Though David was not in bed with her the next morning, she knew he had slept beside her. When she rolled over she could see the imprint of his body on top of the blankets and of his head on the pillow next to her in the grey light filtering in through the window. Memory returned and fresh tears rushed to the surface. Her stomach rolled and clenched. She ruthlessly pushed both aside, sitting up and pressing her hands against her warm, raw face. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and felt the slight sting where salty tears had heated her skin.

She forced her feet from the bed and onto the cold floor. She was used to hard things in life. She could push the misery aside until an opportunity presented itself. Emotions would be her enemy. They would cloud her judgment and cause her to make mistakes, which would end in the death of her baby. She learned the hard way when she left David the first time to shove the terror and loneliness aside while she zigzagged across the globe, leading him astray while keeping herself alive. Her only mistake had been stopping for longer in Canada, thinking perhaps she could stop running. She had let the loneliness win. She frowned a little, remembering the advice she had been given that had led her to think Calgary was a safe haven. Her friend had been wrong and now she was back in the hands of a man determined to destroy her.

Standing next to the bed, she realized she wore only her undershirt and the pair of panties she’d worn the day before. Anger rushed through her when she pictured David undressing her while she slept, unconscious after her storm of weeping. How dare he touch her! Perhaps he thought he was being solicitous of her comfort. She saw him putting his hands upon her skin as utterly monstrous now, knowing what he intended to do to her.

She stripped out of her clothes and put on a pair of tights and leotard topped with a pair of sweatpants and a grey hooded sweatshirt that zipped in the front. She opened the door and padded barefoot through the cabin to the washroom, ignoring David who sat at the table with his laptop and several weapons spread out in front of him. She could feel his eyes on her, but she didn’t look at him or acknowledge his existence.

She went quickly through her washroom routine feeling cold from the inside out. She thought about showering to warm up, but even the impulse was exhausting. She just didn’t have it in her this morning. Finally, she did the thing that she’d been longing to do since entering the washroom. She dropped her eyes to the garbage. She froze. It was empty. Tears filled her eyes when she realized he had taken the test. He must have realized she would try to get it back. Her heart hardened even more.

She yanked the door open and strode toward her dance studio, freezing him out even more than she had earlier. Her hand touched the doorknob when he spoke, his voice quiet and deep. “You should eat something.”

Her back stiffened to the point that she felt as though her spine would snap if he said another word to her. She didn’t turn around and she didn’t answer him. She went through the door and closed it behind herself as though he hadn’t said a word. If he actually cared about her welfare he wouldn’t threaten her baby.

She forced her mind away from all thought as she stretched, allowing her eyes to drift from window to window in tandem with the motions of her body. She watched the snow fall steadily through the long branches of the pine trees. Normally she would find the fluffy white flakes peaceful. Today they represented her prison. They trapped her in the cabin as effectively as the man on the other side of the door.

She stood and made her way to the iPod port, sinking gracefully next to it. She pulled her pink ballet slippers on and began flexing her feet while flipping through her music. She decided that her heart wasn’t in anything modern today. She needed the stormy embrace of classical ballet to help her forget. She chose the playlist for one of her first parts as principal in Romeo and Juliet and prepared the music for all of the solos. She wondered if she would remember the steps from six years ago. She had been seventeen when she’d stepped in front of the audience to enact this particular ballet.

Tasha danced for hours. She threw herself into the music without thought or concern for human frailty. She spun, kicked and flung herself across the room over and over until she was sure she remembered every step of her former solos. She even performed the duets pretending she was in the arms of a partner once more. She danced until she was exhausted and still she continued to push herself further. She could feel the pain in her feet, ankles and back, but she pushed it away, knowing that if she stopped the misery would push its way back in.

She was reaching the point of complete collapse when suddenly she was seized mid-spin and picked up off the floor. She stared in confusion, panting and sweating, the room still tilting and spinning around her to find David’s dark eyes searching her flushed face, his heavy eyebrows drawn together.

