Chapter 3 - The Message That Failed
Emma kicked at his wrist.
Marcus pulled harder, dragging her across the concrete until her shoulder struck the bars. The phone slipped from beneath her thigh and skidded toward the loose panel.
His gaze followed it.
For one terrible second, neither of them moved.
Then Emma lunged.
Her fingers reached the phone first, but Marcus drove his arm between the bars and caught her hair near the scalp.
She cried out.
The sound traveled upward through the vent.
Marcus ripped the phone from her hand and looked at the unsent message.
His expression changed—not into rage, but calculation.
“You’ve been planning this.”
“I’ve been trying to survive you.”
He slammed the phone against the concrete. The screen cracked but remained lit.
Above them, footsteps crossed the kitchen.
Marcus lowered his voice. “You told Rachel you wanted to leave after the baby came.”
Emma stared at him.
She had told Rachel that in confidence six weeks earlier, while folding newborn clothes in her sister’s apartment. She had not said she was definitely leaving. She had said she was frightened by Marcus’s temper and wanted a place to go if it got worse.
Only Rachel had known.
“How did you hear that?”
Marcus looked toward the stairs instead of answering.
Another contraction seized Emma. This one pushed lower, hard enough to make her grab the bars with both hands.
Marcus noticed.
“How far apart?”
She refused to answer.
He checked his watch. “You’re not having that baby yet.”
“You don’t control that.”
“I control whether you get upstairs.”
The basement door opened.
Rachel stood at the top of the stairs, one hand gripping the frame.
Behind her, Marcus’s mother, June, hovered in the hallway. Dana and Eric remained near the dining room, their faces tense and confused.
“What was that noise?” Rachel asked.
Marcus stepped in front of the cage, blocking most of Emma from view.
“Go back upstairs.”
Rachel descended one step.
“Move.”
“She’s having an episode.”
Emma forced air into her lungs. “Rachel.”
Her sister’s face changed at the sound of her voice.
Marcus moved toward the stairs. “She came down here on her own. She threatened to hurt herself, so I locked the door until she calmed down.”
Rachel looked past his shoulder and saw the cage.
She also saw the fresh weld running down its door.
Her mouth opened, but no words came.
That hesitation hurt Emma almost as much as the bars.
Marcus saw it too.
“You know her history,” he said softly. “You know what she’s capable of when she spirals.”
Rachel’s eyes moved from Emma’s bruised shoulder to the broken phone on the floor.
May you like
Then she asked the question Emma had been dreading.
“Emma, did you take something?”
