Page 22 of Antihero
I slip myself over the edge and climb down till I reach the ledge he’s on. Here, against the exposed face, I’m fast becoming soaked through in the freezing night air, the violence of the crashing waves far below enough to send a constant fine mist upwards. I crouch by him, just long enough to ascertain he’s dead before the ledge, perhaps brittle from the impact of his body, or just bad luck, jolts downwards, then falls away altogether, with both of us on it.
He tumbles, limp and lifeless, all the way into the sea, and I bounce off another ledge, feeling something in my shoulder give way as I catch it. My shoes scrabble on the sharp juttings as I pull myself up.
Now balanced on that narrow slice of rock, barely large enough to sit on, the pain comes in an ever-increasing wave. I press back to the cliff-face and merely hope this slice of rock isn’t as brittle as the last one. I can feel that something in my shoulder has torn. An ache in my ankle, mingled with slick blood, all tells me my leg won’t be doing me any favours if I were to try to climb right now.
I look back up towards the top edge, wondering how the hell I’m going to drag myself up those several metres, with a screaming shoulder and an ankle that won’t work. It seems like every choice I make around Paige lands me in shit. All that, and I didn’t even save that disgusting guy.
Rain starts to drizzle. I’ve got to laugh. Maybe this is how I die—trying to do a single good thing. That’d be about right. Poetic, even.
Head tipping back, I take a breath, face exposed to the freezing raindrops. I open my eyes, and that’s when I see her. Her fair hang hangs down as she crouches on the edge, searching. I feel the moment she spots me, her shape stilling against the clouds now roiling across the night sky.
Then she’s gone.
Emergency services arrive fifteen minutes later, after I've huddled, shivering, into the dryest but most uncomfortable divot in the rock face that I can find, wondering if I can make it till morning. Though what I’d do were I to make it overnight is unclear. Signal to a boat, maybe?
A rope and firefighter come down in the rain, at which point I discover that I’m shivering too much to speak. Once I can, loaded into the back of an ambulance under a foil blanket, I ask how they found me.
Anonymous caller, I’m told. Someone saying they thought they saw a person fall over the edge.
Chapter six
Almost three years as the Needler in Tregam, and not one major injury. Now, two weeks of chasing this psycho, and I’ve got a torn ligament in my shoulder and a sprained ankle, not to mention hypothermia twice in a week.
I get released from the island’s medical clinic the day after they find me, and that’s not a minute too soon.
Shoulder and ankle wrapped, I’m deposited at my new lodgings with a crutch and a sling. Painstakingly, I get to the third floor by myself—having lied and told them I lived on the first floor. I’ve never been wonderful at accepting help. In those homes as a kid, it always seemed to come with a price, and I’ve not quite learned to trust a helping hand.
It’s something to work on. Right after the murderous tendencies.
The apartment is small and characterless. A studio with built-in wardrobes, an ensuite attached, and a kitchenette built into the wall against the bathroom, the door to which is next to the double bed. But the view is nice. The single window on the other side of the bed looks north, towards Tregam.
The first thing I do is hobble to the bathroom and flush the meds they gave me—another thing I don’t trust. Addiction. I’ve seen it grip people in too many forms, illegal and legal substances both. Not a risk I ever took, and I’m not in enough pain to start now.
I take off the sling and my clothes to fall onto the thin bedspread, watching the ceiling fan spin at an idle speed. I haven’t slept properly since the night before my ill-fated stalk of Paige at the club. Here, in the quiet of the room, the door locked, it all catches up to me. I let the low hum of the fan lull my eyes closed.
When I wake, it’s with a start, instantly lucid in the soft evening light. I must have slept through the afternoon.
I’m not alone.
Her weight settles back on my stomach. My good arm comes up, more reflex than reaction, but Paige catches it with both of hers, throwing her weight forward to pin it above my head. I’m fighting back against her easily, though the pressure as I try to lift my torso shoots pain through my ankle as my foot presses down into the mattress. Then her hand snakes out to grab my other arm and crank it over my head too, and the shock makes me momentarily weak as I grunt in pain.
That’s all Paige needs, and she weighs her hands on mine above my head, my left arm useless. Just a point of pain. My ankle complaining too much for me to use my hips as leverage.
I’m naked, and she almost is too, in nothing but that diaphanous dress she’d been wearing at the club, her legs bare as she straddles me. When she slides backwards, settling over my hips, I know immediately she’s not wearing anything underneath the dress. Even with that movement, one side of the dress slips off her shoulder, exposing her nipple. My gaze catches on that breast for a beat too long.
I’m weak, sore and bruised, but she’s so outmatched that I’m lifting her off with one arm, anyway. I’m about to roll and pin her myself, the pain be damned, when the sharp tip of a three-inch blade nicks the corner of my chin. One hand weighing on both of mine, the other holding the knife to the soft underside of my jaw, my Cutthroat looks down on me. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking I won’t do it,” she warns in a soft voice.
I know she’ll do it. I tilt my chin up, away from the sharp tip. “What do you want?” I grate out, stilling.
Paige tilts her head, smile growing, and slides her hips back so that her warm softness settles over me where I’m flaccid. Then she rolls her hips.
My eyes widen.
She shrugs her upper body so that the other side of her dress slides down her arm, loose enough to catch at her elbow, and her breasts, perky and round, float above me. With the way she’s leaning her shorter body over me to reach my hands, her belly presses to mine, warmth mingling and oddly, of everything that’s touching on us right now, the most intimate.
She settles, shifting her hips so that the heat of her sex seems to sink into my groin. Paige tilts her head down at me. “It’s been a while since we’ve been intimate, love. Why haven’t you come back to see me?”
I figure that telling her it’s because she’s a madwoman isn’t the right tact, and smile sweetly. “You seemed rather busy, what with your agenda and all.”
