Blackwe

r, the man who needed an audience to feel powerful. He gestured to two large men who had been lingering at the edge of

in announced, his amplified voice filling the bal

ticipation. Someone whoop

ality of a prison cell slamming shut. The fresh wave of cold that rushed in hit me like a physical blow

my hands wrapped protectively around my swollen bel

ud of how steady my voice sounded even as

fficiency - the way you might grab a piece of luggage, or a chair that needed to be moved out of the way. I struggled with everything I had. I kicked. I twisted. I

was obscenely loud in the small space - a long, violent rip that seemed to go on forever. I felt the cold air hit my skin before my brain e

ing fabrics and soft colors - was exposed under the harsh fluorescent lights. My swollen belly. My thickened thighs. My breasts, heav

feel his eyes crawling over my exposed body like ins

hter. Cruel laughter. The kind of laughter that comes from people who are

, stronger than the shame, was rage. A cold, pure fury that cut through the fog of terror and humiliation and set

o crystallize at the edges. He dumped them onto the metal floor with a practiced motion, and a

kind of threat. The water soaked through my thin shoes and found the ba

ed my shoulders a

knees hi

ultaneously. The ice crystals cut into my flesh. My skin, wet and freezing, began to adhere to the frozen surface. I tried to pull awa

. I was screaming, though I hadn't consciously de

slipped. The grin faltered. What I saw beneath it wasn't cruelty. It was something worse. It was hes

. In that single, suspended heartbea

Deb stepp

reasonable voice in a chaotic moment. She looked at me through the glass, and her eyes we

a sympathy so fake it curdled the air. "Austin, darlin

voice of reason, the gentle heart, the woman who cared even when the victim didn't deserve it. It was a mastercl

g more skin from my frozen knees. A wet, ripping sound that I felt

was really there. Pure, unadulterated hatred. A venom so concentrated, so personal, that it stole what little breath the col

stin, and her face transfo

tly, her voice catching just so - a perfect, calculated crac

t in the snow. He was putty in her hands. Always had been. The great Austin Nolan, titan of

the hatred of a man who needed to believe his victim deserved what was happening. "She doesn'

that chilled me more

ft hand while her right hand came up to her face, as if she were dabbing at a tear. She pretended to stumble, clutching her abdomen with a

out for Austin to see, her eyes wide with manufactured pain. Her voice was a tr

ed, my old ulcers act up. Look, darling,

palmed in one hand, a self-inflicted cheek bite - and she was selling it as an internal hemorrhage brough

pletely. Utterly. Without

e that was almost religious in its fervor. "You see what yo

kets. "Get more. More ice. More water. Pour

Even the most callous of the partygoers seemed to sense that a line was being crosse

s, a mother herself, her expression troubled - stepped forward from the crowd. "Austin,

myself to hope. Someone was speaking up. S

ustin, her lips brushing his ear, and whispered - but it was a stage whisper, meant for

her face pale. She had been put in her p

memory of the man I had once believed I loved. He looked at me, trapped and freezing on the floor, my bare

he comman