The night was cold. Really cold, the kind of cold that bit at your cheeks and made your eyes water. Autumn sharpening into something closer to winter,that turning point when you realized summer was really gone and the long months of darkness were coming. I could see my breath, little clouds that formed and disappeared, formed and disappeared.
The parking lot was empty except for my car parked at the far end under a streetlight that had been flickering for weeks. No one had fixed it. Story of my life.
I started walking. My footsteps echoed off the pavement, too loud in the silence. The keys were cold in my hand. I shifted them so that the longest one poked out between my fingers, the way I'd learned to do years ago. The way women learned to do.
I was halfway across the lot when he stepped out of the shadows.
"Lucy."
My whole body went cold. Colder than the air, colder than the wind cutting through my jacket. A cold that started somewhere deep in my chest and spread outward until I couldn't feel my hands, my feet, anything except the sick lurch of recognition.
Evan.
He looked worse than I'd ever seen him. Unshaven, days of stubble darkening his jaw. Clothes wrinkled like he'd been sleeping in them, or not sleeping at all. His eyes were bloodshot, which told me he'd been drinking, probably for hours, probably since before the sun went down.
But underneath the mess, underneath the unsteady stance and the slurred edge to his voice, his eyes were sharp. Focused. Fixed on me with an intensitythat made my skin crawl, made every instinct I had scream at me to run.
I didn't run. Running triggered the chase response. I'd learned that the hard way.
"Evan." I kept my voice steady. Calm. The voice you used with a wild animal, the voice you used when you were trying not to provoke something dangerous. My fingers tightened on the keys. "You're not supposed to be here. There's a restraining order."
"Screw the restraining order." He moved forward, and I stepped back without thinking. He noticed. Something flickered across his face, satisfaction or anger, I couldn't tell which. "You think a piece of paper means anything? You think you can just leave me and hide in this town, and I'll what? Forget about you?"
"I left you years ago." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "We're done. We've been done for a long time."
"We're done when I say we're done."
He moved fast. Faster than I expected, faster than someone that drunk should be able to move. One second, he was three feet away, the next, his hand was around my wrist, fingers digging in hard enough to grind the bones together.
Pain shot up my arm. I gasped, tried to pull back, but his grip only tightened.
"You think you can replace me?" His face was close to mine now, close enough that I could smell the whiskey on his breath, see the broken blood vessels in his eyes. "With that firefighter? I've seenhim, Lucy. Seen him coming and going from your building. You think he's better than me?"
"Let go of me."
"I asked you a question."
His grip twisted, and the pain made my vision blur. For a moment, I was eighteen again. Trapped. The girl who'd learned that fighting back only made it worse, that the best thing to do was go limp, go quiet, wait for it to be over. The girl who'd spent two years making herself small enough to survive, who'd learned to read his moods like weather patterns, who'd become an expert at disappearing inside herself until the storm passed.
But I wasn't that girl anymore. I reminded myself of that.
I'd survived the abusive relationship with him, just as I’d survived Mateo’s death and my mother’s. I’d spent eighteen months running and six months hiding. I’d rebuilt myself from nothing more than once. I couldn’t let him break me again. I had to fight back.
I yanked my arm back. Hard. Twisted against his thumb the way instinct told me to, hitting the weak point, the place where the grip always failed. I felt his fingers slip, the pressure releasing just enough for me to stumble backward, nearly falling before I caught myself at the last second.
He stumbled too, his footing unsteady on the asphalt, the alcohol finally betraying him.
And then I ran.
I had no time to think, to make a plan. I justturned and sprinted for the car, my keys still clutched in my hand, my feet pounding against the pavement. Behind me, I heard him swear, heard his footsteps break into a run, heard him shout something the adrenaline wouldn’t let me understand.
The car. I had to get to the car.
Fifteen feet. Ten. Five. I was counting how close I was getting to my salvation.
I fumbled with the keys, my hands shaking so badly I nearly dropped them. My fingers were still clenched in that defensive fist. I had to force them open, shift my grip, find the unlock button. The chirp. The door. I yanked it open and threw myself inside.
The locks. That was all I could think about.
