Unexpectedly, Yours.

The phone alarm vibration echoed through Rainey’s pillow. It was set to wake her at 3 am, although she hadn’t slept at all. She pulled it out, shut the alarm off, and climbed out of bed.

Derek, or ‘lefty’ to his nasty thug friends, lay passed out on the bed beside her, and she paused to make sure that he didn’t wake. She’d pretended to be asleep until the drunken stupor claimed him.

Now was her time to escape.

Quietly, she slid her pants up her waist, grabbed her hoodie, and crept out of the bedroom. Still holding her breath, she crossed the room and stopped at the kitchen, taking the wad of cash she kept taped to the back of the fridge in a ziplock baggie.

She froze halfway through the living room, noticing the coffee table had straps of hundreds laying in thick layers. They were surrounded by the bands laying freely after being sorted. She could just take some–it would hold her over long enough to get her shit together.

With her heart pounding in her ears and sweaty palms, she grabbed a handful of them. She rushed to the closet by the front door for her tote of clothes, tossed the money in, and zipped it shut.

As she opened the door, Derek grabbed a handful of hair, knuckles digging at her scalp, tightening his grip until she screamed. He pulled her back in, kicked the door shut, then grabbed her jaw and squeezed her cheeks to shut her up.

"You fucking bitch!"

She cried out, clawing at his arms while he held her head between his hands and dragged her to the middle of the living room.

"Where the fuck do you think you’re going?"

Derek tossed her to the floor as hard as he could, and the tote bag landed on top of her, hitting her in the face.

"I’m leaving, you piece of shit!" She spat at him to emphasize her disgust.

Laughing, he kicked her in the side, forcing the air from her lungs in a loud dry cough that echoed, then jerked the bag off of her body.

"You aren’t doing shit unless I say you can." His fingers slipped as he tried to unzip her bag. The second attempt he gripped it, dumping everything out over her–including the money she took. "Taking my money…." He kicked her again and stumbled, throwing the bag to the side. This time the blow landed higher in her ribs. Lowering himself down to her level, he grabbed her hair again, pulling her head up to look at him. "I should kill you for trying to take what doesn’t belong to you and for trying to leave me."

Gasping and crying, she grabbed at his hand that had her hair. "Let me go!" Her voice was hoarse, and she swore she could taste blood in her mouth, but she had to get away.

"If you’re smart, you won’t get up."

Rainey ignored his warning as he threw her head back, letting her go. She shot up as fast as she could, which felt like it wasn’t fast at all, and scrambled to get away. "I’m not afraid of you anymore."

"We’ll see about that." Catching her leg and standing, he pulled her back to him, forcing her on her back.

Rainey raised to push him away, but as her hands went out to fight him, he slapped her across the face, forcing her down on her back again, this time with his hands around her throat.

Dropping over her with one leg on each side, his grip tightened. She could feel his fingers making her skin burn under the force of his grip. She clawed at his throat, face–anything she could reach–something her fingers could purchase, kicking and wishing she could scream for help.

She tried hitting him in the chest, but he slapped her hand away as she gasped and rasped out pleas to let her go. Her vision started to darken around the edges, tears slid down her face, and her lungs screamed for a breath of the air he was stealing from her.

In a last attempt to fight him off, she reached out in every direction she could for something in reach that would break his death grip on her throat. Her hand found a beer bottle laying barely within reach.

With another breathless second, she stuck the tip of her middle finger into the mouthpiece, pulling it into the grip of her other hand faster than his drunk ass could register.

When she slammed it hard into his head, the bottle shattered, and he fell to the floor. His grip loosened, and a rush of blood and air hit her so fast that her vision went black for a couple of seconds.

She gasped and coughed harder than she ever had, pushing him away as fast as she could. He groaned behind her and came toward her again.

"You’re gonna fucking pay for that, you fucking cunt!"

A new level of fear rushed through her, and before she knew what happened, Derek was laying flat on top of her and his friend was standing over them. She shoved him off of her with the help of Ace and he pulled her up to her feet.

Putting his hand on her shoulder, he used the other to tip her face up to his for a better look. “Are you okay—your lip is bleeding!”

“He wa–was going to kill me.” She grabbed her throat with shaking hands as the reality of the moment came through, along with a heavy broken sob.

Ace moved his hands to her face, cupping her cheeks to keep her looking at him. “You’re alright, but we gotta get outta here. Grab your stuff and let's go.”

Nodding, she pulled away, and shoved everything, including the money, back into her tote bag.

