He shook me off with a furious roar, my grip breaking easily. He swung again, and I dodged, my back hitting the wall. The cheap poster of the Andromeda galaxy I’d had since I was twelve crinkled behind me. It was a dead end. I had nowhere else to go. I saw the third lunge coming. My hand came up to block, to parry, to do something, but I was a fraction of a second too slow. He shoved me hard against the wall, my head smacking against the drywall with a dull thud. For a dizzying, weightless moment, I was off-balance. And in that moment, he struck.

The final blow wasn’t aimed at my face, but lower. The tip of the screwdriver connected with my right shoulder. There was no sharp slice of metal through skin. There was only a hideous dry crack that seemed to vibrate through my entire skeleton. A sound louder than any gunshot. It was the sound of my clavicle snapping. The force of the blow drove the screwdriver through the bone and muscle, pinning my shoulder and me to the wall behind me. A scream, raw and primal, tore itself from my throat—a sound of pure, unadulterated agony that seemed to have no end.

But the physical pain, as blinding as it was, was nothing compared to the horror that came next. Footsteps pounded down the hall. My father, Thomas, and my stepmother, Evelyn, appeared in the shattered doorway. Hope, stupid and desperate, flared in my chest. They’ll help me. They have to. My eyes, wide with pain and terror, pleaded with them. It was a prayer without words: Dad, Mom, please, I’m hurt. Help me.