My mother smiled a cold, terrifying smile. She tossed the heavy iron wrench across the shattered china. It clattered loudly before sliding across the table.
“Your turn,” my mother said softly.
The heavy metal hit Chloe’s hand. She gripped the handle, her knuckles turning white. She stepped toward me, raising the wrench high above her head.
I squeezed my eyes shut. The chandelier lights above me blurred into a terrifying, suffocating blackness. I stopped struggling against my father’s grip. The fight drained out of my body, replaced by a cold, absolute certainty. I surrendered to the dark, fully believing I was about to be beaten to death on my mother’s dining room floor.
“MAYA!”
A voice roared through the room, shattering the horrific tableau. It wasn’t my father. It wasn’t my mother.
It was Travis.
But I couldn’t see what was happening. My consciousness was slipping rapidly, the pain in my head pulling me down into a dark, heavy ocean. I heard the sound of a violent scuffle. I heard my father grunt in pain, and suddenly, the crushing weight on my spine vanished. The heavy hands releasing my wrists. I heard Chloe scream, a sharp, genuinely terrified sound, followed by the heavy thud of a body hitting the floor.
I tried to open my eyes, but the blood and swelling kept them glued shut. I felt strong, gentle hands carefully turn me onto my side to keep me from choking. A soft, clean linen napkin was pressed firmly against the gaping wound on my cheek.
“I’ve got you,” a deep voice whispered near my ear. It was Travis. His voice was shaking with an intensity I couldn’t comprehend. “Breathe, Maya. Just breathe. They are done. I promise you, they are done.”
The darkness finally pulled me under.
When I dragged my eyes open again, the world had fundamentally shifted. The agonizing throbbing in my skull was still there, but the terrifying silence of the dining room had been replaced by a chaotic, deafening roar of reality.
I blinked through a haze of pain. The pristine white walls of my mother’s dining room were strobing violently with blinding red and blue lights flashing through the front windows. The air smelled of metallic blood and the harsh static of police radios.
