C9 The First Strike Back

I struggled up the stairs, each step sending a hot, thudding pain through my shoulder. The shower offered no mercy; every warm drop felt like salt on a bruise—matched, somehow, by grief and humiliation.

Matthew had hit me before. Countless times. But this pain cut closer, skirting the edges of the memory that still haunted me—the miscarriage two years ago. I fumbled with my skincare