‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Hey.’
I must have lost time.
It had happened to me before.
Blank spaces during my days.
Voids I had fallen into.
‘Hey.’
It frightened me.
I knew I had to stay with him. Be present. Protect myself.
I’d sunk to the floor. Puddled into a ball.
‘Hey.’
He waved a hand in front of my face. He’d been sitting across from me with the coffee table between us. But now he was down on one knee in front of me. I wasn’t sure how long had passed. It could have been five seconds or five minutes.
‘Hey.’ He gently shook my shoulder. ‘Where’d you go? What just happened to you?’
I trembled.
My mind flashed on the schoolgirl who’d fallen outside. Donovan was talking to me in the same soothing way that he’d talked to her, using the same caring tone.
It made my skin crawl.
‘Hey.’
My forehead and the back of my neck were burning hot. My scalp ached as if someone was pulling my hair.
I kept my face down. Stared at my hands curled up in front of me.
My sight was blurred. My fingers were doubling.
‘Listen to me. Focus on my voice.’
I shuddered. It was the wrong thing to say.
I got what he was trying to do. I understood that he was trying to bring me out of my panic attack.
But the last thing I needed right now was to listen to Donovan’s voice. Because it brought back his voice. The figure in the bathroom. The man who’d attacked me.
‘I’ve been watching you.’
‘Don’t.’
I squeezed my eyes tight shut. Felt the backwash of pain against my temple.
I heard Donovan move back a little, but his hand remained on my shoulder and I didn’t want it there. I didn’t want to be touched at all.
‘Let go of me.’
He withdrew his fingers but I could still feel their imprint afterwards, aching like sores.
‘Time to get you up,’ he told me.
I didn’t respond.
‘Come on, I’m going to help you into this chair and then—’
He reached for me again but this time I leaped up and away.
Too fast.
Too unsteady.
The floor rocked and dipped.
I reached out for the armchair I’d been sitting on, but my hand passed right through it, and meanwhile he grabbed for my other wrist, holding me up.
My scar burned fiercely under his grip. It was roaring hot.
The rest of me felt wet and limp, as if I’d been drenched in a storm.
Hold on.
‘Just so you know,’ he told me, ‘you were completely out of it for a few seconds there. I mean, totally out of it.’
I snatched my arm away from him and this time he let me.
‘Like you care.’
‘Maybe I do,’ he said. ‘Now. And you really don’t remember the roof?’
‘I told you, I wasn’t on any roof.’
‘Listen—’
‘Stop saying that! You don’t want to help me. You drugged Bethany. You were going to suffocate John. You have someone following Sam.’
I raised a hand to ward him off. I was perspiring copiously. My saliva was hot and oily. I thought I might pass out again.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘Sam will be here soon.’
Sam.
Anxiety knotted in my stomach.
He couldn’t walk into this.
I didn’t want him in danger. I didn’t want him to get hurt.
‘Please,’ I begged. ‘Leave him out of this.’
‘Just . . . sit down for a second, OK? I’m going to fetch you some water. Let you catch your breath.’