Page 175 of At the Edge of Surrender

I started to run.

I had to get away. I had to. I had to.

I made it two steps when a violent hand fisted in my hair and yanked me back.

Agonizing pain seared across my scalp.

I screamed, but the pain wasn’t enough to stop me.

I still tried to run, willing to endure the torture of ripping out the mound of hair from my head if it meant getting away.

“Shut the fuck up, you cunt.” He jerked hard.

I lost my footing, and the soles of my shoes scraped along the ground as he dragged me toward the woods.

Fear spiraled.

Consuming.

Stifling.

The memories penetrating.

No.

God, please, no.

I battled with everything I had all while hopelessness taunted at the edges of my narrowing sight.

“Hey, stop right there!” Another man’s voice cut through the air, far across the lot. “Hey!”

A pounding of footsteps clamored in the distance.

A shout of a man and then another. “Someone stop that creep! He’s trying to drag that woman into the forest!”

“You little bitch.” The monster spat it at my ear. “Looks like you get one more day.”

Without warning, he tossed me to the side, and my body flew without will, no way to stop myself before the top of my head slammed into the front-passenger door of Kane’s SUV.

Pain splintered with the crack against the metal.

Rushed and overcame.

Blinding.

Deafening.

No way to stand as the ground came up below me.

THIRTY-NINE

KANE

“I found it!”Maci howled with laughter as she lifted the second eight of hearts into the air.

“Are you kiddin’ me! You got another match?” Okay, she might have had to peek under six different cards to find it, but I was convinced my kid was brilliant.

We were on the rug on the floor in her bedroom. Warmth from the natural sunlight spilling in and saturating the space, though I thought what really was filling it was the type of ease and joy that I’d never before felt.

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