Chapter 32

Maria entered the room, a two-handed grip on the broken scissors for protection. She’d already drawn blood, and wouldn’t hesitate to do the same again. She knew Garrett had to be lurking somewhere.

He waited until she was three paces inside the room, swung the door shut, and lunged.

At first, he thought he’d been punched. Winded but not out, he stumbled forward, losing his balance before crashing to the hessian rug. He tried to pull himself to his feet but his legs didn’t have the strength. A light sheen of sweat smattered across his forehead as he ignored the searing pain in his gut and rolled sideways trying to prop himself up on his elbow, but it was to no avail as the pain worsened. Resigned to his fate, he slunk back down, his head resting on the edge of the rug.

‘Guess you finally got your wish,’ he said, as the warm blood seeped through his shirt, turning it crimson. Garrett pressed his hand against the wound to his lower abdomen before pulling it away to regard his bloodstained palm. ‘You’re one crazy bitch, you know that?’

Maria stood motionless, still clasping the scissors, ready to finish the job should he launch a second attack.

Time running out, his breath shortening to rasps, he had to know. ‘How’d you do it, you were dead?’

She watched with morbid fascination as Garrett’s life ebbed closer to the brink. Her eyes drawn to his pallid, sweaty features as he struggled for air. Maria found it intoxicating, caught in the hypnotic rhythm of each breath, wondering which one would be his last.

It wasn’t how she’d planned it, and now she held all the cards, his fate in her hands. The thought of standing up in a courtroom on a manslaughter charge and giving evidence, hoping the decision would go in her favour was just too big a risk.

Still holding the blade, she crouched next to him, careful to remain just out of his reach. ‘I can help you.’

Garrett lifted his head from the rug. ‘You stabbed me.’

‘You came at me. I thought you were one of them.’

‘No, you tried to kill me,’ wincing, he tried to move, ‘still might get your way.’

Maria leant closer, ‘Lie still, it’s not that bad,’ she lied.

Garrett’s eyes rolled in their sockets as he tried to deal with sudden strike of pain. ‘You reckon? Burns like a bastard.’

Maria looked at him, her eyes cold. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?

‘Tell you what?’

‘The tumor, Garrett, why didn’t you trust me.’

‘Too late for all that—you and lover boy...’ his words trailed off as he closed his eyes.

‘Stay with me, Garrett—I can get you help, just stay with me.’

Maria edged closer. Risking contact, she checked for a pulse in his wrist, ‘Garrett, Garrett.’ She thought that she felt something but couldn’t be sure. Pressing two fingers to his neck she tried the vein, ‘don’t you die on me, not like this, you bastard.’

She grabbed him by the collar and began dragging him to the door; she had to get him out before it was too late.

With the jolt of the stairs, Garrett’s eyes snapped open. ‘What are you trying to do to me?’

‘Come on, work with me, nearly there now—get you help, a doctor.’

He grabbed at her arm holding the scissors. ‘Leave me be, it’s better this way.’

Maria’s voice took on a steely harshness, ‘you think, for who—you or me, Garrett?’

‘Finish it. Go on, do it now—make out it was self-defence.’

Maria tugged her arm free from his grip. ‘We’re walking out of here...Together, now move,’ she said, half dragging, half carrying, supporting his weight with her shoulders.

‘I never meant to hurt you.’

‘No, you just tried to choke me to death. Save it for someone who gives a shit.’ Maria spat the words with venom as she hauled his deadweight of a carcass closer to the front door.