“You never had anyone else. Who else would even look at you?”
By the time I reach Mary’s door, I can hear her sobbing. Hear the struggle through wood and drywall. Hear him hurting her in ways that make my vision go white at the edges.
I don’t knock.
I don’t pick the lock.
I don’t waste time on subtlety.
My boot hits the door just below the handle. Wood splinters. Metal screams. The frame explodes inward like a bomb went off, sending chunks of doorjamb flying across the room.
And there he is.
Evan Cook. On top of her. Hands under her shirt. Hips pressed against hers while she fights and cries and tries to disappear into the couch cushions.
Everything stops.
The world narrows to this: Mary’s tear-streaked face. The bruises forming on her arms. The way she’s looking at me like I’m salvation and damnation rolled into one.
“Did younothear her?”
My voice comes out calm. Controlled. The kind of quiet that precedes executions.
Evan’s head snaps toward me, eyes wide with shock and the beginning of fear. His grip on Mary loosens just enough for her to breathe.
I catalog every detail. The way his shirt is wrinkled from grinding against her. The red marks his fingers left on her wrists. The smell of his desperation and her terror mixing in the stale air.
In my head, I’m already deciding which pieces of him to remove first.
“Did you not hear her?” I repeat, taking one step into the room.
The door frame is destroyed behind me. Wood and metal scattered across the floor like the remains of Evan’s last mistake.
He’s about to learn what happens when someone touches what’smine.
Evan scrambles backward off Mary, his hands flying up like that’ll stop what’s coming. His mouth opens and closes, fish-gasping for words that won’t save him.
“Who the fuck—?”
I cross the room in two steps. My hand closes around his throat before he can finish the question.
His feet leave the ground.
“You locked her in.” My voice comes out winter-cold. “You put your hands on her.”
Evan claws at my wrist, face going red, then purple. I could crush his windpipe right now. Feel it collapse under my thumb. Watch the light go out of his eyes while Mary watches.
But that would be too quick.
I drop him. He hits the floor hard, gasping, scrambling away from me on his hands and knees like the animal he is.
“Please— I wasn’t— We were just talking!”
“Talking.” I step forward. He scrambles back until he hits the wall. “Is that what you call putting your hands under her shirt?”
His eyes dart to Mary, then back to me. Looking for an escape that doesn’t exist.
“She’s my girlfriend—”
