“I’m fine,” Hannah said, though it wasn’t completely true. She had grated her thigh over one of the unprotected spikes on top of the wall, and now as she pulled herself up to sit astride, she could feel a spreading wetness that she was pretty sure was blood. She poked herself gently, feeling the broken threads of denim and an ominous dampness. “Think I just stabbed myself on a spike. I’ll live, but RIP my new jeans.” She gave a shaky laugh. “Okay, your turn. I’ll pull, you jump.” She braced herself, holding her hand down for Emily, now nothing but a dark shape and a glimmer of phone screen in the darkness below.
“You know what,” Emily’s voice said, with a new reluctance, “on second thought, I think I’m going to take a pass on that. Can you get down?”
Hannah looked at the drop on the other side. It was not quite as high and there was a convenient buttress that she could lower herself onto to break her fall.
“I think I’ll be all right. Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I think this shortcut is probably fine if you’re a six-foot rugby player, but not so great if you’re a fragile five-foot-nothing bluestocking like moi, not to mention these sandals are my favorite. If you’re sure you’re okay getting down, I’ll go round by the lodge.”
“I’m sure,” Hannah said. “Good luck with the revision.”
“Cheers, see you at breakfast, then.”
Hannah sat, listening, as Emily’s footsteps crunched off into the darkness of the wood, and then she swung her other leg over the wall and sat, contemplating the drop.
It would be easiest, she thought, if she rolled round to lie on her stomach; then she could hold on to the wall with her hands and lower herself feet-first onto the buttress. Painfully, she began to roll over, feeling the thick twisting ropes of ivy digging into her hip, and the protest from her inner thigh as the material of her jeans chafed against the cut.
At last, though, she was lying on her front, her legs dangling roughly over where she thought the buttress should be, and she began to lower herself cautiously down. She was almost at full stretch, her arms quivering with the unaccustomed strain, when she felt something, someone, grab her ankle.
Hannah kicked out instinctively. The hand let go, and she heard a male voice cry out in pain, and someone stagger back. And then her arms gave way and she slid to the ground in a slither of grazed ribs and jarred ankles
She landed heavily, but picked herself up almost at once and began to run around the side of Cloade’s, in spite of the pain in her knees and thigh. She wasn’t sure who had grabbed her, but she knew that she didn’t want to wait and find out. What she had done was strictly against the rules, and if a tutor or a member of college staff found out, she would be in trouble.
“Oi!” she heard from behind her, as whoever she had kicked recovered himself. It was a man’s voice, but oddly high, almost falsetto. “Oi, you, stop!”
Hannah pushed herself to run faster and rounded the corner into the passage that led into New Quad.
And then whoever it was behind her tackled her.
She felt a whiplash jolt as the pursuer grabbed at her collar, jerking her back, and then her feet were hooked out from under her. She went down in a rush, elbows and knees onto the graveled path, all the wind knocked out of her. She felt a man’s body land heavily on top of her, covering her almost completely, his hips pressing into her backside, his chest crushing hers against the ground. There was an arm across the back of her neck. She couldn’t breathe—but she could smell something—something horribly familiar—that sickening musty smell of body odor and damp.
Panic engulfed her.
“Get off me!” she choked, but the words came out so smothered they were barely audible; he was grinding her face into the path, she could hardly get any air in. Her hands were wet with sweat, her whole body shaking with fear, her lungs screaming for oxygen. She felt his hips grinding hers into the ground—and she felt something else too, something hard and thick and urgent, pressing against her. “Ge—” she tried again, but the words dissolved into a sobbing gasp. Stars were beginning to explode against the inside of her skull, obscuring her vision. “G-ge—”
And then another voice, a deeper one, unfamiliar.
“What on earth is going on here, Mr. Neville?”
“I found this person climbing over the wall—” Neville panted. He got to his knees, putting his weight painfully on Hannah’s arm as he did. She lay there, gasping and trembling as he lumbered slowly to his feet, feeling the crushing sensation in her chest slowly lifting.