Ellie

Time slowed as I turned. I blinked, and then he was upon me, his face mere inches from mine. I took an involuntary step back, shocked by his sudden closeness. His presence violated everything I had thought to be true.

"No, you can't be here, you just can't…" I breathed, my brain struggling to process the evidence my eyes were providing. If I so much as reached out, I could have touched him. But it couldn't be.

He chuckled, an evil, biting, discordant racket that tore at the fiber of my soul. It reminded me of every harsh word, every raised fist, every cut and every bruise that he'd ever meted out on me. I saw him then as if for the first time. It was as though he was bathed in a revealing, cleansing light. I didn't see what I had wanted to see for so long – a kind, loving man. The kind of man I'd tried so hard to convince myself he could be. I saw him with fresh eyes, and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that all the self-doubt and loathing that I had put myself through, the coals I had raked myself over in trying to understand how I could stop constantly disappointing him, and how I could be a better partner – all of that was a mistake. He was the problem, not me.

Too late, my legs started working. It felt like a clamp had been released around my toes, and I could move again. The problem was Rick had backed me into a corner. Literally. He kept walking forward, and I kept backing away, the adrenaline in my system paralyzing me instead of doing what it was supposed to – fight or flight. In the end, I did neither.

My entire world condensed into a bubble about six feet wide. The sound of hammering and mechanical tools from the half a dozen auto repair shops that were the last, struggling remnants of a once-thriving industrial district faded away. The smell of pollen on the breeze, that I hated so much, disappeared, replaced by the damp, dank, fetid smell of trash cans. Even the light above me began to fade as Rick backed me into an alleyway, the weak twilight sun blocked out by the towering, crumbling walls of red brick factories.

"Please…" I begged. I couldn't retreat another step, a chill cold radiating from the nearest factory wall began to lick away at the backs of my legs. A shiver traveled down my spine, meeting with the chill, and I felt weak, paralyzed with fear. "You can't, you don't understand. I didn't mean –."

No. Don't beg. Don't cry. Even if you have to die, he doesn't have power over you anymore. The only power he has is what you give him. He's weak, sad, and pathetic. What kind of man attacks a woman, a defenceless one at that?

A bully. That's what. And my mom, God rest her soul, she told me never to give in to bullies. Without consciously thinking about it, I straightened up, just like she would have wanted. I stood tall, chin thrust proudly forward, and waited for Rick to do his worst. He raked me up and down with a mocking stare and sneered, opening his vulpine, narrow-lipped mouth for the first time.

"What, you think you're going to get out of this?" He looked over his shoulder, then gestured at the empty street behind him, a mocking, crooked smile dancing at the corners of his mouth. "You think someone's going to come save you, baby?" He rolled the nickname that I'd once loved so much, before he showed his true colors, around his tongue, savoring it.

"Don't," I said, my voice cracking under the strain. I gritted my teeth, determined not to show fear that was coursing through me. A throwaway line I'd once written in a long ago newspaper column fluttered into my mind. Courage isn't the absence of fear; it's what you do when you're afraid. "Don't call me that! I'm not your baby. I'm not your anything, not anymore."

The smile disappeared from Rick's face an instant, and he lurched forward, acting out of pure, spiteful rage. He raised his palm and slapped me full across the face, sending me spinning with the force and crashing against a filthy trashcan. My shoulder took the brunt of the impact, and radiated pain. I lost my overstuffed handbag somewhere in the scuffle.

"Oh, ho," he scoffed, picking it up. "What's this, then? Still using all the things I bought you, are you? Fucking women," he spat. "You're all the fucking same. Just take, take, take. You let us go to work every day, bring home the bacon, and spend it on clothes and makeup and handbags and all this Shit." His voice dripped with anger, and his speech had the flat, monotonous sound of a well-practiced diatribe. I could tell that he'd been working on it for a while, probably planning it out in his head while lying in a bare, gray, concrete cell.

Each one of his lies hit me with a dozen times the force of the slap that had just sent me stumbling to the floor. A pang of anger coursed through me. It was all lies! In all the time I'd known him, Rick hadn't spent more than three months at any job. Laid off, fired, pushed out… The excuses never stopped. All the while, I went to work every day, earned enough for both of us, and he lay at home drinking it away until my credit cards were maxed out. But never his.

And the fact that he had the sheer, brass-pulled cheek to stand there and say that to my face while holding a bag containing months of my life worth of hard-fought research smarted something fierce. I wanted more than anything for him to drop that bag, which was more than just a handbag, it was my life.

Enough to do something stupid. To provoke him.

"You never bought me a thing," I said, moaning over the pain sparking from my injured shoulder. "Not with your own money, anyway."

It was like showing a red rag to a bull. I had signed my own death warrant, or near enough. I heard the gentle 'whumph' as the heavy handbag hit the ground. It gave me just enough warning to protect myself, for all the good that did. I curled into the fetal position, hands gripping my rib cage as the first of many kicks rained down on my body. My kidneys were exposed, and my neck, and my head, but something primal inside me compelled me to do it – to protect my core, my stomach, my womb. There was neither rhyme, nor reason for it, just an intense, irresistible urge, and I succumbed without so much as a second thought.

The first blow hit with enough force that a thousand stars exploded behind my eyes, the second landed in my side and knocked all of the wind out of me. After that I stopped counting. After that I stopped caring, but I never stopped trying to protect my belly.

In the background, I heard shouts, a scuffle, and the sound of running footsteps.

And then nothing.