She breathes through her nose, every nerve awake. She just has to get past him, that’s all. Take a slap or duck a punch or maybe nothing at all, maybe as drunk as he is –
She rushes forward suddenly, surprising him. He jerks back at her momentum, exactly what she was hoping for, and she steps around the banister past him, getting a foot on the top step –
“Ugly bitch!” he shouts –
She feels the punch coming before it even lands, feels the air displace behind her –
She tries to duck, but her positioning is all wrong –
His fist connects –
She falls –
She’s falling –
The hard stairs coming up to meet her too fast, too fast, too fast –
And she screams –
“You’re nothing,” the man says. “You’re fat. You’re ugly. And too bloody monstrous for any boy to ever look at you.”
“Lots of boys look at me,” she says, but she’s got fear in her stomach. She can see his fists clenched at his side. She’s big, but he’s bigger, and she knows he’s not afraid to use those fists, like he used them on her mother just now, knocking her once across the kitchen table when the tea was too cold, a knock that sent Regine running up the stairs, him roaring after her.
He’s usually slow when he’s drunk, but she’s taken too long to grab her phone and her money, and when she left her bedroom, there he was, blocking the top of the stairs.
“No boy ever looks at you,” he spits at her. “You slut.”
“Let me pass,” she says, clenching her own fists. “Let me pass or I swear to God . . .”
He smirks. That stupid pink face of his, all lit up with ugly, drunk delight, that lank blond hair that always looks dirty, no matter how often he washes it. “Let you pass or you swear to God you’ll what?”
She says nothing, doesn’t move.
He steps back, gesturing grandly with one hand and bowing in a sarcastic way, giving her leave to go down the stairs. “Go on then,” he says. “Be my guest.”
She breathes through her nose, every nerve awake. She just has to get past him, that’s all. Take a slap or duck a punch or maybe nothing at all, maybe as drunk as he is –
She rushes forward suddenly, surprising him. He jerks back at her momentum, exactly what she was hoping for, and she steps around the banister past him, getting a foot on the top step –
“Ugly bitch!” he shouts –
She feels the punch coming before it even lands, feels the air displace behind her –
She tries to duck, but her positioning is all wrong –
His fist connects –
She falls –
She’s falling –
The hard stairs coming up to meet her too fast, too fast, too fast –
And she screams –
“You’re nothing,” the man says. “You’re fat. You’re ugly. And too bloody monstrous for any boy to ever look at you.”
“Lots of boys look at me,” she says, but she’s got fear in her stomach. She can see his fists clenched at his side. She’s big, but he’s bigger, and she knows he’s not afraid to use those fists, like he used them on her mother just now, knocking her once across the kitchen table when the tea was too cold, a knock that sent Regine running up the stairs, him roaring after her.
He’s usually slow when he’s drunk, but she’s taken too long to grab her phone and her money, and when she left her bedroom, there he was, blocking the top of the stairs.
“No boy ever looks at you,” he spits at her. “You slut.”
“Let me pass,” she says, clenching her own fists. “Let me pass or I swear to God . . .”
He smirks. That stupid pink face of his, all lit up with ugly, drunk delight, that lank blond hair that always looks dirty, no matter how often he washes it. “Let you pass or you swear to God you’ll –
69
Seth is suddenly back in the room with the coffins, gasping for breath. Regine’s thrashings have jerked her head away from his hand, breaking their connection.
She screams again.
And no wonder, Seth thinks with horror. She’s caught in some kind of loop, reliving the moment, reliving the worst moment.
She’s dying over and over and over again.
He can still feel her fear, still feel the pain of the punch, the terror of the slipping, the disbelief at the fall –
He’s got to find a way to get her out of there –
“Seth?” she says.
He freezes. Her voice is weak, desperate, afraid. Her head is still bound in the bandages, but she’s stopped struggling.
“Seth, is that you?”
“I’m here,” he says, grabbing her hands so she can feel him. “I’m here, Regine. We’ve got to get you out of here. Now.”
“Where are we? I can’t see. There’s something on my eyes –”
“You’re wrapped up. Here.” He turns her head to grab the seam at the back and starts unwrapping her. “We’re underground. Under the prison.”
“Seth,” she says as he reaches the level of her skin and starts slowly unsticking the bandage from her eyelids. “Seth, I was –”
“I know,” he says. “I saw it. But we’ve got to –”
And then he hears footfalls again. He turns to look. The Driver runs through the entrance to this room.
It sees them.
And it stops.
Stops right there in the central passageway and stares at them with its empty face.
“Oh, no,” Regine whispers. She’s peeled the last of the bandages away and can see what he’s seeing.
Seth looks around them. There’s nowhere to run. They’re backed into a corner, and Seth can tell from Regine’s face that she knows it, too.
“You go,” she says, her voice rough, her eyes filled with water, more vulnerable than he’s ever seen her. “I don’t think I can. I feel so weak. You get out of here.”
“Not a chance. Not even a little chance.”
“You came here to save me,” she says, shaking her head. “That’s enough. Really, you don’t even understand how much that’s enough. To have you choose to do that –”
“Regine –”
“You broke that loop somehow. You’ve already saved me –”
“I’m not leaving you here,” he says, raising his voice.
The footfalls begin again. The Driver is walking toward them, slowly. It takes out its baton, sparks flashing.