So tomorrow you’ll stay locked up in this house, exactly where you belong.”

When they finally let go, Selena fell to her knees, gasping for air as if she’d just surfaced from deep water. She crawled toward the bathroom with her phone in her hand, slamming and locking the door behind her before anyone could stop her.

What she saw in the mirror made her stomach churn: uneven, jagged strands, badly cut patches, her temple nearly shaved, red eyes, and the face of a woman who had just been deeply humiliated in her own home.

She trembled for several minutes, weeping silently as the reality of the violence washed over her. And then something inside her stopped breaking and began to harden into something unbreakable.

She pulled out her phone, ordered a ride-share, and packed her thesis, her research journals, and a change of clothes into a small backpack. She walked out of that apartment without a single goodbye, ignoring Barbara’s muffled yelling from the living room and Hunter’s desperate, angry orders to come back.

She checked into a cheap motel near the edge of town, slept barely three hours, and before the dawn light hit the window, she borrowed a pair of scissors from the front desk to fix the horrific mess in the mirror.