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grunting sound that might have been a question, but I couldn’t understand the word.
    There was a torn piece of my shirt sleeve that was hanging on by a thread so I tore it all the way off and used it to try to wipe the blood off his face. Some of the blood was drying and I had no water, so I wasn’t really successful.
    “What...” This time, his grunt took the form of a comprehensible word.
    “Are you okay?” I asked. I knew I should care. I did care. He was a good man, and I wanted him to be all right. I just couldn’t make myself feel like I cared. I couldn’t make myself feel anything but numb.
    He was still out of it, his mind not really working. “Did they...” he began, clearly trying to focus on my face and make his brain function clearly. He was starting to shift, assessing his condition.
    “Yes.”
    That was all I had to say. I saw his expression change. If he’d said he was sorry or asked if they’d hurt me or told me I could get through it—if he’d said anything at all—I would have hated him.
    He didn’t say anything. He struggled to sit up, and it was obviously hard for him. I helped him mindlessly, mostly because it was a thing to be done.
    “How hurt are you?” I asked, still trying to wipe blood off his face, after he’d gotten to a sitting position against the wall.
    “I’m fine.”
    That was obviously a lie. “How hurt are you?”
    “Arm broken. A couple of ribs cracked. A concussion.” He spoke tersely, but he wasn’t angry. I’m not sure I would have minded if he was angry. I don’t think it would have broken through my numb stupor.
    I kept trying to wipe the blood away, frustrated when some of it was too dried to come off.
    “You don’t have to do that,” Gideon muttered, closing his eyes for a moment and breathing deeply.
    I didn’t stop.
    He reached up and gently lowered my wrist.
    I wanted to do it. It was a thing to be done. So I briefly fought his hand.
    There was no fight in me, though. I wasn’t sure if there would ever be again.
    I whimpered and hugged my arms to my belly. I kind of rocked there for a minute.
    Gideon sat in silence and watched me. I could tell he wanted to say something, to do something. At one point, he reached out to touch me, but he pulled his arm back even before I shrank away.
    Eventually, a kind of darkness closed in. A darkness I wanted, one that swallowed up everything that hurt. I didn’t really pass out but I lost the edges of consciousness and ended up slumped over Gideon’s lap. It didn’t feel like he was touching me, and it was a little softer than the hard floor. Even with his broken bones, he didn’t try to rearrange me.
    They found us like that a few hours later, when the FBI located the house and burst in to save us.
    Just a little too late.

Two
    T he days afterwards are just as fuzzy as those final hours in the row house.
    I was in the hospital for a while. I talked to the police and the FBI and counselors and psychiatrists and volunteers from women’s groups. I had pregnancy and STD tests, which all came back negative. For days it went on. And I could do all of it because I was still numb, because nothing had unfrozen inside me yet.
    This was me. Going through the motions. Pretending to be human.
    My dad has a sprawling estate outside the city, and I went there afterwards. My mom died a few years ago—I don’t think I’ve mentioned that yet—but my dad tried to be there for me now. He even took a week off work, something he’d never done in my entire life.
    He felt guilty, I’m sure, since what happened to me was because of him, but I couldn’t be angry with him. I couldn’t feel close to him or comforted by him either, but the part of my mind that could still make reasonable connections recognized that he was trying.
    The justice systems moved the way it normally does. Slowly and not very satisfactorily.
    They rounded up the entire Albanian gang, mostly thanks to Gideon’s work undercover. The Albanians aren’t