Sweat trickled down the side of my face as I eased myself around the table and edged in the direction of the bed. I closed my eyes against the blackness and willed myself to believe it was black because of my choosing. I had chosen to rest my eyes, to plunge myself in inky darkness. My eyes had been dazzled by the sun and they needed a break …

But I could feel a strange heaviness dragging down the space behind my eyes. Blinds were being pulled down. Boards were being nailed over the gap between the backs of my eyes and my brain. It was such an overwhelming sensation that I opened my eyes and almost gasped. How long had I been down here? I couldn’t work it out. An hour? Five hours? Or was it only minutes? Panic made my insides crawl and my breaths grow ragged.

Trembling, I silently repeated my saying over and over as I edged, inch by inch, towards my goal.

A wild bird never feels sorry for itself. A wild bird never feels sorry for itself.

Then I realized the stupidity of what I was saying: I was not a wild bird; I was a caged one. I was not free. I had never been free, not really, not even when I left the cottage.

My leg hit the bed and I almost cried out. Hastily, feeling like it was the only thing that would save me, I got to my knees and felt the bed frame with my hands then the space between the frame and the floor. Yes. I would fit. I would definitely fit.

I lay down on my front, turned onto my back and shuffled sideways under the bed, cursing the faint scraping of fabric against ground.

I had moved about three inches into the space when I smelled something odd. A different smell. A smell like bad breath.

And then I heard it. Breathing. Low, ragged breathing. Breathing that wasn’t mine.

A hand squeezed my arm and I screamed.

Chapter 40

‘It steals from you. The darkness.’

The voice was harsh. Fast. A woman’s voice. A voice that produced hot fumes of the grossest kind.

I pursed my lips together and held my breath. Our faces could not have been more than an inch apart. If she wanted to, she could bite off my nose or push her fingers deep into my eye sockets, into my brain. She could kill me in a heartbeat if she chose to.