And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Scott had been reading the Bible through an app on his phone. He wasn’t sure why; he tried to think of Natalie’s pain, her parents. But the words drew him back. He was a husk, formless, with no light even in his deepest parts. He needed to be remade. He couldn’t go on like this: not just this situation, but as this person. He wanted to be somebody else.

He thought of his mother, smiling down at him, sunlight beaming through high glass windows behind her.

“Where are you going?” Scott asked numbly.

“I’m not sure. I’ve got money to burn and all the time in the world. Maybe I’ll go shopping. Maybe I’ll go to the spa.”

“Do you enjoy it?” Scott asked.

She turned to him, her movements fiercer this time. Her veneer dropped and her lip curled. Scott cringed, despite the distance between them. He knew how easily she could launch into one of her assaults when that look came.

“Why do you ask?” she said a moment later.

“No reason.”

“You’re wrong,” Casey snapped.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You are fucking wrong. I’ve been waiting a whole year for this. Putting up with you. Listening to you babble about the most boring pointless things. It was all leading up to this.”

“You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself.”

She screamed as she threw the make-up brush. It smashed into the wall and then she was on him, her fingernails scraping down his neck, raking across his cheeks. She spat and hissed and elbowed him in the face before Scott managed to get his hands on her wrists, pinning her to the bed.

He shook her. “Stop it, just stop it.”

“Do it. You know you want to. Make me pay. Hurt me, Scottie boy, hurt me badly.”

Scott tightened his grip on her wrists. She didn’t look bored anymore. The glint was in her eyes: the same one which had shone on their anniversary.

“You know you want to,” Casey whispered.

Scott squeezed even harder, feeling her bones through her flesh. But she wasn’t giving him the reaction he wanted. There was no fear; there was nothing like she’d inflicted on him. There was no release. He just felt soiled by the whole thing.

She ran her tongue over her lips. “This is the first time I’ve ever found you attractive.”

“Because you’re insane. Because you’re a lunatic. Because you’re a joke.”

“You could always kill me,” she mused, unfazed. “And then, at midnight…”

Scott shoved her wrists harder into the mattress.

“I’ll give you one free shot.” Casey turned her face sideways, presenting her cheek, the make-up smeared here and there, not properly applied yet. She was in two halves. “No consequences. No games. No emails.”

“You’re a liar.”

“That sounds like you want to do it, Scottie dearest.”

He wanted to tell her he’d never stoop that low. But he couldn’t.