Silence followed.
It was freighted. Frayed.
All the blood drained out of my head and pooled around my core. I stood so still I seemed to be vibrating, listening to the jagged echo of Bethany’s yelp in my mind.
Or was it a scream?
I replayed it in my head.
The sudden yip. The fractured ending.
There was shock and surprise in it, definitely. But was there anything else?
Like fear? Or hurt?
I couldn’t say.
She could have tripped in her heels, or stumbled, or overreacted to some other harmless incident in some way.
But my instincts said otherwise.
So did my hard-won knowledge. The burden of it.
A coolness spread over my skin. My throat burned. My nerve endings seemed to have been stripped and exposed like bare electrical wires.
And then there was the silence.
It persisted.
There was no call from Bethany afterwards. No shout of ‘I’m OK!’ or ‘Whoops!’ or ‘Sorry about that!’ No bolt of giddy, nervous laughter.
Thump.
The noise was louder this time, reverberating down through the floorboards above the living room.
I whipped my head sideways.
The ceiling light trembled.
My lungs felt as if they might burst from the breath I hadn’t taken.
There was still nothing from Bethany or Donovan. No explanation at all.
And I was listening for it, straining for it, all my senses lit up.
My vision had a sharp and unusual clarity. My hearing was pure and intense. I could smell the fresh lilies on the coffee table and the scent was suddenly sickly and cloying.
‘Bethany?’
My own voice shocked me. Not just the sound of it, but the fear wrapped inside it: the dry, nervous rasp.
‘Is everything OK up there?’
I was craning my neck because I still hadn’t moved away from the kitchen island. I wasn’t sure I could move.
But now my feet were drifting forwards, mounting the three small steps into the living area with a stiff and awkward unfamiliarity as if I’d never traversed them before.
My phone felt as heavy as a brick in my hand.
Perhaps Bethany had fainted. Maybe that could explain the thump I’d heard.
But you heard two thumps. You know you did.
And I hadn’t heard them all at once, either. There’d been one thump, and then a pause, and then a second thump several seconds later.
And why hadn’t Donovan said anything?
‘Bethany?’
There was still no answer.
Was this going to be like the basement, I wondered? Was that what they’d been laughing about? Were they both now messing with me?
I stopped and contemplated the front door for a moment, doubt tugging at my insides.
I could step outside. I could refuse to participate in whatever this was and wait for them to come looking for me.
But what kind of person would that make me?
—click.
And in my mind I was instantly back in that bathroom again with the man with the metallic voice. I was alone with nobody coming to help me.
There was no possible way I could do that to somebody else.
I moved towards the stairs and started to climb. It seemed to take me a very long time to reach the top.
I didn’t call out this time. Somehow, I sensed it would be the wrong thing to do.
When I stepped onto the landing my own blood raged in my ears.
Turning painfully slowly, I started towards the main bedroom, my feet dragging across the carpet as if my ankles were shackled.
The door was hanging partially closed.
I reached it and exhaled faintly, pushing it fully open.
Donovan looked up as I entered.
He was stationed near to the sofa with his back to the middle window, his backside and hands perched on the windowsill behind him.
A long, awful moment of waiting.
‘Where’s Bethany?’ I asked.