He was coming up again, reaching towards me, so I lunged first: grabbing the back of his head and slamming my knee into his face in a sickening crunch.
Blood pounded in my ears. None of this would be happening if I had just got the hell out of this town. If I didn’t have to play nice to get what I needed, if I didn’t need so damn much at all.
‘What about what I want?’ I screamed at his limp body. I grabbed his hair again, yanking his head up and slamming it back against the wall. ‘Do you even care? No! Because I’m nothing to you, just another stupid girl!’
My blood ran hot with fury. I slammed again, caught up in the whirlwind of red. Again, again, until my hands were shaking and blood ran, dark down the pale wood, sticky on my hands.
I released him, gasping. There was silence, not one movement. Not a sound.
Oh God.
I backed away, fumbling with the door again until the chain finally clicked into place. I grabbed my purse, closing the door behind me and stumbling outside. I made it three steps on the dark front drive before my legs crumpled beneath me, sending me crawling in the sharp gravel. I gasped for air, scrambling until finally I was on my feet and running, running down the street with nothing but my heartbeat pounding in my ears and the sound of my own ragged breath for company.
What had I done?
My lungs burned and my limbs ached by the time I reached the main road. There were no cars around, just rows of empty houses, dark and still. Nobody there to see what I’d done.
Silence.
My hands shook as I pulled out my cellphone, trembling too hard to dial. It took four tries before I finally found the station number and could click through to call.
‘Sheriff’s department.’ The voice came, drawling, steady, bored. It was Blake, I recognized over the thunder of my heartbeat, and in my mind I could see him, reaching for a slice of pizza, his boots kicked up on the desk, leaving smudged I’d have to clean come Monday. ‘What can I do you for?’
I opened my mouth, but my breath rasped in my throat. I couldn’t make a sound. I could still see the way I’d left him, Ashton, crumpled in a bloody heap on the floor.
I didn’t know how many times I’d hit him, how much damage I’d done.
I wavered, sick with the realization. He could be dead. I could have killed him. What would happen when they found him? Would they believe me if I tried?
‘Hello?’ Blake asked again, bored. ‘Hello?’
I hung up, my cellphone falling down by my side. I saw headlights on the road ahead and quickly leaped back into the shadows of the trees. My mind was racing now, my desperate panic spinning into something else, fear and doubt and terror taking an iron grip of my mind.
I could hear them already, what they’d all say.
I’d got in the car with him, hadn’t I? I’d followed him inside the house. Maybe I’d liked it. Maybe I hadn’t had to fight back so hard.
Maybe I’d lied.
Bile rose up in my throat and I stumbled to the edge of the road, retching violently, again and again, collapsing on to my knees as the world spun, dark shadows everywhere as I pressed my eyes shut fast and clenched gripped the wet grass and desperately prayed for it all to be over, please just be over, please let this be done.
I wasn’t sure how long it was until the world steadied and I slowly rose to my feet again. I breathed deep, searching in the dark until I found my cellphone. It was muddy but unharmed. I scrolled through my contacts until I found the name I needed, the one person who would know what to do.
Oliver.
He came without questions, not a single word, just a sideways glance from the driver’s seat as I fumbled with the door and threw myself into the car.
‘Please,’ I managed, my hands still shaking, ‘just drive.’
Oliver pulled away, our headlights cutting through the dark in bright, sure swathes. Here, inside, I was safe, I told myself over and over again, as we sped further away from the suburbs. The warm air blasting from the dashboard, the talk radio show murmuring on low, the casual way Oliver leaned back, hand resting on the steering wheel even though he must have been going twenty over the limit by then. I was safe now.
But I knew that was a lie.
He was back there, somewhere. Hurt. Bleeding. Furious.
What would he do now?
Oliver made a turn and then there were lights, blaring neon and bold. I blinked, looking around. We were at a drive-through, on one of those rest-stops off the highway. Oliver pulled up to the speaker and looked over.
‘What do you want?’
I stared back, dazed. I couldn’t have eaten now if I’d tried. My stomach was still churning, my whole body sick with tension.
‘I . . . nothing.’ My voice shook, and I hugged myself harder, trying to keep it together. ‘Oliver . . . ’
‘Sure?’ Oliver looked at me. ‘I’m buying. Go crazy.’
‘Please,’ I heard the note of begging in my voice, ‘I just want to go home.’
Oliver ignored me, winding down the window and leaning out. ‘Yeah, I’ll get a burger deluxe, two portions of fries . . . Oh, and a milkshake. Chocolate.’
I looked at him in disbelief. I’d called him to come pick me up in the middle of nowhere, barely able to speak, and he was ordering fast food like nothing was wrong.
‘There’s a sweater in the back,’ Oliver said, glancing over again.
‘What?’ I didn’t understand.
‘You’re a mess,’ Oliver said calmly. ‘The sweater. Put it on.’
I did as I was told, pulling the oversized blue sweatshirt over my bloodstained clothes. I slouched lower in the seat, trying to disappear into the soft folds of fabric as he drove up to the window and paid, chatting nonchalantly to the cashier about the weather and the late shift. Then, when I almost couldn’t take it any more, he pulled into a space in the far corner of the parking lot and turned the engine off.
‘Here,’ he offered, holding out a bag of fries. ‘I knew you’d only steal mine.’
The smell hit me, grease and starch, and I gagged. I quickly threw open the car door and leaned out, waiting until the rush left my bloodstream before slowly sitting upright again.
Oliver was eating his burger, licking sauce off his fingers.
‘So,’ he began, looking at me again with those clear blue eyes. ‘What do I need to know?’
I shivered. Already, the scene in Ashton’s house seemed like a dream, a terrible nightmare. Here, with the lights, and the buzz of traffic audible and Oliver so casually ripping open a ketchup packet and smearing the sauce on his cardboard carton lid, I could almost tell myself it wasn’t real.