I lifted the hem over her head.

The breath left my lungs. Dark bruises spread across her ribs and shoulders, a map of sustained violence. Red, angry rope marks circled both wrists, cutting into the crepe-paper skin.

“Daniel,” she wept, reading the horror on my face. “He ties me to the bed frame when I ask about my bank accounts. He says I’m crazy. Vanessa hits me with the wooden shoe horn when I won’t sign the papers.

They say I belong in the dark.”

Rage ignited in my chest, pure and blinding. But before I could form a plan, a sharp metallic sound cut through the rush of the shower.

Scratch. Click.