Mira's POV
The water burns.
Marcus's hand pushes my head down harder, and I can't breathe. Can't scream. My lungs are on fire as bathroom water floods into my nose and mouth. I thrash, clawing at his arms, but he's so much stronger than me.
"You really thought you could leave me?" His voice sounds far away through the water. "After everything I've done for you?"
Everything he's done. Like tracking my phone. Reading my emails. Screaming at me for smiling at the grocery store cashier. Throwing my college textbooks in the trash because "you don't need school when you have me." Breaking my laptop when I tried to apply for jobs.
I should have left two years ago. I should have left the first time he grabbed my wrist so hard it bruised. But I kept thinking he'd change. Kept believing his apologies. Kept making myself smaller and quieter, hoping that would keep him calm.
My vision starts going dark at the edges. This is it. I'm dying in a bathtub because I finally got brave enough to pack a suitcase.
No. NO.
I buck hard, twisting sideways. My elbow connects with something—his ribs maybe—and his grip loosens for just a second. I surge up, gasping, water streaming down my face.
"Marcus, please—"
He hits me across the face. The slap echoes off the bathroom tiles. My head snaps to the side, and I taste blood.
"Don't say my name like that," he snarls. His hazel eyes—the ones I used to think were so pretty—look crazy now. Wild. "Like you're scared of me. I'm not the bad guy here, Mira. YOU are. You were going to abandon me. After I took you in when you had nobody."
That's not true. I had friends before Marcus. A roommate who laughed at my jokes. A mom who called every Sunday until Marcus convinced me she was "toxic" and I should block her number. A whole life before he slowly cut away every piece of it.
"I'm sorry," I whisper, because that's what he wants to hear. It's always what he wants to hear. "You're right. I was being stupid. I won't leave. I promise."
For a second, I think it worked. His face softens. His grip on my shoulders relaxes.
"Really?" he asks, and he sounds like the old Marcus. The one who brought me coffee in bed. The one who said I was the only good thing in his life. "You mean it?"
"I mean it," I lie.
He smiles. Actually smiles. Then his hands tighten again.
"You're lying," he says flatly. "You always do that thing with your eye when you lie. A little twitch. I've noticed."
Ice floods my veins. He noticed. Of course he noticed. Marcus notices everything.
"I found your bus ticket," he continues, almost casual. "Under the mattress. Seattle. Were you going to your aunt's house? The one you said died last year?"
I never told him Aunt Jenny was alive. I lied about that on purpose, saving one escape route he didn't know about. But somehow he figured it out anyway.
"You've been planning this for months, haven't you?" His voice gets louder. Angrier. "Lying to my face every single day. Making me think we were happy. Making me think you LOVED me."
"I did love you!" The words burst out. "I loved you so much it made me stupid. I ignored every red flag. Made excuses for you. Defended you to people who tried to warn me. I loved you until there was nothing left of me to love WITH."
Something flickers in his eyes. Pain, maybe. Or just more anger.
"Not enough," he whispers. "You didn't love me enough to stay."
Then he shoves my head back underwater.
This time I know he's not letting go. This time there's no hesitation in his grip. My lungs scream for air. I kick and scratch, but my movements are getting weaker. Slower.
The edges of my vision turn fuzzy. Then gray. The pain in my chest becomes distant, like it's happening to someone else.
Random thoughts float through my dying brain:
I'm twenty-six years old. I won't live to be twenty-seven.
My mom will never know what happened to me. She'll think I abandoned her on purpose.
I never finished nursing school. Never got to help people the way I wanted.
I wasted three years on a man who's killing me in a bathtub.
The gray turns to black. The pain fades away entirely.
My last thought is crystal clear: I should have left sooner.
Then nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Wait.
Something's wrong.
I'm dead. I should be... what? Floating in darkness forever? Seeing a light? Meeting God or whatever comes next?
But instead I feel... falling. Like dropping through ice-cold water that goes down forever. Wind screams past my ears even though there's no air. My body stretches and compresses, like I'm being squeezed through something too small.
It hurts. Death isn't supposed to hurt.
Terror floods back. Is this hell? Did I do something wrong? Is this punishment?
The falling sensation speeds up. Faster. FASTER. I try to scream but I have no mouth. No body. I'm just consciousness tumbling through an endless void that's pulling me toward something.
Then—IMPACT.
I slam into something solid. My lungs expand violently, dragging in air that tastes wrong. Too clean. Too wild. Like nothing I've ever breathed before.
My eyes snap open.
Purple sky. Two moons—one silver, one pale gold—hang overhead. Massive trees with trunks wider than cars tower around me, their leaves shimmering colors that don't exist in nature. The air smells like rain and flowers and something sharp I can't name.
This isn't heaven. This definitely isn't hell.
This isn't Earth.
I try to sit up and scream. My left arm is on fire. Golden light blazes up from my palm, spreading in swirling patterns across my skin like living tattoos. The marks burn into my flesh, carving themselves permanently into me.
The pain is so intense I can't think. Can't breathe. Just writhe on the ground, watching my arm glow brighter and BRIGHTER until—
A roar shatters the forest.
Not a lion roar. Not a bear roar. Something bigger. Something that makes the ground shake and birds explode from the trees in terrified flocks.
And it's getting closer.
The golden marks on my arm pulse once, twice, then suddenly the pain vanishes. I gasp, staring at my hand. The glowing patterns are still there, embedded in my skin, but now they just feel warm. Tingly.
Another roar. Closer. Trees crack and crash as something massive barrels through the forest.
Coming straight for me.
My body moves on pure instinct. I scramble to my feet and run, crashing through the alien forest with no idea where I'm going. Just AWAY from whatever's hunting me.
Behind me, the roaring gets louder.
And I realize with crystal clarity: I didn't escape death in that bathtub.
I just postponed it.