I bit back my tears. I hadn’t had a nightmare in years. I was supposed to be free of this. I wasn’t that girl anymore, trapped in those memories, that hurt. “I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?” I mumbled.
“It’s okay.” Dean released my wrists, and I softened in his arms. A tangle of emotions consumed me—comfort at his presence, awkwardness for the night before.
Oh my God, the night before.
I pulled away, but Dean caught me. He surrounded my body with his.
“Hey, hey...breathe.”
For an eternity we lay there, me contending with the web of my thoughts.
“Why won’t you talk to me?” He urged me with a caress of my shoulder. “This thing we’re doing...it won’t work if we’re not both open and honest.”
In nine years, I’d told a couple of men pieces of my experience with Charlie, and the one time I’d shared the whole thing, the relationship had gone sour. I hated treading over that ground, exposing my past, that version of me I never wanted to be again. And I hadn’t really needed to because I’d never been in such extreme situations—situations that happened to bring all those feelings back in a vicious onslaught, though they had nothing to do with one another.
Nothing.
“Maya?”
I kissed him to erase the memory, to return to the present. I closed my eyes, losing myself in the kiss and swallowing his tongue. I rocked my hips. Dean’s cock was thick against my sex, and he moaned in my roll on top of him.
“I needed you. I need you now.” I straddled his hips, his length throbbing as I guided him in. Dean’s lips parted. He didn’t protest when I pushed his hands over his head and slowly began to ride him. I kept him pinned, needing to feel safe, to know I was in control, that I wasn’t spiraling off into some crazy place I couldn’t keep a lid on, and that he was there, with me. I ground against him, loving the feel of him while I lifted myself and then buried him inside.
“Maya...fuck,” Dean growled. His breath came as frenzied as mine, his hands loose in my grasp. When I sped up, he grabbed my wrists and rolled me onto my back, keeping himself ensconced. He smothered my lips in kisses and took deep, heavy thrusts, his movements so ferocious I shifted on the bed with every stroke.
He drove into me, fucking my unease away. I didn’t need to be afraid anymore. I didn’t need to worry, or to feel trapped in a memory that had reared its ugly head out of nowhere. I just needed to know he was there, not sending me off with strangers or treating me like something to be discarded and offered up to be used...
Somewhere in the distance came the blare of a phone. My phone. Why had I left it on? “Ignore it,” I said, my body lifting with the thrusts of his cock, my senses elevating, my release imminent. I needed this, needed him. The ring sounded again. I’d tucked the phone in the jacket pocket of my coat at the club, and I hadn’t noticed I’d left it on.
Dean’s motion ceased, and I bucked up, pouting for more. He wouldn’t move. “Your phone’s been ringing all morning,” he said, breathless. “You slept through it. I didn’t want to wake you, but it’s obviously important.”
Who would call me this early on a Sunday? I arched, wanting him deeper. He could make me forget whatever worry I’d had, but the phone rang again. “Oh, come on,” I said.
Dean pulled away with a grunt. I grabbed my coat, my body rabid with irritation. I vibrated with the need to come, to escape.
To forget.
I plucked my phone from my jacket pocket and unlocked the screen.
One missed call from Women Organized for Change. Four missed calls from Maddie Ledds. One text. My shoulders tensed and I gritted my teeth. This couldn’t be good.
I opened the text.
Carrie Pents at St. Rose Hospital. I’m here. Come ASAP.
“Shit.” My stomach dropped. We were scheduled to meet tomorrow. Had she and J been fighting all week? Was that why I hadn’t seen her and she’d been evasive on the phone?
I turned to Dean, my entire body shaking, my mind riddled with torment. I wasn’t supposed to let my client get to me. Not like this. Not now. Not with everything else.
“My client... I’ve got to go. It’s an emergency.”
Dean sat up, beautiful and calm, his cock half erect and resting against his hip. I felt split in a million directions, visions of last night, of this morning, of Charlie, of poor Carrie whirling inside.
“Are you okay?”
I grimaced. I wasn’t. And Carrie wasn’t, either. “Can you drive me to my car?”
“Yes. I’ll go with you.”
“You can’t. It’s work.”
“Talk to me,” he said, grabbing my shoulders.
I flinched, the move kicking up images of the man last night nudging me to the floor, and of Charlie shoving me around.
But this is Dean.
I gulped back the surge of emotion threatening to take over my head. “Just take me to my car, please.”
Dean’s face was pale, his mouth twisted, but he didn’t push.
He dressed beside me in silence.
* * *
St. Rose Hospital of Hayward was approximately thirty minutes from my house with no traffic, which was light on a Sunday morning. I’d had to stop home after leaving the city to clean up and change, attempting to erase the memory of a night I still didn’t understand. I rushed through all of it, dizzy and worrying about Carrie. Residual memories of my dreams lingered, as did the concerned look on Dean’s face.
