Chapter one
The Phoenix
September 21st 2023
I could see the end of my life reflected in his blackened eyes. Even though the breakup text I had sent was just a few hours ago, it felt like an eternity had passed. Never in a million years could I have predicted that I would be here, remembering all the times I had wanted to die and finding myself wanting to live.
This was the reason I had sent him a breakup text instead of inviting him over to end it in person, his unpredictability and how quickly he flew into a rage. Even though I had refused his offer to try and talk things out, I still found myself rehearsing a speech at least a hundred times just in case. My anxiety pushed me to overprepare, even though it didn’t help me in this case. I had tried my best not to place any blame on him in hopes of avoiding his temper and ending things amicably. I should have seen the explosion coming, but even after two years, they were still able to take me by surprise.
I couldn’t tell the difference between the spaghetti sauce and the blood that was mixed with it, splattered against the perfectly white walls in my kitchen. The reds were so close together in shadethat the only dissimilarities were the flecks of oregano, barely visible in the chunks of pasta sauce sliding down their pristine canvas and mingling with his blood.
The hot saucepan was still tightly clutched in my outstretched hand from where I had grabbed it off the stove to use as a weapon. Smoke from the spilled sauce that had splashed over the eye was slowly starting to burn on the stovetop, baking itself and filling the room with a pungent scent. The smoke detector would be going off any moment if I were lucky enough to live to hear it.
He was looming before me as a vision from my nightmares come to life, here to drag me to the depths of hell with him. Where he could spend the rest of eternity continuing to delight in my anguish, tearing strips of my soul like flesh from my bones, until nothing remains but a pile of carnage.
My chest heaved, shallow breaths trying to fill my panicked lungs with as much oxygen as they could as I stood my ground, his eyes cold black pits against his tan face, reflecting what lay inside. The mask of charm he was usually well-adapted to wearing was nowhere to be found tonight, discarded the moment I sent that text. He was calm, calmer than I was, but the storm raging in his eyes meant his monster was about to come out.
I wasn’t a fool to his placating demeanor. Time and time again, he had lured me with a false sense of serenity, his words masking the horrors that would await me, once I let my guard down. The violence hidden beneath the calm surface was a poison, one he’spatiently waiting to inject into my veins once I’ve pacified him. Too bad for him, I had found the courage to make my own antidote to his manipulating rage.
So I had done the only thing any rational woman should have done in my position. When he started to grab me to try and force me to look at him, I grabbed the handle of the saucepan while it was full of simmered sauce and meatballs and slung it against him, making perfect contact with the side of his skull. It had only been sitting on medium heat, but it was still hot enough to hurt, his face was red from both the hot pan and the sauce from my dinner. I’m sure he would have some burns on his chest by the end of the night from where it slowly dripped down his chin, landing on his rotund torso.
The moment he dropped my arm, I bolted around the kitchen island, dripping sauce and blood as I went, trying to put some distance between us. Now that I looked at him straight on, I could see why. The pan had cut his cheek, cracking the skin open right under his eye, now gushing blood, mixing with the food now covering his clothes. I didn’t let go of the pan, though, keeping it held at arm's length between us. Despite my shaking hands, quivering from fear, I was determined to hold my ground.
Paws pounded against metal as my German Shepherd, Riley, tried his hardest to break out of his crate. Unfortunately for me, my ex stood between us. If I could just get to Riley and let him out, I knew I would feel better. He hated Craig and I had no doubt hewould have protected me if he could. We had rarely spent any amount of time at my house because of how much Riley had tried to bite the idiot before. I’d never doubt my dog's intuition again if I lived through this.
“Leave,” my voice sounded stronger than usual. I had rarely ever fought back with him before tonight. It was always safer to let him have his way, no matter what it involved, as long as it kept his temper at bay.
Glowering at him, I remembered everything he had ever done to make me feel like I was less than a human being. How in just two years I had turned into someone I didn’t recognize anymore. My confidence, my self-worth, and my ability to love had all been taken away from me at his hands. The most recent discoveries I had made were just the icing on the cake of our abusively toxic relationship.
“If you make me leave Raelynn, I will press assault charges on you,” his voice was cold and calculated. He was choosing his words carefully, hoping to provoke a fear in me that he knew existed, and I had to fight like hell against my own mind so that it wouldn’t work. If I let it surface, I would spiral back to that night where I could still feel the bite of the cold metal from the handcuffs against my wrists as I sat in the back of the squad car.
