Chapter One
The adrenaline shooting through Tammy Wearing’s system was as powerful as any opioid. It was potent, couldn’t be ignored, and the effects on her trembling body were real and frightening.
I have to get out of here.
I have to leave.
I have to leave him.
Terror, panic, and hatred shot up her blood pressure and heart rate and made her muscles twitch. Staying was no longer an option. She’d known for a long time what Gary was—a bully, a wife beater, and a violent asshole who was destined for Hell on Judgment Day.
“Where are you, bitch?” Thump. Bang. “I know you’re home. You can’t hide from me.”
“Shh, it’s okay. He won’t find us in here,” she whispered to Zak as she stroked his silky soft hair and held him tighter.
Zak didn’t answer. Even at just six years old, he knew not to make a sound when his father was raging through the house, knocking over anything within reach and punching holes in the walls.
Trying to make herself smaller, she hunched forward, Zak a ball in her arms. This hidden cubbyhole in the basement had saved her several times from Gary’s temper and fists. He didn’t know the small space existed. The previous owner had left a bookcase covering it, and with a little ingenuity, she’d made it her own tiny panic room.
And panic she did when Gary went out with his buddies. He always drank too much and with that came the jealous paranoia. He couldn’t believe she wasn’t a cheating wife. A liar. A whore. And when he came home stinking of liquor, he said as much and beat her as if she deserved punishment for the very worst crimes against humanity.
“I know what you’ve been doing. Aaron told me you were at the grocery store, talking to that teller again. You fucking him, huh? Fucking the zitty-assed kid who rings up your groceries. Dirty fucking cunt, that’s what you are, Tammy. A whore.”
“Please, God, make him go to sleep,” Zak whispered.
“Shh, baby. We have to be quiet until he does go to sleep.” She rocked him, small movements back and forth.
A huge crash came from right above them. She guessed it was the dresser holding the plates and glasses and her mother’s best casserole dish.
Zak jumped in her arms.
She held him closer.
Please, God, make him stop.
“I’m going to give you a slapping you won’t forget,” Gary raged on, his heavy footsteps thumping up the stairs now and the volume of his voice fading. “Teach you a lesson for making me look a fucking fool in front of my buddies.”
She’d never made a fool of him. Never cheated, never even spoken out of line. It was the other way around on the rare occasions they socialized—Gary putting her down and flirting with anyone who could tolerate him for more than a fewminutes.
Forsake all others.
When she’d said her vows, she’d meant them.
Including ’til death do us part?
No, not that one. Well, she’d meant it at the time. Standing before God, and in the presence of friends and family, sure, she’d absolutely meant it. Gary was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. But not now.
Now he’s going to cut my life short.
Zak’s too?
She couldn’t risk her son. And she couldn’t take the beatings anymore. Each time it was worse, and he never allowed her to get medical treatment. Her ribs ached permanently, and her left wrist sported a round bump where it had been broken and hadn’t healed properly. She got headaches too, bad ones that made her vision blurry. At five-feet-one and of a slight build, she just wasn’t up for being a human punching bag to a man who worked out five times a week.
She jumped at the sound of glasses smashing. Reaching for the silver cross that sat on a delicate chain around her neck, she rubbed it between her thumb and index finger.
“We’ll leave, baby,” she said to the top of Zak’s head. “When he goes to sleep, we’ll leave and we will never come back.”
Saying the words out loud for the first time was both frightening and empowering. If Gary heard her utter them, she’d get a beating that would leave her in bed for days. If Zak repeated them, he’d get a wicked clip around the head too.