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I’m pregnant. The knowing sits in me, low and heavy, coiled tight like dread. There’s no confirming it—no test, no clinic—but I feel it in the way my body has betrayed me, shifting in ways I can’t control. The nausea rolls over me every morning, tidal and relentless. My skin stretches tighter, my belly rounding just enough for me to notice, but not yet enough for Nathan to see. Not yet.

He doesn’t know, and I’ve turned my life into an exercise in hiding it. I’ve learned to vomit silently, crouched over the toilet, my breaths shallow so he doesn’t hear. I scrub my mouth, wipe away the evidence, and swallow the metallic taste like penance. I chew slower now, swallowing the dog food in measured bites, willing it to stay down. If he realizes—if that dark calculus in his mind clicks into place— I know what happens next.

He will kill me.

It repeats in my mind like a pulse, like a law. He will kill me. He won’t do it in anger or heat but with the same detached efficiency he used the day he dragged Cupcake out of the house. I remember

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the taut leash around her neck, her trembling body, and his face, calm and unreadable, when he returned alone.

I haven’t bled in five years. I thought it was the stress, the starvation, the slow erasure of my body’s ability to claim itself. I believed I was barren, that this house had made me incapable of giving life. But this thing growing inside me is proof that my body has a will I don’t understand. It defies the hunger, the deprivation, the cruelty, and yet it feels like another betrayal, another way for this place to consume me.

Lately, Nathan has been kind. His kindness is never a gift; it’s a lull before the drop, a prelude to something worse. He lets me crawl into the backyard now, he’s given me air, a sliver of freedom so thin it feels like a trick. His voice has softened, his commands quieter, like he’s testing the depth of my submission. He thinks I don’t want to leave anymore. He thinks he’s won.

But I don’t forget. I can’t. I hear his voice in my head, calm and detached, the day I met Cupcake: She’s sick, and she can’t stay here anymore

I understood then. He only keeps what he can use. The moment something doesn’t serve him—when it breaks or strays too far from his control—it’s discarded. Efficiently. Quietly.

This pregnancy is a crack in the system, an anomaly he won’t tolerate. It’s not part of his plan. I’ve seen how he reacts to things he can’t control. I can’t let him find out.

At night, when his snores rumble through the walls, I press my hand to my stomach, to the small curve that feels like a question with no answer. I whisper apologies into the dark, my voice trembling. I didn’t ask for you. I didn’t choose this. The words hang in the still air, heavy and futile.

The fetus complicates everything. My body is no longer mine—it’s a battleground. The fetus is an unwelcome guest, carving out space in a house that isn’t big enough for three. There’s no room

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here for me and Nathan and this thing growing inside me. It needs to go.

I lie awake, my thoughts circling, sharp and insistent. How much time do I have? What will I do when he finds out? How do I stop this before he stops me?

The answers don’t come, only the cold, unshakable truth that this house was never built for survival. Hope doesn’t live here. Hope is what gets you dragged out back, the leash tightening around your throat as you’re led to where no one will find you.

I press my hand harder against my stomach, the faint swell a secret I can’t carry much longer. The nausea stirs again, and I swallow it down, staring into the dark, waiting for the moment I run out of time.

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The yard is slick with sun, the air syrup-thick, sweet and heady with the musk of summer heat. It clings to my skin, seeps into the folds of this moment, too lush, too alive for the small brutality that’s about to happen. Nathan’s voice drifts from the porch, low and sharp, barbed with frustration. He’s on the phone again, pacing, bourbon glass rattling faintly against the side table every time he sets it down too hard. His foot bounces, his body wound tight like the call is pulling him apart one syllable at a time. He isn’t watching me.

I crawl along the edge of the yard, the grass bristling against my palms, blades sharp and overgrown, curling rebelliously at the edges like the wild reclaiming its space. My head stays low, my movements fluid, unremarkable. The leash is slack, forgotten in the heat of his distraction. His focus is elsewhere, split between the bourbon in his glass and the static impatience of the person on the other end of the line.

That’s when I see it.

The rat.

It is round and fat, trembling in the shade of a bush, its black eyes gleaming like dark marbles, reflecting the stretch of my body moving closer. Its chest heaves, frantic and rhythmic, its tail flicking against the dirt like a whisper of panic. My breath catches, my body lowering instinctively. My fingers hover just above the earth, splayed like a trap about to spring.

