For a moment, it's almost like they're play-acting. Like he'll suddenly pull the knife out from under his armpit or something and call out, ha, fooled you. For a moment, Kate remembers years ago, how he used to do magic tricks, finding a coin from behind Cal's ear, or else pretending to pull off his own thumb. This feels the same. This feels staged. "P-Patrick?" She hates his name on her lips. He stands for a moment, hand clasped around the hilt. And then, slowly, blood starts to trickle through his fingers, a dark stain spreads over his shirt. He falls, knees hitting the tiled floor before he crumples like a puppet with his strings cut.
Then the sound starts, a horrible gurgling, rattling sound as he tries to breathe, eyes wide. "Maddie?!" Kate's voice cracks as she turns to the woman, still frozen in front of him, staring down at him as he slowly dies. "Maddie, what-"
She can't take it in. This, on top of everything, is too much. It's too crazy. It can't be happening. Slowly, Maddie lowers her hand, her fingers falling limply at her side. "He hurt them." She murmurs, her voice still sounding dazed. "He hurt them."
"You stabbed him!" Kate squeaks, and she can hear her own heart pounding in her ear. "Maddie-"
Kate falls to her knees, even though she's still metres away from him, travelling the rest of the distance on her hands and knees, skidding to a halt. And she can't stop herself from taking in the finer features of his face; his wide eyes, his perfectly ironed shirt. "Maddie, call an ambulance! And... and get the girls away. They... they don't need to see-"
"'elp... me..." He gurgles, eyes fixed on Kate. "'elp..."
Blood is pooling underneath him, and Kate feels it spreading, staining her jeans. Kate searches around desperately for something to hold the knife in place and stop it moving, but before she can even find something, his hand reaches up and grips the knife tighter. "No!" Kate shouts. "Leave it in. Don't-" But he rips the knife from his chest.
Almost immediately, more blood spurts, dark and hot. Kate claps her hands over the wound, pressing down, as he lets out a choking gasp. "Maddie!" She calls out again. "I need a... a towel. Something-"
"How can you try and save him?" Maddie cries, shaking her head. "After what he did?!"
"Maddie, please!" Kate calls once more.
He's jerking and twitching beneath her hands, still gurgling and rasping. Blood is bubbling at the corners of his mouth. And then...
He goes limp.
It's like a bad movie. A prank, or a trick or...
She puts a hand out to stop herself from overbalancing, but the hand slips along the ground. As Kate glances downwards, she sees the smeared and bloody handprint she's left. "Maddie?" Her voice is barely more than a breath. "Maddie?" Kate calls again, turning to the woman still slumped against the kitchen benches. "Maddie, he's dead." She can't keep the panic from her voice now. "Maddie..." It's almost a plead, and even though Kate knows she's the only one here and now that's still even remotely in control, she doesn't want to be the one to decide what happens next. "Maddie, please. I don't know what to do. Please, just tell me what to do!"
Maddie just stands there, still shaking, arm still outstretched. Feeling just as dazed, Kate pulls herself to her feet. She can't look at him. She doesn't think she'll ever be able to close her eyes and not see him. "He can't hurt them." Maddie murmurs softly. "He can't hurt them."
And despite her panic, Kate runs to Maddie and wraps her arms around her. "It's going to be okay, Maddie." Kate whispers. "He's gone."
She's sick of talking, sick of making statements, sick of shivering in the thin tracksuit and shirt they'd given her when they'd taken her clothes. She wishes she didn't know the full story. Wishes she hadn't been there in the first place.
She can still see his blood all over her, even though she's scrubbed and scrubbed until her hands were sore and her cast is sodden. She can still smell it, can still smell him, can still see the look on Claire's face and the look in his eyes and-
She doesn't register falling to the ground, or the voices around her. All she knows is there's not enough oxygen in the world and Maddie is going to jail and there's two more girls out there with nothing and no one. She tries to throw off the hands touching her, trying to lift her, trying to curl up into a ball. She just needs the world to stop, needs everything to stop. Because it's not fair, it's not fair at all. And she doesn't need the hands stroking her hair or trying to comfort her, she just needs Maddie to be free.
It's okay. we're okay. It'll make you feel good. Can't you just let me make you feel good?
Help me.
You're never going to hurt anyone ever again.
Kate pulls the phone to her ear and closes her eyes, leaning against the wall. Cal answers on the second ring, her voice high-pitched and panicked. "Kate?! Kate, where are you?"
"I'm..." She goes to brush her hair from her face, then realises that it's her bad arm. Her cast is falling apart from the water; she knows she'll have to get it reset. "I'm at the police station-"
Predictably, Cal's voice is shrill and panicked. "Police?! What-"
"I'm okay." Kate murmurs, fighting tears. "Please, Callie. Can you please just come and get me?"
"So he's dead?" Cal exhales, her hair flapping with her deep breath.
"Yes." Kate nods, but she feels numb. The news doesn't feel real somehow, as though she's just been deposited into a storyline she knows nothing about. Every step she takes, her head feels three steps behind. She wants to curl up into a ball and forget.
"And... and Maddie?"
Kate shakes her head sadly. "I don't know." She knows, realistically, that Maddie will have to pay for what she had done, regardless of what Patrick had done. But the injustice of it all wells around her, choking her like hot tar in her lungs. Claire, and Savannah. They'd essentially lost two parents that day. "The girls are at Maddie's sister's tonight. She came and got them after they'd-" She cuts herself off, knowing the questions the girls must have had to answer.
"It's not fair." Cal shakes her head. "This whole thing is so bloody unfair."
"I need to go to bed." Kate pulls herself to her feet and moves towards her room, more out of a need to be by herself than any actual tiredness. Cal says nothing; Kate knows her sister is suffering too, but Kate can't bear to add any more burdens upon her shoulders at the moment.
She gives herself five seconds after she closes the door. Five seconds to breathe, to lean against the heavy wood and just breathe. And then she collapses into tears. And it's not just herself that she cries for. It's Claire, abused by her own father. It's Savannah, knowing something was wrong and unable to protect her younger sister. It's Maddie, alone in a cell. It's Cal, for the unfair childhood they'd lead. And it's Bridie, who had no one to call Dad.