Searing pain shoots through Lydia’s head, her brain drowning in thick, white fog. The coppery taste of blood fills her mouth and spills out, warm and sickly, over her cheek and ear. Her body throbs like an electric current, every rhythmic pulse threatening to burst her apart at the seams. She’s dizzy. Disoriented.
As her consciousness gradually returns, she realises that she is upside down. She tries to move, but everything hurts. It feels like every bone in her body is broken, every inch of flesh bruised.
You’ll die if you stay here.
Lydia opens her eyes and sees her hand twisted against the steering wheel in front of her. Some of her nails are broken, but her ruby ring looks undamaged. She peers into its black depths for a moment, thinks of her mother, and with an almighty scream manages to push herself out through the shattered window onto icy stone covered with inch-deep snow where she lays for a while, staring up into the black night as the blizzard continues all around her.
Get up. Get up. GET UP!
With a roar of pain, Lydia hauls herself to her feet and staggers, clutching her aching stomach, falling onto the side of the car and fighting to keep her feet. The car has crashed into one low wall at the side of Traveller’s Bridge, overturned and spun across to hit the other, knocking holes in both.
“No…” Lydia stares at the popped-open trunk and an icy fear grips her heart. “No, no, no…” Holding on to the car for support, she edges around to get a clearer look inside. “NO!”
Finley is gone. Lydia looks around frantically, blazing pain wracking her stiff neck every time she turns it. The trees all around are silent. The freezing water far below a distant whisper. Where are you?
Suddenly a tormented scream pierces the frigid air behind her, and before she can turn around something heavy falls on her back, knocking her down. Icy fingers scrabbling at her neck, gradually squeezing it shut as Finley’s mangled, bloodied face looms into view. Lydia grabs his wrists tightly and he screams, yanking one hand clean away and loosening his grip with the other. Lydia seizes the opportunity, raising her feet underneath Finley’s body and kicking out hard, flipping him up and over her head. He lands with a crack on the ice but rolls over and springs unsteadily to his feet, blood pouring from his mouth full of broken teeth. He’s cradling his right hand in his left, which still has the handcuffs hanging from it, and Lydia can tell from the angle at which it’s bent that his wrist is broken. He broke his own wrist to free himself from the cuffs. Finley’s breathing is heavy, his movements tired, laboured. But he has a wild animal’s will to survive at any cost, eyes glowing with a hunger that Lydia recognises only too well. The hunger for blood. For death.
“You’ve ruined everything!” Finley hisses. “All I wanted was for you to understand. To see the world as I do.” Lydia tries to reply, but it hurts even to breathe. Her lungs are empty. Her throat dry. “You’ve wasted my precious time,” Finley growls, “and for that I will paint this bridge with your blood!”
He lunges for her. Lydia tries to run, but slips on the ice and lands hard on her face. Her insides feel like they’ve been through a blender. She has nothing more to give. With a triumphant yell, Finley yanks her to her feet by her hair and slaps her hard across the face twice, each strike like a bullet to the cheek. Lydia kicks out wildly towards Finley’s bleeding gut and connects. He screams and releases her, and she falls to the ground again, scrambling to get away. She reaches the broken wall on the far side of the bridge and peers over to the river below. How had Jason survived that drop? It must be a hundred feet high.
“You think you can beat me?” Finley screams, staggering towards her. “I’m the Krimson Killer! I’ve snuffed out more meaningful lives than yours in my sleep! I tricked the whole world, and gave it some of the most beautiful art it will ever see. And I will never, ever, stop.” Lydia braces herself, but Finley does not go for her. He’s just staring at her with those deranged eyes, grinning his malevolent grin. She follows his gaze to her leg, fresh blood trickling down it. Is she cut? Her back hurts, low down, like she’s been punched. Her legs are giving way beneath her. Right before they buckle, Finley lunges drunkenly forward and grabs her, spinning her around and throwing her through the car’s windscreen which shatters with a deafening crash. Lydia gasps for air. She is in so much pain. Unable to move. Unable to breathe. Hot, wet tears form in her eyes and trickle down her frozen cheeks. This is it. She is going to die.
