Darkest Place (20 page)

Afterwards, as Nate set up the camera, Carly pulled her pyjamas back on before sliding between the sheets. If it happened tonight, she didn't want to see pictures of herself terrified and naked.

‘Still snapping?' Carly sat up as Nate collected her mobile from the chest of drawers.

‘Two-hundred odd photos and still downloading.' He held it out to her.

The screen was black. ‘How can you tell?'

‘I checked on my phone.'

It had seemed logical for Nate to have access to the cloud file, but now, after being photographed in her sleep, Carly wished he'd waited for her before looking. She switched on her phone. ‘Anything interesting?'

‘Just you.'

Tapping her screen. ‘What do you mean?'

‘You move a lot. Toss and turn. You rose onto an elbow once.'

‘Onto an elbow?'
On a good night?

‘It doesn't mean anything. Not yet. Take a look on the laptop, the images are hard to make out on the phone.'

Downstairs, she flicked through grainy thumbnail pictures, a time stamp indicating the hours that had slipped by. Around 3 am, her scattered movements turned to restlessness. As Nate lay curled beside her, she tossed
and jerked about for half an hour. At 3.37, her head rose from the pillow, the elbow pushed into the mattress, her face aimed at the camera. For five minutes. Did she do that on other nights?

Did she do more than that – and scare the hell out of herself?

The last shots were of Nate waking and walking naked towards the lens, facing the bed for fifteen frames before he turned the camera off.

 

‘From the someone you met?' Carly asked, watching the smile on Dakota's face as she read a text message.

‘Yep.' She pushed the phone into her pocket, looking uncharacteristically coy.

Carly unwound her scarf, the warmth in the courtyard outside the campus cafe finally making it through her winter layers. ‘Made any decisions about him yet?'

‘Still a maybe but edging towards approval.'

‘Ticking the right boxes?'

‘So far.'

‘Has he got a name?'

Dakota made a face. ‘Bruno. Don't laugh.'

‘Wouldn't think of it.'

‘How's your scary neighbour's eye?'

‘Not black anymore. A little pink scar right here.' Carly touched her eyebrow.

‘Bet you had to get close to see that.'

Carly hesitated … and reminded herself friends shared. ‘Yeah, I looked pretty close.'

‘I knew it.' She tapped her coffee cup against Carly's. ‘Good for you. Hope he ticked all the right boxes for you.'

‘Hope you're not about to ask which ones.'

‘Ee-uw, no. Must be easy being next door, though. No biggie getting home at 4 am. No early-morning oh-no-I-need-new-clothes.'

‘That's true.' That part had been easy. ‘Possibly too easy.'

‘Oh, so he didn't tick
all
the boxes?' Her tone was still flippant.

Carly couldn't match it. ‘It's not that.' She thought about the photos on her laptop, not the images of her raised on an elbow, but others before and after that. Of two bodies nestled together, Nate cuddling into her back, Carly with an arm or a leg draped across him. Not like new lovers but already settled into cosy, familiar sleeping positions. Like a couple. Like she'd done in another life with men who'd started out wanting to save her. ‘I have a tendency to jump too fast.'

‘I guess it depends where you jump to,' Dakota said.

Carly wondered if a twenty-year-old was the right person to explain it to, but Dakota made it easy to talk. ‘I've been married twice. I'm bad at relationships. I screw them up.'

‘Maybe you don't screw them up. Maybe you just choose the wrong guy.'

‘Same result either way.'

Dakota stirred her coffee for a moment. ‘You don't have to jump, you know. You could just, you know, shuffle forward on your butt and lower down slowly.'

Carly smiled. It sounded sensible, but could she? She never had. And now? When she didn't know what was happening, when she was scared, when Nate was the only thing that made her feel safe? Could she shuffle
forward – when it was possible the man in black might never return if Nate stayed with her?

 

Nate stood at her door with a bakery box in one hand and a bag of groceries in the other. ‘Steak and apple pie.'

Carly thought about shuffling, telling him she had study to do, that she was ready to stay in the apartment on her own. But it was a good-looking man with food.

Over dessert, he said, ‘I'm going to my sister's again tomorrow.'

‘Nice.'

