Page 72 of Cut Off from Sky and Earth
Emily
* * *
A sharp crack splits the air. The rocking chair, stacked precariously on the pile of boxes barricading the door, slides an inch to the left.
My gaze darts to the window where Alex vanished, then back to the door. My worry for her wars with my fear for what will happen when my luck runs out and the door gives way. Trapped in this attic, I can’t do a single thing to help her. I have to save myself if I’m going to have any chance of saving her.
Another crack, and the rubber bin full of books shifts. A sob rises in my throat.
“Fee-fi-fo-fum,” the voice sing-songs from the other side. More splintering sounds follow, and the door frame buckles. “I smell the blood of—” A pause. “Well, you know how it goes, Emily.”
That voice. So familiar, yet somehow wrong. Distorted, like it’s a bad cell phone connection. Is it Tate? Maybe I recognize him because he’s my husband’s brother, but it’s off, wrong, because it isn’t Tristan?
Maybe. Whoever it is, the menace underlying the old nursery rhyme sends a shiver through me. I back away from the door, gripping the poker in my sweat-slicked hands. My shoulders smack the wall beneath the window. Cold air whistles through the open window. I almost turn to look, to see if Alex has miraculously stood up and escaped. Saved herself.
I hope she has, but I don’t check. I can’t think about Alex now. I have to focus. Have to?—
The rubber bin topples. Books cascade across the floor like dominoes. The man outside laughs. And suddenly I know why I recognize the voice. It’s not Tate. It’s Dr. Wilde. My throat goes dry.
Dr. Wilde.
The man who helped me process my trauma, who guided me through my darkest moments after Cassie’s death. The one person who knows my every fear, every weakness, every vulnerability. I’ve bared more of myself to him than anyone, including my husband.
Another crack. The barricade shudders.
“Your sessions were quite illuminating, Emily.” His voice, despite it all, maintains his professional warmth. “All those hours discussing your novel and what it meant to you. A woman trapped in a tower. How autobiographical.”
I grip the poker until my knuckles turn white. My mind races. Every revelation about my past, every breakthrough about my anxiety, every piece of understanding I gained about my past gave him a blueprint. An operating manual that he can use now to manipulate me, torment me.
Fuck that.
The words explode inside me. I won’t let him. I can use his knowledge of me against him.
I stiffen my spine, solidifying my resolve, as the door frame splinters. Through the widening gap, I catch a glimpse of him. The familiar face that nodded sympathetically across his desk while I sobbed about Cassie is now twisted into a distorted mask of violence.
Thirty-Seven
Alex
* * *
A crash sounds from above. I can’t tell if it’s thunder, a tree branch splitting, or the attacker in my attic. My throat closes. I need to hurry. Through sheets of icy rain, I drag myself toward my front steps, my useless right arm trailing in mud. Each movement sends fresh agony through my shoulder, but I keep going. I have to. Emily is trapped up there with—someone. The same someone who hurt her before? The same someone who hurt me? Tate.
The cold rain soaks through my clothes, and another memory emerges. I’m not in North Carolina.
I’m in Maine, in my apartment lying on my floor, my body broken and battered. The storm lashes through my shattered slider door, and Tate Weakes stands over me with a hunting knife. Hot blood—my blood—drips from the blade onto my exposed collarbone. His expression hovers somewhere between pleasure and disgust.
I gasp at the strength of the memory, then turn and retch into the mud. When I finish and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, the scene is still spooling out in my mind.
Tate’s not looking down at me, he’s staring out my window, his eyes locked on something. No, someone. I can’t turn my head or lift myself to see what he’s looking at, but I know. It’s his father. Tom was watching.
Sharp pebbles of gravel from the driveway bite into my palm as I pull myself forward. Twenty feet to the steps. Might as well be twenty miles. But I won’t stop. Won’t give up. Won’t be helpless again.
I grit my teeth and dig my fingers deeper into the earth. Fifteen feet now. Fire radiates from my useless shoulder, and my ankle throbs with each bump against the ground, but the pain pushes me forward.
A scream pierces the storm’s howl.
Emily.
