Page 166 of These Tears

‘The door’s right there.’ He jerks his chin towards the exit as his mouth comes within an inch of mine.

‘And miss all this fun in Winterland?’ I jab, my breath catching on it.

I’ve gone mad.

Before I can stop it, my gaze darts sideways towards the wall behind which the telephone sits.

There’s no way I can make a call now.

His eyes follow. Then return to me.

There it is – he understands why I was hiding here.

And when he releases me, it’s worse than if he had tightened his hand.

He herds me back into the corridor, one hand hovering at the small of my back without quite touching. Every time I slow, his boots close the distance behind mine.

My eyes snap left, then right, searching for anything that might buy me a second. Nothing does. There’s only wood, warmth and the unsettling normality of a place that gives my panic nowhere to go.

With each bootfall, flashes of last night burst behind my lids, coaxing the panic louder.

The hallway seems longer. The walls narrower. The air thicker.

Then his hands finally land on my shoulders. One slides to my waist, fingers digging in as he turns me with a single motion, guiding me into another alcove until my spine meets the wall with a dull thud.

His body follows, crowding the space, blotting out the light and every illusion and false reason I’ve been clinging to.

I can’t move without brushing him. I can’t breathe without inhaling him.

He reaches past me. An old cream push-button phone sits on the tall table like a relic from another life. He lifts the receiver slowly, as if he’s savouring the moment. As if he knows I’m counting the seconds.

The receiver leaves its cradle with a soft click, nearly obscene in the quiet, the coils of its cord stretching wider.

Then those piercing, impossible eyes lock onto mine.

He takes my hand.

My fingers jerk reflexively, but he catches them and curves them around the receiver as if teaching a child how to hold it.

‘Outside line. Zero. Hash,’ he instructs.

I don’t move. My fingers don’t obey. Snow flashes behind my eyes. The snowmobile. His boots behind me. The trees.

The hatchet.

My scream he swallowed when his mouth came down on me.

My eyes fall to it.

His jaw shifts at that.

He presses me harder against the wall, claiming more of my space, head dipping until our noses graze once… twice… The friction of skin that should feel intimate instead feels like a blade being dragged slowly across my throat.

‘Zero. Hash,’ he reiterates, his voice dropping a register.

My hand shakes once, rattling the receiver in its grip.

I press the keys.