The quiet after a storm was deafening on its own. It's when your mind isn't racing with all the horrors you can think of anymore, suddenly put to a stop because the worst seemed to be over. But the quiet after it all, the utter silence after all of my loudest nightmares, left a gaping hollow wound within me.

I didn't know how to fill it back in.

Santiago had died, but he'd left me in ruins. Isn't that what he'd wanted? Hadn't he succeeded?

There was a woman in light blue scrubs with a sunny smile who came in to check up on me twice throughout the day. Ryder stayed with me, true to his promise, even when she busied herself examining the raw scrapes from the metal chains on my wrists. I fixated on him instead of the square bandage on one side of my stomach as she pulled off the tape and redressed it. I could've felt the fear and shame and disgust clawing at me right then--asking me to look. I only remembered the pain of the knife in Santiago's hand. He'd drugged me then. I didn't remember the rest.

Traitor, I could hear him speak to me, could hear his voice as if I was back in that basement. You lied.

Ryder's eyes found mine from across the room where he waited--stood with a scowl on his face that he tried to hold back, but then I saw his gaze flickering to all the marks Santiago had left on me and he looked like he wanted to hurt someone. I could see the restraint with which he stayed right there--could see the fury in the way he held himself so still, gritted his jaw, watched as the nurse tended to all of my wounds even if it seemed to be torturing his very soul.

I wished to disappear, because I'd made him promise to stay and he was keeping his promise now. But all of this was a torture he did not deserve.

Later, when the nurse left after giving me the greenlight for a shower as long as I kept the bandages dry, I couldn't help but say--tell him--reassure him, "It doesn't hurt anymore."

The quiet, torturous restraint in him fell. He looked simply devastated. "What?"

I looked away from him and down at my hands. "I know there's...it looks bad, but it's fine--"

"There's nothing fucking fine about this." He snapped, eyes wild with fury. "That bastard carved it into you."

"I don't remember it."

He fell silent, staring at me for seconds that felt like a whole minute. I heard him swear under his breath, hands raking through his hair.

"Fucking hell, Alice."

"It doesn't matter--"

"Of course, it fucking matters!" He snarled and I flinched. It was instant that all his rage morphed into regret. "Jesus, fuck." He walked towards the door, choosing to leave instead of facing me with all that anger, but then he remembered his promise and stopped, facing me again. "For fuck's sake, querida, you don't have to pretend in front of me. I... Jesus, I know I act like a fucking bastard, but I don't need you to lie to me. Don't lie to me."

How was I not supposed to?

He'd seen me almost dying on that cold concrete--heard me begging him to save me over that miserable phone call--he'd already seen me at my absolute worst. How did I tell him that I did not know how to be strong again?

Lying was easier.

But then again, blood is bound to seep through the cracks in the wounds left behind. Sometimes you're not meant to hide all of it. I was left open--utterly flayed and vulnerable the moment I faced the bathroom mirror, alone in the room that I'd closed the door to.

I looked wrecked, the same as I felt from the inside. The skin of my face was too pale, and even my body too, I realized, as I took off the button down shirt that smelled a bit like Ryder and a bit like a first aid kit. There was--were--

Fading bruises at the corner of my neck. Punishing fingerprints or the drug being injected into me, I wasn't sure. I didn't remember.

Both of my hands wrapped in white guazes that still weighed me down like metal chains.

And then the square bandage over my stomach. I slowly peeled it off, fingers not trembling this time, even when I felt shaken from the inside. Maybe I should've just kept it hidden with the bandage--it didn't hurt and maybe the bandage was only there to shield it all from my mind. Because watching it unfold--seeing the carved, cruel letters into my own skin was a pain so visceral that I...crumbled.

I couldn't keep it together.

In that moment, I didn't even know who I was.

And I didn't realize I was breaking apart until I was on the bathroom floor, sobs racking my frame, seeming to claw at the grief permanently etched into me. I didn't realize it soon enough that maybe I shouldn't have held it all in--shouldn't have tried to pretend--because this hurt wasn't evitable.

I cried--I don't know for how long--broken, devastated, in ruins. I was gently coaxed out of that dark misery only when Ryder found me right there in that very position, alarmed and touching me like I was the ruins of a shattered glass. I was. I was hurting and I would hurt him too.

"It'll be okay." He murmured into my hair, holding me tight even when the ugly grief inside of me seemed to pierce his very skin. "Jesus, you're too cold, Alice."

I found words between the tearful hiccups. "I'm a...a liar."

He made a pained sound. "No."

"H-He carved it...into me."

He pressed his lips into my hair. "You're not, Alice."

"I am." I cried into him, nails digging into his back, pressing my face into his chest until the breathlessness could muffle the ache in my ribs.

"Alice." He spoke my name so gently--so reverently--that in the middle of all the pain racking my mind and my frame, it was a warmth I had to cling to. "I know you. You're nothing of what he told you."

"P-Please," I begged, for what I didn't know. I wanted him to know all the horrors in mind. I wanted him to take it all away.

"Come on." He told me, slowly pulling me up from the floor and along with him, pushing off the strands of my hair that stuck to the tears on my face. "Trust me, okay?"

He turned on the overhead shower, not pulling away from me, even when it got him drenched alongside me. The water was warm and soothing and eventually, the shaking was all that my tears left behind.

"Tell me where it hurts," he murmured so softly--so gently into my ear--a promise that held all my pieces together. "I won't touch you there."

I let the warm water cascade down my skin, shivering even when there was no cold left. "I need you," I told him, my voice raw and torn and broken.

"I know, querida."

"Please." I squeezed my eyes closed when he pushed me away a little, leaning down until the water on his lips caressed the corner of my eyes--his lips pressing against my own--my jaw--my neck, until some of my pain was his.

