CHAPTER 3

Ana

I open one eye at the sound of a door opening. I know it's one of the police officers

assigned to protect me, but I still feel a small spark of terror anytime someone

invades my tiny fortress of solitude. The minuscule room has just one small window

in the wall opposite the bed I've occupied for the last two days. At least, I think it's

been two days. I haven't been paying very close attention.

"I know you're awake."

It's the man. Ben, I think. I don't bother to respond.

"You have to do... something. Eat something, say something... Anything."

I don't.

"This isn't healthy, you know." He's beginning to sound agitated. "Don't you realize

that we need your help to lock up the people who did this to you? What about your

family? Your little sister was murdered, and you're doing nothing . Don't you care

about her?"

" Ramirez !"

That's the female one. I've never heard her name. I've also never heard her this

outraged.

There's a scuffling sound and the door closes. I can hear the two officers arguing

just outside.

I'm not bothered by his words. Not really. I think I would have been before, but now

I'm just... numb. I haven't cried once since I left that cold, damp basement room. I

don't feel anything. His words bounce off me like a rubber ball against a brick wall.

I think it's the pain medication I'm on. I'm probably not supposed to take it on an

empty stomach. I'm also probably not supposed to take twice the recommended

dosage. Maybe I should get hurt more often, so I can feel less often.

I close my eyes and drift into nonexistence.

~~~

I'm in that dim awareness between sleeping and waking when I feel a hand on my

shoulder. I open my eyes to see a familiar glove on my sleeve. My eyes fly up to

Ryan's face.

He's here. He's here! I sit up, not noticing even the slightest hint of pain in my

battered body. I look down and realize I'm sitting in Ryan's bed. In Ryan's cabin. In

my own clothes. I look up at the room, at him, at the white fluffy dog peeking over

the edge of the bed.

"Wha-what?" I ask, confused. How am I here? How is Ryan OK?

He sits on the bed next to me and takes one of my hands in his. "Ana, it's OK. You're

OK. It was just a dream."

"It was?" I ask, not sure I believe him. The last few weeks seemed so real... and so

detailed. "Then it all never happened? I never left? They never found us? You never

got shot?"

His eyebrows raise. "You had a dream that I got shot and you left?" he asks. "Well,

that's easy to disprove. Look around. You're here." He gestures toward himself.

"Look at me. I haven't been shot. Not in the last six years, anyway."

"So it was just a nightmare? You're OK?" Slowly, the memory of the dream begins to

ebb away. It wasn't real. It couldn't have been real. This is real.

"I'm fine. See?"

"But it seemed so real," I say, mostly to myself. I reach out and touch his chest, the

same spot where I saw blood soak his shirt after the bullets stopped flying.

He reaches up and presses my hand into his chest. "I'm fine, Ana. It was all in your

head."

I can feel his chest rumble with his words. I look up into his eyes. He looks back

into mine. In a movie-perfect moment, we come together in slow motion. We each

lean in, so painstakingly slowly that neither of us knows who's responsible. I don't

think you'd be able to see it unless you could play this moment back in double-time.

My eyes close. The tip of my nose brushes his cheek when Casper barks.

I feel Ryan jump slightly, but I can't let him be torn away from me again. I grab his

shirt and pull him to me, pressing my mouth into the corner of his. His arms come

around me then, holding me close to him as he kisses me back with all the passion

and tenderness I remember from the last time we kissed.

Wait, was that part of the dream too? Is this really our first kiss?

Actually, I don't care. I melt into his embrace again until a second thought invades

my mind. I pull away just enough to speak.

"I love you," I say, the words barely above a whisper. "I'm so sorry I didn't say it

before, I was an idiot and I didn't know what I was doing and I've never felt this

way about someone before, I-"

He ends the stream of words with a second kiss, one that seems to last a lifetime

and yet is over too soon. "I love you," he says in that husky voice of his. "I've loved

you since the moment I found you under that tree."

~~~

When I wake up, it's hours later. It must be, because suddenly I'm starving like I

haven't eaten in a month. I slip out of bed quietly, trying not to wake Ryan.

"Come back," he says in a voice slurred from sleep. His hand flails out and grabs my

wrist. "Stay here."

I laugh as he lifts his head slightly from the pillow. He looks absolutely ridiculous,

completely adorable, and like everything I want for the rest of my life.

"You're cute when you're sleepy," I tell him. I turn my wrist out of his grasp and

continue on my way to the kitchen.

"No, come back," he says with a hint of a petulant whine, his hand still reaching out

for me.

"You're so sad and pathetic!" I throw back playfully as I cross the room. "I'll only be

a minute. Don't some fried eggs and bacon sound nice?"

"Ana. Don't go out there." His voice has an edge to it now.

I pause with my hand on the doorknob, the door slightly ajar, and turn back to him.

"Why not?"

"Just don't. Stay here, with me. Where you're safe."

I frown. Something isn't right. I tear my gaze from him to look out into the living

room.

It's all I can do not to fall to the floor. It's just as I remember it. The door broken

open, a window smashed. The man Ryan shot is lying on the ground, blood still

pooling around him. The moment my life fell apart lies in front of me in stark detail,

save one.

