The woman dashed down the hallway and threw herself onto the door. She was pounding and scratching and kicking, praying open – open the door, open the door. No one was opening the door. She could not hear anything inside. But she could hear someone coming up behind her.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he was mumbling his apologies. "Please, I'm sorry."

She continued to kick against the door, her face resting against the cool surface, leaving traces of her blood behind. He had beaten her in the face with his fist; he had thrown her against the wall so hard that she blacked out. When she came to he was no longer in the room, so she had sprinted out of the apartment, down the hall to where she knew the cop lived.

She looked over her shoulder; she hadn't quite come to terms with the fact that the cop was not answering his door. In fact, even with all of the commotion, no one had opened their door. She looked toward the elevator and started to move in that direction. But he caught her, and grabbed her so hard by her hair he pulled her up off her feet. She came crashing backward against him, sending them both tumbling toward the floor.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, why do you… why do you make me…" He was crying. He had cried last time he had almost beat the life out of her. He had wept against her broken body. She had sat numbly with his head in her lap. She remembered her shirt had been slick with her own blood and his tears.

"It's Ok, I'm Ok," she lied, thinking maybe he would stop, maybe things would turn, maybe he would loosen his grip on her hair. She watched him look down the hall, to the bloody prints she had left all over the cop's apartment door.

"What the fuck? That door, that's the cop's door," his emotions flipped like a switch, and he was full of white hot anger - he no longer sounded sorry. He stood, hauling her up onto her feet by her hair and drug her back to the door. "You were pounding on the cop's fucking door," he ground out, "let's see if he's home."

He slammed her head forward, hard, against the door, and she blacked out. He slammed her again, against the door before letting go of her. She fell into a heap on the floor. He pushed her once with his foot, seeing if she would come around. She didn't move. He picked her up, limp like a ragdoll in his arms, carried her back to the apartment, dropped her in the foyer and went to bed.


A/N: It's been a while since I've had the discipline for multiple chapters. Let's see how this goes.