James smiles, and there is nothing human in it. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
Pete makes a small sound, tries to stand, can’t. I want to dart towards him, but there’s an angry James and a knife blocking my way.
“Pete—"
“You don’t know him,” James says. “Not like I do.”
“I know enough,” I say, and my voice shakes but I don’t care. “I know you hurt him. And I know about Chris.”
A flicker then. The name lands. He could deny it. He could laugh. He doesn’t.
“I’ve seen the video,” I say. “In the kitchen. I know you killed him.”
I’m not sure antagonising him like this is the best idea. My rough unthought-through plan revolves around winding him up so he comes at me with the knife rather than Pete. I have room to run, giving Pete a chance to get somewhere safe.
“You don’t have a fucking clue what you’re dealing with,” James hisses.
“I think you’re a fucking psychopath!”
“You don’t know anything about me!”
“I know you’re a monster!” I scream at him. “And Pete deserves better than you.”
James stares at me. “You’re so fucking naïve!” he screams, turning to Pete. “I just want him dead!”
And with that, rather than coming at me, James lunges at Pete, knife in hand. All Pete can do, backed into the wall, is throw his hands up as cover.
Instinct detonates. I launch. I catch the back of James's shirt and wrench him off balance. The knife hand slices a hair's breadth past Pete. James stumbles, his heel hooks the tiles and he collapses back into me. Our weight drives me backwards and I hit the floor with James on top of me, hard enough to see stars.
The knife skitters out of his grip and clatters to the side as he rolls. I roll with him, legs tangling, and shove my weight across his chest to pin him. His body is a machine of muscle and panic. He thrashes, digging elbows, trying to wrench free. My legs clasp around him, holding him to the floor. My left arm snakes up and finds his throat and I clamp around it because if I don't choke him he will kill me and then Pete. He chokes, eyes wide and red-rimmed, and the sound he makes is half-angel, half-animal.
We wrestle for the knife as if two magnets had been thrown onto a table. His spare hand darts, fingers like claws, and finds the blade first.
For a breathless instant he has it, fingers closing on cold metal. He pulls his arm back, aiming—aiming at me, at my side, at the small soft places where panic makes us human.
Then movement from nowhere.
Emma.
She hits him like a freight train.
She dives across him and slams her weight down, her fingers looping around his wrist. James snarls and tries to throw her off; the three of us become a knot of limbs and sound.
Straddling him, Emma's hands are on his arms, and for a second I think she will be ripped away. He flings, shakes, muscles like ropes. She grits her teeth, pins, forces him down. In the churn of limbs her hand finds the blade, or the blade finds her—either way, it drives forward.
A wet, impossible noise ruptures the air. James keels, a wordless cry ripping free of him.
Warmth spills, and for a second the whole kitchen tilts.
He doesn't shout again. His thrashing stumbles and dies. I am still wrapped around him, feeling the sudden, ridiculous lightness as his body goes slack against mine.
Emma scrambles back on her knees, eyes wide and wet, breathing like someone who's run until their lungs forget how to stop.
I push myself up, hands slick. I step away, and together—standing, shaking, raw—Emma and I look down at the man laying below us.
Blood seeps around us as the kitchen clock ticks like an accusation.
James is dead.
