Her door is cracked. Not closed, not tonight.
She's asleep on her side, her blonde hair fanned across the pillow, the baseball bat propped against her nightstand within arm's reach.
Even in sleep, she's ready to fight. My girl.
I check Sadie Jo.
Her door is open. Her light is on.
She's curled in a ball under her blankets, and from the doorway I can see the bruises on her arm—darker now, almost black against her skin.
My jaw tightens and my hands clench.
Then I breathe. Because the men who did that are gone, and they're never coming back, and my daughter is sleeping in her own bed in her own house and she's safe.
She's safe because I made her safe, the only way I know how.
I go to my room.
Leah is in my bed. Asleep, but barely.
She's wearing my t-shirt. Her hair is spread across my pillow.
The bruise around her left eye is fully dark now, and her split lip has scabbed over.
Even beaten, even bruised, even in the darkness, she's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
I strip off my clothes. Not the jeans. Those need to be burned. I'll handle that tomorrow.
I take a quick shower to wash off any blood on my body and when I get out, I pull on sweats and a clean shirt and I slide into bed beside her.
She stirs. Those eyes—one clear, one swollen half-shut—open and find me in the dark.
"You're home," she says. Her voice is thick with sleep and pain and relief.
"I'm home."
"Is it?—"
"It's done. It's over."
She searches my face. Looking for what it cost me. Looking for the damage that doesn't leave bruises. The kind that lives inside, in the places no one can see.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
I think about the basement. About the knife. About the sound a man makes when he realizes he's dying and can't stop it. About the blood on my hands that I washed off at the rental property but can still feel, the way you feel a burn long after the heat is gone.
"No," I say. "But I will be."
She takes my hand, pulls it to her chest and holds it there, over her heartbeat, the way she held the coin on the nightstand the first night we were together.
"Then that's enough for right now," she says.
I close my eyes and pull her against me.
Feel her breathing. Slow, steady, alive.
Feel the warmth of her through the cotton of my shirt.
