A couple of seats over, another woman rises to her feet. “Natalie Rosa from News Network Now. What’s the first thing you remember after being found?”
I glance down at Belle, then at AJ. This…wasn’t one of the questions we practiced. But…
“AJ’s arms around me. How safe he made me feel, even though I didn’t kn-know who he was.”
Murmured voices ripple through the room. The anxiety squeezing my chest tightens a notch. I’m so exposed up here. The shutters don’t stop clicking, and half a dozen red lights glow where video cameras are trained directly on me.
“Do you remember your family? Your friends?” a man shouts from a few rows back.
I swallow hard, my throat dry as sand. “N-no. Not yet. Moments, here and there, from years ago. But nothing more.”
Before I can even take a breath, another voice cuts in. “Where were you held? Were there others?”
The questions pile on top of one another.
“Was it a trafficking ring?”
“Why wasn’t there a ransom demand?”
“Can you describe your injuries?”
“How did you escape?”
“Do you think your captors are still out there?”
Flash bulbs erupt. Voices overlap until they turn into a crashing wave, threatening to pull me under. Belle whines, nosing my thigh and pawing at the floor.
AJ steps forward, one hand braced on the podium, the other curling around my waist. “One question at a time or this is over.”
Silence descends so quickly, it’s disorienting. Until a younger man in the back stands. “Captain Stone, Mrs. Stone. With respect, this is all a little too neat and tidy. She vanishes, no clues for almost three years, then magically reappears in the exact same spot? You honestly expect us to believe that?”
“It…it’s the truth,” I say, my voice cracking on the last word. “I don’t know how I got there. Or why…when…”
The questions hit harder and faster with every passing second.
“Were you drugged?”
“Why were you wearing a white dress?”
“Were you raped?”
My grip on Belle’s harness tightens until my fingers go numb. I can’t breathe?—
“Enough!” AJ snarls and pulls me flush to his side. His glare finds the man who called our story too neat and tidy. “My wife ain’t a fuckin’ piñata you can bash with a stick until all the answers fall out. You want to speculate? Write a novel.”
Nate takes a step forward. Then another. Slowly. Deliberately. If I hadn’t met him the other day, I’d cower under his icy stare. He leans in, close to the microphones. “Cool it with the conspiracy theories. If one of you vultures has the next Pulitzer in your notebook, get out and go publish the damn thing. Otherwise, settle down.”
“One more question,” AJ says, his voice measured, barely restrained control wrapped in a fragile shield that could snap at any moment. “Then we’re done here.”
Mercifully, Emi rises, her voice anchoring me as much as AJ’s strength, Belle’s harness in my hand, and Parker’s encouraging nod. “Grace, is there one thing you’d like the people watching today to know?”
AJ, Connor, and Parker fought about this question for an hour. Whether it was worth the risk. Whether the people who took me would hear it as a challenge. In the end, I told them I had to answer it if I wanted my life back.
Swallowing hard, I lean into AJ, then take a deep breath. My pulse steadies. I can do this.
“That I survived. That surviving matters. Even though I came back different. Even though I came back broken. It still matters. I matter.”
The room goes completely and utterly silent. And for the first time since the press conference began, I don’t feel like I’m about to shatter. I feel like I’m starting to put myself back together.
