“It’s the only way.”
Her chin trembles. “I don’t like heights.” A tear streaks down her cheek, and the wind catches it, drying it on her skin.
Aw, hell. Reaching out, I pull her to me and crush her face to my chest. “We won’t let you fall, Princess, I swear it.”
We go down the ladder one at a time: the women first, the boy between two operators who could be statues. I descend with Phoenix one swaying rung above me and my arms bracketing her hips. Storm is in front like a bookend you can’t tip.
On the water, everything gets sharper. The cold in the face helps. Phoenix sits on a bench, blanket around her shoulders, her hand clutched in that of one of the girls that came down the ladder after her. She stares at the horizon, gaze distant.
“Coast Guard?” the pilot asks.
“After we’re gone,” I say. “Anonymous. Here are the coordinates and the headcount and then nothing else.”
He nods. He’s done this before.
I keep my hand on the rail and my eyes on her and my mouth clamped tightly shut because if I speak right now I will say the wrong version ofthis willnever happen again.
Phoenix fallsasleep in the car, succumbing to exhaustion and the awareness, on some level, that she can finally let her guard down. Tybee is quiet when we carry her in, the only sounds around us the hum of insects and dawn birds and the gentle lap of the ocean in the distance.
The room we fixed for her smells like vanilla and cedar and Zeus, released now from the vet. He gives an excited wag of his tail but seems aware that he shouldn’t jump when we lay her on the bed.
Maverick puts a bottle of water on the nightstand and unscrews the cap a quarter-turn so she won’t have to fight it. Atticus dims the lamp by an inch, not more, so she won’t awaken to a dark room. Storm stands at the door and watches the rise and fall of her chest.
Counting her breaths?
Sometime later the doctor arrives—a woman with steady hands and the right eyes. She looks around the room, at all of us, standing around the bed and leaning against the walls and sitting in the chair…
“Do you…” She glances at Phoenix, who stirs awake enough to offer us sleepy smiles and pull herself up to sit against the headboard. “I need to examine you, ask you a few questions, Phoenix. Would you like these gentlemen to leave us for a few minutes?”
The question is gentle enough that it doesn’t annoy me as much as it would under normal circumstances.
Especially as Phoenix shakes her head firmly. “No. It’s okay. They can stay.”
We all release a collective sigh of relief.
She checks Phoenix for the things that break and the things you can’t see. She speaks in plain language and offers painkillers, but doesn’t insist. Phoenix takes some but not all. She drinks two sips of water, makes a face, and takes the painkillers.
When the doctor asks if she wants a full exam now, Phoenix says not yet and the doctor saysokayso simply I could cry.
The SANE nurse enters, leaves a kit sealed on the dresser with a sticky note: that readswhen/if.Phoenix looks over, then up at the doctor. “I wasn’t raped.”
Her gaze flashes to each of us. “I didn’t let him touch me. Danner, I mean. I fought him so hard.”
The breath that soughs out of me is damn near a sob. I hear it echoed in Maverick. Storm releases his knife with a thud into the doorframe, prompting a startled, “well,” from the doctor.
“It’s okay,” Phoenix murmurs. “That’s just his thing.”
Atticus utters a small, broken, “Good girl.”
At some point the room gets smaller and the air gets thicker and the men who are my brothers feel like men who take up too much space. I clear them with a look. Storm takes first hall watch. Atticus goes to the den to set the trap for whoever let this happen. Maverick goes to the kitchen to make toast he won’t eat.
I sit on the edge of the bed and reach, but then remember—don’t touch without asking. “Can I hold you?” I say, and I hate that my voice shakes.
She nods and scoots, and I slide behind her, back against the headboard, wrap her in the blanket and my arms. She fits under my chin like every part of the past was mere prologue for this moment. Her breathing hiccups, steadies, and stumbles again. I match it until it stops needing me.
She drops into sleep like a body finally allowed to.
Sleep isn’t peace, though. It’s just a storm with the lightning moved inside the clouds. Twice she whimpers and twitches like she’s running.
