in the air.
“Don’t thank me yet.” He settles me down on the top of a desk like I’m precious and fragile, but doesn't he know? There are no more parts of me left to crack. “You’ll be safe here. I’ll be back shortly.”
“Don’t leave me!” My hands won’t untie from his neck. Only his strength is keeping me breathing when everything else wants to lie down and die.
“I need to help the other girls, Anna,” he says, but I feel his reluctance.
Horror filters through me. There are six others out there, bleeding and frantic.
“Oh my God, yes. Go!” My arms slither free, and I swipe my fingers across my face to catch my tears.
But he doesn’t leave right away. There’s a pregnant beat as he stands there, looking down at me, securing me in a new cage with his chilly gaze.
Who is this illogicality? He’s a killer and a savior. A soldier to another, and a betrayer to all the evil I assumed he was.
I haven’t felt shame in so long, but I can feel her creeping over my face again. I’m naked and filthy and—
“Here.” He shrugs out of his black jacket and hangs it around my shoulders. More strength. More warmth. Keep on breathing, Anna.
“Thank you,” I croak, pulling it tighter around my body.
“Are you hurt?” He leans down to touch my shoulder and I flinch away. I’m hurt in ways I can’t even calculate yet. He frowns. “I’m coming back for you, okay?”
“How did you find me?”
“Let’s get out of here first.”
I watch him close the door behind him, and then suddenly he’s re-appearing again. It’s the first time I’ll experience dissociative amnesia as a coping mechanism.
A few days later, I won’t remember anything about this night or this conversation, until the same man who saved me heals me whole again.
“Can you walk?” He crouches down to assess my injuries. My cuts and bruises weave a tale of abuse, but the dried blood on the inside of my thighs tells of a much darker story. I meet his eyes and an unspoken tragedy passes between us.
“I–I’m not so sure,” I stutter.
“I need to shoot. I can't do that with you in my arms.”
I nod again, slow and hesitant. I can't seem to take anything in. My brain is shaking as hard as the rest of me, making everything loose and unreal.
“Stay close to me,” he says, cupping my cheeks with his hands, absorbing my flinch; refusing to let me go anyway. “I won’t let them touch you again.”
“Are you my moon?” The words fly from my mouth in a tangle of hope and desperation. Is he the one to guide me home?
There’s a pause. “No, sweetheart. You’re your own moon.”
“But I can't find her! I can’t find her!” My voice rises hysterically. “My sky is all black. I don’t know how to fix me!”
“One day at a time, sweetheart.” His grip tightens on my face. “You and I are goddamn survivors, Anna. You hear me?”
“I can't do it on my own. Find me, Joseph Grayson,” I beg him. “When all of this is over… Help me put the pieces back together again.”
“I will find you again, Anna. I will protect you until you’re strong enough to protect yourself.”
“How will I know?” I say, crying softly, needing his reassurance like air and water. “How will I know you’ll keep your word?”
There’s a pause. “Because I will hang my promise around my neck for all to see, my Luna girl. I will hang it there to remind you of just how fucking committed I am to it. And when you see it, and you want to take it, I’ll be here waiting for you to fucking claim it.”
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Okay,” he says, pulling out his gun.
There’s a twister blowing up inside of him as he takes my hand and leads me from the room. It’s a storm that’s binding us together. It’s a blizzard to blow all of our pain away. It’s something that was set in motion long before there was a sidewalk, a stare and a red dress, but tonight?
Tonight, that twister is turning for me.
33
Joseph
The jet banks sharply and then rights itself for our final descent. The ocean is a strip of violent blue beneath us. Dante’s island is glinting like a not-too-distant jewel on the horizon, and Anna can’t seem to take her eyes off it.
“Holy shit,” she breathes. “Now I get why she married you, Santiago.”
His resultant glare is tossed across the aisle at