I took a step backwards, staring at Donovan.
A ripple of horror made me physically buck.
Donovan’s eyes were closed. The crossbar of the stool was embedded in his throat. His body was limp, his arms splayed at his sides. Blood from his dressing was dripping slowly onto the stove.
‘Sam?’ I whispered.
Sam stumbled as he readjusted his footing. His mouth was gaping. I could see blood staining the fabric of his jeans where he’d been cut on his leg.
He cringed and eased up on the force he was exerting down through the stool, but only by a fraction. He looked scared and horrified by what he’d done.
When Donovan still didn’t move, I swallowed thickly and reached towards his neck, my hand moving slowly, slowly, until my fingers touched his jugular.
His skin was warm and clammy.
He didn’t respond to my touch.
I pushed gently on Sam’s arm with my other hand until he eased off very slightly more on the stool.
A terrifying second.
I gulped as I probed Donovan’s neck, wary of the slightest movement.
A flicker beneath my fingertips. His pulse was sluggish, but there.
I felt a trickle of relief in my stomach mixed with more uncertainty.
Now that I was nearer, I could see the tremor of his pupils beneath his eyelids and, when I raised the back of my hand to his nostrils, a faint exhalation washed against my skin. It reminded me of Bethany. We needed to get to her.
‘I think he’s unconscious,’ I whispered.
‘Are you sure?’
‘I think you can ease off. I think it’s OK.’
Sam looked terrified as he lifted the stool away in shaky increments, poised to stab down with it again if Donovan stirred.
‘It’s OK,’ I said again. ‘He’s not moving.’
Very slowly, Sam lifted the stool clear and set it down sideways on the kitchen island, snatching his hands away from it as if he wished he’d never touched it, but keeping it within reach.
I could see how freaked out he was. There was a wash of tears in his eyes and he was hobbling from the cut to his leg.
When he looked again at Donovan, he seemed equal parts stunned and appalled by his actions.
‘Thank you,’ I told him.
He nodded wordlessly but I could tell he was uncomfortable about it. I could tell he still wasn’t sure about me.
I placed my hand on his back. I could feel the heat coming through his shirt.
‘You saved me,’ I whispered. ‘You did the right thing.’
His hands were loose at his sides. He wasn’t hugging me back.
‘But can you call the police now?’ I asked. ‘For real this time? I have to go up and help Bethany.’
I went to hurry away but Sam reached for my hand, pulling me back.
‘Why did you think there was someone else?’ he asked me, his gaze flitting across my face. ‘Outside. You said you were afraid someone was watching me. You thought they might have followed me home.’
‘Because that’s what he told me. He made me think he was communicating with someone in your support group. He told me they were faking a phobia. But now I think he was lying.’
‘Why?’
I glanced at Donovan again. He still wasn’t moving but I was reluctant to waste more time.
‘Because if he was working with someone else they would have followed us in here. He would have called them for help after I stabbed him. Just like we should be calling the police.’
A tiny line formed between Sam’s eyebrows.
‘What is it?’ I asked him.
He didn’t answer me. His gaze had gone inwards, as if something was niggling at him, a thought he was afraid to voice.
‘Sam, what is it?’
‘There was someone in the group today,’ he said slowly, almost as if he was only now piecing it all together in his mind. ‘She stayed behind with me at the end. I noticed she had a tattoo. Inside her wrist.’
He turned my hand over and showed me, smoothing his fingers over my skin close to my scar.
His fingers felt strangely cold. I didn’t like the haunted look on his face.
‘The tattoo was of a bumblebee.’
‘So?’
‘Her phobia.’ He raised his gaze to the ceiling and closed his eyes briefly, as if he’d overlooked something obvious he should have spotted before now. ‘She told me she suffered from trypanophobia.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Fear of needles. She shouldn’t have had a tattoo.’
And that’s when Sam seized hold of both my arms, spun me around and shoved me hard down the basement steps.