Chapter 2

She forced herself to move, to run, to tear her body free of the paralysis that wanted to root her to the floor. The boards creaked beneath her feet, loud and sharp, but she no longer cared. Whatever noise she made was nothing compared to the violence crashing against the front door above her.

There was nowhere to go in the open rooms of the house. The kitchen offered no shelter, the living room no hiding place. Every corner felt exposed, a trap waiting to be sprung. She crossed the entryway on shaking legs and dropped to her knees, fingers scrabbling for the edge of the trapdoor that led to the root cellar. When she hauled it open, darkness yawned up at her, deep and swallowing.

She climbed down into it and pulled the door closed above her, guiding it with careful hands so it would not slam and betray her. When it settled back into place, the cellar wrapped around her in thick, suffocating dark.

The sounds of the house changed immediately, dulled and distant, as though layers of earth and wood had swallowed the world. She crouched low with her knees drawn tight to her chest, the packed dirt cold against her skin. The air smelled of soil and old vegetables, of damp roots and stored harvests. Familiar smells. The kind that had once meant safety.

She pressed her hand over her mouth and waited.

She had imagined this moment over and over in the past week, every path she could have taken, every warning she had brushed aside. It all seemed so clear now, the way his interest had turned into something heavier, darker, the way no refusal would ever have been enough. She would never let him touch her, and he would never accept being denied. There had never been another ending waiting for them.

Her heartbeat pounded so loudly in her ears that she was certain it would give her away. Every breath felt too sharp, too present, as if the very air might betray her hiding place. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to become smaller, quieter, something that could disappear into the dark.

Then the front door slammed.

The sound carried through the house, muted but unmistakable, and her breath hitched painfully in her chest. He was inside now. The lock had never been meant to stop him. It had only been a formality, a thin courtesy offered to violence.

She shifted deeper behind the sacks of potatoes, curling herself into the narrow space, tucking her feet beneath her skirt. When she was younger, the cellar had been a refuge from summer heat and household noise, a cool, quiet place to hide when the world felt too loud.

Now it felt like a grave waiting to close over her.

Footsteps moved across the floor above, slow and deliberate, not hurried in the slightest. He knew she had nowhere left to run. The thought of her father came to her suddenly, painfully, his laugh, his steady hands, the way he fixed the fence every spring whether it needed it or not. She prayed, with a hollow, aching hope, that he would not be the one to find her.

The trapdoor creaked.

A thin slice of light cut into the cellar, blinding after the dark, spilling across the dirt floor and the wooden beams and the neat rows of stored food. She squeezed her eyes shut and began to count, the numbers slipping through her mind like a final thread of control.

Twenty.

The ladder shifted as weight pressed down on it.

Eighteen.

Boots scraped against wood.

Sixteen.

He came down slowly, one step at a time, savoring the space between them.

Fifteen.

Her breath shook, and she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out.

Thirteen.

His boots struck the dirt floor with a dull, final thud.

Twelve.

He crouched, his shadow stretching long and warped across the ground.

Ten.

His gaze swept the cellar, sharp and intent, lingering on every corner as if he could already see her.

Eight.

She shrank back instinctively, though there was nowhere left to go.

Seven.

The earth seemed to tremble as he moved closer.

Five.

The sacks in front of her shifted.

Four.

Her heart stuttered painfully.

Three.

Potatoes spilled across the dirt as the barrier was torn away.

Two.

She looked up.

One.

His face filled her vision, too close, his breath hot and sour as his hand closed around her arm and hauled her upright. A cry tore from her despite herself as he crushed her against him, his grip bruising and possessive.

“This is where you were hiding,” he murmured, satisfaction curling through his voice.

Fear flared inside her, white and blinding. She struck at him with everything she had, fists and nails and teeth, fighting like a cornered animal. He swore and tightened his hold, dragging her back toward the center of the cellar as she resisted him with shaking, furious strength.

She would not make this easy.

She would fight. She would bleed. She would make him work for every inch of her.

Even if it killed her.

Even if this dirt floor became the place where her story ended.

Her body trembled as panic and fury twisted together in her chest, and she thought of the house above them, of the walls that had held her laughter and her grief, the life she had lived within them.

If this were her end, it would be here.

In the house where she had taken her first breath.