“I’m sure you can. Let’s go to the house and talk things through with Ash.”

Ash was home? I sighed with relief. Although I knew how furious he’d be at my breaking in, at least I wasn’t alone with her. I climbed the ladder faster now, but when I reached the third rung from the top she pulled back and swung something in my direction, aiming straight for the side of my head.

Although I saw the piece of driftwood coming, I had no time to react, not even to put my hands up. My upper body was completely exposed as she brought the makeshift club down onto my skull. I cried out as I lost my grip on the ladder and fell. As I landed with a thud at the bottom, all the air left my lungs in a single whoosh. My head throbbed. My eyes went blurry. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Not even when Maya climbed down and stood over me.

“I warned you,” she said, taking my phone and keys from my pocket. “You should’ve listened. If you’d stayed in Brookmount, none of this would have happened.”

I wanted to get to my feet, but more of my vision faded, softening everything around the edges. As I heard her climb back upstairs, I held up a hand, silently begging her to come back, to not leave me down there. The last thing I saw was the ladder disappearing out of reach. I tried to scream, but only a small, pathetic sound made its way out of my mouth.

As the trapdoor slammed shut above me, enveloping me in complete darkness, the rest of my strength seeped from my body. Slipping closer and closer to unconsciousness, I had no choice but to stop fighting, and let it take me.

32

ASH

Now that we’d decided to travel to Brookmount, I wanted to leave first thing, but Maya had insisted I take her car to the garage in Falmouth for a long-overdue oil change while she packed and finished off two pieces for Drift. Ultimately, I decided I didn’t mind. We’d be spending the next two days in close quarters, and I could do with some time alone first.

I’d left the house a little before eight and it was almost nine thirty now as I sat in the waiting room of the garage, flicking through a shiny copy of a luxury car magazine, trying to distract myself. I stared at a picture of an Aston Martin, imagining a life in which I could afford that kind of vehicle, where I had no financial or other problems. It seemed so impossible, so vastly out of reach it was laughable. No way around it—my world was one giant clusterfuck.