You know, suddenly, that you aren’t immune to darkness, to impulse, to the sheer animal nature, the biological violence, the brutal randomness, of humanity – of life. You know that nothing really matters, when it comes right down to it. That there’s no real way to protect yourself from pain.

That’s how I felt as my ex-boyfriend hovered over me, holding my long-lost dad’s hammer over my head like the blade of a guillotine. For one terrifying, beautiful millisecond, I was high on the insanity of it all.

I knew it would finally be over. I wouldn’t have to hurt, to pretend to build a life for myself, anymore.

I was a product of fate, of circumstance, like we all were.

The hammer swooped down, and I shrieked as in midair it seemed to change course, missing me only by inches, crunching against my phone where it lay on the bed next to me.

I rolled away, sitting up and scooting backward.

My body stayed tense as I watched his hand, still gripped around the hammer, but it didn’t lift again.

‘You deserve much worse,’ Davis said, as if answering a question I hadn’t been brave enough to ask. ‘But I won’t become the person you think I am.’

Was it possible? Was it possible he wasn’t here to hurt me, not like that?

I took deep breaths, trying to find my voice.

‘The knife,’ I said finally, suddenly aware that he didn’t have to touch me to destroy me. ‘Do you still have it? You don’t have to do what you’re going to. You don’t have to give it to the police.’

Davis stared at me, eyes narrowed. ‘What knife? What are you even talking about?’

‘I know you killed John,’ I said, forcing out the words. ‘I figured it out.’

‘Wow, you’re in worse shape than I thought,’ Davis said. ‘I didn’t kill anyone. You really think I could do that?’ He knelt, hammer still in his hand, and scooped Dusty from beneath the bed. My dog – our dog, once – his tiny little body quivering.

My heart raced, and I momentarily forgot about the knife, about John, about everything else. ‘Don’t,’ I begged. ‘Don’t hurt Dusty. Please.’ I deplored the weakness, the desperation, in my voice. ‘God, he’s all I have.’

‘You always assume the worst of me,’ Davis said. ‘I’m not hurting him, I’m taking him, just like I said I would.’

In Davis’s arms, Dusty’s tail fell; he began to whimper as tears pricked my eyes.

‘No,’ I said. ‘No, please. You’re squeezing him. You’ll crush him.’