The party.
Somewhere in my head I could hear the music again. The rapid thrash-thrash-thrash. People laughing and shouting. Drinks being poured. Lights pulsing and whirling.
And then the lock on the bathroom door.
—click.
The violent shove and the shower curtain that had tangled around me as I’d fallen backwards into the bathtub and the blurred figure who’d cornered me, pressed me down, held me under the water rushing out of the tap.
It had happened so fast. Been so unprovoked.
But staring at Donovan, it was as if the water was filling my throat again, spilling out of my mouth.
I squinted at him until his face became smeared and indistinct.
Oh God.
I almost doubled up and retched.
I knew how quickly he’d overpowered Bethany.
‘No.’
I tried stepping back but I had nowhere to go. The bottom of the daybed was pressing against my legs and lower back. I was in danger of tipping backwards over it.
‘No, you don’t want to talk about it?’ he asked me. ‘Or no, you won’t?’
I raised a hand to cover my throat, my other hand tightening into a fist behind me.
In my head, a part of me was under the bath tap again, snared in the shower curtain, the water pummelling down, strong hands on my shoulders, pinning me there.
‘Was it you?’ I asked him.
‘Was what me?’
I raised my voice. ‘WAS. IT. YOU?’
His nostrils flared as he canted his head to one side, a threatening expression forming on his face as he slowly waggled his phone in the air.
‘I told you to keep the volume down, Lucy. I’m pretty sure I explained that Sam’s life depends on it.’
‘Don’t you come near me.’
I was shivering. Quaking. A rushing noise in my ears.
My fist tightened behind me, nails digging into my skin.
‘Why don’t you start by telling me about the roof?’
‘I don’t—’
‘The roof. Start there.’
I shook my head again, faster now.
‘I have no idea what you mean.’
‘The roof, Lucy. Enough bullshit.’
I peered upwards, groping for the right thing to say. ‘I already told you. We had it replaced. We—’
‘Not this roof. At the party. Tell me what happened when you were up on the roof.’
‘There was no roof.’
I stared at him.
The gurgling sounds receded, overlaid by a single, discordant note – a single key played on a mistuned piano.
‘Just tell me what happened.’
‘Stop fucking with me!’
He glowered and raised one finger, shaking his head in another irate reminder that I needed to be quiet.
I noticed that he’d adjusted his stance, spreading his legs apart, bracing one foot behind him, one in front of him, his coat open and parted around his thighs.
His front foot was perhaps two metres away from me. The toe of his loafer was almost nudging the ice pack that was down on the floor.
I glanced at it, thinking of how he’d tossed it down in front of me, and then his eyes tracked mine and he looked for himself, the skin around his eyes contracting for a fraction of a second, and in that moment I sensed that he was remembering something else and that if I didn’t act now then—
I launched myself forwards.
Acting on impulse.
On instinct.
And desperation.
Pushing off from the bed frame, springing forwards from my toes, diving towards him in one fast, explosive leap with Sam’s house keys clenched in my closed fist, the new brass key carefully positioned so that its jagged teeth were protruding from between my fingers.
Like a serrated dagger.
A blade.
That I punched down deep into his thigh and—
No.
I was moving inexplicably sideways, spinning around, the room spinning with me.
He’d reacted so fast it took me a moment to recognize that he’d seen my move coming – had anticipated it easily – and had blocked me before I could stab him, forcing my arm to one side, snatching at my wrist with his hand, using my own momentum to twirl me around and draw me into his chest with practised ease.
Like a dance move.
A tango.
Only hard and uncompromising.
A trap.
His arm held me firm as his hand compressed the bones of my wrist. Squeezing harder. Tighter. Remorselessly on.
‘Drop the keys,’ he said, his breath a hot puff against my face.
I didn’t.
He ratcheted up the pressure.
I gurgled in pain.
If I’d thought he was squeezing my wrist badly before, it was suddenly so much worse.
It felt like my bones might disintegrate. I could feel my tendons compressing, bones grinding.
‘I said, drop them.’
Still I resisted.
He squeezed even harder again, exerting an impossible force, as if my hand was trapped in a machine vice, my fingers throbbing.
And meanwhile, he pressed his knee into the small of my back, coiled his other hand around my shoulders with his phone still clenched in it and jerked me backwards and off balance.
I flailed, pushing up onto my toes.
Was this what he’d done to Bethany, I wondered? Was this why she’d yelped?
I still didn’t drop the keys.
On one level, I understood that they were useless to me now. He was holding my wrist so securely, and he had my upper body at such an awkward angle, that I had no chance of stabbing him with them.
But I held on anyway.
My stubborn streak.
After what had happened to me in that bathroom I’d sworn to myself I’d never let another man hurt me again.
‘You’re going to give me answers,’ he told me. ‘An explanation. I told you I don’t want to hurt you and I meant it. But don’t push me because that would be a big mistake.’
I cried out as he squeezed my wrist even harder again.
His leather glove twisted my skin until it burned. My bones ached as if they were being heated from within.
Then he squeezed even harder and this time I released the keys before I’d made a conscious decision to do it.
They bounced off the floor.
But he didn’t release me.
He put his lips to my ear.
‘When are you going to get it into your head that this is over for you now? I found you. I swore that I was going to find you and I did.’
‘Let me go.’
I stamped on his foot.
Kicked his shin with my heel.
It made no difference.
‘I said—’
And that was when the doorbell sounded.
The friendly two-note chime.
Coming from downstairs.