“Stop,” he growled in a low voice, inches from her face, just loud enough to be heard over top of the crashing music. “Take a fucking break.”

Then he shook her a little and lowered her to the ground. Her legs gave out and he continued to lower her until she was sitting on the ground with her legs tucked underneath her. She tipped her head back and stared at him warily as he strode across the room, swept up her water bottle and walked back to her. She stiffened when he bent over her, but he just handed her the bottle. She turned her face away from him, refusing to acknowledge him. Even his kindness was unacceptable to her.

He crouched next to her and slammed the bottle against the floor causing her to jump. She wrapped her hand around her ankle and pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling. She trained her eyes on the window past his body, watching the grey sky until he finally stood up and walked out of the room. He left the door open. She released the breath she had been holding and then whimpered when she tried to straighten her legs and they cramped. She dug her fingers into the muscles and worked them deep. She had been stupid to push herself to such an extreme.

“Think of the baby, Tasha,” she whispered.

She couldn’t push herself to such extremes anymore when her emotions became too much to handle. For the moment, she still had a fetus to take care of and she would do what she could to make sure she stayed healthy. Starting with food. She pulled her toe shoes off and rubbed her feet until the cramping became more bearable. She climbed painfully to her feet and did a few more exercises to work the kinks out of her body. No permanent damage. She would just have to start taking better care of herself.

She peeked around the door, looking for David. She released a sigh of relief when she saw he wasn’t in the main room. She limped into the kitchen and pulled the milk and a plate of leftovers out of the fridge, setting them on the table. She frowned, tentatively pushing a gun out of her way. She sent a puzzled glance toward the washroom when she heard the shower start. He must actually be agitated by her mental state if he was leaving his weapons just laying around on the table for her to access.

It would serve him right if she took his gun and shot him. The big mu’dak!

She poured a glass of milk and eyed the gun, like she would a giant spider while she drank. She tried to picture herself pointing it at David, pulling the trigger. The image wouldn’t crystalize. First of all, didn’t these things have safeties? She set her glass down on the table and shoved a cold meatball in her mouth while tilting sideways in her seat to examine the weapon for a safety button. Or switch. Or… whatever. She saw what she thought was a trigger and shivered. Then her eyes wandered past the gun and landed on the keys to the truck.

She sat up so straight her chair jumped and scraped on the floor. She glanced over to the washroom door where the shower was still running. Her heart began pounding, blood rushing in her ears. David never left the truck keys laying around. He must be really worried about her. This was it, this was her one chance.

“Blyad!” she swore out loud in a whisper, tears suddenly streaming down her cheeks as she snatched the keys and jumped up from the table. She ran straight for the door without looking back. She shoved her bare feet into her boots and grabbed her coat, thrusting her arms through the sleeves.

“Oh god!” she whispered, rushing noiselessly through the door. She glanced back through at the room that had become so dear to her in such a short amount of time. “I’m sorry, David. I love you. Ya lyublyu tebya.”

She whirled and dashed through the snow to the truck using the fob to unlock it before she reached it. She yelped in dismay when it chirped loudly. She glanced over her shoulder at the cabin wondering if David had heard and went flying when her boot hit a root and her small feet slid forward in the soles. She landed hard on the icy ground her hands scraping on the frozen dirt. She scrambled to her feet, grabbed the keys that had fallen in the snow and leapt toward the truck. She wrenched the door open.

“Natasha!”

David’s voice roared through the clearing, far louder than she had ever heard before. Her heart stopped for a moment, she froze and looked up through the glass of the driver side door. His dark eyes pinned her from where he stood in the doorway of the cabin. He was wearing only black pants with the belt hanging open at his hips. His chest was bare and his hair still dripped with water. His feet were also bare and he held a gun gripped in the palm of his hand.

He pointed at her and snarled in the most sinister voice she’d ever heard directed at her, “Do not move.”

