He stepped forward, and I raised the skillet higher. My hands were shaking so badly I thought I might drop it. Somewhere in the distance, faint but growing louder, I heard sirens.
Mark heard them too.
He glanced toward the broken door, calculating. Then his eyes returned to Sarah, and what I saw there chilled me more than anything else: not love, not even anger—but ownership. Like she was something that belonged to him and had embarrassed him by escaping.
Sarah pushed herself up slowly, clutching her ribs. “I’m done, Mark.”
He let out a short, harsh laugh. “You think this is over?”
Then he lunged—not at me, but at her.
I swung before I could think. The skillet struck his shoulder with a crack that sent him stumbling into the table. He cursed, slipped on the wet tile, and crashed to the floor. I moved between them, heart pounding, as Sarah screamed.
Red and blue lights flashed across the windows.
Mark scrambled up just as two officers rushed through the broken back door, shouting commands. He froze, chest heaving, hands half raised. The next moments blurred into noise: the dispatcher still speaking from my dropped phone, officers separating us, an EMT lifting Sarah onto a stretcher as she cried from pain and shock.
Then came the part that made my hands shake as I dialed another number from the hospital waiting room.
Not 911—I had already done that.
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