I turn to Camille to tell her to call the police, but she’s already on the phone, speaking fast, pacing back and forth as she talks to a dispatcher. I look down and find her shoes bloody.
Nora looks up at me, her eyes cloudy, distant, removed.
“You stand on a wall to protect what is yours.” Her words are simple.
I nod. “You’re mine.”
She closes her eyes and rests in my arms.
When the paramedics arrive, I refuse to let her go and carry her out to the ambulance myself.
Chapter Thirty
Nora
I’m afraid to wake up. I’m afraid that when I do, it will all have been a dream, and that it won’t really be over. I won’t be free.
But I open my eyes, and find Brand by my hospital bed.
He smiles, which is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“Hey,” he says huskily, in a voice devoid of sleep. “Welcome back.”
I look down to find my hand in his, and I look at the clock to find that I’ve been sleeping for almost twenty-four hours.
I blink, confused.
“The doctors gave you a sedative,” Brand explains, seeing the questions in my eyes. “You’ve been through a lot and you needed a chance to rest before you processed it.”
“You’ve been here the whole time,” I say it as a statement, not as a question. Because I already know. I’ve felt him here all along.
He nods. “Yeah.”
I look at him. “You saved me.”
It was real.
He narrows his eyes. “You were all set to try and save yourself. The gun… Jesus, Nora.”
He closes his eyes for a second, then re-opens them. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you trust me?”
I shake my head, clutching his hand. “It wasn’t about trusting you. It was about… being humiliated and entrapped and helpless. I can’t explain to you what it feels like to think that my own uncle and father… made me… I was too dirty for you, Brand. Too tainted. You couldn’t be with someone like me.“
I can’t go on and Brand squeezes my hand, lifting my chin to make me look at him.
“You are not dirty. Or used. You were forced. You didn’t have a choice. But now they won’t have a choice either. They’re going to prison. They can never hurt you again. And that wasn’t your father. Or your uncle.”
It’s like he knows. He knows that it makes such a difference. Yes, I was still raped. But at least I wasn’t raped by my own blood.
“Who am I?” I ask him softly, staring into his blue, blue eyes. “If I’m not a Greene, who am I?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. Your mom will be back up here shortly, she just left for some coffee. She has all the answers, Nora. But I can tell you this. It doesn’t matter to me who you are. Because I already know. You’re beautiful and smart and brave. And I love you. I love all of you, no matter what your last name is.”
I suck in a breath and the tears start to fall, streaking hotly down my face, dripping onto my hospital gown.
“I love you too,” I choke, pressing my face into him, squeezing my eyes closed.
This can’t be real.