I don’t attempt to dissuade her.
I don’t wait another second.
Irun.
Feet flying on wings of terror, I bolt for the kitchen in search of my phone. I hear her chasing me, that high-pitched, horrifying giggle resounding from her throat. My desperate eyes fly around the kitchen island, seeking salvation in the shape of a smartphone, but it’s nowhere to be found. I whirl around and see her right behind me, only the island separating us. She lunges right; I counter by leaping left. She changes course; I do the same. We are a seesaw, lurching back and forth, her knife slicing the air between us.
“Think about this Helena,” I gasp out, wondering if I can make it to the front door. “You don’t want to do this.”
She’s past the point of listening. There’s no reaching her. No reasoning with her. She’s had a full psychotic break. I can imagine it easily — her fragile state, after the hysterical pregnancy, exacerbated by drugs and drinking, coupled with the tabloid stories that I’m having Grayson’s baby… It was too much. She snapped like a twig under the strain of it. Her grip on reality is gone.
She will kill me and my child in some insane attempt to get hers back.
She lurches again, and I make a run for it.
Around the island, through the archway, toward the front door. It’s still ajar. I can see the porch light, a beacon of hope just beyond the threshold. If I can get outside, I can scream for help. If I can get to the street, I’ll be safe.
I’m almost there, almost free, when something hits me from behind, square in the back — a lamp from a nearby table, hurled with brute force. It knocks the breath from my lungs as I topple forward onto my hands and knees. I hear it shatter into fragments against the hardwood and try to scramble to my feet, but she’s already there, looming over me like a reaper from hell. Her foot comes down on my wrist, pinning it to the floor. I think I hear something snap as her weight slams fully onto the fragile bones, grinding them beneath her heel.
I scream as red-hot pain flares through me. An unrecognizable, banshee-like wail, so loud it echoes back at me through the dark.
I blink away tears as she flips me over onto my back. She towers above me in the darkness, straddling my hips, pinning my wrists. I don’t see the knife, but I do see the look in her eyes.
Pure, unequivocal madness.
“Helena,” I plead, thrashing. Trying futilely to buck her off. “Helena, please.”
She presses my hands harder against the floor, squeezing my snapped wrist until my eyes are smarting with tears. The pulverized bones are so painful, I can hardly see straight.
“Helena, let’s call Grayson, okay?” I gasp out between sobs. “Let’s call him and he’ll come for you and everything will be okay.”
She stills. Her head tilts.
Maybe I can get through to her.
“He doesn’t love me, he loves you, Helena.” My heart is pounding so hard I can barely breathe, my wrist feels like a hot brand is stabbing through it, my eyes are watering with agony. “Please, just let me go. Let me go, and we’ll call Grayson, and everything will be okay.”
“He loves me.”
I nod, weeping from pain and fear. “Yes, he loves you.”
“We’re a family,” she tells me vacantly.
“Yes, you are.”
“Once we have our baby back, we’ll be together.”
She releases my maimed wrist, and I know she’s reaching for the knife. It’s my only chance.
With all my might I heave upward, knocking her off balance, at the same time swinging out with my fist to catch her across the temple. Pain explodes through me — I’ve done more damage to myself, with my strike — but I ignore it. For a single second, she freezes, stunned into stillness. My unexpected attack caught her off guard. Her weight shifts, just enough to unseat her.
I don’t hesitate.
Shoving Helena aside, I roll out from under her, eyes streaming. My hands shred on the broken glass from the lamp when I push up off the floor, smearing blood against the hardwood as I scramble to my feet. I barely feel the pain. I hear her moving behind me, but I don’t turn to look. My eyes are on the door. On escape. Onsurvival.
I’m almost there, when it swings open.
Masters is standing there like my avenging angel, gun drawn. His ice-blue eyes assess the situation in under a second.