I began to cry.
“What does touching my wrist have to do with anything?”
“It was always a warning between us,” he explained. “When we were out in public and you behaved in a manner that I didn’t like, I would touch your wrist and you knew to stop whatever you were doing. I’ve kept you safe so many times by doing it.”
Horror filled my mind as I remembered all of the times that he’d touched my wrist when he came to see me in the hospital, and stared at me while he did it. He was trying to see if I had any memory of its significance so he could control me once again. I was flabbergasted.
“Anderson, please!”
“We’ll go together,” he assured me with a smile. “The smoke will kill us long before the fire touches us. I’m gonna carry you to our room and we’re going to go to sleep together one final time. Just the two of us.”
“You’ll kill other families on this floor, maybe everyone in the entire building!” I snapped, trying to make him see reason. “You’ll kill people.”
“They’ll get out,” Anderson said. “Don’t worry about them.”
I jerked my attention to the front door when I heard screaming and shouts. I heard fire alarms go off, but the emergency sprinkler systems never kicked in. Anderson saw me looking at the ceiling and laughed.
“The sprinklers have been broken from the second floor up for the last week now. They’ve been out daily trying to fix the problem, but they haven’t been able to do anything about it yet.”
His words were so exact that it made my skin crawl.
“Did you somehow disable the system?”
“Maybe.”
He was crazy. He was a raging fucking lunatic.
“I can’t believe I ever felt sorry for you.”
Disbelief was all over Anderson’s features.
“What?”
“During my time in the hospital I felt sorry for you – I felt like I was awful because I didn’t know that you were my husband. I thought I was being cruel because I didn’t want you,” I said with a look of disgust. “After seeing the true you, and how completely worthless you are, the only reason I stayed with you was out of fear. That’s the conclusion I’ve come to. You’re a pathetic loser who beats me when things get tough; you may have broken my body and even my mind for a time, but no more. You have no hold over me any more, Anderson. You’re a fucking joke.”
His face turned a blistering shade of red as he reached down and grabbed a fistful of my hair and dragged me by my head out of the sitting room, down the hallway and into the bedroom. He was shouting, cursing and kicking my back along the way, and when he finally released me, he picked me up and threw me on to the bed. I sat up in time to watch him flick his lighter again and throw it out into the hall. A spark ignited, then flames spread.
I saw a wall of fire for only a moment before he slammed the door shut.
I reached for the lamp next to me, and threw it at him when he dove for me. It smacked off him but didn’t slow him down. My screams were so loud that Anderson ducked his head to escape the shrill sound. When his hands closed around my throat, he stopped the sound – and my breathing – instantly. My hands went to his face and I dug my nails into his flesh, making him roar. But he never let go of my throat, and the pressure made me feel light-headed. I felt my hands drop away from Anderson’s face as my chest burned for air.
Black dots danced in front of my vision and I stared up at Anderson, whose black eyes were wild and misted with fury. I was about to close my eyes and give in to the sleep that beckoned me, but one second Anderson was on top of me and the next he wasn’t. I sucked in air greedily and began to cough as pain stung my throat. My body felt like jelly, but when I turned my head to the side, I didn’t see Anderson. I saw him.
Elliot.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
ELLIOT
“Keep going down!” I shouted up the stairwell as I rushed past people who were descending at a rapid pace. “Keep your children and pets in your arms to avoid losin’ them. Do not come back into the buildin’!”
I wasn’t sure if people were even listening to me, but I repeated the message three more times. I only stopped when I passed the third floor and the scent of smoke touched my nostrils. I hurried up to the fourth floor where I knew Anderson lived, and yanked the door open.
“Fuck!” I snapped.
Flames filled the corridor all the way up the walls and to the ceiling. I looked from left to right and spotted a rack of four large fire extinguishers. I grabbed the one in the middle, undid the safety clip and then checked the label to make sure it was the extinguisher I needed. I could smell petrol in the hallway; I needed to smother it with carbon dioxide otherwise the fire would spread.