Then she swung.
The crowbar connected with the windshield, and the glass exploded into a glittering storm. I watched it on my screen for a heartbeat, my brain refusing to process what my eyes had already accepted.
Then my body caught up.
“STOP!”
The shout tore out of me raw as I yanked open my front door and sprinted down the driveway. The concrete was icy under my feet. My breath came out in white bursts. Somewhere down the street, sprinklers hissed and ticked, watering lawns that were already greener than they had any right to be in a desert climate.
Victoria whipped around at my scream.
She looked… perfect, in the way someone looks perfect when they’ve spent their whole life believing perfection is a weapon. Tennis skirt. White blouse. Hair pinned and sprayed into a helmet of bottle-blonde certainty. Pearls at her throat. Makeup done for an audience even at dawn.
Except now she wasn’t perfect anymore.
There was oil on her blouse. A streak across her skirt. Her face was twisted with rage so intense it didn’t even look human, like a mask had slipped and something feral had taken its place.
She didn’t drop the crowbar.