I couldn’t get a handle on my thoughts. None of this was related, and yet somehow, in the heat of the moment at the club, in the magnitude of the feeling that had swept me up when the stranger had gotten pushy and Dean had been nowhere to be found, I’d been brought back into a headspace I’d never wanted to know again. As I drove, I clutched my steering wheel, my knuckles whitening. My experiences with Dean were supposed to be fun. Explorations together...but I’d been shoved out on my own with the man, and that was what had brought back the feelings I’d had long ago, emotions I should have been honest about earlier, now blowing up in my face. Logically, all of it was unconnected. Dean’s delay hadn’t been intentional.
But it had left me too open, too unsafe.
Now there was Carrie. Her relationship with J was one more abusive relationship that shouldn’t have triggered me, but the similarities between my old life and her situation were impossible to ignore. Her openness, her awareness—all of it gave me hope for her success but terrified me at the same time. That was all I could think of: Carrie hurt and in the hospital. I tried to calm down, to summon the professional demeanor I needed to hold in place for her.
I had to pull it together.
Maddie had given me the room number when I’d phoned on my drive, so after checking in with the front desk, I found her. She stood outside the window to the room, her arms folded over her chest while she gazed in. I came up beside her and she embraced me.
“Are you okay?” Creases of worry surrounded her eyes.
“Sure. How is she?”
Maddie frowned. “You look terrible for having had a date with Mr. Super Sexy. I hope everything’s okay.” She turned back to the window. “She’s pretty busted up. She listed you as her emergency contact, which is why we heard so quickly.”
Carrie had no family with her parents gone. The WOFC call center had probably called Maddie since everyone on staff knew we were friends.
A rush of sorrow hit me bone-deep as I peered through the window at Carrie. Her face was swollen and bruised, a painful black eye raising the flesh beneath her left eyebrow and cheekbone. She appeared half asleep and hugged the temporary cast that ran up to her elbow with her uninjured hand. An IV led out of her knuckles and over her wrist. From here I could see the marks she’d had before—rope marks embedded in her skin.
I flinched. The memory of
my dream flashed through my head.
Not the same. Not the same, not the same...
“Maya.” Maddie took my hand. “I know this case is difficult for you because it’s too familiar. If you want, I can do the assessment. She’s been asking for you, but I can do it.”
I gulped. “I’m okay. I’ll be okay. It’s my job.”
“I know, but I’m your friend. Sometimes, as noble as our intentions, the personal stuff gets in the way.”
“I’m all right. Thank you.”
Maddie checked her watch. “It’s still visiting hours so you can go in. I brought you forms, just in case.” She reached for her purse, but I’d had some in my car. I dug in my bag and took out my clipboard with the assessment papers attached. Maddie said, “She’s on painkillers. She might be loopy.”
“Okay. Thanks, Maddie.”
She watched me closely. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
The answer was so complicated. I gave her a half smile to keep her from worrying. “Yeah. I’m fine,” I lied.
“All right. Call me later if you need me.”
She gave me another hug and headed down the hall, leaving me to talk with Carrie. I flagged down a nurse and asked if I could enter, and once I got the go-ahead, I went inside.
When I opened the door, Carrie twisted her head on the pillow toward me. She was a petite young woman, but she appeared even tinier against the white sheets with the swelling of her cheeks and forehead. My stomach knotted for her.
“Hey, Carrie.” I settled into the chair beside the bed, and she reached out her uninjured arm for my hand.
“Hi, Maya.” Her voice was raspy. “I’m glad to see you.”
I shuffled my clipboard in my lap, trying to hide my worry for her. “I didn’t know you had me listed for your emergency contact.”
“Who else would there be?” She followed it with a quiet laugh that broke into a cough. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m glad you wanted it to be me. I care. I’m here to help keep you safe and healthy.” I squeezed her hand. “You know I need to ask you a bunch of questions though?”
“I know.” She gazed at me through the puffy blue skin around her eye, and my heart wrenched in my chest.
“As usual, everything you tell me is confidential. I need to make sure you’re safe and take note of your injuries and anything that happened. Okay?”
“Yes.” She released my hand and curled her fingers around her cast. “It’s pretty bad this time.”
“It doesn’t look great, it’s true.” I frowned and took out my pen, trying not to let her see my reaction. “Where is J now?”
“I don’t know. He left after this happened. I went next door, and my neighbor brought me in.”
“I see. Would it be okay for me to contact her later with questions?”
Carrie nodded.
“Where is she?”
“She had to get back to her kids.” Carrie wet her lips.
“I’ll get her info from you before I leave.” I scribbled down a few notes, then met her eyes. “Are you worried J might come here?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll make sure security is aware, okay?”
“Thank you.”
“Are you comfortable telling me what happened?”
“Yes.” She took several breaths before she began and hugged herself with her uncast arm. I tried to stay focused on her words rather than the big bed surrounding her small frame. Charlie hadn’t ever broken my limbs, but he’d broken one of my ribs and had bruised me up over the three years we’d been together.
I blinked away the thought, waiting for her to begin.
“It was about the job.” She’d told me she did end up getting a summer job alongside her courses at one of our follow-ups in June, and at the time, it had been going well. She enjoyed the freedom working at a clothing boutique and forming friendships with two other girls her age. “I didn’t give him my last check. He asked for it, but I refused.”
I waited.
