I threw my head into my hands. I’d slept in the same bed as the man who had tried to kill my son, and who had also succeeded in killing my parents. My skin was full of ants. My body was cold, down to the core. I shivered, but I had to keep my head. I had to try and stay in control. I had to put all of that aside and focus on saving the lives of the people in the house.
“You said you were going to finish what you started ten years ago,” I said, lifting my face to meet his gaze. “What did that mean?”
The laughter faded from Jake’s face and instead his eyes glassed over like marbles. Without his usual amiable grin, he was frightening. He angled his chin down, and dark shadows flooded his eyes, turning him into the cliché movie villain. But this wasn’t your average bad guy. He was my husband and the father of my child. He was the man who rubbed my feet at the end of the day and brought me a hot chocolate when I had my period. He was the man who laughed at my jokes and teased me when I mispronounced a word. He held my hand through horror movies and chatted to my friends. He listened to me when I talked about my past and he was a shoulder to cry on when it was the anniversary of my parents’ death. He had been everything to me, but all of it had been a complete and utter lie.
“You’ve ruined it all, Emma.” The cold edge of his voice was like a razor blade running down my spine. “I can’t fix it anymore. I can’t break you into the woman I need you to be. It’s too late for us all. I’m going to finish what I started ten years ago, and then I’m going to move on to you.” He took a step forward with the knife gripped in his hand.
42
There’s a kind of strength in weakness that comes from hitting the absolute lowest you can go. There have been many moments in my life where I’ve hit such depths that I thought I would never claw my way out of them. Jake talked about owning the darkness within him and taking what he wanted, but he wasn’t the only one in that room experienced with dealing with darkness. When I look back on my time in that room, I realise that Jake had made the same mistake over and over in his life, and that was underestimating me.
Because he was wrong about me.
I wasn’t a broken bird always coming back for a beating. I wasn’t someone he could break over and over again without a fight. I’d never fought because he’d never given me anything to fight. He’d taken the best of my life and tossed it away but he’d never shown me what I needed to be shown. He’d never revealed himself for the person he really was. But now that he had, I could fight him. I finally had a physical manifestation of all the pain I’d suffered for the last decade.
When he rushed at Aiden with the knife, I knew what I had to do.
As Aiden cowered away from Jake, I threw myself between them, holding my hands up to shield my son. Jake’s knife caught the palm of my hand and I screamed as it tore through my skin. But I didn’t give up. I pushed against the knife with one hand, my skin sliced open by the blade, and reached up to hit Jake on the nose with the other.
The blow caught Jake off guard and he staggered back, giving me a slight reprieve. My injured hand was covered in blood but I couldn’t let my eyes linger on the wound, because Jake was readying himself for another attack.
“I was going to kill you last,” Jake said. “But this works too.”
The sparkling glint of anger in his eyes had changed to a dull, grim determination. I knew he was stronger and bigger than me, but I also knew I wanted to live—for both of my children. I quickly checked around me for weapons, but there wasn’t anything, only a TV remote and a magazine. Even the lamp was on the other side of the room with Jake blocking my way. He came at me again, throwing his force against me and pushing me back, colliding with my pregnant belly in a way that made me gasp for breath. But I managed to throw my weight to my right side, duck beneath his armpit, and then push him full force with both hands, hissing with pain as my injured hand made contact with his side.
Jake tumbled to the floor but he still had hold of the knife. I knelt down on his chest and pressed on his wrist with my full weight, but my fingers were slippery with blood. Jake hit me across the face with his free hand, a blow so hard I felt a crunch in my nose. I ignored it, and sank my teeth into his wrist. Jake beat the back of my head and roared with pain. My mouth filled with the rusting taste of warm blood. I sank my teeth deeper and deeper until I felt his grip loosen on the knife.
He finally managed to throw me back, but I took a chunk of his wrist with me and a spray of blood hit me in the face. My bloody fingers couldn’t grip the knife and it flew from my hand to the back of the room. Jake, face sweaty and contorted, lifted his leg and I recognised that he meant to kick me in the stomach. I rolled to the right and struggled up onto my feet.
“Aiden, we need to go!”
My son was sat on the sofa, his eyes wide and his face set in horror. I quickly wiped away some of the blood from my mouth as Jake climbed to his feet, holding his wrist.
“Just let us go, Jake,” I pleaded. I was prepared to do anything to keep myself and my children alive.