Page 165 of Into the Dark
“What the fuck…what did you…?” he chokes out, brow furrowed in utter confusion.
“You’ll never hurt Jake or my baby or me again,” I tell him, voice tremulous.
He puts a hand out to brace himself on the dining table, which he manages to hold onto for maybe ten seconds before he wobbles again. His eyes skirt about the kitchen before they come back to me wide and full of fear. His legs buckle, and then one bends under him and he falls to his knees.
The tick-tock of the kitchen clock is loud. Two to four minutes and painless for the most part. That’s all it should take. That’s all it would have taken for Jake to die that night if that woman had known where to place her slice. Or if she’d been given a set of £600 Global NI knives as a housewarming gift—they can cut through flesh like soft butter.
I’m clutching the knife so tight I’m not sure where my hand ends and it begins. It’s vibrating in my hand, fusing together metal, skin, and bone. He sounds like he’s choking now—a wet, gurgling noise from the back of his throat that sounds like drowning. He is drowning. He puts his hands out toward me, pleading.
I can’t move. Can barely breathe.
“Fuck…” He blinks and falls to the left, his head still turned to me, eyes still wide.
Upon graduation, we never took the oath; it was considered outdated and mainly irrelevant. The Geneva Convention and GMC’s Duties Of A Doctor were recited instead in our “Cambridge Promise.” Yet, the oath is all I hear as Kevin falls, gasps, and gurgles his last breaths. I will give no deadly medicine to anyone… I will not cut persons laboring under the stone… With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art… Over and over again I repeat it, like the loop of Moonlight Sonata, missing out some sections, skipping over others, playing the same part over and over again.
With purity and holiness… I will not cut… I will not cut… I will not cut…
Over and over until his breathing stops.
Over and over until his black eyes lighten with release.
Then I slide my back down the door to sit on the floor and pull my knees up tight to my chest. I keep my focus entirely on him. My violation. My oathbreaker.
I’m not sure how long after it is before I hear it. Seconds. Minutes. Hours.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Whack. Thump. Thump. Thump. Whack.
Someone is breaking in.
Jake? Why would Jake break in when he has a key?
Not Jake then. I’m too numb to care if they mean good or ill.
I’m so cold. My face hurts. My head hurts. My throat hurts.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Crash.
The sounds of loud voices follow—serious, authoritative, strange voices. They flood up the stairs and down the hall toward me, calling my name.
As I stare at Kevin’s increasingly lifeless body, I think I expect him to be transformed into something else. Something without threat or menace. Something without intent or effect.
But he looks exactly the same as he did a few minutes ago: mouth twisted up, eyes wide and watching, hands curled toward a fist, the precipice of destruction. And I can’t look away from him because I’m terrified that when I look back he’ll be coming toward me, hell-bent on revenge. You fucking bitch.
I killed him.
I only manage to look away when they block my view of him, tall strangers moving into my kitchen. A man I don’t recognize, followed by another. Tall and serious with eyes that scan the scene with a calm, controlled detachment. He doesn’t look surprised or alarmed by the sight of a fifteen-stone man in a puddle of his own blood on my kitchen floor. They do, however, look surprised to see me, my position on the floor by the kitchen door slightly hidden, and so it takes them another scan before they spot me. One of them comes toward me, muttering something into a small radio hidden on his breast pocket. Unfamiliar words. Instructions. Confirmation. A crackle of the radio in response. He lowers himself down in front of me and smiles a serious sort of smile.
“Doctor Marlowe? Alex? I’m Detective O’Connell. I’m from the SOC taskforce,” he tells me as he takes his jacket off and lowers it over my legs to cover my nakedness. “There’s an ambulance on its way. How are you doing? Can you tell me where else you’re hurt?” He casts his serious blue eyes over me, at my battered face and state of undress.
The other one is bending over Kevin now. Taking his pulse. From his wrist, not his neck. Because his neck has a hole in it. A hole I put there.
“He’s dead,” I say to no one in particular.
O’Connell nods. “You’re okay. Everything’s going to be okay. Can you stand up for me, maybe?”
My face feels huge and misshapen as I open my mouth to speak. So I close it again.
“Do you know what day it is, doctor?” he asks me, maneuvering his body to block Kevin from my view.