Chapter 2
PRESENT
I tried to run as fast as I could, but my legs felt like lead, weighted down by fear and the knowledge that this beating was different. Worse than ever before.
The memory of Dex’s fists on my skin was still fresh as I fumbled through the apartment, my hands shaking while I tried to find my phone.
Blood dripped from my split lip onto the hardwood floor, drops of crimson that would probably stain, just like everything else in this place—stained by his anger.
When Dex finally dozed off on the couch, his face slack and peaceful in a way that made my stomach turn, I knew this was my chance. Maybe my only chance.
I called for help first. My fingers trembled as I dialed Jude’s number, forgetting for a moment that he was deployed somewhere I couldn’t reach him, somewhere he couldn’t save me even if he wanted to.
The call went straight to voicemail, his familiar voice telling me to leave a message and he’ll get back to me soon.
“Jude,” I whispered into the phone, my voice barely audible. “I need you. Please, I need—”
The words caught in my throat. I swallowed hard and stared at the floor, at the faint tremor in my hands.
Jude was already deployed, half a world away in a place I could not picture without my stomach turning. He carried enough weight. I had no right to add to it.
He had always been the one who stood between me and everything that hurt, ever since we were kids.
I had promised myself I would not do this to him again.
He was thousands of miles away, shouldering things I could not imagine.
The least I could do was handle my own life without adding to his burden.
So I did not say the words.
I pulled up Nica's number, my old college roommate, the kind of friend who used to swear I could sleep on her couch anytime, no explanations needed. She was the one who knew my laugh before it learned restraint.
My thumb hovered over the screen a second too long. I pressed call anyway, already bracing for disappointment.
A single hollow beep. The screen flashed Call Failed.
Her number was disconnected.
One by one, I scrolled through my contacts and realized how small my world had become.
How systematically Dex had isolated me from everyone who might have cared enough to answer a phone at three in the morning.
He had even driven me to leave my career, the one I had built from nothing, the one that used to make me feel like I was somebody.
He had cut me off from every source of independence and purpose I had ever known.
When did I become this person? When did my emergency contact list fill with numbers that no longer worked—people who drifted away because I canceled too many plans, made too many excuses, hid too much of the truth?
So I ran.
I stumbled out into the October night, the sharp air biting my skin, wearing only the thin nightgown I had on when Dex came home, furious over God knows what. My bare feet slapped against the cold pavement, and I knew I looked exactly like what I was.
The streets were empty except for the occasional car passing by, headlights sweeping across the asphalt like searchlights.
I kept to the shadows, moving through alleys and side streets, my heart hammering so hard I thought it might burst. Every sound made me jump—a cat knocked over a trash can, a late-night delivery truck rumbled in the distance, wind whistled through bare tree branches.
I made it six blocks before I heard the footsteps behind me.
My body jolted forward, but my legs could not keep up.
One foot dragged just enough to betray me.
My lungs burned. My vision narrowed at the edges, the streetlights smearing into long, watery streaks.
I felt like I was running fast—reckless, desperate—but the uneven slap of my bare feet against the pavement told another story.
Slow. Off-balance. Barely holding together.
How was he catching up? He had been asleep. I was sure of it. I had watched his chest rise and fall, counted the seconds, waited until I was certain before I moved. I was supposed to have more time.
I pressed harder. Pain flared through my hip. My knee buckled for half a step before I caught myself against a parked car.
The footsteps behind me grew closer. Steadier than mine.
Please. Somebody help me.
Panic swelled in my chest, dizzy and suffocating. I did not know where I was going. I only knew that stopping meant letting him close the distance, and I could not let that happen.
Then his voice cut through the night, deceptively calm.
"Willa. Come home, baby. We need to talk."
I froze in the middle of the sidewalk, every muscle in my body screaming at me to run, but my legs refused to cooperate.
How did he find me so quickly? How did he know which direction I went?
Then it hit me, he must have tracked me through my phone.
How else would he have known which direction I went?