‘I won't be back until late. Not much before midnight, probably.'

‘Right.'

‘Will you be all right on your own?'

The question made her hesitate. She'd been worried about slipping into togetherness because she was scared to be alone, that her neediness would screw things up. But his question flipped it around. She wasn't a child, she could be on her own. It was part of the reason she was here, to prove it. ‘I'll be fine,' she said, not sure if it was the truth.

‘Call if you change your mind.' Nate said at her front door the next morning. ‘Or text.' He kissed her. ‘Anytime.'

‘I've got the message.'

She could still feel him on her skin as she watched him to the stairs. ‘You don't have to be afraid,' he'd murmured to her as they'd made love on the sofa. And again in the loft as he'd stroked the soft flesh at her throat, following the curves of her face with his lips. Shadowy memories had played at the back of her mind as her body ached and arched beneath his. Fear and pleasure, shuddering and breathlessness.

His presence stayed with her all day, his smell in her hair, his voice in her ear and the raw, sensual tenderness inside her. Underneath it all, like a thread stitching it together, was apprehension – for what might come in her apartment tonight and what it would tell her.

 

She can hear his steady breath. Her dread is harsh and hot. Something she doesn't understand is pulsing deep within her.

The bed shifts. He is above her now. She can't see him but she knows. She wants to open her eyes but they won't move, so she waits. It won't be long. She knows that too.

Warm, sweet breath on her neck, her hair, her face. A sharp gasp in her chest as the hand finds her. Firm and possessive, on her throat. Her breath quickens. Fear and … desire. He chuckles quietly. Amused, pleased. Shame washes over her.

He lowers himself, his weight presses the swell of her pubis, the mound of her breasts. Behind her lids she sees light and colour, a man above her. Muscular, freckled shoulders, thatch of hair on his chest, nipples puckered and dark. Rocking slowly, rhythmically. Watching her.

He has a face. It is Nate's face.

The whisper is warm across her lips.

‘Don't be afraid.' Her breath catches. Fear and desire.

Wetness snakes a trail, cheek to temple. Her eyes open on darkness. Searching, straining for clarity.

‘I can taste you.' His tongue is in her ear, sliding, probing, worming its way into her head. Through her brain, reaching a memory. She is astride him, setting the rhythm, the blue of his irises is dark and sated and on her.
Nate's eyes. Nate's hands on her. Desire driving the thrust of her body.

She stiffens at the sound of his guttural chuckle. The memory dies and she is beneath him, prostrate, pinned like an insect. She can't see his face now but she knows. It is Nate and she has done this. She brought him here, she wanted him.

Her stomach pitches with disgust. A sound comes from her throat. Not a word, just the force of effort as she twists her face away. As her arms bend at the elbows and her fingernails scratch across smooth, thick fabric.

‘
Fuck
.'

There is surprise and alarm in his exclamation. His body jerks, rears away. Something falls hard across her throat, crushing her neck into the pillow, her jaw jammed shut, teeth locked together. She can't breathe, beats her hands against the covers.

‘Fuck.
Fuck.
' Panic in his voice. The pressure at her throat driving down, crushing her windpipe.

She stills. Scared to move, needing to breathe. Blood pounds in her face, her ears. A buzzing, speckling fog creeps at the edges of her awareness. Muscles are slackening as though the air she needs is to keep them inflated.

Then the choking eases, just enough for her to gulp at the air, chest and shoulders heaving.

Her eyes are open on blackness, his shadow. He is sitting on her, straddled across her pelvis. There is a bar across her throat. Her arms will move if she asks them, she feels that, only she doesn't. She listens to the agitated, unnerved stuttering of his lungs.

There is something less than black in her eyes now. She blinks at the suggestion of light, wanting it to show itself. She senses indecision in him – kill her or rape her
or not? Enjoy it rough or kiss her and tell her not to be afraid?

Anger itches in her veins, the cry that slips from her mouth is pitiful.

The bar lifts from her throat. ‘Carly?' It is a whisper.

She's not sure she can speak but she won't answer. Fuck him.

