She couldn’t die. Ella needed her.
That was the only thought that spurred her to keep going as she forced her body to keep moving.
She was frantic now, her legs dragging heavily behind her, but she’d almost reached the front door. All she had to do was reach up and grab the handle. A few more steps and she’d be outside, then she could call for help.
Someone would see her. They’d help her.
Turning back to check on Jamie, she flinched at the sight of his lifeless body sprawled out on the floor, already unconscious. She knew Mark wasn’t going to stop there and sees him reach for the knife. Rebecca’s worst fears come true as he holds it up high above him, before plunging it back down into Jamie’s chest.
‘No!’ Her scream comes out as no more than a strangled whisper, muted by the sickening crunch of the knife as it plunges into Jamie’s body. His head lolls to one side, a look of shock spreading across his face as he lies there, helplessly bleeding out.
She can’t move. She can’t breathe. She’s caught in a trance, surrounded by the deathly silence in the room as Mark starts to get back up onto his feet, a thick splatter of blood all over him.
His eyes fix on her now as he realises she’s trying to escape. She’s so close now. She’s almost there, almost at the door, but the room is spinning. Or is it her body? She’s not sure.
She’s shaking, her vision blurred, trembling violently as the adrenaline surges around her body, a mixture of shock and fear taking over her.
I don’t have long, she thinks as she desperately fights to keep her eyes open, knowing her body was shutting down. Soon she’d be completely powerless and completely at Mark’s mercy.
ELLA. It’s as if a voice inside her tells her to keep fighting, that she has something to live for.
MOVE!
Rebecca is clawing at the carpet now, trying to gather momentum.
The front door is just a few inches away. She’s almost there. She’s on her knees now, clambering up the wooden panel, her fingers gripping the door handle.
She manages to pull the door open, a rush of cold air on her face.
She’s out.
‘Help!’ she shrieks into the cold night air.
SLAM.
The door is slammed shut. She’s back inside, and she can feel the strong grip of Mark’s hands as he drags her back across the lounge by her bound legs.
And all she can think is that she’s never going to see Ella again.
Chapter Forty-Five
Rebecca is crying now, because her fate is sealed.
She can’t get away. She can’t save herself. Mark is too strong for her to fight against. But she has to at least try.
As he drags her back into the living room, the carpet soaked with Jamie’s blood, she feebly grabs at every bit of furniture she passes in the hope that something will give her some leverage. That there’s something she can use to fight him with and free herself from his tight grip.
But she knows it’s no use. Mark is going to kill her too.
Jamie scuppered all his earlier plans.
Her death won’t look like a suicide now. Not now Jamie is laying murdered on the floor.
Is Mark going to stab her too?
‘There you go again, Alex. Right until the end, you’re always out for number fucking one, aren’t you? Always trying to save yourself.’ Mark leers. ‘Old habits die hard.’
He pulls her harder. Not caring that the carpet burns her face as he drags her body across it. ‘Well not this time, Alex. You can make an addition to that fucking letter. You’re going to say that you stabbed Jamie too. Because he found out who you really were. And they’ll find all the evidence of that on your computer. All the emails he sat agonising over late at night. The emails I sent him that they’ll have no way of tracing back to me. I watched him. Sitting there, knocking back drink after drink as he stared at the computer, trying to take it all in. To work out if what he was seeing was true. That his perfect wife had secrets. Fuck, it’s no wonder he thought you were crazy, Alex, and that he wanted you carted off to a mental institute. He knew what you were! He knew what you were capable of.’ Mark sneered, spittle leaving his lips.
‘And they’ll say that this is history repeating itself, won’t they, Alex? When they find out about your mother and father. That life’s one big circle and you’re just like her, aren’t you?’
‘I’m not like her…’ She mouths, the room spinning once more. Leaving her feeling sick and dizzy. Her body feeling limp. She tries to roll over but as her eyes rolls to the back of her head, she loses consciousness.
‘Oh no. Not yet!’ Mark shouts, staring down at the state of her now, unconscious on the floor. ‘You’re not going anywhere yet. You need to finish the letter. You need to finish this, Alex.’
She recognises the faint note of panic to his voice as he stares at the chaos and destruction in the room around him. The remainder of the pills all over the carpet, mixed with the pool of blood seeping out from the knife wound in Jamie’s stomach.
She knows what he’s thinking. Alex is a cunt. Even now, she’s fucking up his plans. Mark had been so stupidly eager to make her take all the tablets that he hadn’t factored how quickly they’d start to take effect.
She couldn’t die yet.
She needed to finish this properly.
Jessica deserved her justice.
Turning back to her, her head lolling to the side now, Mark grabbed at her shoulders with one hand and smacked her face with the other.
Nothing.
Her body sank back, lifeless.
Mark hurried from the room and was back seconds later with a glass of cold water. He poured it over her, the water cascading down her face and hair, and still she didn’t move, just lay there. Her skin pale. Her eyes shut.
She can’t be dead.
Not yet.
Bending down, Mark held her wrist and took her pulse, willing it not to be true. She couldn’t get away with it again, with no repercussions.
It wasn’t fair.
Mark wanted to cry, incensed at the unfairness, he wanted to lash out and scream. To hurt Alex. To really fucking hurt her. But it was too late, she was already gone.
Or was she?
He could feel a pulse. A mild one. A slow rhythmic beating beneath his fingertips.
Then out of nowhere, Alex lunged towards him, catching him unawares with a jagged shard of glass she’d clawed up from the carpet as he’d dragged her across the room.
A large piece of glass from Ella’s broken photo frame. She’d been clutching it so tightly she’d sliced through her own flesh, her palm filling with a pool of warm blood as she’d waited so patiently for the perfect moment to strike, summoning the last of her energy. That moment was now.
She dragged the sharp blade of glass across his skin, opening his throat, relishing the flash of complete shock on his face. The horror of what she’d just done to him.
And the fact that she’d duped him.
In his own words, Alex was forever the actress. Just like her own mother.
She smiled.
It was over.
It was Mark’s turn to bleed.
Chapter Forty-Six
‘Officer Blythe,’ a voice way off in the distance calls out. ‘She’s waking up…’ Rebecca’s eyes flicker, the sound of Lisa’s voice pulling her back from the darkness of her sleep. Though for once, she has no recollection of having any kind of bad dream, which was a first for her.