Jason pulled himself away from Ethan Grant. He looked at Dani and then carefully moved around the spilled acid and over to her. Dani could see now that the acid had burned away much of his clothes down one side. The bloody, pulpy mess underneath was clearly evident. Yet he almost seemed oblivious as he moved forwards towards Dani with purpose. He was running on nothing but adrenaline.
He crouched down and tugged at her hands.
‘I can’t get these off,’ Jason said. ‘I’ll go and get help.’
‘No!’ Dani said ‘You’re not leaving me here alone. You can’t.’
‘I’m not sure what else to do!’
‘Stand by the fucking door with a wrench in your hand. Take her damn head off when she comes back in!’
Jason huffed at that.
‘Over there,’ Dani said, nodding into the far corner where some of the racking looked like it contained tools. ‘There must be something you can use to pick the cuffs.’
‘I’ve never done that before,’ Jason said.
‘No, but I’m guessing you’ve never sawn through plastic cable ties with a shoelace while hog-tied either?’
‘No. But I did see the YouTube video for that one.’
Jason almost smiled.
‘And I’ve seen plenty on how to pick locks. Come on, Jason, hurry!’
He stood and jumped over the acid pool and limped to the corner. After rattling about for a few seconds, he turned around.
‘Even better,’ he said, holding up a set of bolt cutters.
He gingerly moved back over and behind Dani. She heard him straining as he heaved down on the cutters. There was a crunching sound and Dani pulled at her wrists but they were still held firmly together.
‘Jason?’
‘Fuck’s sake. Those things bent the cutters. But… just let me try one more time.’
Jason heaved again and this time she heard a snap. But when she pulled her hands, she still couldn’t move them forwards.
The next thing she knew the cutters were hurtling through the air in front of her. They clattered against the racking at the end of the room.
‘Useless!’ Jason shouted. He came back in front of Dani, his face contorted in a painful grimace as he clutched his stricken side with his good arm. ‘The chain is almost cut through, you can probably pull them off now, but you need to work them properly.’
Jason quickly explained the technique, which was much the same as an alternative technique for snapping cable ties. He instructed her to pull the cuffs down, twist the wrists so her palms were facing outwards, then pull out and down in one sharp motion.
‘Got it,’ Dani said. She’d seen those videos too.
She tried and cried out in pain when all that happened was that the cuffs dug into the flesh on her wrists.
‘It’s almost there, Dani, do it again.’
She pulled and tugged again. No luck. Then again and again. She felt blood pouring down over her hands and her fingers. The pain was making her delirious. She imagined the flesh on her wrists peeled right back.
But she had no choice. She had to keep trying.
‘One more time!’ Jason said.
Then she saw Ethan move. His eyelids flickered. Then opened.
He began to shift, like a coiled snake waiting to unfurl.
‘Dani, come on!’ Jason shouted.
Tears streaming, Dani heaved one more time and her hands shot forwards in front of her. Before she could even process relief or the pain that was now consuming her, Ethan Grant was up on his feet, rage in his eyes.
Dani lunged for him.
They clattered to the floor and Ethan screamed as he landed in the acid. There was ferocious anger in his eyes. Even though Dani was on top he grabbed her neck and began to choke her. His strength was too much. She couldn’t breathe at all.
She stared into his evil eyes. In desperation, Dani channeled the inner rage that had eaten away at her over the last two years and pushed her thumbs into Ethan’s eye sockets, using every ounce of animal strength she had. The inner rage that had been such a detriment to her life over the last two years was breaking out.
She wouldn’t try to stop it this time.
She pushed with her thumbs as hard as she could, venom and hatred bursting from her. Blood oozed out of Ethan’s eye sockets.
‘Dani!’ Jason shouted.
She barely heard him. She crashed Ethan’s head into the floor again and again. It was a scene of bloody horror. Dani would never have imagined she could stand to even watch something like that, never mind do it.
