The guy is arrested but not for attempted murder, because Dutch doesn’t tell anyone he was coming for her. She doesn’t understand why he did it, but she can feel his pain as much as I can. Doesn’t fucking matter, though. Attempted murder is attempted murder. He should have gone down for that.

But life goes on. Then one night Earl comes home drunk and angry. He is always drunk and angry, but this night, he can barely stand. He storms into our room and starts yelling at us to clean the apartment. We haven’t been here long. We only just left a small garage where we were staying in exchange for fixing up the house and doing some yard work. But Earl never actually did a fucking thing, and the lady kicked us out. He’s been mad ever since.

Whatever set him off tonight, though, must have been a doozy. He is furious. He’s in a filthy beater and dirty boxers. He grabs my shirt and jerks me off the sleeping bag I’m on. Kim is already awake and huddling on the mattress in the corner. Her knees up to her chin. Her hands over her ears.

She’s shaking her head. Praying he is just pissed and really does want the apartment cleaned instead of something else. Her prayers go unanswered.

He shoves me into the kitchen. The harsh yellow floods my vision and I miss the first swing. It lands on my jaw and knocks me back against the wall. He smells like a sewer, and I gag when he leans into me. Fondles my cock through the sweats I’m wearing.

I’m not in the mood for his shit, so I elbow him. His head jerks back and I scramble away, but he grabs my hair. Pulls me to his chest. Wraps an arm around my waist.

“It’s you or her,” he says, his breath hot and noxious.

He lowers his hand. Slips it under my waistband. But I’m not drugged and I’m not tied up. I think about killing him. It would be so easy, but what would happen to Kim? Would they take her away from me? Of course they would. We aren’t even related. I have no claim to her.

I decide not to kill him, but no way am I just going to lie there and think of England. I hit him. Hard. I’m pretty sure I broke his jaw, but he is too drunk to realize it. He wraps a meaty hand around my throat, knocks me against the wall, and hits me over and over, his fist like a boulder.

My immediate concern is air for my burning lungs. I claw at the hand around my throat, but he hits me again. My head whips back and slams into the wall. I go limp, but only for a second or two. I try to block his punches, but when I open my eyes, my gaze locks on to something outside. Something just beyond our kitchen window. I focus for a split second, just long enough to see a girl standing on the sidewalk, looking in. I glare at her, suddenly furious that she is seeing this. That anyone is seeing this. Then Earl hits me again.

We fall to the floor and I know it’s over. He’ll get his way like he always does. Like he always has.

Through the fog, I hear the kitchen window shatter. I blink back to consciousness and look past it to the girl standing on the sidewalk outside. Half her face is covered with a scarf, and a hat hides her hair.

She yells something about calling the police, and Earl is up in a heartbeat. I take the opportunity to run. I go toward our bedroom, but Earl is right on my heels.

Kim screams at me. “Run! Get out!”

So I do. Like the coward I am, I run for the door. Earl trips and is no longer breathing down my back, but I don’t slow down. I crash into the hall, past the other apartments, and out the back door, where I stumble into a chain-link fence behind the building. I use it to leverage my weight—wrapping my fingers in the links as I navigate the uneven, frozen terrain barefoot—and manage to make it to a Dumpster. Which is appropriate, given the circumstances.

I fall onto all fours and try to calm my racing pulse. Dry heaves pump my stomach for several long moments, but nothing comes out. My breaths are ragged and wheezy, the air in my lungs struggling to get through my burning throat.

I hear someone coming, but it’s not him. I know the sound of his footsteps. On carpet. On wood. On gravel. The footsteps I hear are lighter, and there are two sets of them. They stop near me. I can feel concern wafting off them, and it’s the last thing I need. Their compassion. Their pity.

I look up, but they have a light focused on me and I can’t see past it. I glare at them. At her. She got his attention. Now she needs to get the fuck out of Dodge. If she thinks he won’t kill her because she’s a pretty girl, she’s sadly mistaken. I’ve seen him kill a man for a lot less than a broken window. The man wanted me. A broken boy. But not for the same reason Earl wants me. I’ve realized years later that he wanted to save me from Earl. He got too close, though. Asked too many questions. Pried a few too many times. And paid the ultimate price.

But this girl is just standing there. As though a rock through our window and the threat of a phone call will stop him.

I raise a hand to block the light. They think it’s to block the light they are holding, so they lower it. It’s not. It’s to block her light. I’ve never seen it with my real eyes. It’s blinding and brilliant and beautiful. I turn and spit out the blood that filled my mouth in the few seconds we’d been checking each other out, then look back at my two saviors.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

My ears are still ringing, but there is no mistaking the soft lilt of a feminine voice. Of Dutch’s voice. It’s just like in my dream. Or what I thought were my dreams.

I try to stand, but the earth moves under my feet. Dutch jumps forward to help me, but I back away. Livid that she is seeing me like this. At my most vulnerable. At my most whipped.

“We have to get you to a hospital,” she says.

I spit again and start down the narrow passageway between the apartment building and the business next door. I’m shaking and she thinks it’s because I’m cold. She follows me with her sister, Gemma, who is clutching on to Dutch’s jacket sleeve as if it were a life preserver. She’s shaking, too. Partly from the cold and partly from fear. At least she has the sense God gave a gerbil.

“Look,” Dutch says. “We saw what happened. We need to get you to a hospital. Our car isn’t far.”

“Get out of here,” I finally say, trying to keep the crisp edge of pain out of my voice. With effort, I climb onto a crate, grab hold of a windowsill, and try to see inside. Kim is still in there. Just because he’s never hurt her before doesn’t mean he won’t start now. When he’s this mad and this drunk and this volatile, the only wrong move I can make is to underestimate him.

“You’re going back in there?” Dutch asks, appalled. “Are you crazy?”

“Charley,” Gemma whispers to her, “maybe we should just leave.”

Naturally, Dutch ignores her. “That man tried to kill you.”

I throw her my best scowl from over my shoulder before turning back to the window. “What part of ‘get out of here’ don’t you understand?”

She waffles, unsure of what to do. She decides. It’s the wrong decision.

“I’m calling the police.”

I whip around. Leap from the crates. Land inches in front of her. With just enough force to let her know it’s there, I place a hand around her throat and push her back against the brick building.

For a long time I only stare. A thousand thoughts hit me at once, the least of which is the fact that she is real. Flesh and blood. Dutch. Her light soaks into me. Begins to heal me instantly. I begin to calm. To slow my breathing. To clear my head.