Epilogue #3
“Ahhh. The bitterness comes. I can hear it in your voice. The anger surfaces. You should be angry.”
“You mock me, pretend you empathize, and yet if I ask you to free me, you’ll say no?”
“I cannot. Forget that idea. You know too much.”
“And, umm.” Hesitant, she raised her pretty brown eyes to mine. I waited for what she needed to say and noted the movement of her throat. Very nervous and worried, at a guess—no surprise there. “My friend? Emme? Is she okay?”
“I know her name. Yes, she lives. She is with her…what should I call them?”
“Fucktard Doms?” Her mouth firmed, writhed. Her sniff was dismissive and defiant.
This woman had balls.
I chuckled. “Those fucktard Doms have her, yes. She is okay.”
“Good. And thank you.”
“Not a problem. It isn’t a secret. Not to me. Not to you. It’s good to make fun of things sometimes.”
“Laughing hurts too.”
“It will pass. Now, I need you to lie down, so I can examine you more intimately.”
“Oh.” A frown flitted across her forehead. “Can you make it not hurt?”
“As much as I can, I will. I have to use a speculum.”
I helped her lower herself onto her back on the bunk. The curious etiquette of shielding patients from what you did to them with a cloth was absurd, especially with her. I let her see what I did.
From the bruising, she was lucky the damage wasn’t far worse. They’d strangled her, beaten her, raped her anally and vaginally.
“You have some internal vaginal injuries. Nothing has been perforated, which is encouraging. There are some shallow tears in the rectal tissue but also nothing serious. That’s almost normal for anal sex.”
She shrugged, but some of the tension left her.
They’d probably put something foreign inside her. A knife hilt pushed in past the guard was my best guess—knowing what had happened and having seen what they left.
“I can see you’re cold. I’ll have them bring more blankets.
You’ll have antibiotics to take, and a pill to ensure you don’t get pregnant.
” From her grimace, she hadn’t thought of that.
I rummaged in the case and found syringes, needles, vials, and began to draw up painkiller and antibiotic injections.
“This ship is due in port soon. You will be discreetly moved ashore.”
“My name is Charity.”
“I know.” Now it was I who hesitated. Names had power. Witches and demons loved them. I was not giving her mine. “I’ll make sure they let me check on you as needed in the coming days, Charity.”
“Help me get away? Please?” She raised her hands to cover her mouth and peered up at me, from her good right eye. Her voice had dropped from the soft noises it had made before into a strained rasp. My mouth twitched in sympathy. Her throat was purple in places.
I shook my head.
“How can you call yourself a doctor?” Her expression crumpled for a second before she sniffled and reassembled her armor. She stared at me, grimly.
“It’s still no.”
After stapling the wound, drawing a blood sample, and giving her the injections and pills, I packed up the case. “I’ll take off the handcuffs.” She wasn’t going out through the porthole. I removed them using the key in my pocket, then tucked the cuffs into the pocket with the key.
“I’m appealing to your morals. Free me. I won’t talk.”
Gently, I drifted my fingers across her temple, pushing back her hair so I could see those bruised, pretty eyes. I had an urge to touch her more than this but pulled away my hand. “We can’t free you.” I’d spilled a little truth by saying we.
She dared to whisper bitter words I could barely hear, then said, “How can you live with yourself?”
“Practice.”
She was one among many, down the years. Trying to rescue this particular girl was like taking a cup of water from the ocean.
As I walked away down the ship’s passageway, I found myself looking forward to seeing her again. Fifty-fifty she’d throw something at me.
Or maybe she wouldn’t. She seemed smart.
I would have ordered the men who raped her tested for transmissible diseases, but they’d been disposed of—ditched at sea and dismembered, their bodies sunken deep. I’d arrange testing for her at intervals.
Lost girls like Charity were everywhere. Maybe, when I saw her next, I would give her some advice on how to survive from now on. Such as, be less ballsy and confrontational? She was a troublemaker, a defiant brat. What could be done with a lost girl like her?
I ran through a few of the grubbier choices in my head: sex trafficking, the organ trade, cheap labor, and snuff films. The fraternity didn’t normally deal with criminal acts, especially not murder, and most of the board were dithering.
Some of the members would be thoroughly, hands-deep in illegal activities but they didn’t reveal it.
Making her disappear was the general aim they had agreed on.
“I don’t need another lost girl,” I muttered to myself. I’d sworn off them. I’d sworn off being a savior, a peacemaker, a man who tried to influence the way the world spun in the void.
CHARITY
The door was sealed, the handle locked, and I sat on the bed like a statue, staring at nothing for a while. Tears ran down my face. The emptiness of this room sank in, drowning me with an overwhelming sense of hopelessness.
The doctor was the only person who had helped me since my arrival on this ship and since the assault. I felt bereft and hollow, my stomach roiling with nausea, and he’d not really done anything more than he had to, had he?
No. Except for that touch. My skin remembered him. The tactile shock from his hand moving my hair aside in that last moment, before he denied my plea and left—that had been a small earthquake. Gentleness and compassion had been wrapped in his touch. A man’s hand.
My tortured insides had quivered. Not with desire, not that, just recognition.
I inhaled. My nostrils dilated, my eyes closing. I’d registered the solidness of the doctor from that miniscule brush of skin on skin.
“How can you live with yourself?”
“Practice,” he said.
He’d drawled out that word, deep voice caressing the syllables. How could I like a man who was so fucking immoral?
I breathed slower, imagining my palm on him, pushing on his chest and him not moving.
My memory of what good men felt like was doing this to me. Or it was concussion?
I snorted. Leaning over my lap, I absentmindedly combed my fingers through either side of my hair. Ouch again. Lumps were there.
His gray eyes had been…quiet, unreadable. He’d told me I would see him again. I must try to reach inside him next time, to find his better self. I had to try.
The doctor was a heavy man, with an imprint like a building. I’d seen muscles moving beneath his cream shirt and his scent lingered. I raised my head and shut my eyes to smell the air without the interference of sight. Rosemary? How odd.
The floor before me was rolling more. We were heading for that port, where they would unload me. I clenched my hands into fists and swore as my fingers complained. More hurts. Guess I was lucky nothing was broken. My ankle was aching too, and I hadn’t even noticed it before.