I cross over my own footprints, and I can see Shaw’s right on top of them, twice the size, his weight churning up the dirt. I can’t hear him, but I know he’s close. Following my prints. Hunting me.
Picking up the skirt of my dress so it won’t drag, I run backward down the next aisle. I hope this might confuse him. Then, when I reach the next intersection, I run forward again. Then backward once more.
I still can’t hear him. Where the fuck did he go?
Is he hiding in the walls now?
Is he about to jump out at me?
I’m staring around on all sides, wild-eyed, fighting against the waves of panic threatening to overwhelm me.
Where is he? Where am I? How do I get out?
Dazed and distracted, I see my own reflection running right toward me.
I slam into the smooth black glass, falling backward onto my ass. Scrambling up again, I hear a low laugh.
Shaw stands at the other end of the aisle.
I’m trapped.
There’s nowhere to run.
He’s cornered me in the dead end.
Shaw isn’t running anymore. He approaches calmly, casually. Smiling like he did as he walked through the technicolor spiderweb: knowing he has every advantage, and I have none.
He only pauses to reach around behind his shoulder once more, finally catching hold of the handle of the knife and wrenching it out of his back with a grimace. He examines his own blood on the blade, as dark and glossy as the labyrinth walls.
“Got me good, didn’t you, you little cunt,” he grunts.
He holds the knife upright, the tip as wickedly sharp as the point of a fang.
“I ought to peel your fucking face off with this,” he says. “See how pretty Cole finds you then.”
He opens his fingers, letting the knife drop to the ground, the impact causing a spatter of blood to flick across the fresh-fallen snow.
“I don’t use a knife,” he says, giving me that blinding white smile, bracketed on both sides by boyish dimples. “Why would I need one, when I’ve got fingernails and teeth? I’m gonna rip you apart with my bare hands. That’s what I like Mara—I like the taste of your throat tearing against my tongue. I like the feel of your eyeballs giving way under my thumbs. I want to feel you breaking, cracking, ripping. I want your warm blood pumping down my arms.”
I’m so afraid that I’ve passed right through to the other side.
A deathly clarity settles over me.
This is it. This is the end.
Whatever happens, I won’t give in. If he kills me, I’m going to take some pieces of Shaw with me.
I slip out of my heavy coat, letting it fall behind me. Allowing the soft flakes of snow to settle in my hair and on my bare shoulders. Feeling their cool kiss one last time.
“You tried to murder me before,” I tell Shaw. “As a killer and an artist … you’re mediocre.”
Shaw’s upper lip twists from a grin into a snarl. His teeth clench so hard I can almost hear them cracking, and his fists shake. With a howl, he charges down the alley.
He’s running right at me, getting bigger and bigger, until his shoulders almost touch both walls.
He’s a wrecking ball swinging right at me. There’s nowhere to run.
Out of a passageway in the dark glass, Cole barrels into Shaw, diving at his legs, sending them both tumbling end over end, until they slam into the opposite wall.
There is no strategy. There is no plan.
Cole is already gasping and sweating and bleeding everywhere before the fight has even begun. He grapples with Shaw, no element of surprise on his side. From the second they make contact, it’s a melee of madness: desperate, bloody, and brutal.
The men fight and claw, biting, punching, and kicking, rolling over and over in the snow. The ground becomes a morass of churned-up mud and bloody slush.
This is like no fight I’ve ever seen, wildly hectic, viciously brutal. I can hardly tell one man from another as they punch at each other’s throats and gouge at each other’s eyes. This is how predators fight: not to win, but to kill.
Shaw is bigger, stronger. Cole is faster, but that’s of limited use now that they’re already on the ground. Cole gave up all the advantage when he tackled Shaw, taking him down before he could plough into me.
Cole turns, wild-eyed, mouth bloody.
“Mara RUN!” he shouts.
I’ve never seen him scared. He thinks he’s going to lose. He thinks we’re both going to die.
I’ve been trapped in the dead end, pressed up against the cold glass, unable to move because the fight is too wild, I don’t know to help.