My Husband Cooked Dinner—Minutes After My Son and I Collapsed, I Heard Him Say, “It’s Done… Soon They’ll Both Be Gone.”

The kitchen door swung wide. Daniel stepped inside, holding a half-empty yellow jerrycan in his left hand and a silver Zippo in his right.

His eyes immediately darted to the empty space on the floor where I had been lying five seconds earlier.

The confusion registered on his face for only a millisecond—his eyebrows furrowing, his jaw dropping slack.

"Clara?" he whispered, his head snapping left, then right.

With all the strength left in my trembling, poisoned limbs, I swung the iron poker like a baseball bat.

The heavy iron connected with a sickening *crack* against the side of his skull.

Daniel roared—a sound that was half animal surprise, half blinding rage. The blow had not landed clean; he had flinched at the last second, so instead of shattering his temple, the point carved a bloody furrow across his cheekbone and tore through the cartilage of his left ear.

He staggered, dropping the jerrycan. Pungent kerosene splashed across the linoleum, saturating the hem of my sweatpants.

"You crazy bitch!" he snarled, spinning around with terrifying speed. Blood streamed down his neck, soaking his flannel shirt in a dark crimson tide.

He lunged.

I swung the poker again, but Daniel was too fast. His massive hand shot out, catching the iron rod mid-air with shocking force. The impact vibrated down my wrists, nearly dislocating my thumbs. With a violent twist of his torso, he ripped the weapon from my grip and hurled it across the room. It smashed through the kitchen window, shattering the glass and letting the howling rain burst inside.

Daniel grabbed me by the throat, slamming me backward against the refrigerator.

The air exploded from my lungs. The magnetic letters on the fridge cascaded to the floor in a clattering hail.

His fingers squeezed my windpipe with hydraulic pressure. I clawed at his face, my fingernails digging into the fresh wound on his cheek, tearing at the wet flaps of flesh. He didn't even flinch. The adrenaline had made him impervious to pain. His eyes were wide, dilated, bloodshot—the eyes of a predator who had crossed the Rubicon.

"You should have stayed asleep, Clara," he hissed, his face inches from mine, spitting hot blood and saliva into my eyes. "It would have been painless! I gave you an easy out! Why do you always have to make everything so goddamn difficult?!"

Black spots crowded my peripheral vision. The room began to tilt. My lungs burned for oxygen that wouldn't come.

*Noah,* I thought. *If I die right here, Noah burns alive in the den.*

My right hand dropped from his face. I reached downward, desperately patting along the kitchen counter behind me, searching for anything. My fingers brushed against the glass salt cellar—heavy, cut crystal.

I grabbed it.

With the last reserve of consciousness in my brain, I smashed the base of the crystal cellar straight into Daniel's broken ear.

He screamed, his grip loosening just enough for me to slip downward. I dropped like a stone, driving the heel of my boot into his knee with all my body weight. A sharp, fibrous *pop* echoed in the kitchen. Daniel’s leg buckled inward, and he crashed onto the kerosene-slicked tiles.

I didn't pause. I scrambled on hands and knees through the puddle of accelerant, bursting through the kitchen door and into the hallway.