From the living room corner, Riley started to aggressively bark and bite at his crate, desperately trying to free himself in order to get to me. Craig took a moment to glance behind him, back at mydog, slowly dragging his gaze back to me as he smiled, exposing his teeth. It wasn’t meant to be a reassuring smile. It was a cat-like smile, knowing the mouse was trapped and about to be eaten. The blood flowed into his mouth, staining his teeth red and making it ten times worse to look at.
“How are you going to manage to take care of your diseased mutt from jail, Raelynn? Do you really think anyone is going to want to take in a dog that’s already bitten two people? Your worthless creature will be put down as soon as he’s taken to the shelter.”
Craig taunted me as he slowly approached the kitchen island, dragging one of his fingers back and forth across the surface. Thankfully, I had been chopping vegetables on the counter closer to the stove, so none of the knives were within easy reach of his hands. Still, it didn’t ease my worry, he was unhinged enough that I doubted he needed a weapon when he once had complete control of my mind before. He was right though, I could easily be arrested again tonight no matter if both times were in self-defense.
Knowing my best option would be just getting out of the house, I thought of the hallway leading to my front door behind my back. I could try and beat him at his own game and call the cops first to claim self-defense. I should have done it the moment I struck him for grabbing me, but the thought that they could believe him over me again made me hesitant. All the ‘what-if’s’ plagued me and wouldn’t change a damn thing now. He was the one with the obvious wound, and I probably would barely even bruise fromwhere he had grabbed me. He was going to win. The thought spread through me like a disease, eating away at my steeled mind and growing into a knot in my throat.
I made a split-second decision, trying not to worry about leaving Riley in his kennel, and slung the pan at Craig over the island. He may not have been expecting it, but he still dodged it all the same. It did what I intended it to do and gave me the few seconds I needed to try and get to the door.
The neighborhood I lived in was small and quiet, but the houses were close enough together that one of them was bound to hear me once I got outside. Turning and trying to make a run for it, I slipped in the spaghetti sauce puddles on the floor, my heart dropping into my stomach as my knees hit the floor. My hands slipped in the sauce, failing to gain purchase to help me back to my feet as I continued to cover myself in the still-warm liquid. I settled for crawling on my knees, slipping as I tried to go as quickly as I could. Sheer panic drove me to keep scrambling for the door at the end of the hall; help only lay a few feet away.
“Raelynn!” I didn’t dare turn around as he yelled my name, for fear that he was right behind me.
My hands slid across the tile as I struggled to put any amount of distance between us. I managed to stand after only a few moments, but those precious seconds had cost me. Tears blurred my vision as I reached the door, my slippery hands fumbling withthe lock.
Just as the lock finally turned so I could swing the door open, a brown haze flashed in front of my face, followed by something tightening around my throat and yanking me backwards as soon as it was gone from my sight. His foot kicked out, clipping my leg as he forced the door shut with his boot, cutting off my hope of getting help from someone outside.
Instinct took over, and my hands left the door, grasping for whatever was restricting my air flow. It was too tight around my throat for me to get a grip against it, my fingers unable to slip underneath. So instead, I shoved my body weight backwards against him. It didn’t do much good. He was much taller than I was and weighed at least seventy pounds heavier, even though most of his muscle had been slowly turning into beer weight.
Helplessly, I was dragged backwards up the stairs. No matter what, I wasn’t going down without a fight. But no amount of kicking and thrashing in his grip was enough to get him to loosen his hold on whatever he was pulling me with. My feet struck the walls more than they struck my assailant as he dragged me further up the stairs.
Black dots started to appear across my vision as the time without oxygen progressed further. Riley’s barks from the living room sounded muffled as the sound of my own blood pumping filled my ears, drowning out the noises around me.
“This is what you wanted all along, wasn’t it you little slut? You’ve always wanted to die, haven’t you?” My arms began to lose theirstrength as we made it to the top of the stairs, my feet barely able to touch the floor anymore. “All that whining and complaining you’ve done. You’ll be doing everyone a favor if you just ended it all.” His words weren’t registering with me as my vision started to fade out. Craig was winning, all because I wanted to end our relationship. He was taking my choice away. I didn’t want to die.
I could vaguely hear something crash in the kitchen downstairs seconds before something barreled into us, forcing him to loosen his grip for just a moment.
