I wanted Dacre’s blood more than I wanted anything. More than I wanted to live.
I lunged, knife held high above my head, the real Alice watching from afar with a kind of detached, existential horror.
I was going to do it. I was going to kill.
Until I caught Lottie’s wide, pleading eyes, the oceanic depth of them, and something poignant and rich passed between us, and for a moment, just for a moment, the surge of love outshone the feral hatred in my heart.
It was fleeting and transient, but it was more powerful than the hate, than the violence, than the anger. It stopped me dead, stealing the breath from my lungs.
Thatwas what I wanted more than being alive. What I had always wanted, at the very heart of myself.
To love and be loved – for who I really am.
If I killed Dacre, I would never have that.
I took a ragged step back, and Lottie all but collapsed with relief. Hafsah let out a strangled sob. The murderer in my brain cried out for blood, and I knew I couldn’t fend off the desire for much longer. I twitched forward again, preparing to have the same existential debate with myself all over again.
Kill him it’ll be worth it nothing could feel better, do it for Lottie he hurt her he hurt her so badThen came a voice from the doorway.
A frightened, female voice.
‘Dad? What’s going on?’
I swivelled on my heel, and a pit opened in my gut.
It was the barmaid, shattered pint glass around her feet.
She was hisdaughter.
The horror on her face as she took in the situation should have cleaved me in two, but it didn’t.
The cold psychopath in me saw the final gambit before my rational brain could protest.
Swiftly as I could, I pivoted away from Dacre and tore across the room towards the barmaid, grabbing her from behind and cupping my hand over her mouth. I lifted the penknife to her throat. Squirming in my arms, she started to scream, but I clamped down on her jaw even tighter.
‘Leave her alone!’ Dacre bellowed, clambering desperately to his dazed feet, and I wished he was dead, I wished I had killed him, I wished I had felt his warm blood spurt across my face as the blade went in, I wished –
Focus.
‘One more step and I’ll slit her throat,’ I growled, pressing the knife harder against the delicate skin on her neck. He stopped in his tracks. I shot him a meaningful stare. ‘You know I will.’
And he did. He knew I was a Soulless Girl. He knew what I was capable of.
His breath hitched in his throat, and eyes widened with fear. ‘Jess. Jess, don’t move.’
Despite Jess’s whimpering, Lottie did not flinch at my crude display of cruelty. She just massaged her own throat, grabbed the floppy from the floor and hoarsely muttered, ‘Give us the reversal ritual or your daughter dies.’
A perverse impulse to laugh came over me, and it took all my willpower to tamp down the temptation. There was just something so hilarious about hearing literal human sunshine issue a death threat.
But she didn’t even need to sound convincing, becauseI was.
And Dacre knew it.
His cheeks turned beetroot with anger, and spittle foamed at the corners of his sagging mouth, and he kept raising his hand to go to Jess, then reminding himself she would die if he tried to save her, and in those few moments he was just an old man again, an old man scared for his daughter’s life. Her hot, wet tears slid over my hand.
The place in my chest where guilt should have lived was empty.
Realising his back was against the wall, his shoulders sagged. ‘There are scans of the pages on the floppy. The password is zygaena.’
The name chimed in my memory: the same breed of moth I’d first performed the ritual with.
He’d been watching from the start.
After waiting until Lottie and Hafsah were safely out of the door with the floppy, I shoved Jess towards Dacre with a final, hateful growl. She folded into his chest with a heaving sob.
The glare he threw in my direction would have terrified me, but I knew there was no way he could kill all three of us. Especially not in front of his daughter.
Instead he drawled, ‘If you go to the police about the contents of that disk, I’ll go to the police about the fact you assaulted me and my daughter.’
With a smile I knew was ugly, I snarled, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll all get what we deserve in the end.’