Vow to Protect

She watches me carefully, and I shift to grab the edge of her chair. Her little squeak of surprise echoes through the room as I drag the chair close to me, so close she must part her thighs to keep from touching my legs with hers.

Only once she’s met my eyes do I speak. “Now, we need to discuss your father and your—Sal. I need you to tell me what they did to you. Everything from the first time your father raised his hand to you to the moment I saved you from the house.”

Her forehead bunches hard as she drags her eyes away to stare at the table. “I…Well, it started after my mother died. He sort of changed. With her death, the loving father I’d grown to know just disappeared. Suddenly, everything I did was wrong. His brutality worsened as I got older.”

She speaks in a matter-of-fact tone as if she’s already resigned herself to that abuse, and it didn’t matter. I suppose after ten years or so, it wouldn’t anymore. Not if you had to live with it every day.

“And Sal?” I prompt. “When did that start?”

This subject isn’t as easy for her. She swallows heavily and wrings her hands in her lap. “On my eighteenth birthday, my father announced I was engaged and introduced me to Sal. He made it very clear that if I didn’t marry him, Rose and I would be thrown out without a penny to my name, and he’d do his best to ruin any effort I made to stand on my own.”

I clench my fists but try not to show her the rage pouring through me in a slow trickle.

She continues, and I catalog every single word. “It started innocuously. He’d touch me inappropriately. Well, he didn’t think it was wrong since we were engaged. That’s when my father made it a rule that he couldn’t sleep with me until we married.” She lets out a rueful chuckle. “Probably the only nice thing my father ever did for me. Anyway, once he couldn’t get a sexual release from me, he started beating me and showing me videos of the most hideous things. He’d take videos of him hurting me, and—” She cuts off with a gasp, and I scan her features for a clue as to what’s wrong.

“Sal, he…” Her voice quakes, and she blinks several times. Then she wraps her arms around herself and starts a slow rocking back and forth. “He…and…Rose.”

A sob rips from her lips as tears pour down her pale cheeks. “Rose,” she says one more time.

I gather her into my arms and hold her sideways across my lap. Her memory must be coming back now, and all I can do is comfort her until I show her proof of Sal’s death.

A few seconds pass as she cries softly, and then she wriggles in my grip and shoves at my chest. “You, you didn’t tell me Rose was dead. You let me think she was still out there, alive and safe.”

I narrow my eyes and grip her forearms to keep from her beating at my chest with her small hands. “First of all, don’t speak to me that way.” I keep my tone calm and even, and it seems to settle her back into my lap. “Second, I never once said a thing about Rose or where she was. I simply didn’t give you any details about your rescue as I wasn’t sure where things were in your memory.”

Another sob shudders out of her, and I release her forearms to gather her up again. For a second, she pushes against me to get free, but I won’t let her go, not while she faces the truth of what happened to her.

“Is there anything else? Can you tell me what Sal did to you that night? The last time you saw him?”

Her voice is garbled from tears and snot when she answers. “He beat me. I snuck back inside, and he’d already ra—hurt Rose, and then he came for me.”

The doctor did an examination, so I know that even though Sal raped her cousin, he didn’t touch her that way. He’d harmed her just fine without the additional torture, but for some reason, he didn’t take that final step in his game.

I still haven’t figured out if he thought he could go back to the house and resume his relationship with her and marry her as planned.

Before I try to puzzle it out some more, my phone digs in my pocket. She stiffens in my grip, and I stand with her still tucked tight in my arms. “I’m sorry that we didn’t get to finish talking,” I tell her, “but we have an appointment to keep. I’ll take you upstairs so you can get ready. Andrea will help you.”