Fingers probe the hollows under her jaw. A shout in her head:
He's checking my pulse!
She turns her face away. A sharp snap, a thrust of her shoulders. Then her hands are grappling, scrabbling, hitting. It is not in her mind, she can feel the bursts of contact under her fingers.

He is grabbing for her arms, her elbows, her wrists. Trying to hold her, pin her. Grunting, swearing. A palm covers her face, shoves it sideways, pushing it into the pillow. She is flinging her arms, pitching herself, wrestling him without skill or aim or strength.

Fighting for breath, for life.

She found the top step when she tipped over the edge, clutched at the bars as she tumbled downwards. On her feet again at the bottom then tripping, scuttling to the wall, cringing there.

Not a fucking dream.
Someone had jammed fingers against her pulse. Acid leapt to the back of her mouth. She retched, forced it down, searched – kitchen, windows, stairs, the dark space above the edge of the loft.

Was he still there?

Legs clumsy, something wrong with a foot, she stumbled to the kitchen, fumbled along cold stainless steel, found what she wanted: the handle of a long, sharp knife jutting from the block on the counter. It felt too light and too heavy. The wooden handle was slippery in her palm. She needed two hands to stop it shaking.

What now? What the fuck now?

The answer came from the hallway. Noise at the front door, the flat of a hand slapping the timber. The voice from the other side froze her blood.

‘Let me in. Carly, let me in!'

Nate. Oh
fuck
, it was Nate.

Carly pressed her back to the wall at the other end of the hallway, its length between her and the front door.

The timber rattled in its frame. She watched it and waited. Whatever Nate had done, however he had done it, she'd taken him to her bed, given him her body – and a key.

The clunk of the pins inside the lock reached her through the silence. A metallic thump as the chain caught, his voice louder through the gap.

‘Carly, it's Nate. I'm coming in.'

She heard the bump and scrape of metal on timber. Boltcutters. Then the door flew open and the shadow of him stepped inside.

She watched it pause on the threshold and knew something else. Something important. She wasn't crazy. It was real, it was cruel. And she had a knife in her hand.

‘Carly?'

‘Stay back.' Her mouth was dry, her tongue slow.

He found her in the dimness, came closer. ‘Are you hurt?'

‘I've got a knife.'

He stopped. ‘Is there someone here?'

‘You, Nate. You're here. You let yourself in with a fucking
key
.' She lifted the blade – a threat.

Edging past her, walking backwards towards the lighter gloom of the living room, he held up a palm. ‘Carly, it's okay.'

‘No, it's not.' She moved with him, staying close, not wanting to lose him in the shadows.

‘I won't hurt you.'

‘No, you won't.'

‘You can put the knife down.'

‘
No
.'

He stopped in the open space at the bottom of the stairs, reached for the wall. A light came on, blazingly bright. ‘Your hands are bleeding.'

It was blood making the knife slippery? She wanted to shift her eyes to it, didn't move her gaze from him.

‘Did you cut yourself, Carly?' He didn't mean by accident.

‘It's not
me
.
I
didn't do this.' Victory in her tone. Something edgy and uncontrolled in her muscles. Making her move, pace and retreat, feet shuffling like they were on a dance floor, something wrong with one of them. ‘It's you. I know it's
you
.'

‘No, Carly.' He glanced over his shoulder, stayed where he was.

‘Don't pretend. Just
don't
.'

‘Tell me what happened.'

‘You
know
.' Swaying, stepping, breathing hard.

He moved in as she danced away. The knife flared under the lights as she slashed at the air.

He showed his hands. ‘It's okay, it's okay.'

‘You tried to
choke
me.' She swung again.

He caught her wrist and pulled her close. Strong, fast, the fat blade in the space between their chests, its sharp, lethal tip aimed at the ceiling.

‘Not me, Carly.' His voice was low and calm. ‘I wasn't here. I don't know what happened but it wasn't me.'

She breathed hard, eyes on the fingers tight around her wrist. ‘Liar.'

‘You want to hurt me?'

Her breasts touched his forearm with her inward breaths. Her pulse bucked and surged in her veins. ‘Yes.'

‘Then do it. Cut me. I don't care.' He changed the pressure of his hold, angled the point of the blade at himself,
pushed at her hand until the tip of the knife touched the hollow under his jaw. ‘If that's what you need, if that will fix it, do it.'

