Page 87 of Down Shift (Driven 8)
Because while I’m Getty Caster now—strong, independent, confident, hopeful—all it took was the sound of his voice to transport me back. That calm, even, arrogant, calculating tone that never rises in pitch and yet orders, criticizes, punishes, demeans me. Fear returns instantly as I’m reminded of the times he’d lose his temper or take a ruthless and often unfounded revenge on an adversary because he got off on being the judge, jury, and executioner. And his methodical ways of putting me back in line.
“Now, now, Gertrude.” It’s his warning tone. The condescending Do as I say so you won’t cause me to do something I’ll regret tone. The one that used to make me want to try to be as small as possible to avoid the dead zone from the fallout of his temper. “Did you miss me as much as I missed you?”
I swallow the bile that threatens to rise and take another deep breath. “No, Ethan, I didn’t miss you at all.” My voice is quiet, but at least its even tone doesn’t reflect the fear ricocheting within me.
“Amusing, Gertrude.” Disdain. His voice drips with it. “As you were. Take your bra off and turn around. Now.”
My eyes flick around the room. To my purse on the bed with my cell inside. I wonder if Nick would be able to hear me scream next door through the closed bedroom windows.
The rush of blood is so loud in my ears I can’t hear anything but its whoosh as I answer. “No.”
His hand hits something—a loud crack of a noise—at the same time his voice thunders, “Turn. Around.” I physically jump at the sound, and the dead calm in his voice is even more frightening.
And as scared as I am with him at my back—my mind trying to calculate how far away he is from me or where he is in the room—I also don’t want him to think I’m obeying him. Or that I fear him. Because those two reactions will give him the one thing I refuse to give him ever again: power over me.
“Don’t be scared, Gertrude. It’s just me. Your husband.” His chuckle grates on my nerves.
Just jump.
The thought comes out of nowhere, but it is exactly what I needed to fortify everything I’ve learned about myself in the months since I left this asshole.
I bite back the bile threatening to rise again. Stiffen my spine. Lift my chin. And turn around to face Ethan. He’s sitting at my vanity, leaned against the back of the chair, perfectly groomed as always, but it’s the hatred in his eyes that reveals his state of mind.
“Get. Out.” I grate the words out between gritted teeth, not wanting him to see my chin tremble.
The sound of his laughter fills my bedroom, but it’s anything but humorous. It’s empty, chilling. “I’m just here to take back what’s mine.” A lift of one eyebrow. A mocking curl of his lips. His unrelenting stare, which causes chills to race up and down my spine.
“Fuck. You.”
He’s on me in a flash. Closes the distance in a split second of time. I don’t even have time to scream. Maybe I do. I don’t know. There’s a sound. A crash. A thump on the floor. His voice full of anger. Me trembling: my body, my mind, my heart.
But even through the haze of fear, I do something I never did before. I fight back. Using my hands and nails and legs and feet. Whatever it takes to stop him. I’m a ball of pent-up rage and hurt, even though I know I’m no match for his strength, honed by obsessive workouts and the most expensive supplements on the market. Yet, still, I fight.
I aim for connecting my knee to his crotch, to deliver the only kind of blow I know might incapacitate him, but he blocks it. I’m not sure how long we struggle. Seconds. Minutes. They feel like hours.
My lungs scream. My muscles burn. The sting of pain from his blows to subdue me doesn’t register. Only my rage. Only my hate. Only my fear.
And in some move I can’t even comprehend, he spins me so that I’m facedown on my bed, his knee pressed to my spine, my arms wrenched behind my back with one of his hands while the other fists in my hair.
My face is pressed into the mattress. The thick comforter smothers my mouth and nose. My lungs scream for air. I thrash my head from side to side, try to heave in a breath, try to think clearly, when all I can focus on is the comforter hot beneath my mouth as I suck in any air I can get through it. Panic. I’m no match for his strength.
And just as my mind starts to grow fuzzy and weird spots dance in the blackness of my closed eyes, I yelp out when he yanks my ponytail back sharply, lifting my face off the mattress.
There is no fear. There is no thought other than air. Gulp. Gasp. Suck it in as fast as I can.
I know this game. He’s played it before. Deprive and demand.
Show who’s in control.
Prove that I’m weaker.
But I don’t care. Don’t have the wherewithal to focus on how to prevent the next push into the mattress, because when your body is starved for air, it’s your only focus. How to get more. How to store it. How to inhale it. How much you’re going to get before it’s taken away again.
His breathing hitches from his exertion. The warm pant of it hits my ear as he leans down over me. “Are you this disobedient with your new boyfriend, Getty?” he sneers my new name. His fist twists in my hair, but I bite back the yelp of pain.
Don’t let him have the power.
I close my eyes and wince at the pinpricks of pain all over my scalp. At the fire still burning in my lungs. At the ache where his knee digs relentlessly against my backbone, and the strain on my rotator cuffs as he pulls my arms up from my back.
