Agatha brushed by Harris, grabbing his sleeve on her way. She pulled him past the doormat, barely giving him time to kick off his sneakers, for her own sandals came off easily. Her bare feet made no sound on the living room's carpet. She let go of his sleeve there, danced behind him, blindfolded him with her hands and drove him forward, step by step. Her jasmine fragrance teased his nostrils when he only had his nose and tactile senses.

"We thought you could use a bit of break with fixing stuff." The palms of her hands slipped from his eyes to his shoulders, returning his sight.

He squinted, then gaped. They were in the kitchen. The appliances gleamed pristine, and stainless, and steel. "Wow. This feels like a dream."

The sensation didn't go away as he stumbled around the apartment, holding Agatha's hand.

The carpet and walls ranged from beige to salmon, but someone took a calculated risk to upholster the couch and armchairs in a rich royal blue hue. Every furniture leg and every edge that could be curved, curved. The paintings on the walls had moldings of heavy gold: sea towns with tile roofs, cypress trees and ultramarine surf. The crystals sparkled on a chandelier in the living room.

This 'someone' rejected the utilitarian elegance of modern design and pandered to his barbaric tastes. "I see you've met my mom already," Harris said. "A surprising number of people must have visited Milwaukee and left without saying 'hi' to me."

"No, no! Not yet!" Agatha snuggled his waist. "I've talked to her a lot and yes, you've guessed it. She ordered everything in here and she supervised the crew remotely."

"Oh." His heart sank. He thought they had a good talk and set things straight. Yet, she refused to see him?

"She'll fly in on Tuesday to visit."

He swallowed a bitter remark. Mom was coming, and she'd meet Agatha. "How... how are you holding up?"

"I'm less terrified than I should be. Is it wrong?" There was an apologetic chuckle in her voice, so the two women talked and struck an accord.

"It's perfect." Of course they left him out of everything, despite it all being about him. It was the weirdest sensation in the world, but he let it go. Shred by shred, breath by deep breath. It was okay. It was really okay to be coddled this one time.

His struggle didn't escape Agatha. "Really?"

"Really." He nodded to fortify the word. "I want to see mom, yes. I needed to see you. More than air. More than anything."

"Me too."

"If you wanted to get me alone--"

"I didn't."

What? His eyes round out of their sockets instead of an exclamation.

"Okay, I did." She huffed in frustration at so many things to catch up on, all at once. "Of course, I did. I wanted to talk to you first about everything. But also, I wanted a chance to make sure..."

Her fingers were practically strangling her. Slender fingers. Pretty nails with a pearly shine.

She forced down whatever tormented her. "Harris, I had to stay in Singapore till the last moment. Otherwise, I would have tipped Oliver off, and I... I don't even know what he would have done. "

Oliver. Never forget about Oliver! He was like a vengeful ghost coming to ruin a feast.

Harris collapsed on the new couch and stretched his arm along the top of his cushion. "Come sit with me. Or do you want some water? I can—"

His glance surveyed the fridge, the counters, the cabinets. Surely, they couldn't be empty. There had to be at least one glass in there somewhere.

She pushed on his shoulders, woman-handling him into relaxation, then cuddled to his side, the unburnt one. Her knees folded so neatly under her. Her hair tickled his neck, its jasmine scent intoxicating him since the hospital. Her eyes hooded after a sigh so content, that it brought one out of him as well. Worries washed away. Agatha and him clicked together like two bits of a puzzle.

He wished they could snuggle in silence, but... Oliver. His temples pounded with dread.

Oliver. Oliver. Oliver. Fucking Oliver!

He massaged her shoulder, the one that wasn't sheltered on his chest. "What happened in Singapore, sweetie? With Oliver."

She sighed again, her chest rising and falling. This one was troubled, with a whimper—how he hated that he had to ask!

"Sorry." He kissed the dark hair atop her head, inhaling more jasmine.

"Harris, he knew. He knew you came to Singapore. He knew everything, down to how many minutes I've stayed in your hotel room. I wiped my old phone clean, I bought a new one... and I don't know what else I can do to escape him."