“I know you’re scared,” he continued, his voice getting closer. “I know I lost my temper. But you know I love you, right? You know I’ll never really hurt you.”
The lie hung in the air between us like poison.
Never really hurt me? My ribs ached with every breath, my cheek was swollen and tender, and I could taste blood in my mouth.
But somehow, hearing him say those words made me question my own reality for just a moment.
Maybe it wasn’t that bad. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe—
No. I shook my head violently, trying to clear away the fog of manipulation Dex wove around me for two years. This was what he did. This was how he kept me trapped—by making me doubt my own experiences, my own pain.
I started running again with no sense of direction, my nightgown flaring around my legs. My feet were raw and bleeding, but I barely felt it. Dex cursed behind me and broke into a run.
“Willa, stop!” His voice was sharper now, the mask of concern slipping. The rhythm of his words matched the heavy thud of his footsteps behind me. “You’re being dramatic. People are going to see you like this and think—”
That was what he worried about. Not that I was hurt, not that I was scared, but that someone might see me running through the streets in my nightgown and ask questions he didn’t want to answer.
I turned down another alley, tucked away from the streetlights and empty of any sign of life.
My chest screamed for air, but I pushed harder than I ever had before.
The brick walls on either side of me seemed to close in, creating a tunnel of shadows that stretched endlessly ahead.
My feet were numb with cold, and I knew I was leaving bloody footprints on the pavement, but I couldn’t stop.
“You can’t run from me forever,” Dex called out, his voice echoing off the buildings. “Where are you going to go? Who’s going to take you in? You have nobody, Willa. Nobody but me.”
His words hit me like a fist to the chest because they were true.
Jude was half a world away, my old friends gave up on me, and I was too ashamed to reach out to the few people who might have still cared.
Dex made sure of that. He had made sure I was completely dependent on him. Completely isolated. Completely his.
But even knowing I had nowhere to go, I kept running. Being alone, homeless, and scared was still better than going back to that apartment. Still better than letting him touch me again.
I was so focused on the sound of his footsteps behind me that I almost missed the moment they stopped. The sudden silence was more terrifying than the chase, because it meant he stopped following me in a straight line.
I ducked behind a large garbage bin, crouching low as I pulled loose cardboard and stray bags closer, trying to make myself smaller, invisible.
The sour stench of rot clung to the air as I pressed my back against the dented metal gate, forcing my breathing into shallow, silent pulls.
My whole body shook—from cold, from fear, from adrenaline.
I tried to hold still, straining to catch any sound that might tell me where he was or how close he had gotten.
Then I heard it. A soft click of metal against metal. The unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked.
The footsteps stopped. The silence that followed felt deliberate, measured.
He was not chasing anymore. He had slowed, letting the distance stretch just enough to make me imagine where he might be, what he might do next.
I could feel him watching, letting fear do the work for him, confident I was already trapped.
“I didn’t want to do this, Willa,” Dex’s voice drifted from somewhere to my left, calm and reasonable again. “But you’re not leaving me any choice.”
I peered around the edge of the piled garbage and saw him standing at the mouth of the alley, his shape cut clean against the streetlight. In his right hand, held almost casually at his side, was a gun.
My blood turned to ice. In two years of marriage, through all the fights and escalating violence, Dex never brought out a weapon. He used his fists, threw objects, grabbed and shoved and slapped, but he never—
“Come home,” he said again, raising the gun so I could see it clearly. “Come home now, and we’ll forget this ever happened. We’ll start fresh. I’ll get help, I promise. But you have to come home with me.”
The rational part of my brain knew he was lying. There would be no fresh start. No getting help. Only punishment—for running, for embarrassing him, for making him chase me through the streets like some kind of criminal.
But the gun changed everything. This wasn’t just about another beating anymore. This was about survival.
I pressed myself harder against the cold metal fence, trying to disappear, trying to think of a way out. The alley was a dead end. The gate behind me was locked. Dex blocked the only exit.