“What are you gonna do?” I twisted my neck to look at him, but what I found in his expression sent icy terror through my veins. A resolute line took hold of his mouth. My body quaked as the tub filled, and goose flesh erupted on my skin. He didn’t answer my pleas and questions, and he didn’t shut off the water until it reached the rim. The sudden onset of silence brought my fear to an all-time high. I tried to pull air into my lungs but failed.

He stepped around me, and my head jerked forward as he lifted a foot into the water. “Get in,” he ordered once he stood fully in the tub.

“Don’t do this!” I didn’t recognize my voice—it echoed off the walls in thundering panic.

He yanked on my hair, and I slammed my knee on the porcelain with a yelp. “You did this,” he said, “and you can come in willingly or I can drag you in, but one way or another, you’re getting in this fucking tub.”

Lifting a trembling leg, I stepped over and straddled the edge, and he pulled me in the rest of the way. He folded into a sitting position, back against the opposite end of the faucet, and brought me to my knees. I began to cry, big drops of salt that disappeared into the water enclosing me up to my belly button. It sloshed over the side with the smallest of movements.

The whole time, his grasp on my hair never loosened. “Scoot closer,” he said, spreading his legs. I walked on my knees and fit between his, and he pulled me lower, forcing me onto my haunches until the undersides of my breasts brushed the water’s surface.

My lips parted, breaths escaping in shaky bursts as our gazes tangled. He held me captive inside my worst nightmare, with the hold of his hand in my hair, the belt looped around my wrists behind me, and water rippling and stirring from the way my chest heaved.

I knew what he was about to do, and a sob bubbled up, tearing from my throat as I sensed the mere inches separating my mouth from the abyss. I didn’t dare glance down, didn’t dare break free of his stare. The nightmares I’d had as a kid came rushing back, more vivid than they had in years, and I hyperventilated, remembering the suffocating terror, the blackness and how I’d been helpless to save myself. That dream had tortured me, and the only way I’d woken up was by letting out a scream I never remembered, though my mom had described it as the most chilling thing she’d ever heard.

“Please don’t. Oh God, please, Rafe!”