No doubt he was rushing back, probably kicking himself for leaving at all.
“Baby, let go of the leash, I’ll take Roxie.”
Holding the leash like a lifeline, my daughter struggled to do as I asked. She couldn’t go through this. Her life already had been filled with enough horrifying moments.
Right then, I didn’t care about me, but my daughter…
I had to save my girl.
“Come on baby, let her go. I promise it will be okay.”
When she did as I asked that time, the guy screamed for me to lock the dog in the bedroom and to not try anything stupid.
“If you try anything, I will kill her,” he said, his venomous tone slicing through the room.
Bre sobbed, thousands of tears rolling down her pretty face.
At that, my heart thrummed louder and louder, until it roared with anger bursting to be released. This isnothappening. He was not going to hurt my child!
“Now!” he bellowed.
I rushed to the bedroom and shut Roxie in. The dog barked and scratched frantically at the door, wanting to get to her person. She knew Bre was in trouble, they’d bonded in a special way since my daughter got her when the dog was just eight weeks old.
Running back toward the front door, I tried using the skills I’d learned with my job.
“I’m sorry that you are having a hard time. Is there anything I can do?”
He stood there staring at me, his cold, hard eyes unsettling. The guy was on something and I knew firsthand how bad it could get.
“Do you want to talk about it? How about you let her go and we can sit down so you can tell me what’s going on?”
The knife moved to my daughter’s throat and I felt my world tilt on its axis.
“Don’t fucking try and psychoanalyze me, you fucking homewrecker. You already filled my wife’s head with bullshit, and now I can’t find her.” He snarled, frothy foam seeping out his mouth like a rabid dog. “I’ve been buying my time, waiting for you two to be alone and now I have you.”
I don’t know how he found us, but he must have followedme home at some point. As he said, just waiting for the right moment.
He was escalating. I had to get him away from Bre.
Oh my God, Bre. Tears still rolled down her cheeks, but she was lost. Her face was void of emotion, blank and yet she still trembled. I always talked about fight or flight mode, but there was a third. Freeze. And that was the place my daughter was at as I tried to get her attention and reassure her.
She couldn’t hear me and my heart broke.
“You took her away from me!” the monster screamed, the veins in his neck bulging. “Now I’m going to take something from you!”
That’s when I knew what mode I needed to be in.
Fight.
I would not let the fear of my past or my demons win. This was my fight, my child, and it was my time to win.
At the sound of police sirens, the bastard turned toward the door, dropping the knife away from Bre’s neck.
I lunged, closing the small distance between us, and caught him off guard when I slammed the heel of my hand into his nose.Thank you No Surrender for the few defense classes.Stunned, the metal in his hands dropped to the floor as blood spurted from his nostrils, I yanked Bre away, pushing her behind me.
“Run!” I screamed at her as I began fighting with all I had in me.
She didn’t move, and I pushed the fucker as hard as I could trying to put distance between him and my daughter. As he started to fall backward, his large hand caught my hair, gripping it tight in his hand, causing me to tumble outside with him.
