Sensing this, Jack moves fast and flips me onto the bed. He’s on top again. I am seized by the memory of him holding me down on the wet earth, clamping a hand over my mouth to stop my screams, and I go rigid beneath him.
Jack rears back, reaching for his zipper.
I see Ada a second before Jack does. She stands at the foot of the bed behind him, holding a wooden knife block above her head. Jack whips around. Too late. She brings the block down. There’s the crunch of bone, a warm splatter on my face. He’s flung to my left and off the bed. I touch my cheek and my fingers come away bloody. Ada drops the knife block and reaches for me, hauling me up.
Then we are running. I skid on the spilt rum and knock over the pillar candles on the floor. Hot wax flicks up the back of my bare legs.
Ada propels me through the door. Yelling, ‘Go, go!’
We hurtle onto the landing and down the first flight of stairs. Jack bellows my name with such palpable rage, I swing my head up. He’s barrelling after us. Ada is shoving me forward as we race across the first-floor landing. Blood rushes through my ears and all I can think is run, go, get out.
I’m tripping down the last flights of stairs, gulping for air, panic flashing through me. If he catches us, he’ll kill us. I think of his hands around my throat on the basement floor, the purple fury on his face as he choked and choked until I blacked out.
My foot hits the bottom step. I can see the front door. I can—
Someone screams. And screams again.
I skid to a halt and spin around. Look up.
On the lip of the stairs, in front of the arched leadlight window, Jack has Ada pinned against him, his forearm roping around her shoulders, his hand around her neck. My heart plummets. He has my sister. He has her and he isn’t going to let her go. I know now, in this moment, we aren’t all going to make it out of this house alive.
‘Jack, don’t do this, please, please, please don’t,’ I gabble, already knowing my efforts are futile.
Panicked, Ada reaches up to pry his hand from her, but Jack seizes it and wrenches it behind her back. She yelps.
I start towards them.
‘Stop.’ Jack’s voice is the low rumble of thunder.
I do as he says.
I look towards the front door. So close. So close to freedom I could sob. If I turned and ran now, he wouldn’t catch me. I’d be out the front door before he made it down the stairs. I’d race across the foyer, yank open the door and burst out into the night. I’d hide in the woods. He’d never find me in the dark. I could do it. I could run. My stomach clenches, fear mostly, then guilt for even thinking it, because I can’t leave Ada with him. She means no more to him than Noah did; she is merely an obstacle to be violently and permanently removed. He’ll murder her. He’ll do it just to punish me.
‘Run,’ Ada gurgles.
I pull my gaze away from the door and back up towards Ada and Jack.
He squeezes, cutting off her air. She claws at the hand crushing her windpipe.
‘Stop,’ I shriek. ‘Stop!’
She is turning red.
‘JACK!’
In his expression is pure, inarticulate fury. The veins in his arm bulge. He’s going to snap her neck.
‘Please,’ I beg.
Her eyes roll back. She stops clawing his hand; hers falls limply to her side.
‘I’ll leave with you!’ I shout.
He continues to crush her throat, just to let me know he still holds all the power. Finally, his grip loosens. Ada coughs and splutters and gags. In his eyes, ones locked unfailingly on mine, I see a promise of revenge. ‘Come up here,’ he commands.
For a moment, I don’t move. Can’t. I stare at the hand clamped around my sister’s neck. It is the same hand that held my wrists hostage above my head on the hill, the same fingers which pushed into the dryness of my body even as I pleaded with him to let me go.
‘Now,’ he growls, giving Ada a sharp shake.
She whimpers.
My chest hollows and fills, hollows and fills.
First, I force one foot, then the other, until I am climbing up the stairs towards them. It’s the longest walk of my life; I wear fear as a pair of iron boots, and try desperately to think of a way out of this, to save Ada, to save myself, but panic fogs my thoughts.
As I near them, I swear I smell smoke.
Ada’s eyes are wild and streaming. She’s still coughing. She wants me to run and she’s angry I haven’t. But how could I abandon her, knowing it would mean the end of her life?
Jack drags Ada back a couple of steps to let me pass. I’m careful not to make any sudden movements as I do; it would take only a second for him to break her neck. As I edge backwards on the landing, I hold my hands up in a show of surrender. If this was a film, Ada and I would exchange a look and in the one, fleeting second of eye contact, we’d have a plan. We’d work together to take him down. But this isn’t a film. The fact is, Jack is bigger and stronger, and Ada is firmly in his grasp. I could rush him but not before he tosses her down the stairs or crushes her windpipe. The only advantage we have over him is that he doesn’t know the police are on their way. If I can keep him talking …