Chapter 22
Damon
I’m as anxious as hell as I sit on the floor, my hands trembling as I pick up the rope and start to form a noose. I memorised a YouTube tutorial, but despite practising it, I might as well be wearing boxing gloves for all the control I have over my fingers.
‘Wait, no,’ Laura says suddenly. ‘It’s all wrong.’
For a moment, I think she’s backing out of this. And if that’s the case, a small part of me might feel a tinge of relief. Would it really be such a bad thing if she walked out?
‘You’re tying a hangman’s noose, and that only works when there’s a drop,’ she clarifies.
‘Oh.’
She takes the rope from my hand and joins me on the carpet like an adult teaching a child how to tie his shoelace. ‘There won’t be a drop in your case,’ she goes on with exaggerated patience as she works the rope, ‘because you’re doing this on the floor. So I’m going to use a clove hitch.’
If I needed any more evidence that Laura knows what she’s doing, this is it. She exudes confidence. And unless I’m misreading the room, I sense an eagerness about her. Perhaps more than just adesire to be a Good Samaritan. Whatever. Her motivations are her own concern. I care only for results.
She sets to work and I feel the warmth radiating from her hands and face as she positions the circular hole a little below my jawline and above my Adam’s apple. Her nose is so close to my mouth now it’s like she is drawing in my breath. It feels strikingly intimate, almost sexual. It crosses my mind how she might respond if I moved a little closer and placed my lips on hers, but the thought leaves almost as soon as it arrives.
Next, she attaches the rope to the clothes rail and pulls at it to ensure it won’t come loose. And finally, she binds my hands together behind my back with a cable tie she removes from her pocket. Does having it so at the ready demonstrate how serious she is taking this, or is it a red flag?
‘Your survival instinct will be working against us,’ she explains as she works. ‘This’ll stop your fists from lashing out.’ She offers me a wan smile. ‘I’d rather not leave here with a broken nose.’
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Okay.’Absolutely. Truss me up like a pig. Carry on.
‘I’m going to add a little pressure to your body to try and spare you the pain of asphyxiation,’ she continues. ‘So you’ll black out before you pass away. Hopefully, you’ll find answers to your questions. And I’ll be right here and ready to bring you back.’
Then, without warning or checking with me one last time if this is still what I want, Laura pulls the rope around my neck so tightly, my hands instinctively reach to try to create a gap between it and my skin. There isn’t one.
Nothing if not efficient, within what feels like seconds Laura has me back in the cold, cold sea. Only, this time, I am bone-dry and it’s not the elements killing me, it’s Laura. The terror is the same. Knowing my life is about to end right now is no different to the time before. And even though Laura is here at my request to help me die, I still look to her in desperation, begging for help.
Instead of calming me or offering me reassuring words, a smile shines through the gaps in her face. A different smile from the one she showed me earlier. She remains on the floor with me, but now she is beginning to back away towards the defibrillator. Only, she’s unplugging it and pushing it away with her foot, out of reach.
She wants me dead, but not in the same way I do.
Chapter 23
Damon
Oh fuck. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. Laura isn’t here for me, she is here for herself. And I’m helpless to make it stop.
Now she is holding her phone out in front of her and she touches the screen. I think she’s recording my death.
‘Don’t fight it, and it will be a lot easier and so much quicker,’ she says, over the sounds of my coughs and gasps. ‘Trust me.’
But I don’t. Instead, I try to free myself, however, she has done far too good a job of securing my hands and the knot around the noose. It won’t budge.
Now she has commenced slowly crawling towards me with the stealth of a cat approaching its prey, her phone trained upon me. I can smell her hunger as she draws closer. She takes deep breaths as if ingesting my panic.Oh, no. No no no no.I try begging her for help, to tell her I’ve changed my mind, but I can’t get a word out. The rope is crushing my airway. And now the dead boy is standing next to her, reaching his hand out towards me, as if wanting to save me.There’sa change. He opens his useless black mouth wide and his rasps mimic mine.
And then his expression alters. There’s no mistaking it: he is silently laughing at me. He wants me dead. They both do.
Panic suddenly steps aside when my body floods itself with a naturally occurring chemical reminiscent of a sedative, numbing both my pain and my fear – my brain once again kicking in to protect me, pave the transition from this life to the next. An overwhelming sense of calmness washes over me. If there is a God, He has truly thought of everything.
And it’s in that moment that another familiar sensation begins, one I have only felt once before, two months ago, beneath the waves. It’s like the reverse of a Polaroid picture, as if a clear image of everything around me is slowly fading to black and is being replaced by a carousel of moving images that represent my life.
But then, in the remaining seconds before my exit from this world, the bedroom door bursts open.
Chapter 24
