Page 162 of Into the Dark
“All right, mate?” he says in a bright, friendly voice that fills my lungs with cold, dead air.
This time I do think about screaming, but what would be the point? Kevin has just answered my phone in the middle of the night. If Jake didn’t already know I was in danger, he knows now. I lean closer to Kevin so I can hear his voice.
“Oh, she’s here, Jay. Between my legs, actually,” he chuckles. I’m certain I hear him ask to speak to me. Kevin says, “Can’t do that, mate,” so I think he must have asked. I don’t hear what Jake says next, but then Kevin replies, “Yeah, that right? Well then, I guess we’re done here…nah, Jay, that ain’t gonna work for me…don’t think so…”
Then Jake roars loud enough for me to hear quite clearly: “PUT. HER. ON. THE. FUCKING. PHONE. KEV!”
Thankfully, Kevin still remembers how to take orders from Jake because he lets out another of his sighs and I feel the phone shoved against my ear.
“Jake?”
“Alex, baby, are you…are you okay?”
Am I okay? What on earth kind of question is that? Why yes, darling, I’m fine. Never been better. You?
“He…he has a knife,” is what I say.
Kevin makes a soft sniffing sound.
“Alex, listen to me. Everything is going to be okay. I’m gonna sort this, yeah?” he says, panic making his voice strained. He’s in the car, I can tell that much, and it fills me with hope. “I’m coming, okay? You’re going to be okay. I promise, baby.”
“Jake, I…” I’m crying again because I’m weak and afraid. “I’m scared.”
“I know. I know you are, baby, I know you are, but listen to me…I love you—you know that. You know I love you so much and you know I’m going to make this okay. I’m going to make it all okay…” His words are faster now and rushed, the panic more evident. I can’t bear it.
“Jake, the baby…” I whisper.
He makes a weird pained sound that chills me right to the bone. “Alex, listen to me: it’s going to be okay. The baby and you are going to be okay, I promise you.” But it sounds like he’s telling himself more than me. “Now put Kev back on the phone, yeah?”
“Please hurry,” I whisper before handing the phone back to Kevin.
“Jay, buddy, I’m gonna have to g—”
Jake’s voice is a low, disembodied thing as I strain my ears to hear what he says. “…a chance…should have killed you, you waste of fucking space…”
“You seriously thought I was just gonna disappear?” Kevin laughs.
Then Jake is shouting, threats of murder and retribution that only serve to make me realize this can only really end one way: in death. Mine. My child’s. Kevin’s. Maybe even Jake’s. I’m just not sure which.
“Yeah, well, you shoulda finished it, mate,” Kevin is saying now. “Shoulda finished it when you had the chance.” More shouting. “We’ll see about that, Jay. We’ll see, won’t we…?” Silence. A snort of surprise from Kevin. “Ah well. Looks like he had other stuff on. He hung up.”
The silence in the moments after is heavy, and in that heavy, awful silence I realize I feel stronger. The sound of Jake’s voice has infused some kind of strength into my bones, and as Kevin shifts his position, the grip on his knife loosens, and I move fast, throwing myself forward on the bed and scrambling across it away from him.
I expect to feel the knife sink into my back or thigh or some other piece of vulnerable, exposed flesh, but I don’t. He grabs my ankle to pull me back, but I kick out, feeling it connect with something. He grunts as I tumble onto the floor on the other side of the bed and scramble to the door on my hands and knees. I just about make it there when I feel his hands on me. I try to kick again but he avoids them easily now, gripping my thighs to flip me onto my back.
“Now you’ve pissed me off,” he says, looming over me. He lifts his hand and smacks me hard across the face wth it, knocking the breath from me.
Loud, red pain screams across my eyelid and cheeks. I try hitting him with small, inconsequential fists. He’s too strong. I’m too weak.
“Alex, I fucking mean it,” he says, batting my attacks away like he would a fly. “Hold. Fucking. Still. Don’t make me hit you again.”
He manages to grab both my hands and stretch them over my head, then he lowers his face down, mouth close to mine. I turn my head away and squeeze my eyes shut, but I’m crying harder now. More pathetically now. Braver than this, Alex.
He makes a vile groaning sound as I continue to struggle. “I think I like you under me, doctor,” he says. “Now…why don’t you show me what it was you did to make Jay lose his fucking head, huh?” He snorts an ugly, soft sound that makes me think of pink, fleshy membrane and ruined bone tissue. “Look at me,” he barks.
I keep my eyes closed tight.
His grip on my wrists changes and he slaps me on the face again, much softer than before. Then again, a touch harder; another warning. “Fucking look at me, Alex.”