The forest we’d landed in had been thick and humid, full of insects that sounded like machinery and plants that glowed faintly when the sun went down. We’d spent the first week convinced rescue would arrive any moment and the second week learning that wasn’t going to happen.
By the third week, the arguments had started.
We were hungry and exhausted, and Thomas had never handled fear well.
Back in Australia the abuse had always been careful. Measured and private behind closed doors of a shared life no one knew about.
Voices low.
Bruises hidden under clothes so they didn’t raise questions.
Out there in the forest, none of that mattered. There was no one to hide from. No reputation to protect. No station colleagues who might start asking the wrong questions if they noticed something off.
The mask slipped. Completely.
I lean against the basin, gripping the edge as the memory sharpens. I can still see the moment it started.
We were sitting beside the dead cruiser, the engine silent and useless beneath the open hood. The sky above us had been that strange sickly green that still makes my stomach turn if I stare at it too long.
Thomas had been pacing, restless and agitated. By that point the whiskey had been gone for over two weeks, and his temper had gotten… unpredictable.
I’d tried to keep things calm.
Tried to keep him focused on the practical stuff—finding water, gathering anything edible, figuring out whether the strange animal tracks we’d seen belonged to something dangerous. But that morning we’d both been running on fumes, and I’d made the mistake of asking something simple.
Something reasonable.
“Maybe we should start moving again,” I’d said quietly. We’d tried and failed a few times. “If there’s a town somewhere?—”
That was it. That was all it took.
Thomas had spun towards me like I’d just insulted his entire bloodline. “You think I haven’t thought of that?”
His voice had already been loud.
I’d raised my hands automatically. “Hey. I’m just saying?—”
“I’m the one keeping us alive here.”
“I know that.”
“You think you could do better?”
“That’s not what I?—”
The punch came out of nowhere. One second we were arguing. The next my vision burst into white as his fist slammed into the side of my face. Pain detonated through my skull, violent and disorienting, and my footing went with it. I hit the ground hard enough to jar my teeth.
For a split second, I thought that was it. Same as always. A hit, maybe two. Something I could cover. Something I could explain away.
That was how it had always worked back in Australia.
Thomas knew exactly where the line was. Knew how to keep it contained. A shove. A slap. Fingers digging just hard enough to bruise where no one would see.
Here, there was no one watching. No reason to stop.
I pushed up onto one elbow, head ringing, and that was when I saw him reach for the rock.
It didn’t register fast enough.
