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39
IRINA
Another week passed.
I opened my eyes to Samara at my bedside in the place Scar usually occupied, his absence becoming more and more prevalent as the days wore on. With the initial shock of my injuries gone, he seemed to have retreated back to his old ways of avoiding me whenever possible.
It was better this way. I could understand that now, knowing just how damaged I’d become. His demons were too much for him to bear. Mine were too much for me.
“I think I slept for a week after Connor raped me,” Samara admitted, the soft words shoving away the rest of the sleepy, groggy haze that accompanied my medication. “But when that was over, the woman who took care of me through it told me it was time to wake up. That I had to start living again, even if I was sadder than I’d ever been.”
I stared back at her blankly, not wanting to point out the unfortunate reality. I didn’t want to start living again. I just wanted it all to stop.
“You can’t let him win. If you stop living, stop fighting, stop being you, then you’re giving him more than he’s already taken, Iri. I can’t even imagine what you went through. What he did to you—”
“Then stop talking like you understand,” I snapped, shocking myself with the venom in my voice. I didn’t think I could ever remember a time when I’d sounded so full of hate, so full of loathing, that I’d become exactly the thing I hated. “We are not the same. What I did, what he did, it wasn’t the same.”
“He was far more brutal with you than Connor could ever even dream of being. I know that. I’m just trying to help you,” Samara explained, her voice gentling as she stared back at the tears blurring my vision.
The rage. The anger. All of it kept building inside of me with every day, until I felt like I might explode into a ball of flames and burn the world down with me.
“Don’t. I don’t deserve your help,” I said, blinking back the burn of tears as Madison stepped into the room.
“I don’t understand,” Samara murmured, standing from Scar’s chair and moving to sit on the edge of the bed next to me. Madison took the empty space, plopping into it dramatically in the way that only a teenager could do in the face of all the tension in the room. “Why would you think that?”
“You were raped. Your husband held you down and forced himself on you while you fought,” I explained, barely registering the gasp Madison emitted from the chair. “I willingly plunged myself into the filth. He didn’t rape me. I said yes.”
Madison burst from her chair, lunging for the bed and taking my hand in hers. Adamant to defend the choice I’d made, she stared at Samara where she watched me in shock.
In the end, it had been my choice. I could have sat there and let them take a girl I didn’t know and felt none of the physical consequences.
I hadn’t, and I would do it all over again to keep Madison’s blue eyes clear of trauma. For her to have her entire life ahead of her.
“You did not say yes,” Madison protested, turning her attention to me. She leaned forward, touching her face to the top of my head. “You saved me. There’s a difference.”
“What is she talking about, Iri?” Samara asked, squeezing my hand in hers.
I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t find the right words. Saying it out loud made it sound brave, hinted at a strength I didn’t possess.
“Darragh—the man who took her? He saw Irina was protective of me. He was going to...he was going to rape me to hurt her. He said his boss said Irina couldn’t be raped yet. But she got in the way. She fought to protect me. Darragh beat her. He broke her so that she couldn’t stand. But she did,” Madison said, her voice trailing off as tears wet the top of my head and her throat tightened around the words. “And when he tried to take me out of there while she was on the floor bleeding, she said to take her instead. She volunteered, so long as I stayed untouched. If it weren’t for her, it would be me on that bed.”
“Irina,” Samara whispered, shifting to lie beside me. Her head came down on the shoulder of my good arm, resting in the nook there as her tears stained the fabric of my shirt. “That was rape. Regardless of whether you volunteered or not, consent cannot be given if you only want to save another person from rape. What he did to you was worse in some ways, I think, blurring the lines in your mind like that. You were raped; you didn’t say yes in any way that mattered.”
I sniffled, turning my head away from her and trying to shut out the words. It was easier to blame myself. Easier to hate myself than to hate a dead man.
“Above all else, what you did is beautiful, Iri,” Samara said, her voice shaking. “I don’t know if I would be strong enough to make that sacrifice for a girl I didn’t know. I don’t know many women who are strong enough to do what you did.”
“I’m not strong,” I said, shoving aside the false compliment.
“You are,” Samara insisted. “You’re strong enough to overcome this.”
“What if I don’t want to be strong anymore? What do I do then?” I asked, turning to look at Samara’s kind, sad eyes.
“Then you lean on the people who love you. For once, let us be strong for you, sweetheart,” she said, tucking herself tighter into my body. Madison shifted to the other side, spooning against me carefully so she didn’t hurt my arm.
And they held me, reminding me how much I’d missed affection. How much I’d missed being touched just for the sake of feeling loved.
When was the last time someone had just held me, without the eventual aim of trying to seduce me or wanting something from me?
I couldn’t remember.
The nanny?
My mother and the fake affection she showed in carefully-chosen moments?
What a sad, loveless life I lived, when a hug from two women was the greatest love I’d ever known.
* * *
Lifeless eyes stared back at me. A puddle of blood surrounded Bryan’s desecrated corpse that didn’t belong. The women around me crowded closer to one another to escape the stench and the pool of fluid that never seemed to stop spreading.
Madison’s voice murmured in my ear, a soft and melancholy noise that seemed distant. My body throbbed, the area between my legs numbed entirely, following the trauma of his knife handle inside me.
I could only look at my death as a blessing, knowing that his torment would finish the job and keep him from making good on his promise. Male hands wrapped around my arms, lifting me off my back.
I screamed, the sound clawing up my bruised throat and sounding like a wounded animal. I sank my broken nails into skin, staring into the shadowed face of Darragh as he lifted me from the comfort of Madison’s arms. My body acted on its own, striking out with violence in an attempt to delay the inevitable. Just a little longer.
I needed more time to die.
A hand sank between my thighs, stroking through blood to press against my flesh.
“Wake up, Butterfly,” a male voice said. Something was wrong with that name, a bastardization of something that I’d thought was sweet. The words coming from Darragh were just inherently wrong. “Come on, Irina. Wake up for me, cuore mio.”
A gentle hand touched the side of my face, my nails feeling wet with the flow of blood beneath them. That phantom hand between my legs faded away as I drew in ragged breaths. Forcing my eyes open, I stared into the dark wells of Scar’s obsidian eyes staring down at me intently. His face was tense with worry, his forehead creased as he leaned down and touched it to mine. “I swear to fucking God, I’m going to bring you his head on a spike.”
I swallowed, thinking of the desecrated corpse in what must have been another nightmare, the first since the new medicine Dr. Lawrence had brought. I bit my lip to stop the tears burning my throat. I just wanted to sleep.
I just wanted to rest in peace.
I relaxed my hands, staring down at the bloody half-moons where my fingers had gripped Scar’s arms. Scratches covered his cheeks when I forced my stare back to his face, blood drawn in a few spots where I must have tried to maul him in my sleep.
I pulled my hands away from him, wiping at the blood on my fingers and under my nails furiously. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I mumbled, repeating the phrase over and over, as if it could undo the damage I’d done.
Scar couldn’t stand to be touched in affection. Couldn’t tolerate my touch when it was meant to seduce him.
I’d hurt him.
“It’s okay,” he said, taking my hands in his and stilling me. “I’m okay,” he repeated, touching his lips to my forehead.
Everything inside me withered. My heart shriveled up on itself and wilted and died. I’d never wanted to hurt anyone, and lately all I was capable of causing was pain.
I’d never sleep again.
Scar curled his body around mine, shifted me on the bed until my head rested on his chest, and wrapped his arms around me. He hummed something soft, working to settle the trembling in my limbs in the wake of what I’d done.
I let him, melting into the embrace.
For that one isolated moment, he was mine.
