Inside the bedroom, Sara rode emotion like the crest of an impossible wave. It lifted her, took her, and tossed her. She’d never been the angry person, the forceful personality. She’d gone along to get along. The easy friend. The laid-back neighbor. Only twice in her life had she lost complete control of her emotions, once on the day her parents kicked her out, and then again on the foggy, back-alley night she’d had the abortion. That was it, two times lost and out of control. This was the third, and after so much helplessness and fear, she stepped joyfully into the fire of pure, blind rage, screaming wordlessly as she tried to beat down the prison, the man, the wall she hated. When one chair came apart, she picked up another. Every chunk of drywall was pure adrenaline, the haze of dust like a drug.

Him. He. Whoever.

The rat in the walls.

The second chair shattered, and she could feel it out there, the tail end of her madness. Sheeted in sweat and fine, white dust, she picked up a length of jagged wood, thinking, Fuck this place, and fuck this guy. The screams were gone, but she stabbed at the Sheetrock, hoping the hard, sharp point would find something soft behind the wall.

Reece had no idea what to do. He’d chosen the girl for many reasons, one of which had been the easy compliance he’d seen in her approach to the world. He knew from bitter experience that women so lovely could be prone to disdain for men who looked and thought as Reece did. Sara had every quality he admired in a woman, the way she looked and moved, the soulful eyes and easy laugh. He’d followed her long enough to make sure, and everything he’d seen confirmed that first assessment.

She was compliant.

She could be taught.

Reece had never been so wrong in his life, and had no idea what to do with this rage machine tearing down his house. There was no saving this. His mind was already in transition. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d cut losses.

The question was how.

She’d broken through the drywall and was attacking the plywood underneath it. Given enough time, she might actually punch through.

He’d have to shoot her, he decided. No fun in that, but he had no desire to be stabbed, either.

With a strange shock, Reece realized that he was feeling something close to actual fear. He lived for control, and had none. She was pounding on the plywood, and if anything, the pounding was getting louder and harder.

Get the gun; kill the girl.

Yet his paralysis was total.

Boom.

She hit the plywood.

Boom.

It gave a little more.

A high-pitched laugh found its way past Reece’s lips, another disbelieving titter. Could it be any worse?

No, he thought. Not possible.