Her eyes widened, fear pounding through her. Had she finally gone too far? Disobeyed him for the last time? She tried to tell herself that he was holding the gun because he hadn’t known what to expect when he heard the truck unlock in the clearing and came to inspect. He didn’t intend to actually shoot her. But she couldn’t help but replay the instance when she lay helpless on the floor of Jordan’s gym, David standing over her, pointing his gun at her head. His life would be so much easier if she were no longer alive. It she could disappear for good. No more wife. No more baby.

The baby.

She had to save her baby. She still had time to get away from the mountain. She had to bank on his obsession for her. He wouldn’t shoot her. She turned away from him, pulled herself into the truck, slammed the door and locked it. She knew he was running toward the truck, heedless of the snow under his feet, but she kept her eyes averted. She had to concentrate on what she was doing. She put the key in the ignition and turned the truck on. She jumped a little as it roared to life.

She glanced up when he came level with the front bumper. Panic swelled when she saw him lift the gun. She threw the truck into reverse and slammed her foot down on the gas. She screamed when the vehicle lurched, throwing her back into the seat. She gripped the steering wheel hard and accidentally wrenched it the wrong way. Panicked sobs escaped her as she tried to watch David while keeping her eyes on the rearview mirror and the vehicle on the steep, winding road. Usually David turned the truck around when they went into town, but she had no choice but to remain in reverse.

David was yelling at her, but she couldn’t understand him as she backed from the driveway onto the road behind their house. Her breaths came out in gasping sobs. She ignored David as he continued to chase her while she picked up speed, fishtailing backwards down the road. She was starting to think this was a very bad idea. That this was not the best way to keep her baby safe. But David had planned on aborting the baby, which was guaranteed death! She didn’t know if there would be another opportunity.

She took that moment to look up and see if he was still chasing her. He was rounding a corner, several yards above her on the mountain road. His eyes flared. Not in rage as she had worried, but in utter and complete horror. She had never seen that look on his face before. Tasha turned in her seat to look over her shoulder just in time to see the road end behind her. She had missed a vital curve. She wrenched the wheel, overcompensating to get back on the road. It was too late and her jerk on the wheel turned the truck sideways into the trees, sending it crashing over the side of the mountain.

Tasha screamed as the truck flipped onto its side, sending her backwards into the windshield. Her shoulder hit first, softening the blow to her head. She tried to grab onto something as she felt the truck falling through the forest, sliding through the snow-filled mountain. She clutched the seat, trying to keep herself from banging into too many things. She shielded her face from flying missiles as objects flew around the cab of the truck. Something struck her cheek, slicing a line of fire across her face.

After what felt like several minutes, but was probably only seconds the truck hit something solid and slid to a halt with a resounding crack that reverberated throughout the cab. She blinked several times, her brain scrambling frantically to make sense of what was happening. She was laying on her front on top of something hard, one arm flung behind her and one underneath her. Her face hurt, her hip hurt and her foot hurt. She carefully maneuvered both of her hands until they were underneath her shoulders.

She heard another crack and the truck lurched again. She screamed, her voice hoarse from her shouts earlier. She scrambled onto her knees, drawing her legs underneath herself. She realized right away the truck had landed on its roof, but tilted somehow. She was crouched on the metal interior roof of the truck. She was relatively unhurt, except for a nasty cut on her face and something wrong with her foot. Her boot had fallen off during the fall and her foot was already bruising badly. Perhaps a sprained ankle. She needed to find out where she landed and figure out if she could get out of the truck.

She lay on her stomach again and looked out the window.

“Nyet…” she whispered, terror swelling within her chest.

She pressed her hand against the windshield, eyes imploring David as came to an abrupt halt next to the lake. Her eyes met his, anguish bright in their stormy depths. She should not have run from him. She should have tried harder to convince him that having the baby was the right choice. Maybe he would have gotten over the shock and seen the joy. She had enough love in her heart for both of them. Now they would never know, because both she and the child would die. Sorrow and rage etched his features as he watched the ice continue to crack around the truck, drawing the edge further into the water.

“Nyet!” she screamed as he bellowed and lunged toward the truck. He could not die too because of her folly. “David, stay back!”

The ice cracked, sending her plunging into the dark depths of the lake.