My husband shoved me, shattering the bathroom mirror. His mother sneered, “Clean up this disgusting mess.” But as I fell, my husband roared, “What’s in your pocket?!” The red LED of my federal distress fob pulsed. Denied the third click, I threw myself onto the broken glass, and…

of my vision. I was not going to die as a prop in his pathetic last stand.

I remembered the afternoon on the back porch, when Marcus had handed me the fob. He hadn’t just given me a panic button; he had shown me leverage. “If someone grabs you from behind,” Marcus had said, “don’t pull at their arms. Attack the core.”

I stopped struggling against Vance’s continue reading …