Donovan turned and took a step away from me, but I didn’t do as he suggested and sit down.
I wasn’t going to do anything he wanted me to do.
Not again.
Not this time.
No more.
I was stooped over, weak and juddery.
And I was very, very scared.
For Sam, and for me.
Which must have been something Donovan was relying on because he took another step forwards without looking back.
That’s when I lunged for the vase of lilies.
It was right there on the coffee table between us.
A white ceramic jar with a curved handle and a thick base. The ceramic was weighty and solid. When I’d set it down on the coffee table earlier it had made a low thunk.
I seemed to be moving towards it much too slowly, as if I was moving through water.
It was taking an age for my fingers to curl around the handle.
And I was clumsy with fear and haste.
The backs of my fingers bumped against the cold ceramic. The jug toppled. Then I cupped my left hand around the side of the vase for support and gripped the handle properly and lifted it up.
With a strangled exhalation. A half-gasp of shock and surprise.
Partly because I’d really done it.
Partly because it felt enormously heavy.
And partly because he’d heard me and was starting to spin.
I was still raising the jug. The lilies were bouncing and splaying outwards, their pollen rising in a hazy puff, the water slopping and sloshing around.
I was intending to strike him over the head. One hard blow. A wild swing. Knock him unconscious. Knock him down.
But already I was starting to see the difficulties with that.
Because the jug was too big and too heavy.
Because he was too alert and too fast.
I couldn’t move quickly enough.
I was going to have to raise the jug up, and then stop, and then reverse my momentum and bring it downwards again.
On top of his head.
Which was always going to be difficult because he was taller than me, and because he was swinging fast at the hips, his coat tails billowing outwards around him, his elbow scything upwards, instinctively protecting his head at the same time as knocking the jug from my hands.
The jug plummeted.
Time seemed to accelerate with it. Everything collapsing inwards in a terrifying whoosh and rush.
I reared backwards on instinct.
The jug hit the floorboards sideways.
It detonated on impact. An explosion of ceramic and water and petals.
Followed by a moment of stillness.
Of horror.
I saw Donovan’s face twist with surprise and distaste, as if I’d somehow betrayed him, or as if he was regretting letting his guard down.
But by then I was dropping to my knees.
Not because I’d meant to. Because my legs had collapsed from under me.
And he was reaching downwards. Snatching for my arm to hoist me up.
I pulled my arm away from him but he adjusted and seized hold of my underarm instead, heaving me to my feet as his lower leg nudged the coffee table sideways and his shoe crunched on broken pottery and the spill of water and flowers.
He lifted me as if it was nothing. As if I was made of air.
The room blurred. My mind strobed white.
The stink of the lilies was strong and astringent.
And then he stopped in an instant. And went very still.
As if something inside him had snapped or suddenly failed.
Or as if some unseen film director had clapped their hands and yelled, ‘Cut!’
Slowly – too slowly – we both looked down together.
At my fist in his side.
At the jagged ceramic chunk I had dug deep into his stomach – under his coat, through his sweater – and the hot blood that was pulsing out over my hand and wrist.