Ignoring her, I pinned her against the wall. Like a caged animal, she began to fight me, kicking and clawing. Bright red blood began to paint us both. I couldn’t imagine how she even had the strength to fight after all she had been through.

Bishop appeared behind me. “Jesus Christ!”

“Get out,” I commanded.

“Should I get Breakneck or one of the nurses?”

“Just get the fuck out.”

“Rev, she needs fucking sedation not only before she shreds you, but before she bleeds out.”

“Get. Out!” I bellowed.

Grumbling under his breath, Bishop stomped out of the bathroom. With my thighs bracing Annabel’s, I pinned her in place with my hips. I grabbed one of her wrists. Winding the ripped shirt around and around, I managed to cut off the bleeding. As I surveyed the wound, I silently thanked God she had made a novice’s mistake and hadn’t cut too deep. She would need stitches, but it was nothing life-threatening. After tying the makeshift bandage tightly in place, I moved on to the next hand just as the palm was about to come in contact with my face.

When I was done, I exhaled the breath I’d been holding. The roar in my ears and the pounding in my chest slowly began to dissipate.

Defeated, Annabel sank slowly down the wall and onto the floor. Staring at the bandages, she questioned, “Why? Why couldn’t you just let me die?”

“Because it’s not your fucking time. If it was, you would have gone up in that blast with the rest of the women.” I raked a shaky hand through my hair. “Besides, you’re twenty-four years old. You’ve got your whole fucking life ahead of you.”

Shaking her head, she replied, “A tormented life of unfulfilled dreams.”

“You don’t know that. You can’t let this defeat you. You can’t let them defeat you. You take your life and Mendoza wins.”

“Easy for you to spout out all the self-help bullshit.”

“Actually, it isn’t.”

Her brows came together in confusion as inquisitive eyes met mine. “What do you mean?”

In that moment, as the hellish ghosts of my past closed in around me, the pressure to breathe had my lungs feeling like a squeezed accordion. I had never spoken of my rape—the actual words had never left my lips. My father knew because he had witnessed the end, and Breakneck knew because he had experienced the aftermath. It had been a horrible secret we kept from my mother and brothers.

Annabel was a complete stranger to me—someone I’d known less than forty-eight hours. The reason why she deserved to know, and my blood family didn’t, escaped me. But in my heart, I also knew there was a purpose to telling her. In the macabre room splattered with blood, it seemed almost effortless to unburden myself of the sordid details I had tried to bury for so long.

The intense burden of the secret I was about to divulge weighed on me physically, and I began to sway back and forth. My left leg gave way, and I found myself collapsing onto the floor. I shifted my leg with a grimace.

“What happened to you?”

“I got shot leaving Mendoza’s.”

“When you were carrying me?” Annabel questioned.

“Not that it makes any difference, but yeah.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Annabel snorted contemptuously. “I got you shot. It’s just one more thing to make me feel horrible about myself.”

“Hear me when I say you can’t keep thinking like that.”

“And what makes you an expert?”

“Look, I can’t say I understand exactly how you feel because I didn’t experience the same torment as you.” Holding her gaze, I continued. “But when I was eleven years old, I was raped.”

Annabel’s eyes widened in shock. Any old animosity on her face was replaced by shock and sympathy. As the deafening silence hung heavy around us, I drew in a ragged breath and began my story. The walls of the hospital bathroom melted away as I traveled across the years, back to a bedroom with a pink bedspread. As I unburdened myself, the shackles, which had once bound me in a long silence, fell away, and I experienced a freedom I’d had no idea existed anymore.

When I finished speaking, I stared down at the floor, unable to look at Annabel. It wasn’t that I was ashamed of what she might have thought about me. It was more the fact that I was physically and emotionally overwhelmed. I was almost twenty-eight years old, and it had taken me sixteen years to say the words out loud.

A rustling sound finally drew my stare from the bloodstained tile. I looked up to see Annabel slowly inching toward me. Just as our bodies touched, she stopped. “I don’t know what to say,” she whispered.

With a shrug, I replied, “You don’t need to say anything.”

She shook her head. “How could I hear a story like yours and not have something to say?” She wet her dry, cracked lips. “I would say I was sorry, but that simple word seems so insignificant.”

More than anyone I knew, Annabel truly understood the meaning of her words firsthand. “I guess so.”

Tears welled in her sad eyes. “You were so young. Just a baby. Me . . . I was old enough to know better. In some ways, I got what I deserved. I walked right into the lion’s den.”

“Don’t you fucking say that!” I shouted, my fists clenching at my side. My words and tone caused Annabel to shrink back. She didn’t deserve to be yelled at, but at the same time, I had to get through to her. And I didn’t know how many chances I would have to get this right. It wasn’t like I had a whole lot of experience consoling broken women.

Tentatively I reached my hand out to touch her cheek. When she didn’t pull away, I brushed my thumb along her jawline. “I’m sorry for yelling at you.”

“It’s okay.”

“Annabel, I want you to understand that you should never, ever think like that.”

A mirthless laugh tumbled from her lips. “Honestly, Rev, you’re too forgiving. I’m twenty-four years old, not fourteen. I knew better. But still I asked a man I’d never met to take me on a motorcycle ride. I allowed myself to become a victim.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I spent years blaming myself for drinking that coffee when I knew I wasn’t supposed to have any. I wasted so many nights lying in bed thinking I deserved what happened to me because even though I was drugged, I hadn’t fought back hard enough. That there was something I had done wrong to make Kurt want me over my brothers.” I shook my head. “It’s all bullshit, Annabel. Letting those kinds of thoughts eat away at you won’t get you anywhere.”

She remained silent for a few minutes and I could tell she was deep in thought. “After you were . . .” She swallowed hard as she met my eyes.

“Raped,” I enunciated the word for her. “I’ve been a fucking coward about the word long enough.”

She gave a quick nod of her head. “After you were raped, did you ever want to hurt yourself?”

Her innocent question sent the walls of the room spinning and closing in on me. My breath quickened to harsh pants, and I knew I was dangerously close to hyperventilating. No, I can’t lose it. Not here. Not now.

Closing my eyes, I pictured myself far, far away from the blood-soaked room. I waded into the crystal-clear waters of a stream. As the cool liquid encased my body, peace began to hum through my veins. The farther I went into the water, the greater the relief became.

I opened my eyes to find Annabel staring at me openmouthed. “What did you just do?”

“A visualization technique Breakneck taught me many years ago.”

“You calmed yourself down right in front of me. One minute it was like you were going over the edge, and then the next . . .”

“I had peace,” I finished for her.

“Yes,” she murmured.

“I was pretty volatile there for a while after what happened to me. The emotions coupled with preteen hormones made me explosive. I was throwing punches at my brothers, at kids at school. It was when I took a swing at Breakneck that he realized I needed an outlet.”