Locked In By The Man I Loved

The first time the deadbolt locked by itself,

I laughed like a woman in a horror movie who doesn’t know she’s already dead.

The second time, the air thinned, and Lily’s small hand turned feral on my wrist.

“Mommy, we have to run,” she hissed, eyes fixed on the door that had just sealed us in.

This wasn’t a glitch; it was choreography.

Footsteps climbed our stairs, measured and patient, and in the thin wedge of light beneath the bedroom door I saw it:

a shadow bending, a wallet opening, a fake ID glinting in his ha… Continues…