The cold.
Steel.
The pain.
The sound of the padlock.
But she no longer controlled it.
One afternoon, years later, she was on the porch while Connor sat beside her and the children slept inside.
She looked up at the sky and said softly, “Derek thought the freezer would erase me.”
Connor took her hand. “Instead, he revealed it to you.”
Grace smiled.
He was right.
Derek had tried to make her a victim.
Instead, it forged a survivor.
