"I know that too." He helped me stand, wrapped me in towels that smelled like fabric softener and normal life. "And that's what makes you extraordinary. Not the violence—anyone can be violent. But to walk through hell by choice, to save others? That takes a kind of courage most people never find."
"I don't feel courageous. I feel like I need to scrub my skin raw."
"Human response to brutality." He led me to the bedroom, found soft clothes that drowned me in comfort. "You think soldiers don't feel the same after combat? Think cops don't shower until their skin burns after justified shootings?"
"Do you? After tonight?"
"Every time." He pulled back the covers, creating a nest of safety. "Every life taken, justified or not, leaves a mark. We carry them because someone has to. Because the alternative—letting evil flourish unopposed—is worse."
I crawled into bed, exhaustion making my limbs heavy. "The boss, the one I cut. He had a wedding ring."
"Lots of monsters have families." Nathan slid in beside me, gathering me close. "Doesn't make them less monstrous. Just means evil can wear a human face."
"Gabriel had a mother once. I found pictures in his study. She looked kind."
"Maybe she was. Maybe she wasn't. Either way, it doesn't excuse what he became." His lips pressed to my hair. "You're not responsible for the complexity of evil, Bunny. Just for how you choose to face it."
"With ceramic blades and arterial spray, apparently."
"With courage and choice." His arms tightened around me. "Those women are free because you chose to act. That matters more than the mess required to free them."
"One of them might have nightmares about the naked woman covered in blood who burned a collar off her neck."
"And she'll have those nightmares in a safe bed, planning a future that exists because of that same woman." He shifted, finding a more comfortable position. "Heroes aren't always pretty, Bunny. Sometimes they're bloody and broken and doing what has to be done because no one else can."
"I'm not a hero."
"No. You're better. You're a survivor who chose to make survival possible for others." His breathing deepened, exhaustion claiming him too. "That's the most heroic thing I know."
I lay awake long after he fell asleep, cataloging sensations. Clean sheets against scrubbed skin. Nathan's heartbeat under my palm. The absence of screams, chains, the copper tang of blood. Somewhere in the city, seventeen women were experiencing their own catalog of freedoms. Small things—choosing when to eat, when to sleep, when to speak.
I'd given them that. With a blade and taser and the terrible gifts Gabriel had forced on me, I'd given them choice.
The math might be more complex than Nathan suggested. Lives saved versus lives taken, trauma inflicted versus trauma prevented. But lying there in the dark, clean and held and momentarily free from the weight of violence, I thought maybe the equations didn't matter.
What mattered was choice. The guard chose to traffic humans. The boss chose to profit from suffering. I chose to stop them, using every tool at my disposal, even the ones forged in my own captivity.
Tomorrow there would be paperwork, questions, probably therapy to process what I'd done. Tomorrow I'd have to reconcile the girl who'd submitted perfectly with the woman who'd severed an artery with surgical precision.
But tonight, I was just Bunny. Scarred but not broken. Violent when necessary. Free to choose my cages and the keys that opened them.
The distinction mattered.
The distinction was everything.
Seventeen women were free tonight.
The blood under my nails was worth that.
15
Questions
The interview room smelled like industrial disinfectant and fear-sweat that no amount of cleaning could erase. I sat across from Katya, the third woman I'd spoken to today, watching her pick at the bandages where the collar had burned her neck. I'd done that to her, fried electronics into her skin to free her from worse.
"Can you tell me how they found you?" I kept my voice soft, professional. Nathan had coached me on interview techniques, but nothing prepared you for pulling testimonies from people whose trust had been systematically destroyed.
Katya's English was halting, mixed with Ukrainian when emotion overwhelmed grammar. "Was... dating site. He seem nice. Businessman. Said he travel for work, wanted company."
