Chapter 2 - Playing Dead on the Kitchen Floor
The glare of the hallway light sliced through the darkness like an electric shock.
I buried my cheek against the linoleum. The linoleum was cold, slick with my sweat, and reeked of dried bleach and spilled tomato sauce from Margaret’s dinner. I kept my breathing shallow, mouth open just enough to let air seep in without making my chest heave. My shattered leg pulsed with a sickening, heavy throb that made black spots swarm behind my eyelids.
Andrew’s bare feet slapped against the base of the wood stairs. He walked with that deliberate, heavy swagger of someone who believed he held total dominion over every inch of square footage in this house.
“Emily?” His voice was flat, devoid of panic or worry, merely sounding annoyed that a chore might still be unresolved.
I didn’t twitch. I didn’t flinch. I let my right arm lie limply across my hip, hiding the jagged edge of the metal bottle opener curled into my palm. The rust bit hard into my skin, but it gave me an anchor. Pain against pain.
He stepped onto the kitchen tile. The shadows cast by his tall frame swallowed the sliver of light illuminating my face. He paused, towering right beside my broken limb. I could smell the stale scent of cheap beer and Mexican takeout rolling off his breath.
“Still playing dramatic,” he muttered under his breath. He kicked the rubber toe of my shoe lightly with his foot. A searing bolt of pure agony flashed straight from my tibia to the back of my skull, so fierce that I nearly bit my tongue in half to keep from crying out. Blood welled warmly against my back teeth.
I remained utterly slack. I let my head roll slightly toward the refrigerator, staring blankly with unblinking eyes into the dark shadow under the stove.
Andrew let out a slow, dismissive grunt. He turned toward the double-door refrigerator, opened it, and rummaged inside. The plastic crinkle of cheese wrapping. The pop of another aluminum can opening. He drank right there, throat gulping rhythmically while his wife bled internally five feet below him.
“You’re going to thank me for this one day,” he murmured quietly into the open chill of the fridge. “A stubborn woman is a dangerous thing, Em. Margaret knows how to handle people like you. When Harold’s sister tried to run off with her inheritance, Mom fixed that, too. You just don’t know when to surrender.”
My heart hammered so hard against my ribs I was terrified he would hear it over the low hum of the compressor. Harold’s sister. Aunt Clara. The woman they claimed had died peacefully in an out-of-state care facility five years ago.
He took one last swig, tossed the empty can into the recycling bin with a hollow thud, and pulled a clean glass down from the upper cupboard. He filled it from the tap, clicked the refrigerator shut, and walked back to the doorway.
He didn’t turn back around. He flipped the kitchen switch off, plunging the room back into pitch-black suffocating silence, and hauled his heavy steps back up the carpeted staircase.
I counted. Slowly.
One. Two. Three. Four.
All the way to three hundred.
Five full minutes of absolute silence before the faint creak of their upstairs mattress signaled he had climbed back into bed beside the locked drawers holding my life’s documents.
I opened my eyes.
The adrenaline stripped away the exhaustion, replacing it with a vicious, cold clarity. They weren’t just abusers; they were predators who had done this before. If I allowed dawn to break over this kitchen, Margaret would come down in her floral robe, Harold would stand in the corner looking at his feet, and Andrew would force me to sign away my rights before calling some shady family friend to patch my bone off the grid.
I turned back toward the rear door.
I pressed my elbows into the floor once more. Pull. My hip shifted. Pull. The bone in my lower left leg ground together with a muted, nauseating friction that made bile surge up my throat. I swallowed it down.
I reached the bottom of the exit door where the white plastic grate sat loosely over the exterior dog flap Andrew had boarded over last winter. Two screws were still intact.
I raised the bottle opener. My hands shook violently from shock, but I jammed the flat, rusted edge into the groove of the second screw.
Turn.
Metal scraped against painted metal. A tiny screech cut the air. I froze, holding my breath, waiting for footsteps. Nothing. Just the drumming rain outside rattling against the glass panes above my head.
I turned it again. The second screw gave way, rolling onto the floor.
Only the final anchor held the plastic barrier in place. This one was rusted deep into the wooden casing, sealed tight by years of outdoor moisture. I wedged the blunt tool under the head of the screw and put my entire remaining upper-body strength into a single levered twist.
Snap.
The screw head sheared off, the aged wood splintering open. The white plastic grate clattered onto the linoleum, exposing a narrow, square portal leading directly out onto the damp concrete of the back patio.
Cold, wet midnight air rushed in through the opening, hitting my feverish face like a baptism.
It was narrow. Less than eighteen inches wide. A fully grown woman with a broken, dangling leg couldn’t simply slide through without severe damage.
I stared into the blackness outside where rain poured through the gutters.
May you like
Behind me lay the slow death of a captive. Ahead of me was raw, agonizing exposure.
I reached my arms through the open flap into the downpour, dug my fingernails into the wet grooves of the concrete deck, and pulled my shattered body into the storm.
