Chapter 54
EVAN
It was over. Darkness was approaching. I walked the edge of the river, leaving footprints in the sand, mentally envisioning my death. Seeing myself twisting and writhing in the pits of hell.
Burn, burn, burn.
I wasn’t entirely sure if it was pure fantasy, panic, or exhaustion-induced delirium.
But some part of me remembered Bridie turning towards me at the last second before impact, her hands on the steering wheel and her eyes wide, and I thought I saw recognition in her face.
If Bridie had indeed seen me, recognised my face under the ball cap, it didn’t matter.
Any of it. Dad’s DNA. Chloe’s murder. The old cases, those women, the women and girls whose pieces of jewellery I had found at Dad’s house.
The CCTV didn’t matter. Chris being at the pub didn’t matter.
If Bridie had seen me, then Russell would know I had been the one to harm his child, intentionally or not.
And Russell would kill me.
It was over. But that didn’t mean I was going to go out on my knees.
I was going to give it everything I had, if only to spare Russell having to deliver the deadly blow.
I’d run. Because I was a coward, and cowards always ran, and there was something wholesome-sounding about being shot in a hotel room somewhere, thousands of miles from here, by some random outback cop while I tried to cross the country and get away from what I’d done. Something romantic.
I had turned away from the river and was pushing through reeds towards the mudflats bordering a wide, grassy field when I saw the reptile lying like a shiny black stick across my path.
I looked down and spotted the animal mid-step, too late to adjust my stance.
I stepped on the snake, yelped in shock, tried to tip backwards before my whole weight came down on the creature.
I slid in the mud, toppled backwards instead and fell on my butt.
The snake made an imprint in the soft earth.
A belly, ridged and curved. It darted forward, shocked by being stepped on, trying to escape, found itself blocked by a lump of sandstone, turned back and found itself hedged in by my leg.
I tried to scramble backwards. Put my hand down.
The snake struck at my wrist. Just one bite, swift, fleeting, hardly leaving a mark.
The impact was barely more painful than a pinch.
The snake made a getaway up over my lap and into the long grass, gone without making a sound.
I lay back and gripped my wrist, my head in the mud, the wild blue sky beyond the trees above me starting to twist and shimmer as my raging heartbeat coursed blood through my veins, carrying the venom along, a sweeping river.
I looked at the site of the bite. There wasn’t even any blood.
Just two holes, slowly darkening lumps, at the wrist joint.
I got up and went on, moving more slowly through the reeds.