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She’s been up there for too long.
Rechecking my watch, I notice Ana come from the kitchen and stand at the bottom of the staircase, her gaze travelling from the hallway where she led Abilene and back to where Levan, Val, and I sit in the den.
“Something’s wrong,” I mutter. I can see it in the way Ana hesitantly begins walking up the stairs.
Val leans forward, and Levan gets to his feet, making a move to follow, only to stop and turn back to the fireplace. “Are you sure what you found is true, Val?” Levan’s question is cold and filled with calculation. My friend has demons coursing through his veins every minute of the day. The only thing that seems to calm him is spilling blood.
“Positive,” Valerian growls. Of the three of us, he’s the most levelheaded one. He wouldn’t have gotten the information wrong.
“I’m going up there.” Running up the stairs, I race past Ana as she opens the door to the room we plan to share with a woman one day. “Abi!” I call before entering the bathroom so she’s not startled. “Abilene?” My voice is softer this time. I stop dead when I capture her white-knuckled grip on the tub, her entire body submerged in the water.
Panic nearly seizes my lungs as I rush forward. Gripping her arms, I drag her out and into my arms. Her breathing is shallow, and as her eyes open, I see what I feared.
Hopelessness.
She’s knocking on death’s door and ready for the reaper to take her away. Heavy footsteps can be heard as Ana brings a towel over. Levan and Valerian stop just a few feet away, taking in the scene before them, their eyes roaming across the naked woman in my arms.
“What happened?” Val is the first to ask.
“She tried to drown herself,” Levan states before I can. Accepting the towel from Ana, Levan wraps it around Abilene’s back. Her head rolls to the side and rests on my shoulder. “What the fuck were you thinking?” he hisses at her, pressing his head into the back of hers.
Valerian has been watching with a critical eye, so when he steps in to steal her from my arms, no one is more shocked than me. “We’ll take care of her, Ana.” It’s not missed by anyone that our housekeeper chose this room to put her in. If anything, it’s a statement of what she has always believed. This is where Abilene belongs.
“You’d better,” she mumbles as she leaves, closing the bedroom door behind her.
“What now?” I ask as Val lays Abi in the middle of the bed, removing the towel from her body and exposing a horrific truth. “Jesus Christ,” I growl, glancing over at Levan, who appears just as shocked.
“I didn’t imagine it was this bad,” he seethes.
“What the fuck are they doing to her?” Val brushes a hand across her thigh, tracing a lengthy jagged scar, then looking to Levan. We had an idea that things were bad at home. She’s been coming to his confession for a few months, and when Levan first told us about it, there wasn’t an opportunity to get her out.
“We should have fucking made time to find out,” I say, regret weighing on me.
The loss of Yelena was a devasting blow to us all. She was a light in our dark world, who brought Abilene with her. The two of them were inseparable for years. So when we lost Yelena, we also lost Abilene. Partly because we never invited her back afterwards, but also because we knew it was too hard for her to come back. We hadn’t realized the reason she was here so often was because of what was happening at home.
Removing his shoes, I watch as Val climbs into the bed with her, cradling her body and moving her into him before pulling the covers up and over her. “We need to do something,” I say quietly. We can’t allow this to stand.
Kneeling on the bed, Levan bends over and lifts her chin. “What were you thinking, Abilene?” In his voice, I hear the torture, the torment of losing another innocent under our care.
She draws in a few heartier breaths and coughs a little before responding, “If I’m not alive, they can’t hurt me. The pain would stop.” Her reasoning is sound, her mind clear. Abilene wants a life free of suffering.
“If you remain here under our protection, the pain will stop as well,” Levan argues.
A frown appears on her face, and I watch as she sifts through his words, searching for proof that he’s manipulating her into doing what he wants rather than being the face-value offer that it is. “Why would you want me here?”
Standing at the end of the bed, I speak. “Because a gem as precious as you deserves to be worshipped.” I see she still doesn’t understand. Perhaps Ana is wrong in her assumption that Abilene is the woman for us.
Maybe she needs more time. Maybe we all do.
“Worshipped.” Abi repeats the word, and her eyes soften as she glances at me when Levan releases her chin. “You don’t want a tainted girl like me. I’m filthy, disgusting. So dirty.” Her words have the desired impact because each of us recoils with every word she spouts. Not because we believe them but because she does.
Val rolls over to rest on top of her. “Did you ever think we might like dirty, disgusting things?” A slick grin spreads his lips across his face, and she stares up at him, shocked. “Rest. We’ll come get you in a while.”
Leaving Abilene alone is one of the hardest things I’ve done. I want to lie in bed with her, lose my body inside hers, whisper sweet words of praise in her ear as she cries out my name.
But today has proven she’s not ready.
Waiting will be torture.
