It didn’t make sense. What Michael was saying. I looked at him as if he were speaking a foreign language. My brain was processing his words but surely he couldn’t have really said what he did? Could he?
‘You look confused,’ he said, taking one step closer. ‘I’ll spell it out for you, lovely, stupid, selfish Rachel. I killed your friend. I slit her throat while she was looking directly into my eyes. I stood and watched her bleed for a while, flounder around on the ground like a fish. I was the one who left her to die, on the roadside. I didn’t expect her to last so long. That she did, that she suffered, just made it all the more rewarding.’
I was frozen to the spot by his words. Paralysed by what he was saying. My brain struggled to reconcile his admission of guilt with the Michael I knew. The Michael I’d fallen in love with.
‘No!’ I muttered, shaking my head.
The movement seemed to release a burst of adrenaline in me, a surge of fear. His expression was now changed, as if he’d taken off a mask. Grisly, horrid, gruesome. In that second, I knew he was showing me the real him for the first time and it terrified me.
The adrenaline coursing through my veins propelled me into action. I had to get away. The fight or flight response was screaming at me to flee. As fast as I could.
I turned towards my car, only to feel his hand grip my arm and try to spin me back towards him. I pulled as hard as I could, feeling his vice-like grip twist my skin, burn it. The strength of his hold made me fear he could simply snap my arm in two if he wanted.
All I had to do was get to my car. Hit the button on the phone. Signal to the police that I needed them. My location would be sent directly to them. I pulled as hard as I could, even though I could feel my muscles screaming at me to stop. I tried to scream for help, but even if I’d managed it, what good would it have done me?
We were here, miles from anywhere, in a car park barely used by anyone any more, along a quiet country lane.
‘Let me go!’ I managed, my feet losing their purchase on the dusty ground.
I could feel his body pressing against mine – not in passion this time. No desire. No need. No love.
I felt his arm snake around my chest, pull me backwards towards him. Away from my car. Away from the SOS call of the alarm. There was no tenderness. No love in the way I felt his breath, hot and heavy, at my ear.
‘You don’t get to reject me, Rachel!’ he spat, drops of spittle hitting my skin, making me recoil. ‘Not before I’ve done what I set out to do.’
I felt his hand on my throat and his grasp tightened; the air squeezed from my lungs, my head tilted backwards. I tried to kick out, but my feet were sliding on the ground, my shoes being pulled from my feet, falling off as he dragged me towards his car.
‘The more you struggle, the more it’ll hurt, or maybe you’d like it to hurt?’ he sneered.
I shook my head, again trying to pull away from him. I tried to claw his hand from my throat but he was too strong, using his other arm to immobilise my arms. All the kicking and flailing in the world had me going nowhere. Achieved nothing.
‘Please, let me go,’ I gasped. ‘I’ve got to go home. They’re expecting me. Paul will send the police out if I’m not back. They’ll be on their way.’
‘Then we’d better get out of here,’ he said, reaching his car and pulling open the passenger seat. ‘Get in.’
I shook my head, struggled more.
‘I said get in!’ he demanded loudly, forcefully. His face contorting in front of my eyes to the point that I no longer recognised him as the man he’d been to me just minutes before.
‘No!’ I shouted as loud as my burning lungs would allow. ‘No! I won’t. Let. Me. Go!’
‘Do you really think anyone’ll hear you?’ he sneered, pushing me towards the car, trying to force my body to fold into it.
I fought. I fought with all of my might. My heart pounding, my body slick with sweat, pulling against him, using every ounce of my strength. I could feel the gravel on the ground tear at my feet. Had Clare fought this hard? Had she been this scared?
A punch to my stomach folded me in half, drove the air from my body until I was gasping for breath I couldn’t find. I looked up at him, at his green eyes that had looked down at me with such love just a short time ago, trying to find some trace of the man I thought he was.
It was gone. There was nothing there to hope for or to cling to. I felt bile rise up and I didn’t have the strength to swallow it down. I threw up, my own vomit spattering the ground, his legs, my legs. It came in shuddering explosions of acidic liquid that I couldn’t stop.
I felt the car door crunch against my legs as he tried to force me further backwards onto the seat. I saw the shadow of his hand, raised against the sunlight. Tried to move my head as I saw it come at me …
Then my head was thrust backwards so forcefully, I felt the grinding and tearing of muscle, could taste blood in my mouth as my teeth slammed into my tongue. The impact of the back of my head hitting the top of the car was the last thing I remembered. That and the feeling of my body giving way beneath me.