The operator asked if she was safe. Maya looked at the still figure, the dark puddle spreading from the broken bottle, the way the moonlight caught the open, empty eyes.

She breathed. For the first time that night, deeply.

Maya stood in the middle of the room, shaking so violently her teeth chattered. The pepper spray canister was hot in her palm. She didn’t look at the body. She looked at the handkerchief on the floor, still damp, still sweet. Two feet from her pillow.

Terror is a strange fuel. It doesn’t make you scream. It makes you calculate.

So she couldn’t let him get near her face.