“I didn’t think he was mad at first. He acted like it was okay. He even told me to go ahead and start a bank account, and I did,” she said, a hint of loss in her eyes as she swallowed. “But he got home from work last night and asked for my check again. I didn’t have it because I put it in the bank.”
“Okay. What happened next?” I made note of her story while she talked, and recorded details of her injuries. I spied her wrist, confirming the appearance of rope marks and trying to ignore the chill that raced through me.
“He pretended like he wanted to make love. Sometimes, things are better that way and he doesn’t get mad.” I kept my expression calm. She thumbed the skin above her cast, her eyes distant. “But it turned out he wanted to be rougher this time.”
“Can you explain?”
“Well, sometimes, we...” She stopped, her face a mask of discomfort over the bruising she already had. “We play. This is awkward, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to share if you don’t want to, Carrie.”
“I do. It’s...it’s hard to say. Sometimes we do stuff with rope and it’s fun.” She frowned. “This time he went too far.”
My blood rushed through my ears. I had to stay calm and professional. This was so difficult.
“He tied me up and we had...you know.”
I made a note. “Is this what the mark is on your wrist?”
“Yes. Normally it’s not a big deal. Please don’t think it’s weird.”
I couldn’t share my own experiences, instead quietly absorbing the connection. “I don’t, don’t worry. Your report is confidential, and I’m not here to judge. I’m here to help keep you safe. I’m just documenting.”
Carrie continued. “Usually he unties me right away, but he didn’t.” Her eyes began to water and she wiped them.
I couldn’t find a tissue, so I reached out and took her free hand in mine. “It’s okay,” I soothed. It absolutely isn’t okay. This is not fucking okay.
“He brought up the check, and I asked him to untie me. He got angry, yelling and cussing.” Tears streamed from her eyes, and I ached to hold her. “He started hitting me while I was tied.”
Oh, God.
“I’m sorry, Carrie.”
“It was awful.”
My fingers froze. With all my past problems, my sordid connections between the domination and the angry words, Charlie hadn’t linked them together. Not like this.
This poor girl.
“I think my arm broke from him hitting me, or maybe because I was fighting him... He hit me so many times.” Carrie’s lip quivered and she bit down on it. “After he untied me, he left. I called the neighbor and she brought me in.”
“You don’t deserve this. There is no excuse for this.”
“I know. It’s never been this bad.” She clenched her eyes shut, sobbing and swiping at her cheeks.
I put down my clipboard and took her hand in both of mine. I couldn’t push, I could merely support her choices and provide her with all the resources I could. Sitting there, though, listening to her cry and seeing her pretty, ruined face, I hoped she’d leave. Dear God did I hope this would be the final straw for her.
Neither of us spoke while she calmed herself down. I hoped that somehow, I could will her out of more years in the same situation I’d once lived in.
“Maya?”
I met her eyes.
“You have to take pictures, yeah?”
“If that’s okay with you, yes. For our records, and in case you decide to press charges or file a restraining order.”
“It’s fine.”
“Should we do that now? I have my camera in my bag if you’d like to get it out of the way.”
“Yes, please.”
I snapped several pictures over the next few minutes, carefully leaning her forward when she mentioned the marks on her sides. Carrie wasn’t shy; she helped to ease back her gown for me to take pictures of her bruised ribs and the splotchy red handprints that ran down her waist. I reassured her through the process, telling her I could give her information on shelters or we could talk about strategies if she chose to stay in the environment. She stayed quiet as I spoke and took the last pictures of her cast and face.
“I think we’re all done,” I said.
Carrie grabbed my hand. “I am, too.”
I hesitated, knowing how delicately I had to inquire. “Do you want to leave the house?”
Carrie bobbed her head. “This is totally fucked up—sorry for my French.” Even broken as she looked, she flashed a hint of the bubbly smile I’d grown familiar with in our sessions.
I smiled back. “It’s not a problem. You speak all the French you want.” I sat down in my seat. “I know of a few shelters you can go to, and I have other information on how to leave if that’s what you’d like to hear about, Carrie. I support whatever you decide, stay or go.”
She smoothed the sheets across her legs. “Tell me about them, please. I’m ready.”
I exhaled a muffled sigh of relief.
She had a long road ahead, but she was on it.
Chapter Seventeen
I left the hospital almost an hour later, having provided Carrie with a number of options and putting calls in to shelters in Hayward and the surrounding cities. One of the things I’d admired about Carrie was her willingness to talk about the situation. Often, the women we saw were closed off and frightened to share, and understandably so—there was a real threat of retaliation, but somehow it didn’t hinder Carrie’s meetings with me. Maybe it was the way her parents had raised her before they’d passed away, or just Carrie’s nature, but she’d recognized the impossibility of the situation far sooner than I would have expected. There was no telling if she’d stick to her plan, but as I left her hospital room, she’d vowed she couldn’t be treated this way and that she wished to make the change.
My drive home was short but exhausting. Images of Carrie’s bruises plagued my mind, and the horror of J tying her down to beat her made me grimace. On top of that, memories of my dream, of my real-life experiences with Charlie, kept slipping into my head. He’d abused me in every way but sexual; still, the threat had been there, making me feel unsafe and reminding me that the control had never been mine.
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