Derek froze where he stood, the phone pressed hard to his ear.
You remember what I did to that bitch, Natalie Wolfe, on that table all those years ago?
The words rang through him, and something inside him went very still and very cold. The muscles in his fingers turned weak and useless, and he could no longer hold the phone.
It slipped from his hand and clattered to the ground.
He blinked twice, trying to clear his vision, but the world around him began to blur and fade at the edges, the colours draining away, the sounds going thin and distant.
His heart pounded so loudly that it was all he could hear, a great slow drumbeat filling his skull.
Derek was not a man who stumbled easily. He stood like a mountain, always. But now he stumbled once. Then again, catching himself against the wall.
Through the fog in his brain, he could hear a voice speaking to him. The words sounded muffled and far away, as if they were rising up to him through deep water.
