She treated my pregnancy as an offense against their family instead of the reason any decent person would have called for help.
Marcus had convinced her that protecting him was the same as loving him.
She had decided that made everything else permissible.
The cage had once belonged to a large dog.
Marcus moved it into the basement months earlier and joked that he was building storage around it.
I believed him because I wanted to believe the version of my husband who made ordinary plans.
By the time I understood what he intended, he had already begun taking my keys, checking my messages, and deciding when I could leave the house.
The cage was not the beginning.
It was only the point where his private rules became visible steel.
Before he took my last working phone, I had hidden an older one beneath a loosened floor panel.
I wrapped it in plastic to protect it from the damp concrete and kept the screen dark.
