28 #2
My eyes snap left, then right, searching for anything that might buy me a second. Nothing does. There’s only wood, warmth and the unsettling normality of a place that gives my panic nowhere to go.
With each bootfall, flashes of last night burst behind my lids, coaxing the panic louder.
The hallway seems longer. The walls narrower. The air thicker.
Then his hands finally land on my shoulders. One slides to my waist, fingers digging in as he turns me with a single motion, guiding me into another alcove until my spine meets the wall with a dull thud.
His body follows, crowding the space, blotting out the light and every illusion and false reason I’ve been clinging to.
I can’t move without brushing him. I can’t breathe without inhaling him.
He reaches past me. An old cream push-button phone sits on the tall table like a relic from another life. He lifts the receiver slowly, as if he’s savouring the moment. As if he knows I’m counting the seconds.
The receiver leaves its cradle with a soft click, nearly obscene in the quiet, the coils of its cord stretching wider.
Then those piercing, impossible eyes lock onto mine.
He takes my hand.
My fingers jerk reflexively, but he catches them and curves them around the receiver as if teaching a child how to hold it.
‘Outside line. Zero. Hash,’ he instructs.
I don’t move. My fingers don’t obey. Snow flashes behind my eyes. The snowmobile. His boots behind me. The trees.
The hatchet.
My scream he swallowed when his mouth came down on me.
My eyes fall to it.
His jaw shifts at that.
He presses me harder against the wall, claiming more of my space, head dipping until our noses graze once… twice… The friction of skin that should feel intimate instead feels like a blade being dragged slowly across my throat.
‘Zero. Hash,’ he reiterates, his voice dropping a register.
My hand shakes once, rattling the receiver in its grip.
I press the keys.
He begins reciting a phone number, each digit delivered in a measured and calm tone. As if time isn’t a thing that can save me. As if nothing can.
I thumb the numbers in, obeying on autopilot.
Until my brain catches up and he reaches the familiar sequence after the country code – twelve, ninety-three.
The fog clears in one violent rush.
It’s my home number in Crawley.
My ribs collapse. The pressure behind my eyes builds so fast it’s almost a living thing.
He knows my home number by heart?
Watching me the entire time, he waits until the line begins to ring.
‘Hello?’ my sister answers, and the sound of her voice cleaves through me so cleanly that I barely manage to swallow the sob rising up my windpipe.
My breath shakes. Stutters. Breaks.
‘Is anyone there?’
Elias’ gaze holds mine.
Speak, he mouths.
My lips part as if I’ve forgotten how to use them.
‘Anna?’ I try. My voice sounds too small to recognise as my own.
She gasps. ‘Oh goodness! I was getting worried! How are you, darling?!’
I swallow. My throat burns. The words are piling atop each other, never leaving my mouth. The truth wants to explode out of me in one frantic, messy confession – punishment be damned. But Elias is right there – so close I can feel the heat of him, the tension in him.
And I know – I know – he’s measuring every syllable against consequence.
‘Sorry,’ I whisper. ‘I was busy… figuring things out.’
‘Oh, I see!’ Anna chirps. ‘It’s cold here. I bet the snow is up to your neck over there.’
His face doesn’t change, but he bends closer, enough for me to feel him. Listening as if eager to hear what shapes of lies my tongue can form.
My fingers go cold around the receiver.
‘Yes,’ I say tightly. ‘There’s a lot of it.’
‘Aaaand,’ I can practically hear the smirk on her face, ‘how’s Elias?’
A sick weight settles low inside me.
My mouth falls open.
How does she know Elias is here?
My eyes widen, focus on his. His brows lower slightly, lips pressing into a thin line, forming a soundless warning that turns my blood to ice.
How far does his manipulation reach? Why would it reach her? Who else does it reach?
A tear slips free before I can stop it, tracking down my cheek – hot against skin that’s gone cold.
And he watches it fall.
The hard angles of his face soften. He pushes away from the wall – one smooth step back.
His eyes still hold mine with that same dark knowing that needs no questions, because it already owns the answers.
‘He’s okay,’ I manage, voice thin as paper. ‘He’s… teaching me. Things.’
Anna sighs down the line. ‘Conall told me we’re not supposed to talk about it, but I hope things get resolved soon.’
A breath gets stuck between my teeth.
Conall? What things? What are we not supposed to talk about? Is this why she is so calm knowing that Elias is with me even though she’d seen the news the night before I left England?
I want to scream it out. I want to sob into the receiver until the sound becomes something unrecognisable. But the only thing that escapes me is a shaky, ‘Me too,’ and then my throat locks up entirely.
A beat passes – or an eternity.