I turn back to look at the bed and feel a shock pulse through my body. Ryan is still

on the bed, but now his face is covered in cuts and fresh bruises. His shirt is

soaked in blood. The bedspread is covered in it too, it's everywhere. I look down

and see Ryan's blood on me, on my shirt, on my arms, on my palms. He makes a

gagging sound and I run toward him, blinded by tears.

"I told you," he manages to choke out, "not to go out there." His eyes slide closed.

I'm completely hysterical, sobbing over him, trying to tell him it's going to be OK,

and trying to press the sheet into his chest to stop the bleeding, but I know it's too

late. He's dying before my eyes. Again. And still, I can't do anything to stop it.

"I love you, I love you," I say over and over again in between the sobs and the

screams. Ryan isn't moving anymore.

"I'm so sorry I never told you. I'm so sorry. Please, please don't die again, please

don't die."

I pull one hand away from the compress to feel for the artery in his neck. There's no

pulse.

"No," I hear my voice croak out. It's so hard to say the word. It comes out awkward

and slow. Speaking it gives me the sensation of being dragged up from the bottom

of a swimming pool.

I open my eyes. I'm back in the safe house bedroom again. There's no blood.

There's no Ryan dead in front of me again. But there is pain, so so so much pain.

For the first time in weeks, I curl into a ball and cry my eyes out.

~~~

I am never taking that pain medication again. I don't care if I have to suffer through

the excruciating pain of a thousand broken ribs. Physical pain is nothing compared

to the emotional devastation of that drug-induced dream. The pain of losing Ryan

again is worse than anything those men can do to me now.

And that's the real kicker. I don't have anything left to lose now. They took my

family. They took Ryan. They took away my soul, in pieces. All that's left of me now

is the hollowed-out shell of the person I used to be. I don't think I like what's left. I

could go after them now, testify against them and make them pay for what they did

to me. There's nothing more that they can take from me except my life. This

miserable, hellish existence. I'm not even convinced I want it anymore.

And that's the second big kick to my stomach. I've got nothing left to lose but I'm

still scared of them. I hate myself for that. Mom, Dad, Julie, Ryan. All four of them

will have died without any hope of justice if I can't testify. Unbidden, Ben's words

from earlier come back to me.

Your little sister was murdered, and you're doing nothing . Don't you care about her?

I want to kick that jerk in the nuts, hard. How dare he? How dare he! I loved my little

sister more than anyone. I'd give anything to be able to go back to that night last

November and trade places with her. I would never wish my present suffering on

her, but I'd still gladly trade my life for hers. I think I'm going to give that man a

piece of my mind.

For a moment, I savor the thought of the shock on his face if I came out of this

room right now and royally chewed him out. He thinks I'm a weak, sad little girl who

can't talk because she's so traumatized. I am and it's true, but I don't like him

thinking it.

What would Ryan think of what I've let myself become now? That thought is

sobering. He tried to teach me how to be brave, how to fight my fear and have

confidence in myself. And now he's dead. Because of me. The worst part is, I know

he'd do it again. He'd give his life for me again if he could. Ryan had his own

demons and fears, but for me he was brave. I wish I could be that for him.

But what am I doing now? I'm living like I died that day in the cabin alongside him.

Like his sacrifice for me means nothing. Like his love for me meant nothing. For

heaven's sake, I didn't even tell him I loved him. He died without knowing that.

That right there is enough to finally, finally send me over the edge. Ryan was so

deeply hurt and I think he believed that he was unlovable in his broken, scarred

body. I was never able to tell him that he was wrong, that he was worthy of love and

that I loved him. I love him. These people, these horrible, horrible people took that

away from me - from Ryan. I clench my teeth together to keep from screaming in

anger.

I can't let them get away with everything they've done. I won't. I know it's not

going to be easy. This is going to be a fight. A daily struggle, first with my own

overwhelming fear, then later with them. They tried to kill me before. They'll try

again. But I have to fight. I have to choose to fight, every day, every hour if that's

what it takes until I get justice. Or vengeance.

Vengeance belongs to Me, says the Lord, I hear in my mother's voice. I scoff. He can

have his vengeance. But I'm still getting mine.

I sit up and climb out of my sad little bed. I feel absolutely terrible. Everything hurts.

And I smell. I take a hot shower in the attached bathroom and then stare at my

reflection in the tarnishing mirror. An aurora of bruises is arrayed out across my skin

like an explosion of rainbow tattoos. I look like I've been hit by a truck.

My damp hair is a tangled, dripping mess. I try to comb through it with my fingers,

my frustration mounting. I open the drawers of the sink vanity, looking for any tools

that could help me, and pause when I find a sharp pair of scissors. I look up at

myself in the mirror, at my long dark hair I've refused to cut for so many years. The

hair of the girl who's too afraid to talk.

I am tired of being afraid. I am tired of being sad, and torn, and broken. I am tired

of being. But there is no way in hell I'm going to finish the job for them. I am going

to live. I am going to live to see the day that those awful men pay for their crimes.

I pick up the scissors and cut a long lock of hair. Then another. And another.