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"Shh, angel, shh," he said into my temple. "It was self-defense."
I shook my head. "He was sleeping when I shot him. He'd already finished with me. I wasn't thinking. I shot him in the back. Don't you see what's going to happen? With all the trouble I've been in? All the fights? All the reports from times when I've lost my temper? The cops hated me when I was a victim. What do you think they're going to do now that I've killed one of them?"
"He was a rapist," Dante said dully, but I could tell that what I was saying was starting to sink in. "He deserved it."
"They won't think so. What do you think they're going to do to me now when I've killed one of them, and then I accuse him of being a rapist?"
"He was a rapist," Dante repeated, an absolute concentrate of hatred in the words. "I'm so sorry, angel." He was crying now. "So sorry. I didn't know. I didn't know this was happening. I had no idea. I've been looking for you for hours, but I was looking in the wrong place." He was breaking down now, sobbing, screaming, "I'd have killed him myself, I swear it."
It was funny how I only realized later that he never asked me if I was okay, and how that had comforted me. Because he knew me too well to ask such a stupid question.
Of course I wasn't okay. Of course I wasn't fine.
I'd been defiled, degraded, debased beyond all repair. I was covered in that monster's filth. Sticky with it.
I was wretched. Unhinged. Suicidal.
"I don't know what to do," I sobbed. "I don't want to go to jail."
"They can't put you in jail for this," he argued, but he sounded less and less convinced.
"I wasn't thinking right, Dante. My mind was just . . . gone. I shot him in the back. Emptied a full clip into him. Do you really think this is going to go my way?"
He was silent as his mind worked, and eventually I could see he came to the same conclusion as I had, but his next words floored me. "I'll say I did it. I'll say I caught him raping you and shot him in the back."
I started to struggle in his hold.
"No, no, no," I spat. "You think I'd let you go to jail for me? After you already killed someone for me, you think I'd do that? And with your record, do you think it could end any other way?"
"Don't be like that. I can take this hit. Gram will get me the best lawyer out there. It'll be fine."
I kept shaking my head. "No. Never. I'll confess myself before this ever goes on you. I fucking swear it. I won't let you take this on yourself."
He took a few deep breaths. He was thinking, I could tell, his mind racing, trying to figure out what to do.
"Does anyone know he brought you here?" he asked finally.
"I don't think so. People saw him take me out of school, but not to come here. He lured me into his car by saying he needed to talk to me at the station."
"He planned this," Dante said slowly, the pain in his voice excruciating to me. "He planned out a rape, and he's a cop. What are the odds he didn't cover his own tracks? What are the odds there is a soul on this earth that knows he was bringing you here?"
I studied him, feeling hope for the first time at what I saw. "What should we do?" I asked him.
He looked down at me, bent, and gave me a very careful kiss. "You don't have to do anything, angel. I'll take care of it. Do you think you can shower by yourself?"
It was pathetic, but I shook my head. I didn't think I could walk across the room by myself.
"Okay. That's just fine. I'll help you. We'll get this sorted out, I promise. No one's going to hurt you again. And no one is going to take your freedom. I swear it."
I believed him, had absolute faith in everything he'd said.
He showered with me. He was very tentative, after what I'd been through, to get naked in front of me, so he showered with his boxers still on.
I couldn't even wash myself. I made him do it. He was excruciatingly tender as he lathered me up, head to toe, rinsed me off, then did it again.
We both cried like babies, in great, heaving, helpless sobs, when he washed the blood off my thighs.
Only after he was done with his soft ministrations did I take the loofah from him and scrub myself raw.
