I feel my body being moved from place to place and my feet complying with whoever has taken the lead.
I finally register where I am when there’s a light squeeze around my hand. Blinking, I look down. Rory’s thumb is tracing patterns on the back of my hand. My eyes take in my surroundings. I’m in the SUV with Hunter, Rory, and Luke. We’ve left the prison.
I’m here. I’m okay. I’m not a teenager anymore.
John Bartlett will never touch me again.
My chest suddenly feels lighter, and the faintest smile graces my mouth as I look around at my three men.
Breaking the silence, I say, “Well. That was…interesting.”
Nothing.
I try again. “I guess one good thing that came of this is that we know my stalker and copycat are the same. Now we only have to look for one person instead of two.”
Crickets.
My lungs fill with a deep breath, and my tone softens. “Thank you for coming with me. I really appreciate it. I couldn’t have done that without the three of you by my side.”
Speaking to me, Luke turns in the passenger seat. “What exam was John talking about?”
“Oh. That. Umm…” I want to tell them, but finding the words is more difficult than I would like.
Rory tucks my hair behind my ear. My eyes flick up and connect with Hunter’s through the rearview mirror.
“Please don’t make us dig,” Luke pleads.
“I won’t. It’s just…” Pushing the air from my lungs, I waffle back and forth in my mind.
Rory angles his body toward me. “What?”
Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I rub the side of my neck. “Promise you won’t see me differently.”
Luke squints, confused by my request. “Why would we?”
Exhaling, my eyes fall to my lap, and I say out loud something I’ve told myself many times. “I’m more than the trauma I’ve endured in my life.”
Rory uses a finger to guide my face toward him. “We know that.”
A brief moment of fear claws at my lungs. “There’s a difference between knowing and feeling. When you feel the truth, your actions reflect that.”
“Trust us.” Hunter’s words strike me like a command sprinkled with tenderness.
Facing forward, I stare out the windshield at the road as I explain. “When I became a woman, there was something else that John would do.” Clearing my throat, I expound. “My period wasn’t regular. Turns out, stress can mess with a woman’s cycle, and at the time, I was very stressed.”
“That’s common sense,” Luke interjects.
I nod. “When my period didn’t come on time, John would perform…vaginal exams to make sure my hymen was still intact.”
The silence in the car lasts for less than a millisecond.
Rory explodes. “He would what?”
Luke turns toward the front and hits the dashboard. “I’ll fucking kill him.”
“Get in line,” Hunter says to Luke.
Rory stares at the back of the passenger seat in front of him. His eyes move back and forth like he’s trying to decipher a code. “What kind of father does that to his own daughter?”