The rat watches me, its gaze locked with mine, something feral meeting something broken. The air between us thickens, the space charged with the electric hum of recognition. Two animals sizing

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each other up: its quick, shallow fear against the deep, quiet hunger that’s been building in me for years.

It shifts forward, cautious, its tiny nose twitching, its body a fragile bundle of nerves and instinct. The moment stretches, taut and delicate, and then—when it turns to retreat—I lunge.

My hand squeezes around its body, its warmth shocking against my palm. The rat squeals, high-pitched and piercing, its claws scraping desperately against my skin. Its tail whips, a frantic blur, but I hold firm, pressing it to my chest like a secret I can’t let go of. Without thinking, without hesitation, I lower my head to its belly.

The first bite tears through the fur cleanly, the skin splitting with surprising ease, the warmth flooding my mouth before I even register the taste. Blood, hot and metallic, coats my tongue, drips down my chin, pools on the grass beneath me in dark, uneven streaks. The rat writhes, its body a desperate, thrashing pulse in my hands, but I don’t stop. I can’t stop.

Each bite is a jolt, a shock of something primal and consuming, raw and undeniable. My teeth sink deeper, through sinew and bone, the slick heat of its organs spilling onto my tongue. The blood smells like iron, like earth, like survival. The fur catches in my throat, coarse and bristling, but I swallow it down, the texture foreign, the taste strangely addictive.

It is horrifying. It is delicious.

The realization comes sudden and sharp, sliding under my skin like a knife. After seven years of crawling, barking, begging, something in me has tipped, shifted into a shape I don’t fully recognize. I’ve worn the collar, the leash, the obedience like a costume stitched into my body, but this isn’t a game anymore. The fur spreading across me is proof. The way my jaw aches with want as I tear through the rat’s flesh, the way my breath heaves low and guttural in my chest—it’s all proof.

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This isn’t pretending.

This is instinct. Raw, relentless, and real.

The rat lies still in my hands, its final twitch a faint ripple under my fingers, a fragile echo of the life I just extinguished. Its tail hangs limp, a pale, sickle-thin curve that catches the sunlight. Its blank eyes don’t see me, don’t accuse me. The grass beneath me is damp, sticky with the blood I spilled, with the saliva that clings to my chin, dripping in thick strands onto the ground.

The smell of it—metallic, pungent—saturates the air, so heavy I can taste it even when I’m not chewing. My stomach churns, twisting in slow circles, but I don’t stop. I swallow. Again and again, the warmth coursing down my throat, spreading through my chest, pooling in my belly like something molten, something alive.

It grounds me. Anchors me.

I don’t wipe my mouth. I don’t look away from the rat, its limp form cradled in my hands like something sacred. This is survival, I tell myself. This is an adaptation.

I think of the fetus and the thought crystallizes sharp and bitter. Rats carry diseases. Filth. Poison. I chew harder, my tongue exploring the insides of its belly, seeking out the tender insides, the slippery pieces.

Please let this end it.

Let this end the thing growing inside me before Nathan ends me first.

And then I hear him. The sound of footsteps, crushing the gravel behind me. I freeze, my breath hitching, the rat’s limp body still clutched in my hands. The taste of blood is thick on my tongue, pooling warm and sticky in the corners of my mouth as I turn, slowly, to face him.

Nathan stands there, bourbon glass tilted in his hand, his face frozen in something between confusion and horror. His eyes flicker over me—over the blood streaked across my cheeks, the

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rat’s gutted body, the red stains on the grass. His jaw tightens, and for the first time, I see it.

Fear.

It glints in his eyes, sharp and unfiltered, cutting through the thin veneer of control he wears like armor.

I smile.

It stretches across my face in a way that feels like both defiance and surrender.

The rat slips from my hands, its body falling with a soft, wet thud, and I don’t look away. The taste of blood lingers, rich and metallic, and I feel it—something feral, something ancient, something powerful unfurling in the pit of my stomach.

Nathan doesn’t move. He just stares, fists clenched, the bourbon glass trembling slightly in his grip.

Let him see it, I think. Let him see what he’s created. Let him see me.