The Trap

by Catherine Ryan Howard

An ex-boyfriend had once told her that his favorite part of a night out was the walk home. Just him and his thoughts on deserted streets, the evening’s fun still warm in his chest. He had no tense wait for a taxi. He didn’t need to walk to the front door with his keys squeezed between his fingers, ready to scratch, to disable. He had never texted a thumbs-up emoji to anyone before he went to sleep so that they could go to sleep as well. The part of the night he loved was the part she had to survive.

The passenger window descends in a smooth, electronic motion

The daughter of a former inspector and a chief superintendent, legend had it that she’d wanted to be a guard for so long, she’d hand-sewn blue uniforms for her Barbies.

Those guys have guns and you can tell by the way they walk around with them, like they’re extensions of their dicks, that they’d bloody love to use them.

Sometimes—tragically, infuriatingly, inexplicably—fiction is the only place we have to go for answers.