Chapter Six Rev
When Breakneck came out of Annabel’s room, he was ashen. Since he had been in there a long time, a surge of concern that something had gone wrong overwhelmed me. Grabbing his arm, I asked, “Is she okay?”
His agonized eyes met mine. “No, she’s not.”
My heart clenched. “Wait, did she—”
“After her examination, I had to explain to her the severity of her injuries and the course of action I had to take.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I asked, “What do you mean?”
“I had to do a partial hysterectomy on Annabel.”
“Jesus,” I muttered.
“She isn’t taking the news very well.” He shook his head. “In fact, it’s devastated her.”
I couldn’t even begin to imagine what Annabel was going through.
Having children was something so intertwined with being a woman, and now she had lost that.
If she was someone who had always wanted kids, I’m sure the news was a complete blow on top of everything she was already dealing with. “I’ll go and talk to her.”
Breakneck nodded and then walked further down the hallway.
When I opened the door, Annabel didn’t even look up.
Instead, she kept staring ahead of her. “Hey,” I said softly, as I walked over to the bed.
A chill shuddered through me at the visual evidence of how much the news had affected her.
It was like seeing an entirely different girl.
Not that she didn’t deserve to be a basket case after what she had been through, but it was certainly alarming.
“I thought you might want to talk,” I said.
A single tear slid down her cheek. “I just want to be alone.”
“Okay. We don’t have to talk. But why don’t I sit here with you for a while?”
“Whatever,” she muttered, closing her eyes.
With an uneasy feeling, I sat down in the chair beside the bed and kept quiet, but it was a long time before she fell into a fitful sleep.
When one of the nurses came in to check her vitals, she brought back a sedative.
Once the liquid seeped from the IV into Annabel’s veins, she finally found a peaceful sleep.
Then it was my turn to toss and turn in the chair.
***
In what was becoming our on the road ritual, Bishop shook me awake the next morning. Sometime during the night, a rollaway bed had been brought in, but I didn’t even remember moving from the chair. Rubbing my eyes, I asked, “What time is it?”
“Little after seven. I brought you some breakfast.”
“Thanks, man.” I pulled myself into a sitting position. As I glanced around the room, my gaze focused on the rumpled sheets of the empty bed. “Where’s Annabel?”
“She was in the bathroom when I got here.”
A prickly feeling like nicks from barbed wire went through my chest. Striding across the room, my fist connected with the bathroom door. “Annabel? Are you all right?” When there was no reply, I pounded harder. “Annabel, answer me!” I commanded in a voice harsher than I wanted.
“Leave me alone, Rev,” came the weak reply.
As if I possessed Superman’s X-ray vision, I knew exactly what was transpiring behind the door. If I strained my ears, I could hear the almost inaudible dripping of blood. Taking several steps back, I ignored Bishop when he asked, “Rev, what the hell are you doing?”
Instead, I focused all the strength I had on the obstacle in front of me.
At a full gallop, I lunged at the door, popping it at the hinges and sending it swinging open.
The scene before me was just as I had imagined.
Annabel sat hunkered down on the toilet with a crimson river pooled around her.
The razor blade she’d used to slit her wrists lay among the carnage.
“No, no, NO!” I shouted, as I barreled forward into the room.
She lifted her battle worn blue eyes to mine before sadly shaking her head.
“Don’t you understand? They’ve taken everything from me—my innocence, my will to live…
even my ability to bear children.” Tears streamed down her face.
She brought a blood-streaked hand up to swipe them away. “I have nothing left.”
Jerking my T-shirt over my head, I brought my hands to the neckline. Ripping it down the center, I then began to tear wide strips off. “This is not fucking happening. Not on my watch.”
When I knelt down beside her, she attempted to scramble away from me. “Don’t you dare save me! This is my choice, dammit. I finally have a choice, and I’m ending it.”
I shook my head at her while I continued tearing the fabric. “I won’t let you do that, Annabel.”
As I reached for her bleeding wrist, she shot up off the floor, trying to escape me. A feral gleam burned in her eyes before an agonized scream escaped her lips.
“You fucking bastard! Stop being a hero. Just let me die!”
Ignoring her, I pinned her against the wall. Like a caged animal, she began to fight me, kicking and clawing. Bright red blood began to paint us both. I couldn’t imagine how she even had the strength to fight me after all she had been through.
