‘No.’ My protest is nothing more than a whistle of grief.
Thrusting my fingers into the hole the blade created in Ada’s jumper, I tear a strip off and tie it tightly around her tiny waist, covering the stab wound to stem the flow. But the truth is soaking into me, just as her blood has soaked into the skirt of my white slip – there’s no pulse.
Ada is dead.
She’s gone.
My hands, my forearms, are slick with her blood; a macabre pair of evening gloves. My stomach roils and I double over, dry heaving. Soon my heaves turn to sobs, raw and repeating.
Jack starts whistling again and my grief bubbles over into red, razored rage.
I’m up on my feet. I charge him. Blindsided, he staggers back into the console table. Anger bursts from me in harpy shrieks. I get in a few good punches, my fists raining down on his bare chest, leaving red smears. I rake my nails across his beautiful, hideous face, gouging four bloody ruts into his cheek. Enraged, he snarls. His hand shoots out. Pain explodes across my face. I’m flung to the side, hitting the ground so hard, my teeth snap together. I lie on the hardwood, ears ringing, relearning how to breathe. When I lift my head, my vision swims. I’ve fallen beside my sister, her face is turned away, I see the caramel waves of her hair, and blood spreading across the floor.
‘You never learn,’ he spits. ‘You never fucking learn.’
I struggle up until I’m on my hands and knees. I smell smoke, just as I did before, stronger this time. Glancing towards the stairs, I see plumes lazily drifting on the landing.
The spilt rum, the candles I knocked over.
‘Ada didn’t love you. Never has,’ he laments. ‘Yet you choose her, choose everyone else but me, over and over.’
My eyes land on the knife, my first sliver of hope, lying at her elbow where I dropped it.
‘You’re ungrateful,’ he hisses.
Slowly, carefully, I reach for it. If he catches me, his foot will come down on my hand and break my bones before I’ve even had a chance to use it.
‘All I’ve ever done is love you. I love you.’
My fist closes around the knife, the hilt tucked snugly in my palm. The sliver of hope now a slab, I turn my head, looking at him over my shoulder. He’s still talking, but his words disappear beneath the drum of my heartbeat. Knife in hand, I feel a rush of triumph so strong, poison drips from my tongue: ‘Jeffrey should’ve beaten you to death when he had the chance.’
The silence that follows is disbelieving. Charged. My words so cutting, they’re a match for the split flesh of my sister’s back.
He lunges.
But I’m ready. I twist around, slashing the knife sideways above his right knee. It slices through jeans and skin. Jack howls and buckles. Scrambling to my feet, I race across the foyer to the front door.
It’s locked.
Fuck.
My heart free-falls.
Desperately, I grab the handle again and pull so hard, pain rips through my shoulders. It doesn’t budge. Jack must’ve locked it when he came back. Ada has a key but there’s no time to—
He comes up behind me and grabs a fistful of my hair, yanking my head back to expose my throat. Blindly, I swing the knife. Blade meets skin. He yowls and jumps back, releasing me, ripping several of my hairs out by the root. I spin on my heel to face him; he’s pressed to the wall, gritting his teeth against the gash across his right arm.
Making the most of the distraction, I bolt, hesitating only a second before sprinting past Ada and into the dining hall. Frantic, I ping-pong between table and sideboard before bursting into the kitchen. I skid to a halt at the back door and try to yank it free, but it’s locked too.
‘No way out, Fray.’
I spin.
Jack stands in the doorway, despite the gash on his head, the slash across his knee and arm. He grins, cocky, triumphant. There’s nowhere left for me to run. My gaze darts wildly. To my left is the archway I just entered through, at his back is the hallway, behind me the locked door which leads out into the garden, and all that stands between us is the kitchen island and the knife still clutched in my hand.
Terror makes the room spin and rise on the swell of a tide. Jack prowls towards me and I skirt around the island, keeping it between us.
He feigns a lunge to the left and I swipe the knife, trying to fend him off. He laughs, short and scoffing. His mockery makes anger flare in my gut, heating me from the inside out. ‘Stay the hell away from me.’
‘You’re fucked. You can’t leave. There’s nowhere left for you to go.’
He’s not wrong. Gazes locked; we circle the island. He’s limping. Not that it matters; even if I could outrun him, he’s right, I have nowhere left to go.