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I shift my body around the stall to find the room empty. No one is with us, so that means someone just left. Someone heard Jessa, and my mind shifts to the mole. If Maxwell’s plant overheard what she just said, then they’ll attempt to contact Maxwell and warn him. I’ll make my way to Logan to check the security feed later. This might be easier than I thought.
But I can’t leave Jessa just yet.
She shivers under the heat of the shower, and I realize she’s not cold; she’s showing the first stages of shock.
“I’ve got you, Jessa. It’s just me.” I rock her gently in place as I try to keep her here with me.
Whether she has her memories or not, she still saw most of the time she doesn’t remember.
Words fail her as she drops her head and begins to sob into my shirt. Her cries desperately drain out of her in chokes and panicked breaths.
Her anguish is beginning to flow into me, and I need to help her out before she sucks me in. “Talk to me, please. Tell me a thought. Any thought.”
“You saw it.” She won’t lift her head. Her shame weighs it down, and I take a quiet minute to process her words.
I saw it.
I saw a madman consumed by contempt. I saw rage personified. I saw a dead man hurt my treasure. But I also saw her strength, her kindness, and through it all, she never lost that light he spoke about.
Her light can’t be beaten out of her.
It is her.
“Yes, I did. I’m sorry, Jessa. He will pay for what he’s done. I can’t let this go. I will kill him.”
“But me. You saw me—” Her voice breaks into sobs, as though the thought is too much for her to say out loud, and I know what’s going through her mind.
“You think that makes you damaged?” I ask. Her cries increase as she buries her head in my chest. “You think you’re, what? Broken? Worthless, maybe?” My voice is low, and her failure to look me in the eye tells me I’m bang on.
Then, dropping my voice as low as I can manage to show the severity of my next question, I challenge her, “Do you think I won’t want you?”
In an instant, her body tenses in my arms. She knows I’m not messing around.
Good.
“I—” Her eyes finally make contact with mine as she searches for validation.
“Jessa. I never stopped wanting you. You gave yourself to me ten years ago, and you gave yourself to me again the other night. You aren’t disposable. You aren’t something I will let go of.”
“But I’m not property.” Her body stiffens again in my embrace, and I know in an instant I misread the room.
She isn’t looking for validation. She’s pushing away. She’s trying to build her walls up to protect herself.
Maxwell forced his claim on her seven years ago, and he tried to reinforce it when he made contact today.
Logan and I need her help, and if I’m honest with myself, if I didn’t have this connection with Jessa, I would be treating her like a commodity right now too.
But I don’t want to use her.
I want to strengthen her.
I want to protect her.
“Jessa, whether you admit it or not, you’re hurting. You just saw Maxwell rape and torture you. Even if you can’t connect it to your memories, you saw it. You know what he did to you. Everyone knows what he did to you.” Her face tilts back to mine, her eyes blinking rapidly as the water splashes near her head. “I know you feel bad inside. And you think this makes you look bad on the outside.” My words hit hard, and she coughs out a cry, but I won’t back down. She needs to feel this pain. “Being the object of his rage is not a reflection of you. All I saw was your strength. I saw you fighting to stay alive. He put you in a room with no witnesses, and he reduced himself to his basest form while you were bound and helpless. He should be ashamed. He should feel ugly and worthless, and just because he doesn’t have the morality in him to feel that, it doesn’t mean the responsibility falls to you.”
I pause to let my words sink in, and I need a little sign from her to show me where to go next. Thankfully, she offers me a path.
“It hurts, Jack. How could he?” She sucks in an unsteady breath as her hands grip my wet shirt. “And everyone saw it. Dana saw it, Jack. She knows. She’ll blame herself. I don’t know how to help her.” My heart swells knowing how genuine hers is.