The veins in his temples pulsated from the pressure. "Go on."

She lifted her eyes on him. "He accused me of being unfaithful. He raved. I'd never seen him rave before. Gosh, Harris! He threatened me with a bonfire to erase my temptations."

Dammit. But Harris survived the 'bonfire'. Was it worse than that though? "Did the son-of-a-bitch hurt you?"

She swallowed loudly. "He said that the fiery redemption will come from consummating our union. He came close to forcing it."

Harris jumped up. "I'm getting water."

"I don't need—"

"Then it's for me."

He banged the cabinet doors in the kitchen like it was their fault he wasn't good enough to carry Agatha out of danger this time. His hands shook as he fished out a glass and ran the faucet. He lowered himself on the carpet by her feet and pressed the glass to her lips. "Drink."

She took a sip.

"I will kill him." This wasn't an empty threat of an impotent man. The urge to kill the predator was cold, certain, primal. One day it would happen. Harris would kill that man.

Agatha dipped her finger into the glass and drew wet lines on his forehead, then rolled the glass around her cheeks to cool down her burning skin.

"When he touched me... Harris, I've finally and fully realized I was sacrificing myself to an unhinged man. It was so stark. There was nothing celestial about his urges. No divine wrath. Just a petty man unleashing his base wants on me." She shivered. "Disgusting."

Harris froze. "Are you okay when I hug you?"

He'd kissed her too, an awful lot of times, unknowingly, when trauma cast long, dark shadows. Its grip was iron and it could destroy everything one loves. "The last thing I want is to hurt you. Tell me if anything is off."

She leaned over toward him. "You aren't hurting me. And I... I handled him."

He pushed away hair that hung into her face like a curtain. Her gaze was deep and calm.

"Do you remember what state you've found me in the Avantgarde?" she asked.

"Jesus..." It felt like a thousand years had passed since. He drew his hand across his face, over his eyes. "Yes. Yes. I remember."

He didn't wish to forget it either, as terrible as the fire was, because then there would be no Agatha in his life. He would carry any weight to have her near.

"Because of how much it looked like a sexual assault and because I blacked out, I requested the hospital to examine me. There was no evidence of interfering."

Harris hugged her knees, glad he was sitting on the floor. Sometimes, being tall was too hard.

"I feel about as useful as a dishwasher right now," Harris muttered. "Less useful."

"Agreed," she whispered into his ear then looked at her empty glass in puzzlement.

He took it from her and pushed it far, far away on the couch.

She licked her lips, visibly collected herself and talked in an even, deadpan voice of a host reading a bus schedule on the radio.

"I begged him to believe me that nothing happened between you and me. Begged him to remember the sanctity of the marital vows. He wouldn't listen. He was wrestling my clothes off."

She was detaching herself to tell him... The same acid that rose into Harris' throat, stung hers. He squeezed her fingers, desperate to remind her that he was here now. When he should have been there then. Bile tasted ever worse.

"Then I remembered the Avantgarde," she said.

Harris jerked his head up. "Do you have clearer memories? Enough to testify?"

If Agatha could place Oliver on the crime scene, they could put him behind the bars and be rid of him forever. Eventually. If there was justice in the world. And if not, he'd have to take it into his own hands.

She shook her head with a sigh. "No, but I'm sure that I took my prescribed pills from the pop-pack, then went to bed in my pajamas."

"I never doubted it."

"You lie." Even the scorn in her voice was gentle.

Strangely, her kindness felt like a bigger blow. His hands clenched. "Not since I grew a brain and woke up to what a narrow-minded jerk I've become! I swear."

"There's hope for you yet." Some color returned to her cheeks. "So, someone must have drugged and undressed me, and if it were Oliver, then he wasn't tempted by my unconscious body."

"It was him," Harris said through gritted teeth. I'll kill him.

She nodded, and her eyes glistened with more tears.

