Killer's Prey by Rachel Lee

blackness began to recede. Her heart was hammering as if she had just run a marathon, and her limbs were shaking. Nothing new, really, since the attack. Weakness had become her frequent companion.
    Maybe she’d feel better about all of this tomorrow. Right now she just felt sickened. “I can’t just move in with you,” she protested faintly.
    “You can look for a place if you want. No biggie. But you can’t look at this hour of the night. And you’re not staying here.”
    She heard hangers scrape against the closet rail, then from the corner of her eye saw him fold the dresses into the suitcase. “I guess not. But I could stay at the motel.”
    “Over my dead body.” All of a sudden he squatted in front of her. She lifted her head enough to meet his gaze.
    “He used to hit you, didn’t he?”
    She squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to answer that question. Why it should shame her so, she didn’t fully understand. They’d worked on that in her therapy, how nothing her father did was her fault, but she felt the hot, miserable wave of shame anyway.
    “I always wondered,” he said. “He sure looked like he was about to, tonight.”
    Then he was gone again, moving around the room. “Your bath supplies. All girlie stuff?”
    “Mostly. It’s all in a flowered bag.”
    “Got it. You wait here.”
    She heard him open, then close the door. Then the most astonishing statement.
    “You’re kidnapping my daughter, Madison! You got no right.”
    “She’s an adult choosing to leave of her own free will. Now step aside or you’ll be the one arrested for unlawful imprisonment.”
    Wow, Nora thought. Wow. Could this really be happening? The surreal feeling she had experienced so often since the attack was claiming her again. This must be someone else’s life.
    But a minute later Jake was back with her flowered makeup bag, and he dropped it in the suitcase.
    “All done, I think,” he said. “Do you want to check?”
    But she really hadn’t unpacked much. She hadn’t had the energy, or the desire, to settle in here. “That’s it.”
    “Do you feel strong enough to walk out of here?”
    She was determined to walk out of here, with her head as high as she could hold it. The last time, she had left in anger after their fight over her mother’s death and her supposed responsibility. This time she would leave like ice. How much sweeter that would be.
    She marshaled herself and stood. Jake was right there, ready if she needed aid, but she was grateful that he waited to see. She’d managed to sacrifice enough of her independence and sense of self-worth over these past few months. Even little victories had become important to her.
    God, to feel that way after more than a decade of becoming a new and stronger woman. It was pathetic how fast she had slipped back into the ways of thinking she had learned in childhood. Fear. Living in constant fear of everything. Endless self-doubt. Endless feelings of inadequacy.
    “I hate myself,” she muttered as she started toward the door.
    “Whoa there,” Jake said quietly. “None of that.”
    “It’s true.”
    Thank God he didn’t argue. She needed to get out of this house, to breathe some different air, before she’d have the energy for anything. Coming home hadn’t helped her. In some ways it had sapped her.
    Survival demanded that she get out of here now.
    It was as if something important was changing deep inside her, as if some cloud were lifting. For the past few months she’d been in survival mode, intensely focused on fear, rage, pain and recovery. Now she felt an urgent desire to focus on finding herself again, looking forward again.
    She hoped it lasted.
    If nothing else, seeing her father again, living in his house however briefly, had made her realize that there was no way she wanted to slip back down the rabbit hole of time.
    Loftis was standing in the doorway of the living room as she emerged. Behind her, Jake carried her bags. Her father looked as if he