She didn’t pass out, not quite. As if from a long distance away, she felt her body collapse where the gravel met grass. Something hard hit her again and again. Maybe a golf club or a baseball bat. She hadn’t known she could feel so much pain.

Coughing, she tried to curl into a fetal position and cover her head with one arm. Austin kicked her in the abdomen. The blow knocked her over. She rolled with it and landed flat on her stomach, working desperately to suck air into her cramped lungs.

Agony stabbed her through the chest. She had no breath. She couldn’t shout or scream for help.

As she fought to get upright, he landed with his full weight on both knees at the small of her back, knocking the air out of her again as he drove her flat.

Gravel ground into her cheek, and red pulsed in her gaze. Something wet ran down the side of her face. Vaguely she felt her fingers scrabble at the rocks and grass.

Somewhere inside she had a new, burgeoning Power just waiting to be deployed, if only she could figure out how to use it.

Funny, she thought. It never occurred to me to practice throwing Power behind my back. I always had to look at whatever I was hitting. Joke’s on me. Ha ha.

Hard fingers tangled in her hair. New pain flared as Austin yanked her head back and whispered in her ear, “You had to take everything, didn’t you? It wasn’t enough to serve me with divorce papers. You had to take the whole goddamn thing. Everything I worked for all these years. All the investments. Did you think I was just going to let it go and walk away, you stupid cunt?”

He knew how much she hated that word. It must have given him a lot of satisfaction to finally call her that.

She coughed, “You know, I kinda did.”

Her scalp was on fire. Everything was on fire. She tried to twist around so she could see him. If she could lay eyes on him, she could hit him, but his knees drilled into her back and kept her pinned in place.

“Maybe I will let it go and walk away,” he whispered. “But first I want that file back. You know the one.”

Oh yeah. No doubt about it. He was so dirty.

She tried to laugh, but her bruised rib cage wouldn’t let her. As she closed her fingers around a handful of gravel, she gasped out a laugh. “You really think I didn’t make a copy? Several copies?”