Taking a step forward while Mark wasn’t looking – while he instead watched Sammy squirm under the pinch of his blade – Eric snapped, “Okay! I know where he went and I can find him for you. I can get the crossbow back.”
Mark levelled his gaze at him, one eyelid twitching.
*
“Emma?”
The name fell out of Kingsley’s mouth in a stunned whisper.
Realising they knew each other, Sebastian narrowed his eyes at Emma. She could do nothing but stare at Kingsley – the man who had taken her heart, painted her future with love and fulfilment, then ripped the canvas to pieces. A wave of varying emotions flooded her brain and clogged the words in her throat. But what she felt most was fear.
Because Kingsley had brought pain and chaos into her life before and now he was here again and she couldn’t escape the feeling that she was falling down yet another hole with him. This was not supposed to happen. She was never supposed to see him again.
In his shock at seeing Emma, Kingsley had lowered the crossbow, a similar internal battle going on inside his own head.
Sebastian saw this; he took his chance while the weapon was out of his face.
He grabbed at the crossbow, trying to wrench it from Kingsley’s hands. There was grunting and yelling from both men as they wrestled. Emma was suddenly very aware of the fact that she had no weapon – she must have left her steak knife somewhere, maybe in the van – and she scanned the room for one.
An abrupt cry of anguish from outside curdled her blood.
She found the knife Sebastian had dropped on the floor and snatched it up. Just as Sebastian delivered a savage kick to Kingsley’s shin, followed by a shove that sent him into the wall and allowed Sebastian to pry the crossbow from his weakened grip. Then he struck him hard in the head with the butt of the crossbow. Kingsley crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
2.
Sammy didn’t know what Eric was doing. But she had already decided she wasn’t going down without a fight.
She was just building up the courage to act. To stab Mark with the sharp fragment of bone she’d found in the back of the butcher’s van – a remnant from an animal carcass that had fallen into a crack in the floor lining. Sammy had concealed the bone fragment up her sleeve, ready to draw it out with her fingers and plunge it into Mark’s neck.
There was a huge chance she would die too. But at least she would take this bastard down with her.
Sammy hardly listened to the negotiations going on between Eric and Mark. Mark had stopped pressing the knife into the side of her neck, which was a relief. For a good few seconds, she had thought he was going to kill her right there.
Do it now, she thought. Just do it before he does kill you.
She looked at Eric’s blood-speckled face – his cool eyes and chiselled features a mask of control even in this dire moment. And it lit a spark in her. She cradled the bone fragment in her palm.
Just then came the sound of men yelling in the house to Sammy’s right.
The pressure of the knife against her neck went away as Mark’s attention shifted for a moment to the noises coming from the house.
Now. Sammy threw her fist backwards over her shoulder and bore into Mark’s flesh with the piece of bone.
But the cold bite of the blade returned as Mark retaliated with a swift stab to the centre of her throat – driving it all the way in this time. He pulled the knife out and let her body fall. Eric caught her and dropped to one knee, her body going limp in his arms as she died, and he cried out in mixed despair and rage.
Mark gingerly touched the gouge Sammy had just torn into his neck below his right ear. He seethed as his fingers came back coated in blood. She had tried to kill him, but it hadn’t worked. And now her friends were going to pay.
Eric laid Sammy’s body on the ground and lunged at Mark.
*
At the same time, John swung the chain mace at the two women.
They dodged the spiked head. Then they split – Rebecca going for the duffel bag to get a weapon while Kara circled John, darting in and out of his swing radius to kick at his legs. He grunted as one of her kicks landed on his thigh and he almost fell to his knees. But he kept his footing, screaming obscenities at her as he took another wide swing.
John turned to Rebecca, who had retrieved the machete and police baton from the bag. She rolled the baton toward Kara and John saw the policewoman go to grab it out of the corner of his eye; starting to swing at Rebecca, he whirled and caught Kara as she picked up the baton, splitting her skull open.
Rebecca screamed in horror as her partner fell. Then rushed John with her machete.
The man backpedalled to give himself room to swing the chain mace again, but she was fast, closing the space rapidly and swiping at him. So he sidestepped and tripped her feet up.
She fell flat on her face. As she scrambled to get back on her feet, John brought the spiked head down on her in an overarm swing, ending Rebecca’s frantic movements.
A moment of deep breathing… catching his breath… then he noticed a choking sound and looked over to see Eric pining Mark to the hood of the van, a death grip around his friend’s neck.
John found his knife, approached Eric from behind and stabbed him once in the lower abdomen;
