Read Don't Look Back for Free Online

the edges. It didn’t take long for her to discover the secret room, especially since I’d left the door open.
    She scampered inside and I crawled in after her. I let her get familiar with the place. After a few minutes I encouraged her to come back into the baby’s room. When she did, I closed and latched the door. I got her to lay on her pet bed, but as soon as I started rolling paint on the closet wall, she became curious and trotted over to investigate.
    Reluctantly, I took her back to her crate, then went upstairs and continued painting. When I had finished the inside of the closet, I decided the room would need one more coat, but it wouldn’t be ready for several hours and that evening I had my first self-defense class. After I cleaned the paint brushes, I showered and changed into a pair of sweats, then had a light dinner and drove to the place where the self-defense lesson would be given.
    When I walked in I saw about a dozen women plus one instructor. There were two pairs of what looked like mothers with their teenage daughters, so I wasn’t the youngest one in the room. But I suspected I was the only one who was pregnant. I wasn’t sure if that was something I needed to bring to the instructor’s attention. Not really wanting to, I decided I would just be extra cautious.
    I looked at the other women, not expecting to see any familiar faces, so it was with surprise that I recognized Billi, the woman from my dog training class. She was standing by herself so I hurried over.
    “Hi there, Billi.”
    “Oh hey! Kate, right?”
    “Yeah. What are you doing here?”
    “Same thing as you, I imagine. Learning to protect myself.”
    “Of course,” I said, feeling stupid for asking. But she hadn’t answered in an unfriendly way, so I knew it was just me feeling dumb and not her trying to make me feel that way.
    “It’s funny to run into you here though,” she said.
    I nodded. “So how’s Chloe doing?”
    “Same as usual. Always looking for something to chew on.”
    A moment later the instructor had us gather around him. He looked like was in his early thirties and he introduced himself as Steve. He had blond hair and light colored eyes. In some ways he reminded me of Trevor and for a moment I missed having him around. I realized I didn’t hate him; in fact I still loved him. At least I loved the man I thought I’d married. But I was afraid of him. Afraid of how he would react to random things, afraid of what he would do to me if he found me.
    Pulling my thoughts away from Trevor, I focused on what Steve was saying. Before he taught us any self-defense moves, he talked about how to avoid situations where self-defense would be required. Stay alert to your surroundings, have a buddy walk with you to your car, especially after dark.
    As he went over his list, I noticed he didn’t mention avoiding possessive, jealous husbands. Well, I guess it’s too late for that anyway, I thought.
    Then he talked about how our bodies reacted to an accelerated heart rate. He explained that as our heart rate increased, our vision would narrow and our hearing would diminish. To counteract that, it was important to take a deep breath.
    Finally he showed us some simple moves to break free from an assailant. He had us each try it out with him. I watched him go through the steps with each of the women. First he would come up behind a woman and wrap his arms around her, immobilizing her, then she would do a series of moves to break loose. Then he would approach the woman from the front and she would deflect his attempt to grab her, and then push him away.
    Then it was my turn. I stood with my back to him, anticipating him grabbing me. Even though I was expecting it, when his arms went around me and I was immobilized, I froze. For the life of me I couldn’t remember the moves I was supposed to make.
    “Peel my finger back,” he said into my ear.
    Even though his words told me what to do, I wasn’t able to get my body to