But she could. Because she knew for damn sure that Ethan Grant deserved no better.
Jason had grabbed hold of her trying to pull her up and away. Eventually he managed it.
Dani clambered to her feet. Ethan’s eyes were now two dark holes. Blood streamed from them. Dani thumped her heel down into Ethan’s face then kicked him in the side and used her foot to heave him over. The side of his face landed in the bubbling pool of acid and he found the strength to scream as the skin and flesh on his cheek fizzed and melted.
Not long after that, the screaming stopped. Ethan Grant went silent and still.
‘Dani, we have to go.’
Dani tried to clear the torment from her mind. She nodded.
As they ran for the staircase at the far end, Dani suddenly changed course. She moved over and grabbed the broken cutters. The blade mechanism was wrecked but it was still a big lump of metal.
They moved cautiously up the stairs then stopped at the closed door. Jason looked at Dani. She nodded and held up the cutters. Jason pulled on the handle and crashed open the door.
They barrelled out into the night. But everything was dark and quiet.
Jason stepped forwards past her.
‘Mary, no!’ Dani heard a man call out. Steven Grant?
There was a crackle of static and Jason collapsed to the ground.
Dani spun around, saw the dark object coming towards her chest and dodged it, rolling down onto the ground. She sprang back up, arced the cutters behind her and swung forwards ferociously. The contact was solid and sent a jolt up her arm and into her neck.
There was a thud as the figure collapsed to the ground. Dani didn’t let up. She lifted the cutters above her head, swung down and crashed the metal onto the fallen figure. There was a sickly crack and squelch as the metal smashed into the target.
‘No, Dani, stop!’
Dani spun around again, to where the voice had come from.
‘Whoa, whoa, Dani.’
She paused. It was Steven Grant. He held his empty hands up in the air. His face was panicked.
‘It’s ok, Dani. It’s me. I’m here to help you.’
Dani said nothing, just held the cutters aloft, ready to strike again. Grant held out a hand to Dani, but she wasn’t buying his good samaritan act. She edged backwards, moving closer to where Jason was groaning on the floor. She looked across at the figure she’d felled. It was hard to see clearly in the darkness, but she was sure it was Mary. Whether she was alive or not, Dani had no clue.
‘You stay away from me,’ she said to Grant.
‘Dani? Come on, it’s me. I’m not going to hurt you.’
‘No. You leave that to your bitch of a wife and your low-life son.’
Even in the darkness, Dani saw the twitch on Grant’s face. A chink in his accommodating facade?
‘I came here to stop her. To stop them both. You have to believe me. This isn’t what I want.’
‘How did you even know we were here?’ Dani asked. A wave of revulsion washed through her. She’d sat as a guest in his home just days before. Had he known then what Mary was planning?
‘Ethan told me!’ Grant said. ‘Seriously, Dani, you have to believe me. Why else would I turn up like this? What do you think Mary and I were doing just now? She didn’t know I was coming. We were arguing. I was telling her she had to stop. She had to turn herself in!’
‘But did you know!’ Dani screamed, so hard it made her lungs burn. ‘How many other people has she killed?’
Grant didn’t have an answer for that.
‘And Ethan?’ Dani said. ‘Nature versus nurture, right?’
‘He’s my son,’ Grant said. ‘Our son.’
‘But you don’t need to worry about Ethan anymore,’ Dani said with a sneer. ‘He won’t cause trouble for anyone now.’
Grant’s face twitched again. He knew what she meant. And Dani knew she was playing a dangerous game taunting him like that. But she had to push. Because if there was any chance he really hadn’t known about his wife and son’s dark secrets, and that he really did want to help – a flicker of hope – then she had to find out, and fast.
Grant took a step forwards. Dani tightened her grip on the bolt cutters further.
‘Another step and I’ll smash this into your skull,’ she said. ‘Then I’ll do it again and again until I’m certain you can’t hurt me anymore.’
‘Dani, I’m here to help. I really am. Please, let me.’
