Page 34 of Antihero
They don’t. I lift my head, glancing around the large room as my sight adjusts. Several steps across from the edge of the pool, a block extending the length of the atrium houses the changerooms and showers. My clothes are within, through the pitch-black doorway leading into the women’s side. If I go outside without my jacket, I’ll be hypothermic in a minute for sure. But the idea of walking into that black room blind makes me shudder.
Behind me, the side-glass looks straight out onto low, dark brush. With the lights out, I can pick out shadows cast by what moonlight is pushing through the clouds as the rain eases. But with the wind, everything is moving anyway, so even if someone were creeping through the bushes, I wouldn’t see. The hair on the back of my neck pricks, and I turn slowly in the water, the soft sound loud in the otherwise quiet interior.
I drift towards the shallower end, my feet finding the smooth bottom.
My heart jumps, and I very nearly don’t swallow the sound that erupts from my throat as a loud clang reverberates through the iron supports behind me. I go still, peering into the back of the room, the view over the ocean stretched out behind. But I can barely pick out the far end of the pool with any distinction. What light there was fades as dark clouds cross the moon.
I refuse to be the idiot that shouts ‘hello’ into eerie spaces. So, I shut my mouth and merelythinkof several curses to myself instead, as I back towards the shallow edge of the pool. It takesme less than one elevated heartbeat to identify that the new ripples disturbing the water are not coming from me. They’re coming from the direction of my escape route.
I stop, barely breathing.
If this is Tristan, he’s quieter than I’d give any human credit for. But then, he has managed to murder several dangerous people… not a comforting thought, given the game we’ve been playing. And ifishim, he’s scaring me on purpose.
I can’t stop my mind from tracking to the other possibility, wondering who or what could now be in the water with me. From animals, to monsters, to people I don’t like very much. All the options seem reasonable and even likely as I retreat, the water coming back up to my chest. The glasshouse gathers and holds the heat of the day long into the night, so the air above is chill but not bone-shaking. I could pull myself up the edge of the pool, but that would make too much noise, would put my back to him…
Unable to bear it anymore, I surrender to being that person, and speaking to the darkness. “Tristan.” My voice is level, though it intrudes on the darkness, feeling too high pitched. “Is that you?” Silence answers, not even a swish of the water to break it. “I don’t like this game,” I say, trying to sound more irritated than frightened.
I don’t really expect an answer to that, either. But I get one.
And the voice that comes back isn’t his.
“Paige.”
The words seem to come from no direction, low and harsh in the dark. My teeth press together as my pulse races. It’s not his voice, but it’s not anyone else’s, either. Not a normal sound, but something uncannily like a monster in one of those ridiculous b-grade horrors I like so much. Low, altered, like it's coming through something that adds a metallic quality.
Then it's right by my ear, the water disturbed against my back. “Don’t you like games?”
This time, I do squeal. I spin around, the large shape pressing in on me, pushing me back towards the edge. His silhouette towers over me against the blackness, and my shoulder blades come up against the cool tiles of the side. There’s the impression of tousled hair, of a low brow and glinting eyes that briefly catch the light. Tristan. I’m not sure if the realisation scares me more or less as he closes in on me. He’s as likely to want to drown me as anyone these days. But that voice…
His hands brace either side of my shoulders, caging me in. He must be able to see better in the dark than I can. He comes in close, and I turn my face away, feeling his breath on the corner of my jaw. At the touch of his hand, thumb bracing where his breath just struck, fingers curling over the other side of my jaw, he tilts my head back until my breathing strains. I’m overly aware of how easily he could break my neck.
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking I won’t do it,” that guttural voice, low, murmurs against my ear as he keeps one side of my face turned from him. Voice alteration, of some kind.
The hard muscles of his legs brush mine under the water, coarse to my smoothness, huge where I’m small.
My voice is hoarse, but I manage to put a smile in it. “I know you won’t,” I say, though I know no such thing. More of a hope, really.
A light vibration against my neck could be a laugh. His breath is hot, whatever is changing his voice turning any audible breath into a harsh rasp.
Then, his mouth, tongue, teeth, lock onto the side of my neck, biting hard enough to leave a mark, sucking so suddenly that I cry out, half convinced he’s going to draw blood. The thrill of it shoots downwards, his hard body pressing close, pinning me into submission. Tristan releases the bite as suddenly as hebegan it, and I feel the throb and tingle of what’s going to be a mean hickey.
“No lying tonight,” he coos, letting up the pressure he’s holding against me, though he still keeps his fists braced to cage me.
Breath coming fast, I peer into the featureless dark of his face, and don't say a thing.
“Good start,” he commends.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“I want you to answer my questions. True, or false… and if you lie to me, I’ll know.” Again, I say nothing. He drifts closer again, nearly brushing against me. After a pause, pregnant with what he’s going to make me tell him, Tristan starts, “You’re targeting people connected with the old asylum…”
“True,” I say. No point lying about that. It’s obvious enough.
“…and,” he goes on, “the girls' orphanage…”
My lips close. Then, begrudgingly. “True.”
“…because you were in that orphanage.”
