Chapter 33 #3
There is nothing of a personal nature at all. No letters, or photographs. Nothing that links Euan to John, or to Genevieve.
I rock back on my heels and survey the carnage. It was a mess before I got here, but I haven’t improved the situation. The sealed boxes still neatly piled to one side, are labelled in chunky marker pen: Becca.
Only Euan’s boxes have been looted – John’s boxes.
I’m about to give up when I see it. Lying face down in the dust that’s gathered in the corners of the room, just by the door. Like it was dropped and went unnoticed.
A small square of paper. I pick it up and turn it over on my palm.
This is it.
It’s a photobooth snap of two teenagers. One is undoubtedly a younger Euan.
And the other, scowling at the camera, is Gen.
I shove it under the band of my bra for safekeeping and creep past the horses again to avoid disturbing them or getting up their hopes of sugar lumps or apples.
I exit the stables, turning to latch the door behind me, leaving everything as I found it.
When I turn back to face the cold rush back to the house, my skin prickles with fear.
My heart spikes as I search the shadows for what might have spooked me.
There’s nothing there.
Until there is.
He morphs out of the darkness like he’s made of shadow and night. Just like the way he stepped out of the forest and took me by surprise. This time I force myself not to scream. He has to think I’m harmless, that he’s still in the clear. Bile sours my windpipe.
Be normal, Eilish. Act weak. Like you’re still suspect number one.
‘Oh, hi,’ I say breezily, forcing myself to smile at Euan as he looms over me.
He’s wearing a thick duffel coat and his beard is snow-clogged.
His hands, encased in black ski gloves, look massive, and his appearance is made no less sinister by the addition of a balaclava, albeit bunched around his neck rather than covering his face.
I wave a hand towards the stables. ‘I had a headache and wanted some fresh air.’
The lie sounds weak. Also, he didn’t ask me. I should have waited until he asked.
‘I thought I’d visit the horses. Animals are so comforting—’
Shut up, Eilish! You’re overdoing it.
Euan’s expression is unreadable. He doesn’t blink as he stares at me, looking me slowly up and down. His deep-set eyes are shrouded in darkness. ‘You should be careful,’ he says eventually. ‘Out here on your own.’
I hold my body rigid to suppress the shiver that races through my body at his granite tone.
Was that a threat?
‘Oh, I’m okay,’ I say, keeping my own tone light and stupidly cheerful. ‘I’m not about to wander off into the woods or anything.’
One of his eyebrows flickers slightly, as though he’s considering the wisdom of marching me into the woods, incapacitating me and leaving me to die there. Way to give him ideas. Or perhaps that’s just my overreactive imagination again.
Euan takes a step towards me, and I am overwhelmed by the physicality of him, just like that first time we met, when he stepped out of the woods and startled me: the height and power and strength of him.
I force myself not to take a step back, but he’s uncomfortably close, and my breathing quickens – he can’t fail to notice, and it would take only a rudimentary level of perception to interpret it as fear.
It suddenly strikes me that Euan has a great deal more than a rudimentary level of perception – he’s been watching us, studying our every gesture and interaction, for days.
Like he studied the pieces on the chess board the other night.
He’s clever.
He smiles. He’s close enough that I can smell something acrid on his breath, see that his lips are chapped with cold. Close enough that I can see his eyes too, dilated to almost black, alight with …
Fury.
Madness …
I have no choice but to take that step backwards, feel the solid stable wall against my back.
Euan smiles wider, his teeth as white as the snow – he is stark and striking: darkness and light.
I can sense the shift in him, his ruthlessness overriding any kindness I glimpsed in him before.
He’s been wallpaper this whole week – inoffensive, uninteresting. Now he’s the main character.
The bad guy.
My head fills with noise as his proximity shakes another memory loose: The figure behind me, his arm like an iron band, his hand across my mouth. The whispered warning. The pressure lessens and I feel the hand in the small of my back. Then I’m toppling, sliding down the sand dune towards the water.
Euan takes another step, his bulk bearing down on me, arms braced on the wall bracketing my head, a flesh-and-blood, here-and-now threat. I hear a shout and see the figure coming towards us. I’m almost light-headed with relief.
Jameson.
‘What’s going on?’ Jameson’s voice is the sound of salvation. Another wash of thankfulness makes my knees buckle. He’s walking towards us across the courtyard.
Euan smirks, eyes boring holes in me. He shifts slightly, whispers in my ear as he steps away. ‘Be careful, Eilish, you’re not in your right mind, remember. Who knows what you might do—’