The air was cool on her flushed and aching face when she followed Ace out the door with her hand in his. If Derek wasn’t dead, and was just knocked out cold, he’d kill her for sure if he caught her this time. There was no going back for her or his bodyguard who just saved her.

When they reached the curb, her sobs of horror echoed loudly in the quiet neighborhood. She wrapped her arms tightly around her bag and put her face in it to soften the sounds of her crying. Her throat and lungs hurt like hell, burning from the exertion.

Ace rested his hand on her back and put his mouth to her ear, keeping his voice low and soft, but urgent in her ear. “We need to get a move on. It’s not safe here for either of us anymore.” He led her to Derek's car.

He opened the door for her, helping her in, and took the bag from her. He shoved it into the backseat and got in.

Rainey swallowed, wincing at how much it hurt. When she cleared her throat as he started the car and pulled away from the curb, her voice was raw. “Thank you for saving my life.”

Wrapping her arms around herself, she turned her head to look at him. He was calm, but glanced at her for a long second.

“You don’t need to thank me for that, Ray.” He turned his eyes back to the road. “We gotta ditch this car, when Derek wakes up he is goin’ to be lookin’ for us.”

“Why are you talking to me in a southern accent?”

He stayed quiet as he pulled into a parking lot next door to an old pawn shop. When he put the car into park, he turned to face her with a look on his face that made her skin crawl.

“That looks like a face that comes with bad news.” Her body began to tremble.

Taking a deep breath, Ace grabbed her hand and held it like the last time that they talked. It was about a month ago, Derek made him lock her in the bedroom and stand guard inside so she couldn’t escape out the window after a beating for trying to leave before.

“I need you to listen to me real good, alright?” His eyes moved over her face as he waited for her to nod. She did, but it was so small that she was shocked he registered it. “My real name is Bowie and I’m a U.S. Marshal. I was undercover to try to find the locations of the fugitives that Derek works for.”

Letting out a shuttered breath, she pulled her hands back, bringing them to her chest. “Y-you are a Marshal?! You knew what he did to me, you stood there while he beat me all those times and you didn’t stop him?!”

There was no way that a man of the law would do that. It made no sense. They were supposed to protect the weak, not watch them get the shit kicked out of them.

“I couldn’t blow my cover.” He ran his hand through his hair and faced forward again, keeping his eyes locked on the wheel with his brows furrowed. “I wanted to help you more than anything. I’m so damn sorry.”

“If you couldn’t blow your cover then why did you help me tonight, what was different?”

“He was gon’ kill you, Ray.” His voice was low but strained. “I may have stood by for the rest and I really am sorry about that—but there was no way in Sam hell that I was fixin’ to watch him kill you.”

Her hand went back to her throat, rubbing it gently. It still hurt—inside and out. When she closed her eyes, she could see Derek’s dark but empty ones scowling at her as he strangled her. The way his lips curled back in anger as his grip around her throat grew tighter.

Shaking her head to try to lose the memory, she looked at him again. “If we ditch this car, how will we get out of LA?”

Looking relieved that she moved on from the subject, he opened the car door and walked around, grabbing the tote bag out of the back then opened her door.

“We’re gonna steal another one and get the hell outta dodge.” He held his hand out and she took it, climbing out of the car, her ribs knocking the wind out of her from the blows Derek got in. “You alright?”

Nodding, I wrapped my arm around myself. “My body hurts pretty bad, actually.”

“Once we get out of LA, I’ll get us a room and talk to my boss to see what the next step is.”

He took her hand and led her out to the sidewalk, protectively pulling her in under his arm until he stopped in front of an old black car and moved to the back window. “Come stand right here and block me.”

Doing as he asked, she watched him wrap his jacket around his elbow and ram it through the glass, shattering it into the back seat. He glanced at her and reached through the back window and unlocked the front passenger door, opening it for her to climb in.

Bowie hit the unlock button on the door then gently closed it for her and tossed her tote into the back seat through the broken window.

Resting her head against the window, she finally released the breath she’d been holding since packing her bag a week ago. She was finally free from Derek and that alone gave her the best feeling she’d had in the last five years.

Chills of her body adjusting to the freedom flushed ice cold through her arms and back as she ran her hands up and down her arms to try and soothe the chill. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do from here, but it didn’t matter.

Her druggy mom was somewhere in Vegas, strip dancing last she’d heard from her, and her deadbeat dad was in New York. Neither one a chosen destination, but she needed somewhere to hide from Derek.

She spent her whole life drifting from foster home to foster home, to her adult life matching just as pathetically until she met Derek. From that first date he’d owned her, she just didn’t know it yet.