Chapter 61 Harper
HARPER
No.
I tried to scream, but the sound that came out was weak. Childlike. Pathetic.
I tried to raise my arm, as if that could stop what was unfolding in front of me, but it was useless. My body was too far gone with smoke inhalation, weak from poison and my attempts to survive.
All I could do was watch as Silas brought the rock down and slammed it into the back of Knox’s head.
And then, to my horror, Knox crumpled to his left, and his eyes closed.
He didn’t get back up.
My nurse’s brain, which had been sluggish and smoke-addled moments ago, suddenly snapped into horrible clarity.
The smoke inhalation had introduced carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide into both our systems. Our oxygen-carrying capacity was compromised. Our cells were starving. Even if we survived the next few minutes, the damage to our lungs and brains could be permanent.
And Knox …
The blow to his head had rendered him unconscious instantly.
That wasn’t just a knockout. That kind of immediate loss of consciousness could indicate a subdural hematoma.
A brain bleed beneath his skull. If blood was pooling between his brain and the protective membrane, pressure would build. Silently. Invisibly.
He could be dying right now.
Every second I wasted was a second closer to losing him.
“Knox,” I cried, my voice barely more than a rasp.
Silas dropped the rock.
It landed on the grass with a soft thump, the sound obscene in its casualness. Like he hadn’t just potentially murdered someone.
Then he stood above me, looking down with an expression I knew too well.
Disgust. Possession. Triumph. The holy trinity of abusers everywhere.
“Why?” I managed.
He looked at me like I was a complete idiot. Like the answer was so obvious, it pained him to explain.
“Did you really think I would just let you leave me?”
He didn’t raise his voice. That’s what made him so terrifying. The calm. The control. The way he could say the most horrific things in the same tone someone might use to discuss the weather.
Silas reached down and gripped me under the arms, dragging me a few feet from where I’d been lying. Dragging me farther from Knox.
I tried to fight back, but my muscles were weak from toxins. The ground scraped against my back.
Think, Harper. Think.
My body had failed me. My strength was gone. But I still had my mind. And after two years with this man, I knew exactly how his worked.
Silas needed to be the victim. He needed to believe that everything that had happened was someone else’s fault. That he was the wronged party. The wounded hero in his own twisted narrative.
If I could feed that delusion, I could buy time.
It wasn’t surrender. It was strategy.
The same way a hostage negotiator mirrors a captor. The same way a trauma nurse talks down a patient in psychosis. You meet them where they are. You speak their language. And you survive.
“It didn’t work out between us,” I said, testing the waters. Watching his face for the reaction.
He dropped his hands.
Walked around to my other side.
Looked down at my body like I was garbage that had invaded his life.
“We were meant to be together.” He dropped to his knees beside me, his face inches from mine. “We were meant to be together, and you ruined that.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
Wrong answer. I saw it in the flare of his nostrils, the tightening of his jaw.
Pivot. Now.
“I made you unhappy,” I whispered. Bait on a hook.
Silas cocked his head. Studied me like a scientist examining a specimen.
Good. Keep him talking. Keep him monologuing like the villain he is.
“We were passionate,” he said slowly. “Passionate couples fight.”
“I thought I made you unhappy.” I kept my voice soft. Controlled. The tone he’d trained me to use, now weaponized against him. “I thought you would be happier without me. If I was wrong …”
“Yes, you were fucking wrong!” His calm facade cracked. Just a little. Just enough to show the monster underneath. “You were my everything. You were my entire world. We were supposed to get married and spend the rest of our lives together, and then one day, you just fucking left.”
He leaned closer. I could see the broken blood vessels in his eyes.
“And you didn’t just leave me, did you? No. You drove hundreds of miles to an entirely different state. Changed your phone number. Didn’t even tell me where you were going.” His jaw tightened. “Do you have any idea how humiliating that was? After everything I did for you?”
Keep him ranting. Every word out of his mouth is another second police could be coming. A neighbor surely had called them by now, after seeing the flames.
“I thought we could both use a fresh start,” I said.
“The bed wasn’t even cold before you brought another man into it. And not just ANY man … a lowlife convict … a murderer.” He spat the words like venom. “What a fucking slut.”
“Silas …”
He wrapped his hands around my throat.
My own hands flew up instinctively, gripping his wrists, but the smoke inhalation had stolen my strength. My grip was pathetic. Useless.
No. Not like this. Not after everything.
“Did you seriously think I would let you humiliate me like that?” His fingers tightened.
“Silas. Please.”
The words weren’t a plea. They were a stall. One more second. One more breath. One more chance for those distant voices to get closer.
It was the last word I spoke.
Staring into the eyes of the man I had once loved, I watched his features reassemble into something demonic. The color in his irises, pale blue in the glow of the firelight, darkened to something bottomless.
I could hear voices in the distance. Neighbors. Sirens maybe.
They were too far away.
I didn’t want Silas to be the last thing I saw on this earth.
So, I tried to find Knox. Tried to angle my gaze toward where I thought he’d fallen. But Silas’s body blocked my view.
I hoped Knox knew. I hoped somehow, even unconscious, he understood that I had fought. That I hadn’t given up. That every word out of my mouth had been a battle, not a surrender.
The last thing I saw as my vision began to fade was the little bungalow I had escaped to. My sanctuary. Burning to the ground. Orange flames reaching up into the ebony sky like desperate fingers grasping for something they could never hold.
Then the edges of my vision darkened.
And there was nothing.