Bishop appeared behind me. “Jesus Christ!”
“Get out,” I commanded.
“Should I get Breakneck or one of the nurses?”
“Just get the fuck out.”
“Rev, she needs fucking sedation not only before she shreds you, but before she bleeds out.”
“Get. Out!” I bellowed.
Grumbling under his breath, Bishop stomped out of the bathroom.
With my thighs bracing Annabel’s, I pinned her in place with my hips.
I grabbed one of her wrists. Winding the ripped shirt around and around, I managed to cut off the bleeding.
As I surveyed the wound, I silently thanked God she had made a novice’s mistake and hadn’t cut too deep.
She would need stitches, but it was nothing life-threatening.
After tying the makeshift bandage tightly in place, I moved on to the next hand just as the palm was about to come in contact with my face.
When I was done, I exhaled the breath I’d been holding. The roar in my ears and pounding in my chest slowly began to dissipate.
Defeated, Annabel sank slowly down the wall and onto the floor. Staring at the bandages, she questioned, “Why? Why couldn’t you just let me die?”
“Because it’s not your fucking time. If it was, you would have gone up in that blast with the rest of the women.” I raked a shaky hand through my hair. “Besides, you’re twenty-four years old. You’ve got your whole fucking life ahead of you.”
Shaking her head, she replied, “A tormented life of unfilled dreams.”
“You don’t know that. You can’t let this defeat you. You can’t let them defeat you. You take your life and Mendoza wins.”
“Easy for you to spout out all the self-help bullshit.”
“Actually, it isn’t.”
Her brows came together in confusion as inquisitive eyes met mine. “What do you mean?”
In that moment as the hellish ghosts of my past closed in around me, the pressure to breathe had my lungs feeling like a squeezed accordion.
I had never spoken of my rape—the actual words had never left my lips.
My father knew because he had witnessed the end, and Breakneck knew because he had experienced the aftermath.
It had been a horrible secret we kept from my mother and brothers.
Annabel was a complete stranger to me—someone I’d known less than forty-eight hours.
The reason why she deserved to know over my blood family escaped me.
But in my heart, I also knew there was a purpose to telling her.
In the macabre room splattered with blood, it seemed almost effortless to unburden myself of the sordid details I had tried to bury within myself.
The intense weight of the secret I was about to divulge weighed on me physically. After swaying back and forth, my left leg gave way, and I found myself collapsing down onto the floor. I shifted my leg with a grimace.
“What happened to you?”
“I got shot leaving Mendoza’s.”
“When you were carrying me?” Annabel questioned.
“Not that it makes any difference, but yeah.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
Annabel snorted contemptuously. “I got you shot. It’s just one more thing to make me feel horrible about myself.”
“Hear me when I say you can’t keep thinking like that.”
“And what makes you an expert?”
“Look, I can’t say I understand exactly how you feel because I didn’t experience the same torment as you.” Holding her gaze, I continued on. “But when I was eleven years old, I was raped.”
Annabel’s eyes widened in shock. Any old animosity on her face was replaced by shock and sympathy.
As the deafening silence hung heavy around us, I drew in a ragged breath and began my story.
The walls of the hospital bathroom melted away as I traveled across the years, back to a bedroom with a pink bedspread.
As I unburdened myself, the shackles, which had once bound me into a long silence, fell away, and I experienced a freedom I had no idea existed anymore.
When I finished speaking, I stared down at the floor, unable to look at Annabel.
It wasn’t that I was ashamed of what she might have thought about me.
It was more the fact that I was physically and emotionally overwhelmed.
I was almost twenty-eight years old, and it had taken me sixteen years to say the words out loud.
A rustling sound finally drew my stare from the blood stained tile. I looked up to see Annabel slowly inching toward me. Just as our bodies touched, she stopped. “I don’t know what to say,” she whispered.
With a shrug, I replied, “You don’t need to say anything.”
She shook her head. “One can’t hear a story like yours and not have something to say.” She wet her dry, cracked lips. “I would say I was sorry, but that simple word seems so insignificant.”
More than anyone I knew, Annabel truly understood the meaning of her words firsthand. “I guess so.”
Tears welled in her sad eyes. “You were so young. Just a baby. Me…I was old enough to know better. In some ways, I got what I deserved. I walked right into the lion’s den.”