The knife slipped from her hands, clattered to the floor, skittered away. She'd killed once before, she couldn't do it again.

Stepping back, out of his grip, she saw the blood, smeared across her hands, bright drops of it on the pale blue of her pyjama pants. The shaking started then. Great rolling tremors that quaked through her spine, spiralled out to her arms, her legs. She swayed and stumbled.

Nate caught her by the elbow. ‘Let me help you.'

She wanted to keep her distance, but any strength for resistance was gone and she let him guide her to the half bath, lurching as pain drilled through her foot. Nate sat her on the toilet lid, ran water over her hands, inspected the right one where blood oozed across the palm and dripped into the sink.

‘Tit for tat,' she said.

He glanced up.

‘First you, now me.' Her voice sounded strange. A knee jiggled. She pointed at his eyebrow. ‘Taking turns to bleed.'

His eyes flicked over her face as though he was trying to read what was written on it.

‘I didn't do it,' she said. ‘I mean I did, I must have, but not to myself. Not on purpose.'

‘You had a knife.'

Her voice was loud. It echoed in her skull. ‘I didn't cut myself.'

He lifted her sore foot to his lap, pressed gently around the ankle. ‘I think you sprained it.'

‘I broke it once. I broke both of them. I fell down and broke myself.'

Nate said nothing to that, just tugged at her sleeves, ran fingers across her forearms, lifted her hair and touched her throat. Then, finally, said, ‘What happened, Carly?'

‘I saw you,' she whispered.

‘Tell me everything. Tell me like I don't know.'

‘How you pinned me down? How I fought you?'

He pushed at her sleeve again. ‘Is that how you got this?' A pink welt stood out on the inside of her upper arm.

She snatched it back. ‘Maybe it was when you shoved your arm against my throat until I couldn't breathe.' She squeezed her eyes on the memory.

‘Carly, can you wait here? Just stay here. Okay?' Then he was gone.

She heard him on the stairs, then on the floor above. She didn't wait, she stood, clutching the sink as her head spun, lifting her eyes to the mirror. There was a raw scratch on her cheek and red welts on her throat. She reeled away from her reflection, spilling into the living room, stumbling into the TV, bumping the kitchen counter.

Then Nate was sitting on the coffee table in front of her. He was holding her undamaged hand and she was shaking her head.

‘What did you take?' His voice was firmer, insistent. ‘What are these?' He shook the foil blister pack.

‘Sleeping pills.'

‘Did you take them all?'

‘I didn't take any.'

‘There are only two left.'

‘I washed them down the sink.'

‘All of them?'

‘No, one of them. One every night. I push one out then toss it down the drain.'

‘You took something, though.' When she shook her head, he held her chin, searched her eyes. ‘Okay.' Something grave in his voice. Her mobile in his hand. ‘Okay.'

‘No.' She grabbed the phone. ‘You don't get to look first.'

‘You do it then. On the laptop.'

Her hands were shaking, she couldn't remember the password and he had to sign her in to the cloud file. The first pictures were taken just after 1 am when she'd activated the app. There were small groups of shots as she'd settled into a restless sleep. At 3.17, a longer batch. Images of Carly as she rolled towards the camera, lifted a hand to her ear, head raised off the pillow. Then nothing. No more photos.

‘Where are the rest?' she asked.

‘That's all there is.'

She straightened, leaned away from him, anger and fear tightening her chest. ‘You
deleted
them.'

‘No, Carly, listen. I found your phone on the floor in the loft just now. I came straight back down. It takes a couple of minutes to get into the file with the mobile. This is the first time I've seen the pictures.'

‘My phone was on the floor?'

‘Yes. With everything else that was on top of your dresser. I think you cut your hand on the glass from a mirror.'

A memory: sharp corners, toppling, tumbling. ‘I knocked the phone down?'

‘It stopped shooting before that. It stopped shooting here.' He pointed at the last photo, her head slightly raised from the pillow.

Carly's pulse tapped. ‘I saw you.'

‘Something woke you.'

‘My eyes were closed.'

‘And then the motion sensor stopped.'