A World Together

Chapter Nineteen

There's a strange sense of weightlessness before I'm thrown to the floor. I manage to hold my arms out in time to catch most of the impact, to prevent my head from sustaining anymore blows. I roll over and look up at Peter. For a terrifying instant, I'm certain I must be trapped in a nightmare.

The switchblade I dug into his eye socket is gone, and so is his eye. In its place is a gaping hole, scarlet blood spilling out of it and cascading down his cheek. Streams have seeped in to the scars that run along his face, making them look like they've been split open. But this isn't even the most horrifying thing about him. It's his expression that makes me want to slink away. The unfaltering smile on his face. The mad gleam in the one eye he has left. 

What I've done has enraged him to the point of insanity. This makes me smile with a small sense of triumph.

An act that infuriates him more. Before I can pull back, his hands are reaching for me again, heaving me up from the floor and holding me an arms-length away. "You like my new look?" he hisses. Then he hurls me across the room. "Cause I'm thinking the girl who did it kinda botched the job!" 

I don't understand how he can have so much strength left when I have so little. He's actually managed to throw me through the air. My body collides with the mirrored wall, shattering it completely. I collapse atop the marble counter beneath, fragments of the mirror raining down on me. The row of basins along the counter have collected some of the shards, but most of the pieces have found themselves either on the floor or embedded in my skin.

"Actually," I huff out, my voice sounding far away, "I think it suits you . . . really brings out your eye." I can't help smiling at this, something I know will earn me more pain. But since I'm in no shape to deal physical blows, I'd rather jab at him mentally than die without fighting at all. 

"You're just full of wit, aren't ya, darlin'?" He crosses over to me and pulls me up so that I'm sitting on the counter, at eye level with him. "I can't wait to cut it out of you."

"Make sure you cut the right thing," I wheeze, "you probably have depth perception now." My words have an instant effect on him. He pins me harder against the wall, his other hand moving to squeeze at my throat. My own hands are pushing against his chest uselessly, my legs kicking out but doing nothing to stop him.

"Maybe I'll just strangle you instead," he seethes, fingers tightening around my neck. "That way I'll never have to hear your voice again."

I'm glad that he's choking me to the point where I can't speak, because I can't think of any snide remarks to retaliate with. He clamps down harder and my view of the world starts to blur. Death has always been something I've feared, but how I would die has never actually entered my mind. Thinking back on every close call – almost being shot, stabbed, torn apart by the infected – suffocation doesn't seem like the worst way to go.

I'm resigned to my fate, darkness creeping round the edges of my vision, when something to my right flashes up at me. With his hands so firmly clasped around my neck, it's nearly impossible to move my head, but I can tilt it forward just enough to see the broken shard of mirror reflecting my bloody face back at me.

It's lying atop a mound of other broken pieces at the bottom of the basin. I have no idea if I can reach it, am almost certain that I can't, but the sight of it has lit a fire in me, and suddenly I'm not so complacent on dying. Not when there's hope.

My right hand slips away from his chest while my left keeps up the act of a struggle. If he sees what I'm doing, he'll put a stop to it instantly, and I don't have much time left as it is. The tips of my fingers can just reach the shard, enough  to brush against its smooth surface but not grasp it. A smaller piece is within my reach, but it's not big enough to achieve what I want. I don't want to buy more time. I want to end things for good.