His footsteps stopped just behind me.
Silence didn’t mean safety.
I didn’t turn. I couldn’t.
Every part of me locked in place, like my bones forgot how to bend, how to move, how to run.
My fingers clutched the red dress and the blanket with a desperation that made my knuckles ache. I held them so tight it felt like I could fuse the fabric together, like if I gripped hard enough, he wouldn’t see where one ended and the other began-wouldn’t take the one thing still covering me.
Then..his voice slid down my spine. “Put it on.”
No rise in tone.
No warning.
No threat spoken aloud.
Just a quiet, certain command.
The kind that didn’t need to be repeated to be obeyed. The kind that left no space to breathe wrong, think wrong, moving wrong.
My body reacted before my mind allowed it. My
