d heard enough, I knew exactly what she\nmeant. I collected my belongings and\nhurried out of the caravan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
How\nmuch time did I actually have? Word on\nthe street was that Mac the knife was out and trying to find me. He had had his sentence reduced. That must\nhave been some bribe as it could never have been for good behaviour. I\u2019d left the neighbourhood as soon as he was\nsent down, now it would seem that it would be best to move again, just in case.\nMac was not known for giving up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
I\nneed a different colour hairstyle and some clothes he would not recognise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\nquickly bundled a pile of the contents of my meagre wardrobe into black bags\nand went to the nearest charity shop. I\nwent to another one and bought very different clothes, ones I would not normally\nhave been seen dead in, unless Mac caught up with me. I boarded the next bus, it didn\u2019t really\nmatter where I went, as long as it wasn\u2019t here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\narrived at the women\u2019s refuge, these have always provided good hiding\nplaces. Most of the women there are so\ntraumatised that they keep themselves to themselves. I had made up some cock and bull story that\nwould secure me some lodgings, I just needed to lie low for a few days. It was there on the third day, that I heard\nthe lottery result: –<\/p>\n\n\n\n
14 My poor mother\u2019s birthday<\/p>\n\n\n\n
28 My birthday<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1 The number of my former home<\/p>\n\n\n\n
15 Our wedding anniversary<\/p>\n\n\n\n
18 The age I got married to Mac<\/p>\n\n\n\n
31 Mac\u2019s birthday<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\nhad used the same numbers for years and now they had finally come up. I had won 2.5 million pound, but where did I\nput my ticket? I had been wearing my big\norange coat when I bought it, the one I\u2019d given to the charity shop. \u201cOh my God! The charity shop!\u201d I rushed to the bus stop and caught the bus\nto my previous town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My\nluck was in, the coat was still on display. \nI rummaged through the pockets till I found my lottery ticket that would\ngive me a new life away from here . I\ngave a huge sigh of relief and walked as calmly as I could out of the door. As I stood at the bus stop, a heavy hand\nclasped onto my shoulder and a familiar voice said, \u201cI recognised the lottery\nnumbers, you would have had to come out of hiding sometime.\u201d I looked at the lottery ticket in my hand and\nwondered if Mac would spare the knife for just 50% of the money, or would he kill\nme and take it all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re\nrich baby, I \u2018ll never have to do another job again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cYour numbers up\u201d said Gypsy Rose, \u201cif you want to know more you have to cross my palm with silver, or in your case, make it a twenty.\u201d I\u2019d heard enough, I knew exactly what she meant. I collected my belongings and hurried out of the caravan. How much time did I actually have? Word […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,55],"tags":[73,74,72],"class_list":["post-134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2","category-august","tag-number","tag-up","tag-your"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-2a","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions\/135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}