“You will not hurt my sister again.” With each word she pounded on him—his shoulders, his neck, his chest, his head—as waves of anger caused her hands to do things that shocked her.

Outraged, he roared and grabbed her wrists, squeezing tight. Then he shoved her onto the dock, her backbone pressed into the wooden boards, and wrapped his hands around her neck. His clammy, calloused fingers pressed on her windpipe as the black spots crept in again, blurring her sight.

Reaching up, she clawed at his neck, his forehead, his eyes, anywhere she could reach. Blood dripped from his cheeks onto her face, but he didn’t stop squeezing. Just as the spots threatened to overtake her vision completely, she gave a final stretch, grabbed his neck, and sent all the strength she could muster into her hands, her fingers.

His eyes bulged and with a muffled groan, he collapsed on top of her, deadweight.

Her cheeks throbbed as the spots receded and the hot, thick night came into focus again. Warm blood trickled down her neck, and she wasn’t sure if it was hers or his. She managed to get her hands under his shoulders and push hard enough to get the upper part of his body off her. Then something moved at the edge of her field of vision. She turned, head swimming, and there was Trudy. Her lips were moving but no sound came from them.

A cry escaped as Violet pushed Jay harder and slithered out from under him. With a presence of mind that did not come from her, she squatted and pressed two fingers to the side of his neck, trying to keep her gaze away from the gruesomeness before her.

“There’s no pulse,” she murmured. “Nothing.” Violet was shocked into stillness. All she could hear was the pounding of her own blood in her ears. This repulsive scene wasn’t real. It’s not real. But then she glanced back at her sister, standing frozen, her hands wringing, her mouth moving with silent words.

Violet stepped over Jay’s lifeless body and went to Trudy. She wrapped an arm around her sister’s shoulders and led her back up to the house. In the kitchen she cleaned Trudy’s hands and pushed her hair back from her face. She settled her onto a kitchen chair. “Wait for me. Do not move.”

Trudy’s gaze was fixed on the far wall.

“Don’t move. Do you hear me?”

Trudy’s head bobbed, up and down and side to side. Violet took Trudy’s face in her hands and looked right in her eyes, trying to convey everything she felt without using words.

Trudy’s gaze focused for just a moment, and there she was. Violet’s sister, her only family, possessing a strength down deep that Violet had never imagined. She kissed Trudy’s cheek. “I’ll be right back.”

On the way to the dock, she noticed bricks at the side of the yard. She hadn’t seen them on her way down the first time. There was a half-built low brick wall, but the project had been abandoned, and now small piles of bricks lay in the humid night air, waiting for a new purpose.