He tugs on my arms before reconsidering. He grabs me by the ankles instead and pulls roughly. The tile floor is hard against my back and it takes everything in me not to grimace from the abrading pain, but to be limp instead, dead weight.
I don’t know how far away from the door I am. I don’t know how much farther we have to go. Will grunts as he moves, his breath wheezy. I’m heavier than he thought.
Think, Sadie, think.
He pulls me a handful of feet. Then he stops to gather his breath. My legs drop to the floor; he gets a better grip on my ankles. He tugs gruffly in short bursts. I slide, inches at a time, knowing the time to save myself is running out.
I’m nearing the back door. The cold air is closer than it was before.
It takes great willpower to get myself to fight back. To let Will know that I’m alive. Because if I don’t succeed, I will die. But I have to fight back. Because I’ll die either way if I don’t.
Will lets go of my feet again. He takes a breath. He helps himself to a sip of water straight from the tap. I hear the water run. I hear his tongue lap at it like a dog. The water turns off. He swallows hard, comes back to me.
When he leans down to gather my ankles back into his hands, I use every bit of strength I have to sit suddenly upright. I brace myself and smash my head into his. I try to use his growing fatigue to my advantage, his state of imbalance. His equilibrium is thrown off because he’s hunched over my body, pulling. For this one second, I have the upper hand.
His hands go to his head. He staggers suddenly backward, losing balance, falling to the floor. I waste no time. I press on the ground and force myself to my feet.
But as the blood rushes down, the world around me spins. My vision fades to black. I nearly collapse before the adrenaline rushes in and only then can I see.
I feel his hands on my ankle. He’s on the floor, trying to pull me down with him. He calls me names as he does, no longer worried about being quiet. “You bitch. You stupid, stupid bitch,” he says, this man I married, who vowed to love me till death do us part.
My knees buckle and I collapse to the floor beside him, falling fast. I land facedown, my nose hitting the floor so that it begins to bleed. The blood is profuse, turning my hands red.
I get quickly to my hands and knees. Will comes at me from behind, attempting to reach over me for my neck as I struggle to crawl away from him. I kick backward. I have to get away from him.
My hands reach desperately for the countertop. They latch on, trying to pull me upward, but just as soon lose their grip. My hands are sweaty, my hold weak. Everywhere there is blood. It comes from my nose, my mouth. I can’t hold on to the countertop. I slip away, falling back to the floor.
The wooden block of knives sits just out of reach, mocking me.
I try again. Will grapples again for my ankle. He takes me by the lower leg and pulls. I kick hard, but it isn’t enough. The blows only leave him momentarily dazed but I’m growing tired, my efforts weakening. I fall facedown again on the floor, biting my tongue. I can’t keep doing this. The adrenaline in my body has slowed, the wine, the lethargy taking over.
I don’t know that I have it in me to go on.
But then I think of Otto, of Tate, and I know that I must go on.
I’m on the floor facedown as Will mounts my back. All two hundred pounds of him bear down on me, forcing me face-first into the kitchen floor. I couldn’t scream if I wanted to. I can barely suck in a breath. My arms are pinned beneath me, getting crushed by Will’s weight and mine.
I feel his hands in my hair, massaging my scalp. It’s oddly gentle. Sensuous. I feel his satisfaction at having me in this position.
Time slows down. I try to press up against the weight of him, but go nowhere. I can’t find my arms.
Will runs his fingers through my hair. Breathlessly he says my name. “Oh, Sadie,” he exhales. He enjoys that I’m pinned to the ground as I am, in a powerless position, a slave to my master. “My lovely wife,” he says.
He leans in close enough that I feel his breath on my neck. He runs his lips the length of it. He bites gently on my earlobe. I let him. I can’t make him stop.
He whispers into my ear, “If only you would have left it alone.”
And then he clutches a handful of my hair in his tacky hand, hoists my face inches from the floor and smashes it back down to the tile.
I’ve never felt such pain in my life. If my nose wasn’t broken before, it is now.
He does it again.
Whether it’s enough to eventually kill me, I don’t know. But soon it will render me unconscious. And there’s no telling what he will do then.
This is it, I tell myself. This is where I will die.
But then something happens.
