She tries scrabbling backward, crablike, but part of her already knows it’s useless. Lurching toward her, Caleb pins her down, his legs on hers.
Elin claws at him, but her hands find nothing but air. She reaches up to try to rip off her blindfold, get a sight of where he is, but before she can even grasp the fabric, he finds her.
A punch to her chest, her face.
Hit after hit that come in time with his grunts. She can smell his breath; it’s rancid, stale and sour.
Another blow—one that seems to take over her face, a pain that springs from below her eye, radiating outward.
Elin can’t think.
She’s all sensation, can feel every bruised part of herself, tastes iron-bitter blood at the back of her throat.
Punches, one after another. Punches that stun and dazzle, tiny shimmers among the black. Her brain seems to dip in and out of consciousness.
Caleb grips her under her arms again, hauling and heaving, as if she’s simply a package he has to get rid of, and she wonders if he did this to Seth with the same grim functionality. Hit him and then coldly wedged him into that gap.
Closer again. The sea sounds like it’s right behind them.
Her jacket and top have ridden up at the back and she can feel the scratch of the wet ground on her skin. Just grunts from him now, this is workmanlike.
Her reserves of strength are ebbing away; the opposite of the sea, full of power.
Part of her wants to give in, make it easy now.
Elin closes her eyes, bracing herself for the choppy swell of the water.
93
It doesn’t come.
As Caleb grabs her arms, she hears her father’s voice in her head again.
You’re a coward, Elin. A coward.
The words turn the spark into a fire inside her. Elin throws herself back, the crown of her head hitting something hard with a crack.
His jaw? A cheek? She can’t see, but whatever she struck jolts him backward, off guard. She uses the momentary vulnerability to kick out behind her. He’s already unstable and it’s enough to make him stumble.
Elin manages to turn, finally gets her hands up to her face to rip off her blindfold.
But the sudden influx of light is too much; she’s blinded, her vision blurred. All she can see is a vague outline of him as he staggers sideways.
Caleb seems to hesitate, step toward her, then back. Elin’s already anticipating him lunging toward her again, but instead, he’s moving away.
Footsteps, thudding hard into the distance.
Elin lies back, closing her eyes and then opening them, waiting for her vision to steady, the giddy spinning beneath her eyelids to cease.
A sob escapes her throat.
It’s hard to believe she’s safe; she can still feel the violence in the air around her. Caleb was close to killing her, wanted desperately to do it; she could feel the anger in every part of him, every limb, every sinew.
As she eases herself up to a sitting position, questions tear through her head: Why had he left her when he did? The attack felt so . . . intimate. Something you wouldn’t leave unfinished. Had she hurt him more than she realized? Did he fear he couldn’t finish the job?
But the thoughts are immediately supplanted by the realization that if he’s left her, the chances are that he’s going after someone else. Farrah, if he hasn’t already, Ronan Delaney, Steed, who’s on his own back there.
With a huge effort, Elin pulls herself upright, but it’s a struggle to get to her feet; the blows have made her dizzy. Still punch-drunk, swaying slightly on her feet, resolve settles on her as she thinks about what lies ahead.
She’s reached a pivot point—either she gives up now, or she goes after him.
It only takes a moment to decide as her fear recedes and something else replaces it. Outrage.
Overwhelming, raw anger. Caleb made her feel weak just then. A coward.
She doesn’t want to feel like that anymore.
Making her way back to the front of the villa, Elin peers through the glass, relief unfolding inside her as she sees Farrah, lying, eyes closed, on the bed. He didn’t come back for her.
She gently raps on the glass. Farrah’s eyes flicker open, widening in alarm before she realizes that it’s Elin.
Clambering out of bed, she makes her way to the door. “Is everything okay?” she murmurs, pulling the door open. “Your face . . .”
Elin raises a hand, lightly grazes her cheek. She winces. “Caleb.”
Farrah’s eyes dart past Elin in panic, but there’s no sign of any movement bar the storm: the frenzy it’s created, water pounding the glass, still collecting in dirty puddles on the path.