The Escape
JENNA
I stayed curled in a ball on the kitchen floor long after James stomped out and slammed the front door behind him.
Outside, his truck roared to life. Gravel sprayed. Tires squealed as he tore out of the driveway.
But I didn’t move.
Sometimes he played a twisted game—pretended to leave, then came back through the back door to see if I was “playing opossum.” If I flinched, if I tried to crawl, it started all over again.
My heart hammered so hard I could hear it in my ears.
Everything hurt.
My lip burned every time I breathed through my mouth, and when I swallowed I could taste blood. One eye was already swelling shut. Dinner was smeared across the linoleum—mashed potatoes and gravy smeared across the floor. A plate lay broken beside a puddle of soda.
It had started over that. A bottle of soda. It burst on his work shirt the moment he opened it, and he hit me before I could even say sorry.
Crying only made it worse. So I’d stayed quiet. Stayed small.
It hadn’t mattered.
I pressed my palm to the floor and forced myself up. My ribs protested, sharp and hot, like a warning flare under my skin. I moved through the dark house on shaking legs, listening.
Nothing.
No boots. No door creak.
I made it to the bathroom and turned on cold water. When it hit my split lip I hissed, gripping the sink until the world steadied. My reflection stared back—one hazel eye open, bloodshot and wild. The other puffing closed.
This was it.
If I didn’t get Jack and me out tonight, he’d kill me.
Or worse—Jack would become him.
I went to the bedroom and grabbed my old suitcase—one of the last things I still owned from a life before. I threw clothes in without folding, without thinking, just moving as fast as my body would let me.
My hand brushed the drawer.
His 9mm.
For one terrifying second, my fingers wrapped around the cold steel. The weight of it, the sick relief it promised.
Then I shoved it deep under the dresser.
Not that. Never that.
Jack’s room.
I flung open drawers and stuffed shirts and jeans into a duffel bag. His nightlight cast superhero shadows over the wall. I pulled back his covers and touched his shoulder.
“Come on, Jackie,” I whispered. “We have to go.”
His green eyes blinked up at me, sleepy and soft. “Are you hurt, Momma?”
“Momma’s fine,” I lied. “Get dressed. We’re going on a trip.”
“Are we going to see my cousins?”
“Yes,” I said. “We’re going to see Jessie.”
He yawned and reached for his bear. “Can I bring Legos?”
“Just the bear and the Legos,” I said, keeping my voice light. “We can’t take everything.” I stuffed his clothing into a duffel bag.
He sat up, rubbing his eyes. “Are we running away?”
My throat tightened.
“No,” I said too fast, then softened it. “It’s a trip. That’s all.”
I carried bags through the house and out into the night. The neighbors’ windows were dark. The street was quiet. I tossed the suitcase and bags into the trunk, Jack’s pillow and blanket into the backseat.
Back inside, I dug out my purse and grabbed the prepaid burner phone hidden in a tampon box. I left my cell phone, the one paid for by James behind. One less leash.
I snatched the papers that mattered—birth certificates, IDs—and my mother’s old cookbook, because the thought of leaving it felt like another kind of death.
Then I went to the freezer. My fingers shoved past frozen meat until they hit the foil-wrapped brick I’d hidden there—cash, coins, everything I’d scraped together in secret.
Jack stood in the doorway, wringing his hands. His eyes flicked to the wreckage in the kitchen.
“It’s okay, baby,” I said, forcing a smile I didn’t feel. “Come on.”
I lifted him—my ribs screamed—and settled him in the backseat with his blanket wrapped around him like armor.
My hands trembled as I turned the key.
Please start.
Please.
The engine caught.
The car groaned and squealed as I backed out of the driveway. I didn’t look back.
A mile down the road, Jack’s small voice floated forward. “Is Daddy a bad man?”
My grip tightened on the steering wheel. “Lie down, baby. Try to sleep.”
“He’s gonna be pissed when he finds out we’re gone,” he murmured, thumb in his mouth now—something he hadn’t done in years. “Daddy’s always mad.”
“I know,” I whispered.
West. I drove west.
I didn’t have a plan beyond getting far away.
Rain began to fall. On the radio, Tears for Fears played, and I turned it up until the music filled the car like an anthem for a life I didn’t have yet.
I drove until my eyelids felt like sandpaper. Until my jaw throbbed with every breath. Until the pain in my ribs turned into something deep and nauseating.
A truck stop glowed ahead like a beacon.
I filled the tank, bought pain relievers, water, and a cup of ice. Then I parked between two semis, hidden in their shadows. Jack snored in the backseat, bear tucked under his chin.
I pressed ice to my eye until it went numb.
When I finally slept, it was light and fractured, my body still listening for boots and doors.
Morning came hard.
Jack shook my shoulder. “Momma.”
My bones felt like they’d been rearranged in the night.
“Where are we?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.
“West of home,” I said, pulling sunglasses on to hide my face. “You hungry?”
“Do they have pancakes?”
“I’m pretty sure they do.”
At the diner, Jack ate with the single-minded focus only a six-year-old has. I stirred sugar and creamer into coffee I couldn’t taste. Every time the bell over the door jingled, I jumped.
I paid in cash. We left fast.
By late afternoon the “Welcome to California” sign appeared, bright and cheerful like it belonged to someone else’s world. My throat tightened around a sob I refused to let out.
Just make it to the ocean, I told myself. Or until the car breaks down. Whichever comes first.
We reached a small roadside motel right before sunset. Two double beds. Faded floral comforters. Flickering TV. A lock that looked too thin to matter.
But it was a door that closed.
It was a room.
It was one night of not sleeping in a car.
I wedged a chair under the doorknob anyway.
When Jack finally fell asleep, I stood under the bathroom light and stared at my bruises—purple and yellow blooming like storms across my skin. I took pictures. Every angle. Every mark. Proof.
Then I opened Jack’s school bag and found the blunt safety scissors.
James liked my hair long. Red.
I lifted a fistful and cut.
The blades snagged. The line came out crooked. I didn’t care.
I kept cutting until it hit just above my shoulders, uneven and jagged and mine.
The first decision I’d made for myself in years.
Jack woke once, peered at me through sleepy eyes. “You cut your hair.”
“I did,” I whispered, brushing the strands off my lap.
He smiled—small and warm. “It looks nice.”
I laughed, and the sound surprised me. Rusty, cracked, but real.
I checked the lock again.
Because tomorrow we’d need to move.
And if there was one thing I knew about James Ethridge, it was this:
He never let go of what he considered his.