He'd kill Oliver. He didn't know how or where or when, but he would. The slow simmer inside him would never die down otherwise. He had to kill this man.

"I thought maybe he wanted to stage retribution because I went to Wisconsin alone, without telling him," Agatha continued thoughtfully. "That he drugged me so it would appear dreamlike to me. The world is on fire... I'm laid bare before his judgment... Maybe he even imagined more. But, whatever his plan was, he overdid it with the drug—and he didn't take advantage of me."

Harris added a masked, robed Oliver to his memory of the burning hotel room. His nasty clothes caught the fire's glow. He whispered his lies to Agatha, blaming her for the fire. Her angel, he'd save her soul... and all the while, he leered at her naked, shivering form. "This sick pervert!"

"Yes, he is. But there's logic to his perversion. When I pretended to faint, he couldn't get the satisfaction of controlling me," Agatha said with a shrug that masked too much. "He staggered back and waited for me to stir from my swoon. Then he declared he believed me and was 'testing' my faith."

"Testing?" Harris's voice broke into a hoarse screech of outrage. He pounded the couch with his fist, wishing it was Oliver's face.

Agatha retrieved the empty glass and shoved it into his hands. He gripped the bulbous thing, twisted it, and tried to keep himself from crushing it, throwing it like that last time with Dad, because he didn't want to spook her. He also didn't waste air on repeating the threats lodged in his heart out loud. She'd been through enough to deal with his temper.

Particularly because her voice strengthened and became resolute. "I talked to him non-stop, of our wedding, of the myriad things I have done and what I still had to do... but all I could think about were your words."

Love spread through his chest, coating his fury, stifling it like oil over boiling water. He finally risked lifting his gaze at her without fear of scorching her cornea with his murderous thoughts.

"Yes," she said, "your words. You said, I shouldn't marry him if I don't like him the way I liked you. And I didn't love him anymore."

"You never did," Harris whispered.

She shrugged. "Once, I wanted nothing more than to behold my angel in the flesh and give myself to him. I outgrew these dreams with adolescence. Marriage would have changed nothing—the act would be against my heart and my will. But I would have gone through with it to keep you from harm."

"No!"

"Yes."

They stared at one another.

Harris didn't say a word, but he came up from his knees to put his arms around her. He listened for shivers or a racing heartbeat, any sign that she was uncomfortable with his touch. She was supple in his arms. Her eyelashes were perfectly dry on his collarbone.

"Then I received the front-page news from Milwaukee," she said. "From you."

"Heroic firefighter's house on fire, arson suspected." Or something like that. "I shouldn't have texted you. It was all the painkillers and despair."

"Uh-huh." She ruffled his hair. "But that's how I knew my martyrdom would be in vain. So, I connected with Lonita. I combed my place and Oliver's for any shred of anything that could have DNA, fingerprints or hints of his dealings. At the first opportunity, I ran."

"So, the dresses, the hairstyles, the damn veils that nearly drove me to madness? You were just trying to fool him." Here was his straightforward explanation of her wedding extravaganza. "God, I wasted hours staring at the ceiling, feeling miserable like the worst jerk when you were in danger—"

He shook his head and kissed her hair. "Sorry for never even guessing how bad things were for you." He kissed it again. "Sorry for being a total dishwasher."

Another kiss. "Sorry for not hearing you needed help."

Her hand made its way from where it lodged between their bodies. Her warm fingers traced his cheek. "Your text helped, Harris. You didn't complain about losing everything. You demanded nothing from me. You just asked me to stay safe."

"If only!" He scoffed. "I wanted your reply so badly, I held the phone in my hand for minutes, afraid to put it down and miss it."

She stirred in his embrace. "I had to delete your message as soon as it popped up, because of Oliver. But it meant everything to me. I finally felt that I can be loved no matter what, for no grand purpose, just like you love me."

"You exist—and that's enough for me," he agreed in a hoarse whisper.

"It lent me strength to decide that I won't let anyone make me their victim or plaything again."

"Agatha." His eyes stung. "Agatha, you already were the strongest person I've ever met."