Chapter 28 Damon
Damon
I don’t have the chance to gather my thoughts before a powerful pair of hands grabs me by the shoulders and yanks me up to my feet.
A forearm slips under my neck and sets about choking me, while my own arm is twisted behind me so sharply I fear it might snap.
I don’t know who is hurting me but it’s definitely not a hallucination.
I open my mouth to yell in pain but before I can, I’m thrust forward until my chest slams into something metal and cylindrical.
Only then do I realise where I’ve been frogmarched to.
The wall that separates the edge of the car park from the seventy-foot drop below.
Using all my strength, I wriggle and squirm and try to shake myself free, but I’m no match for the force of whoever has me in their grasp.
‘Let go!’ I yell.
Their response comes in the form of a thunderous blow to the kidneys. I’ve never felt such crippling pain, followed by an overwhelming urge to be sick.
I’m still dazed from colliding with the wall, but my vision returns to functionality as I’m lifted off the ground.
Now my body is almost parallel to the top of the horizontal safety bar attached to the wall.
My attacker’s arms are around my chest and my thighs, like I’m a roll of carpet he’s prepared to pitch into space.
Below me, all I can see are the tops of trees and shop roofs. The wind brushes against my face.
‘What do you want?’ I cry out in what sounds like a terrified child’s voice.
The voice coming from my assailant is deep and unfamiliar. ‘Finish what you started,’ he snarls. ‘You play until the end.’
I feel myself being held further and further over the railing. If he lets go, I’m a dead man.
‘Do you understand?’ he continues.
‘Yes!’ I say, but I really don’t.
He holds me there for a moment longer until I shout ‘Yes!’ again, then he yanks me backwards and hurls me to the floor, face first.
‘And if you tell anyone about this, my next visit will be to your ex. And Melissa won’t be as lucky as you.’
I catch only the briefest glimpse of a black bomber jacket and heavy boots before he disappears behind a line of parked cars. I can hear him talking to someone on the phone, saying something like ‘job done’, before his boots begin to clomp down the staircase.
I’m dazed, my body is trembling and, a few metres away, the dead boy is silently laughing at me.