I shuddered. "Ryder."

"I'm right here." He promised against my skin, against the bruises on my neck that he softly covered with his kisses--that I knew he'd erase forever if he could. "Stay with me, querida."

I stayed. And when he pulled back just to drop down on his knees, the warm spray of water dripping down my face and onto his, I held onto him--the side of his face, because not touching him right then would've killed me.

"It kills me," he spoke to me, eyes so earnest as he looked up at me, fingers holding on to me and not letting me fall, "that I cannot always protect you."

A sound much like another broken sob left my lips. I felt my heart break and mend back together, when he leaned close and his lips brushed along the side of my stomach--over the word forever carved into me by hands that had wanted me dead.

He pressed a kiss right there. I trembled with grief and hope--warmth and love slowly replacing the ugliness and pain.

"But please know, querida," he added, "that I will die trying."

My fingers in his hair, I fell. Maybe I was crying again, I wasn't sure. Maybe it was just water on my lips or the tears that kept escaping me, but holding onto him, kissing him so desperately with the flame of anguish burning low within me, he breathed an ember of life back into me.

Let me in, his touch softly spoke to me, let me heal all your hurts.

He kissed me with a gentleness that blanked all the cruel voices and thoughts in my mind, fingers cradling my face, thumb beneath my chin, angling my face up until--

"I love you." He told me, pressed it home inside of me. "Every part of me that is capable of it will love you always."

I pressed my forehead against his helplessly, knowing so deeply that this was him turning all my pain into something that would forever remain precious to me. A memory that would forever make the bad ones bearable.

And maybe then I wouldn't be so broken anymore.

•••••

Gem greeted me out of the dozing slumber I'd found myself in some time around evening. Or I think it was evening--way past it maybe, judging from the late sunset through the window of Ryder's room.

I woke up, for the first time in what felt like a very long time, without remnants of nightmares clinging to me. There was no lingering paranoia, making me wake up with a jerk. Instead, it just felt...like I could be okay. Or as okay as I could feel in this moment.

By the time I managed to drink some of the water Ryder had left for me on the nightstand, Gem had somehow crawled up on the bed and was trying to get under the sheets.

"Hey, Gem," I whispered to her, trailing my fingertips over her ears. She purred in response. "I missed you."

My throat felt raw from crying, but I knew it would heal soon. Maybe I would too. Gem bumped her head beneath my fingers as if to let me know that she'd missed me too.

Sudden happy tears clogged my vision and I cradled her in my arms. I couldn't help then but look around the empty room and the open door. Ryder wasn't here. I didn't know when he'd left and how I hadn't known. Maybe because after the shower, I'd felt too drained and empty to keep track of my surroundings anymore. I'd known I was safe, and so all the fear and paranoia had left enough for me to fall asleep.

Maybe he'd had something important come up? The thought alone was enough to get my heart slowly racing--slight fear creeping back in an almost habitual response.

It'll be okay, he'd told me.

It was okay.

Almost as if knowing that I needed to get out of this room--the safe confines of it--Gem jumped out of my hold and headed out of the room. I got up too, absentmindedly pulling the sleeves of the sweater Ryder had lent me over the bandages on my wrists. We'd gotten them wet in the shower, something the kind nurse had told me not to do, but then Ryder had bandaged them and the other places back again, so I didn't think that would be a problem.

Gem walked leisurely down the hallway and I followed her, slow anxiety filling me when the quiet silence of the house seemed to almost make my ears ring.

I entered the lounge, saw the setting sunrays cascading through the tall windows, and nearly flinched out of my bones when a rattle came from behind me. But it was just Gem hopping on one of the couches. I looked around--searched--but I couldn't--

"You need to tell her. You can't possibly be hiding this from her." There was a voice, I realized, not too far from me. I stilled when I became aware of the familiarity of it first, and then let the words sink in.

It was Rafael.

"I'm not hiding anything." Was Ryder's dismissive answer.

He's still here, my mind spoke to me in relief. He didn't leave you.

"You are. Jesus." There was a sharp exhale. "She will not be happy."

"Don't, Rafael."

There was a thud. I was moving towards the voices before I knew it.

"You have been by her side. You know her condition right now. You might just be the only thing keeping her together right now! I don't need to be spending time with her right now to know this!"

There was a slight pause. "She's going to be fine."

No, I thought--whispered--in my mind, suddenly not feeling okay anymore. No.

I rounded the corner and saw Rafael first, his expression of pure disbelief as he stared down at the person in front of him--at Ryder. Ryder, who sat at one of the kitchen islands, hands in his hair in an almost aggravated manner.

"Are you fucking insane?" Rafael asked, his voice lowering.

Ryder shoved away from the counter. "Nothing bad will happen--"

"You fucker," Rafael hissed at him. "You made an agreement with your father. Do you need me to remind you of the fucking terms of it? You got to save Alice only at the cost of your own freedom."

I froze where I stood, felt Gem circling around my bare feet, but didn't really acknowledge it.

I...couldn't.

"I will deal with it." Ryder snapped.

"You can't just fucking deal with it." Rafael looked torn. "He's going to--"

The rest of his words were a noise I couldn't quite make out in my head. I had stiffened, their words fully registering at a slow, horrifying pace.

Ryder's father. All of a sudden, I could recall everything that Santiago had told me about him with too much sickening clarity.

A noise left me. Both Rafael and Ryder stopped, their heads whipping in my direction. I didn't see the expression on Rafaels face. All I could see was Ryder and the scowl slipping off his face. The surprise--grief--regret, all of it too evident in his eyes alone.

Who's going to save your Ryder? Santiago's voice taunted me--a cruel realization.