Finley reaches for the car door to wrench it open, but something stops him. A reflection in the glass. A person. He roars and spins around, but there’s nobody there. He looks back to the window and squints through fast-fading eyes. A handsome young man smiles serenely back at him. His brother, Jason. Not the Jason Lydia knows, but the healthy, clean-shaven Jason from before he went to Mortem.
“B… brother?” Finley whispers, his misty breath disappearing into the night like a ghost. The reflection nods serenely. Finley’s broken face cracks into a twisted smile, then something heavy slams him full in the face, sending him flying backwards to land with a sickening crack on the edge of the bridge. He wriggles frantically like an upside down spider to get to his feet, clutching his torn gut, eyes searching desperately for the source of the blow.
The car’s heavy chrome bumper is in Lydia’s hands, her eyes burning with hatred, and a flicker of doubt crosses Finley’s face for the first time. Doubt… and fear. He was death incarnate, but in his bloodlust he had created something even worse. Far worse.
Lydia grips the makeshift weapon tightly, blood thundering through her veins, heart about to burst through her chest. The whole world turns red. A whole lifetime of pain boiling over. Alex, gone. He did this. She knows what she is going to do, and in this moment, finally, she understands, and hates what the darkness has done to her.
Finley’s shoulders drop. He is beaten. He knows it. Betrayed by his own ego. The irony stings more than any wound. His eyes move again to Lydia’s waist and he smiles a strange smile with open arms, welcoming her. “Alright,” he growls. “I’m ready.”
With a roar, Lydia lunges forward and smashes him hard in the face with the cold metal. For a moment he just stands there, frozen in space and time, eyes rolling up in his head as his spirit begins to leave his body. But Lydia is taking no chances. Summoning every ounce of her remaining strength, she hurls herself at him and wrestles his spasming, heavy body over the edge of the bridge. Finley screams, arms spread wide, a look of what seems like euphoria on his smashed-in face as he plummets to the darkness. Lydia listens for the horrible, cold, distant splash as the body finds its watery grave, then sinks to her knees and sobs. She is a killer now, and always will be. That is a mark she can never wash off.
Still gasping for air and wracked with pain that seems to get worse by the second, she crawls back to the car and fumbles in the glove compartment for a flask she keeps hidden there. Then she pushes the power button on the radio. The rich, dulcet tones of Frank Sinatra spill out across the snow, Under my Skin, echoing off the trees all around and down to the frozen river below as Lydia unscrews the flask and takes a long, greedy drink. The liquor burns her throat, but warms her heart. She looks at her watch. Ten-thirty. Jason must be gone. She thinks of his body burning right now in the dark depths of Mortem, and more tears roll down her frozen, clammy cheeks.
She thinks of Gretchen, beautiful Gretchen, the good doctor she had treated so meanly, but who had shown her nothing but kindness and been right about her all along. She would be at home now, kids in bed, perhaps snuggling with her husband on the couch.
Lydia looks down at her own blood staining the pure, white snow, and remembers the wicked voice of the warden, Winston Shade, threatening her with a fate worse than death. Too late you bastard. You can’t get me now.
She starts to laugh, then splutters and chokes, wincing in pain. Her eye catches her ruby ring, caked in blood. She licks her fingers and rubs it clean until it glints brightly in the moonlight.
Finally, the thought she has been keeping at bay rises to the surface of her consciousness. The thought of Alex lying dead in the attic of that horrible house. The thought that she will never again see his cheeky smile, or hear his soft, kind voice, gaze into his pretty brown eyes, feel his heartbeat with hers. She was a fool; she never could win.
And at last she realises what is causing the escalating dull pain as she lies down in the snow, a cold shaking broken ruby glittering amongst an ocean of white, staring up into the black sky, bleeding steadily from the cuts etched across her body as well as the knife wound in her back. This is the life that she chose, and it has been both a gift and a curse. Finally, Lydia knows. Everything comes with a price. The true question now: was it a price worth paying?