Dominos

He broke into her house, stabbed her and stabbed her and stabbed her again, each time in her gut.

She is bleeding her life away, but she cannot let go.

Because.

The man who tracked her down is walking towards their daughter’s bassinet.

His back is to her, but he is shouting:

“You fucking bitch! You took Skylar from me. You tried to stop me from seeing her. See what you made me do!?”

Their baby is crying.

She crawls away from her ex, sliding in the grime of her own blood. It oozes across her hardwood floors.

She crawls away, towards the liquor cabinet.

She can hear that there are tears on his face, all by the desperate tremor in his voice. “You dumb bitch! If I can’t see Sky, neither can you. Nobody gets her now.”

She spares a glance and sees him raise the blade.

She’s not moving fast enough—

She musters her strength and rises to her knees to make one final, excruciating lurch towards the cabinet.

The bottles inside rattle.

Then his voice, taunting her: “Wow, look at you— using the last of your strength to try to get away! You’re abandoning our daughter? I would have died for her! And you’re such a selfish bitch you’re just running.”

She opens the cabinet and retrieves her gun.

She turns, she aims.

He is looking at her, his gloating, lunatic grin falters.

Her hands shake.

His eyes widen.

She fires into his chest.

He stumbles backwards, into the bassinet and knocks it to the floor.

Skylar is screaming now.

He’s groaning. Then he’s moving. Rising to his knees. The knife is still clenched in his fist, wet with her blood and his sweat.

But she still has the gun.

He raises the blade again, and she fires again.

The knife falls to the floor.

So does her ex husband, gurgling for air through the hole in his throat.

Their baby is screaming.

The woman crawls— for ages. She crawls for miles.

Her daughter is covered in blood, but it is not her own.

It is her father’s blood.

The woman gasps for breath and winces through the pain as she pulls her babe close to her breast.

The woman’s eyes are dimming.

Her blood is almost spent.

She knows she will die.

And she regrets moving them to such a remote home. But after the divorce she...

She just wanted..

Peace...

And safety…

And she...

She wishes she’d sought refuge among others, rather than alone.

Because.

Nobody lives close enough to have heard those shots.

And... and...

Nobody would know....

So who will help?

And as her final thoughts fade, she hears her precious baby, nursing. And the sound of Sky, suckling and breathing... content and happy... that sound wipes away her worries.

She is comforted and she knows everything will be fine.

Everything will be just fine.

She and sky will be okay out here on their own as long as they have each other.