Hearing a murmur, Dani turned to Jason. His face was covered in blood. The open wound he’d already had up above his eye was now gaping.
‘Jason?’
Dani bent down and shook him gently, one eye still on Grant. He bent down next to Mary who was unmoving.
‘Don’t touch her!’ Dani shouted, straightening back up.
‘I need to see if she’s ok!’
‘No. You don’t.’
Grant slowly rose back to his feet, his face creased with anger. Mary still didn’t move at all.
‘Jason, come on, you need to get up,’ Dani prodded him with her foot.
‘I can help,’ Grant said. ‘My car’s here. I’ll get you both away.’
Jason went to sit up and Dani bent down again and put her hand under his armpit to help haul him up, the cutters still gripped tightly in her other hand. Despite his increasingly battered body, Jason was coming around again and was soon able to take his own weight. Dani took a quick glance around her. She spotted Grant’s car parked between hers and Jason’s. She had no idea where her own keys were.
‘Take out your car keys and throw them over,’ Dani said.
Grant didn’t respond.
‘Give me something, Steven. For fuck’s sake, your wife is a murderer and was about to chop us up and dissolve our bodies! If you really want me to believe that you’re here to help then you need to do as I say.’
‘Fine. Fine,’ he said. He reached into his trouser pocket, pulled out a set of keys and tossed them over. They bounced off Jason’s leg and onto the floor.
‘We’re going now,’ Dani said. ‘Don’t try to follow us.’
Grant didn’t move or even respond.
‘Maybe you should go and check on your son,’ Jason said, as he bent down to pick up the keys. ‘At least, what’s left of him.’
Dani saw the look on Grant’s face change, rage bursting through. He lunged forwards.
‘Jason!’
But Jason was too injured. He tried to defend himself, but it only took a simple stab from Grant, the taser gripped in his outstretched hand – had he picked it up from Mary?
Jason’s body pulsed as it crumpled to the ground once more.
Dani surged forwards, a cry of fury erupting as she swung the cutters through the air. Grant had enough time to lift his arm up to protect his head but the huge impact still sent him reeling back and he shouted out in pain. The blow had been easily hard enough to shatter the bones of his lower arm.
The taser clattered away. But Grant wasn’t finished. With Dani’s body still twisted from the momentum of the blow, Grant barrelled into her midriff and they both tumbled to the floor and Dani lost grip of the cutters.
Her head smacked off the concrete and her vision blurred. She tried to move but couldn’t. The slivers of moonlight coming through the tall windows of the warehouse danced in front of her.
‘He’s my son,’ Grant said, tears rolling down his cheeks. ‘My only son.’
Dazed, Dani’s vision blurred. Ben? Standing over her. That hideous ornament in his hand that he’d tried to kill her with. She’d been lying on the floor then, in the lounge of the home he’d shared with his wife and kids. He’d wanted to kill Dani. He’d bludgeoned her. But he’d never checked that she was dead before rushing off to kill Gemma. He should have made sure he finished her off.
Suddenly the image – hallucination? – flickered and Dani realised it wasn’t Ben standing over her, but Steven Grant. And he wasn’t about to make the same mistake as Ben had. His face was creased with venom. She’d killed his son. Had she killed Mary too? It didn’t matter what Ethan and his mother were. Steven Grant still loved them. He lifted the bolt cutters above his head…
Then his eyes widened and his body jerked and jolted. He lurched forwards, much like Jason had moments earlier when he’d been tasered. He kept coming. Right for Dani.
All she could do as Steven Grant descended upon her was to hold up a hand to her face. It did little to soften the blow as Grant’s heavy body slammed down onto her, winding her in the process, and sending her to the brink of unconsciousness.
She couldn't breathe. Grant’s listless mass was covering her face. She began to drift. She was going to suffocate.
Then she heard a muffled voice that gave her the focus she needed.
‘Dani. Are you ok?’
Jason.