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“You’re doing just great,” she insisted. I felt anything but great. I felt weak and hurt and crumpled.
I looked even worse. It was seeing myself in the mirror for the first time that broke me. At first, I recoiled in shock. That couldn’t be me, the girl whose face was so swollen, the girl with ugly bruises all over her throat. The finger marks were a hideous tattoo, like a phantom hand.
After that, I just refused to look in the mirror at all. “All of this will get better. Bruises fade. Swelling goes down. None of the damage was permanent. This will only be a memory.” Only a memory… like that wasn’t worse.
“I need to lie down,” I whispered, keeping my eyes away from my reflection. She helped me back to bed, and I thanked her in a weak voice.
I wanted to forget what I’d gone through. I wanted to be in a place where my body no longer hurt. Instead, there was a soft knock on the door before it opened. I held my breath, hoping it was Dante, but it was Kaily.
“Hi, there,” she murmured. “I wanted to check on you. I heard it was time for you to get up and move around again.”
“She did just fine,” the nurse announced. I almost wanted to ask her to stop pretending that I was being heroic since I felt anything but. It wasn’t her fault though.
The women exchanged the kind of brief, tight smile people wore when they were uncomfortable but trying their best. The nurse decided it was best to leave us alone, but she promised she’d be back.
“Are you hungry?” Kaily asked, taking a few slow steps closer to the bed. “It was chaos this morning when Hazel’s water broke so I don’t think any of us ate much.”
I shook my head no as tears threatened once again. I hated this. The pity, the pain, everything. I wanted to go back to the girl I used to be. The girl who didn’t need anyone.
Before I knew what was happening, Kaily had me wrapped in a hug. That simple kindness broke the hold I had on my tears. “You’re going to be okay, I promise. Dante and I are going to make sure of it.”
“I’m so angry, so sad, and so scared all the time. I hate it. I hate it so much,” I sobbed.
“I know. So am I. Maybe we just need to let it out. I have an idea. Stay here,” she ordered as she ran out of the room. Leaving me confused.
Before long she returned with Dante who wore a bright smile. As he picked me up he said, “Hi, angel.”
“Hi. What’s going on?”
“You’ll see,” Kaily smirked as she followed us.
Dante carried me down the hall and out the back door. In the distance, I could see some kind of plain building. “Kaily told me that you both needed a release. Normally I’d recommend the punching bag but you’re not healed enough for that. Instead, Kaily had a better idea.”
“What?”
We entered the building before he had a chance to respond. It was well-lit with a wall of guns and weaponry and what looked to be bowling lanes or something. I was completely confused. “What is this place?”
“I’m going to teach you, ladies, to shoot. When I can’t be with you, amore, you’ll have a small pistol to keep near you to help you feel in control and safe.”
I blinked at him and slowly nodded my head as a smile formed.
“Do you think you can stand or would you prefer to sit?”
“Sit, please.” I smiled at Kaily as she brought over a chair and couldn’t hold back the giggle as she clapped her hands and bounced around.
Over the next hour, Dante taught us everything we needed to know about pistol safety. He taught us how to load it, how to unload it, and how to respect it for what it was. I was becoming quite tired but I wanted to try shooting. “Are you sure, angel? We can come back after you rest.”
“Please, Dante? I just want to shoot it once,” I begged.
He chuckled and relented as he picked up the pistol and showed me how to aim. Looking at the target, I saw the bastard’s face. Aiming for his face, I fired once, twice, three times. I was breathing hard as Dante took the gun from me. Laying it down, he scooped me into his arms and carried me out of the building.
“Kaily?”
“She’s fine, amore. Gio is taking over.”
I tightened my hold around his neck and buried my face in his chest. I was probably crying again like the stupid broken girl that I was. “Why didn’t you just let me go when I begged?” I asked softly, anguish pouring out of every word. I felt him tense at my words but he didn’t answer.
He didn’t take me back to my room. He took me to his room. He sat down on a big chair in the corner. Pulling away from me, he wiped my face. “The moment I saw you, even in that horrible situation, I knew that my heart belonged to you. Leo told me once that the Zima men seem to know the love of their life the moment we see them. That’s how it was for me. So as selfish as it was, I couldn’t live in a world where you weren’t alive. Everything in me pleaded for me to save you. That's why I couldn’t do it.”
