Page 161 of Into the Dark
“You should leave, Kevin…right now…before he gets here…” I just manage stop myself from saying please.
“Alex.” He shifts, securing me a little more firmly with his legs. “We both know Jay ain’t on his way home. We both know exactly where our boy is right now, and it’s with Vic, playing Dad of the fucking Year.” My heart sinks even as I try to understand how he could know that. “What do you reckon? Think they’re at it as we speak? Jay never was the most faithful dog on the block. Never known him to be all that fussy either, even if Vic and him are a fucking headache. They hate each other, they’re fucking each other’s brains out, they hate each other again.”
“What do you want, Kevin?” I ask, cutting him off. It’s the strongest my voice has sounded yet.
Kevin sighs—a far-off, dreamy sigh. It’s a horrifying sound. Up there with the sound the foxes make in the fields behind the house at night.
“What do I want? What do I want?” The hand he throws over me starts to stroke at my hip. Tender, soft strokes that make me feel ill. Ill and dirty. “I want a lot of things, Alex. I want a villa with a pool in Marbella. I want to own a bar by the beach. I want a pretty little redhead to sit on my dick for days on end. But none of that’s a possibility now, is it?”
“Why…? What are you talking about?”
“Oh, stop playing stupid, Alex,” he barks, making me flinch. “It don’t fucking suit you.”
Closing my eyes shut, I flatten my hand over my stomach and focus instead on my breathing. In, out, deep, slow, in, out, deep, slow. He says nothing more, and I’m counting how much money I have saved that I could give him so he can go live out his Spanish dream when the knife begins to move. It moves slowly but with purpose down my neck to my chest, down over my breastbone, under which my heart thunders, then to my nipple. He makes a sickening moaning noise as he moves the knife over it, and I whimper slightly, pushing myself back deeper into his chest to try to force some distance between my body and his knife. Down under my breast now. Across my abdomen. Over my stomach. No. No. No. He doesn’t know about the baby. He can’t know. No one but Jake and Robyn know.
His movements are practiced and deliberate, designed to heighten and stretch out my panic. I’d rather he were talking, saying anything. Rather that than this. I remember Jake’s words then: Kevin is…twisted. He likes chaos, likes things that are bloody and messy. Likes playing with people. Here in the pitch-black of my bedroom that statement seems a thousand times more terrifying.
I stay silent and wait for him to speak. The covers are kicked to the bottom of the bed, my shorts horribly insubstantial, pale-white flesh tangled between jean-clad legs. He had his hands on me. He touched me the way Jake touches me. And for those few, brief moments in the dark, I welcomed him into my body, moaning and writhing with need. I’m going to be sick. Dirty. My ears jar loudly, a gnawing, bell-like noise that blocks out everything else.
Then it’s gone and it’s only silent again, save for the sound of his breathing and mine in the space. He’s quiet and still for so long I wonder if maybe he’s fallen asleep.
“If it’s money you want, I have some. I can get you some…I can—”
“I don’t want your fucking money, sweetheart,” he laughs.
“Then what do you want?” I ask. “Why are you here?” I know he told me not to ask this question, but it’s the only one I care about. It’s the only one that matters.
He doesn’t answer right away, just breathes heavily against my neck. He smells of male sweat and something faintly citrusy that reminds me of floor cleaner. This has to be revenge. Revenge for what happened in Jake’s office. It’s the only thing that really makes sense.
“You know how long Jay and I have been mates, Alex? Ten years. Ten fucking years. Then you came along…” Kevin says, voice laced with disdain. “Twisted him right fucking up, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t… He isn’t—”
“I mean, you’re a good-looking girl, Alex,” he interjects. “I get what he sees in you, I do. You got those tits and all that hair. That fucking accent that makes you think of that skinny-arsed princess everyone loves.” He slides the knife back up across my left breast, toward the strap of my vest, and my body propels up off the bed, but he just pulls me back down between his legs. His voice is back at my ear. “Bet you make him feel right fucking good about himself, don’tcha? Sitting in fancy restaurants with you pretending he ain’t the Bromley scum he is must make him feel like king of the fucking world. Bet he thinks you’re worth it too—who knows, maybe you are? Maybe I should find out for myself.” He’s on a mission now, words quick, voice edged, like a football hooligan spoiling for a fight. His hand moves back toward the space between my legs, and I clench my thighs together tightly and squeeze my eyes closed.
“Please…”
“Please what, babe? You were fucking begging for it before. S’up, gone shy now?”
An awful thought moves through me then, dark and nihilistic: I’d rather die than have him inside my body. Because I’d die every single day for the rest of my life if I had to endure that. Me and my baby would live, but I’d spend every waking moment wishing he’d killed me instead. Not even Jake’s love could unpick that kind of damage.
Would Jake’s love even still be there? Would he even still want me? Nothing gets to touch us, baby, yeah?
Tears stream out from my eyes, hot and quiet. “He’s going to kill you for this,” I sob.
“Oh, he definitely will,” Kevin says “But I’m of the opinion if you’re gonna go out, then go out with a bang.” He leans away from me slightly to fumble with something by the nightstand, and then the lamp bursts on, sudden and shocking.
I blink away the flare of light behind my eyeballs. As quickly as my mind can manage, I analyze all the options open to me if I can somehow get away from him.
Him roaring with pain as I scramble over the bed and downstairs. Front door is locked. Keys in the bowl by the door. I’d have to fish them out among the other keys in there—keys to Rob’s, my parents’, the spare key for the Mini, the garage key—no. That would take too long. Back door. I’d go straight to the kitchen to the back door. It’s a turning lock. Quick. Out. My garden is accessible by a high fence and locked gate. It leads to the side of the house where Ed and Betty’s is. Oh god, I can’t lead him there—he’d hurt them too. Without even thinking about it. Back, backward, Alex, rewind. My garden is a maze of trees and hedges and plants. Could I hide until he gave up and left? Or until Jake came home. He’d kill Jake. He’d probably lie in wait for him. God no. I need my phone. I need to call the police. I could do that as I hide. My eyes skirt briefly to the nightstand where it sits. I could snatch it up after I punch him. But that’s a few seconds within reach I’d rather not give him. The cordless. On the table downstairs. I need to grab it as I pass.
Breaking through my thoughts an instant later, the shrill sound of my cell phone going off on the nightstand. Jake. I know it’s him. Somehow I know it’s him.
Kevin, faintly bored-sounding: “Well, I’m guessing that’s our mutual interest.”
When it stops ringing my heart deflates, but it starts up again almost immediately, the sprightly standard iPhone ring incongruous in the gloom of the situation. Kevin curses quietly under his breath, and the ringing stops once more. When it starts up again he lets out a loud, uncertain breath, edgy maybe. This wasn’t in the plan.
He moves suddenly, but not to do what I expect him to. He doesn’t lift it and throw it against the wall or smash his fist down on it; he reaches across and lifts it to his ear. The knife settles across the front of my throat.