Break the circle. It was hers to break, here and now. And there was only one way to do that.
Pip turned, leaves bunching, clinging to the white soles of her shoes.
And she walked back.
Returned through the darkening trees. A glint of young moonlight across the surface of the dropped hammer, showing her the way. She bent to pick it up, testing out her grip.
Dried-out leaves to grass, to dirt, to gravel, easing her steps, pressing her feet down with no sound. Maybe she was too loud for him, but he’d never hear her coming now.
Ahead, Jason was out of his car, walking up to the metal door he’d dragged her through, his steps disguising hers. Closer and closer. He stopped and she did too, waiting. Waiting.
Jason slid his hand down into his pocket, returning with the ring of keys. A rustle of tinkling metal and Pip took a few slow steps, hiding beneath the sound.
Jason found the right key, long and jagged. He pushed it into the lock, metal scraping metal, and Pip moved closer.
Break the circle. The end was the beginning and this was both, the origin. Finish it where it had all begun.
He twisted the key, and the door unlocked with a dark click, the sound echoing in Pip’s chest.
Jason pushed open the door into the yellow-lit storeroom. He took one step over the threshold, looked up, then took one back, staring ahead. Taking in the scene: tipped-over shelves, smashed-open window, a river of spilled weedkiller, lengths of unwound duct tape.
Pip was right behind him.
‘What the –’ he said.
Her arm knew what to do.
Pip pulled it back and swung the hammer.
It found the base of his skull.
A sickening crunch of metal on bone.
He staggered. He even dared to gasp.
Pip swung again.
A crack.
Jason dropped, falling forward on to the concrete, catching himself with one hand.
‘Please –’ he began.
Pip pulled her elbow back, a spray of blood hitting her in the face.
She leaned over him and swung again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Until nothing moved. Not a twitch in his fingers, or a jerk in his legs. Only a new river, a red one, slowly leaking out of his undone head.
He was dead.
Jason Bell, the DT Killer: one and the same and he was dead.
Pip didn’t need to check the swell of his chest or feel for a pulse to know that. It was clear just looking at him, at what was left of his head.
She’d killed him. Broken the circle. He’d never hurt her and he’d never hurt anyone.
It wasn’t real and she wasn’t real, tucked against the wall by her overturned shelves, hugging her legs to her chest. Her warped reflection in the discarded hammer as she rocked back and forth. It was real, he was right there in front of her, and she was here. He was dead and she’d killed him.
How long had she been sat there now, going backward and forward over this? What was she doing, waiting to see if he’d take a breath and stand back up? She didn’t want that. It had been her or him. Not selfdefence but a choice, a choice she made. He was dead and that was good. Right. Supposed to be.
So, what was supposed to happen now?
There hadn’t been a plan. Nothing beyond breaking the circle, beyond surviving, and killing him was how she survived. So, now that it was done, how did she keep on surviving? She repeated the question, asking the Ravi who lived in her head. Asking him for help because he was the only person she knew how to ask. But he’d gone quiet. No other people in there, just a ringing in her ears. Why had he left her? She still needed him.
But he wasn’t the real Ravi, only her thoughts wrapped up in his voice, her lifeline at the very brink. She wasn’t at the brink any more. She had lived, and she would see him again. And she needed to, right now. This was too much for her alone.
Pip picked herself up from the ground, trying not to look at the flecks of blood up her sleeves. And on her hands too. Real this time. Earned. She wiped them off on her dark leggings.
She’d spotted it from across the room, a rectangular shape in Jason’s back pocket. His iPhone, protruding out from the fabric. Pip approached, carefully, avoiding the red river reflecting the overhead lights. She didn’t want to get any closer, scared that her proximity might somehow drag him back from death. But she had to. She needed his phone to call Ravi so he could come and tell her that everything would be OK, would be normal again, because they were a team.
She reached out for the phone. Wait, Pip, hold on a second. Think about this. She paused. If she used Jason’s phone to call Ravi, that would leave a trace, irrevocably tying Ravi to the scene. DT was a murderer but he was also a murdered man, and it didn’t matter that he deserved it, the law didn’t care about that. Someone would have to pay for his broken-open head. No. Pip couldn’t have Ravi tied to the scene, to Jason, not in any way. That was unthinkable.