We had two new women at the shelter. They’d each come in bloody and bruised, crying children in tow, well after ten tonight. Alex was sleeping soundly in his bed and I was unsuccessfully trying to read. Mostly, I was just thinking about Jason.

Our date had been one of the loveliest days of my life. He was smart and charming, not to mention handsome, but most of all, he was peaceful. I’d been nervous before he’d arrived, but once I was in his truck with him, all of that disappeared. He had a way of putting me at ease with just a smile.

I’d never experienced anything like it, to be honest.

Lots of different types of men had wandered in and out of my life, some of them harmless, but most of them were shifty and creepy characters that left me feeling dirty and ashamed. A good number of them were violent and abusive. After awhile, it just became ordinary.

I’d allowed myself to think that all men, and hell, most women, too, were heartless, selfish assholes, because that was all I ever saw. Nobody was nice to me, outside of the other victims I lived with, and even then, they were so broken and flawed they didn’t know what being kind was either, not really.

I mean, we tried. We really did.

We bandaged each other’s wounds and made sure to ration out food whenever necessary and every now and then, one of us would try to intervene in a beating or punishment, but that never ended well. Our abusers would only tolerate so much fellowship before they beat us just for trying to do something nice for one another.

Cruelty was normal.

Kindness was just a fairy tale.

Apparently, Jason was straight out of a fucking romance novel, because as far as I could see, there were no flaws to find there. He was as kind of a man as I could imagine.

And for some insane reason, he liked me.

He kissed me!

Did I kiss him back? No. I just stood there like a frozen freak who had no idea how to respond.

In all the time I’d spent with those other men, none of them had kissed me. Hell, none of them had even tried. To them, I was just another whore.

But Jason kissed me.

After I told him my story.

That fact wasn’t lost on me and in fact, it only made me more confused. I’d hesitated opening up to anyone, knowing that no matter how hard someone might try to understand, they’d never walk away looking at me the same way.

I saw it in the eyes of the women at the shelter, on my therapist’s face.

They pitied me, even if they didn’t find it disgusting.

As far as I was concerned, pity was almost worse. The pity was directed squarely at me, whereas the disgust was reserved for the things that were done to me. There’s a distinct difference. And I wanted none of it.

I kept going to therapy because it was true that talking about it all seemed to relieve a little of the weight, but outside of therapy, my lips were sealed.

Hell, I hadn’t even meant to open up to Jason, but there was something so damned warm and inviting about him, I wanted to rip open every wound I had so he could peer inside and heal it.

Surely, I thought now, in the quiet darkness of my room, that was unhealthy.

I shouldn’t feel that way about him. I shouldn’t allow myself to feel that way about any one. I’d been taught not to trust anyone, and that was a lesson I kept close at all times.

Trusting Jason was dangerous, no matter how peaceful and kind he was.

Wasn’t it?

Everything was turned upside down inside of me and so I did what I did best…I waited to see what would happen next.

For the tenth time tonight, I tried to push Jason’s face from the forefront of my mind and concentrate on the book I was reading. It was a juicy murder mystery that was set in the sunny Caribbean islands and as far away from real life that I could find. Although, the female lead in the book was falling for one of the dashing investigators, and every single time she mentioned his green eyes or his handsome good looks, Jason’s face haunted me again.

I put the book down and checked on Alex again. He lay so calm and tranquil, not a worry in his head and I couldn’t help but be proud of that.

I’d done that, I thought. I gave him peace and stability and comfort and love, all the ingredients required to keep him safe and happy and healthy. Being a mother had broken me wide open, and Alex had taught me how to love. I shuddered to think of where I’d be now if he hadn’t come along.

Probably still under Ruby’s thumb, waiting around for Luke’s next fight to be over so he’d have time to come and abuse me again. The in-between time was nice and quiet, but he had a way of making up for lost time when he finally did show back up. It took weeks to recover from one of his visits. Early on, I’d begged Ruby to reassign me, but she insisted that Luke was happy and we shouldn’t rock the boat. She didn’t want to lose Luke as a customer, she said. If she didn’t give him what he wanted, which apparently was me at his beck and call, then he’d go elsewhere.

To think that there were so many other’s keeping women like cattle in nondescript apartments and houses around the globe sickened me. I’d spent many hours imagining how I could track them all down and free them, make them see the chains were violent, but they had the strength to break free from them.

Part of winning the fight was just knowing you could walk away.

If only I’d known sooner…

If only I’d left sooner…

If only I’d known that getting pregnant was the key to freedom, maybe I’d have tried to do it sooner…

None of that mattered anymore. Now, here I was.

Strong. Independent. And hungry…

I padded out to the kitchen in search of a midnight snack. Bea made oatmeal raisin cookies and I scarfed a few of them down before searching for a glass in the cabinet. The cookies were delicious, if not a tad dry. I drank a glass of water in the dark, listening to the quiet nighttime sounds of the shelter.

Faint crying could be heard, along with a few comforting whispers, and I knew Bea was most likely with the new girls. The first night was the absolute hardest. You were still reeling from whatever awful circumstances had brought you here to this unfamiliar house, with these unfamiliar people.

Sure, they were kind, but they were strangers and strangers are just that until they aren’t. In the meantime, dealing with it all is very difficult, especially when you have children.

I contemplated walking back there and seeing if there was anything I could do or say to make the new girls feel better but I knew from experience the only thing that really would help was time. Instead, I walked back to my room at the front of the house, grateful that all of that was behind me.

Never again would I have a black eye or a bloodied lip. Never again would I stare up at the ceiling like a frozen corpse while a man used my body without my consent. Never again would someone make money off of me like that.

I closed the door to my bedroom, looking around at the dingy furnishings. It was a far cry from the palace that Jason lived in, but I didn’t mind. It was safe and that’s all that mattered.

I turned back to Alex’s crib, standing in front of it and listening to his breathing with a smile. I reached down and caressed his cheek softly, relishing the velvety softness of his flawless skin. With a heavy sigh, I turned to go back to my bed.

I glanced at the window and froze when I saw a man’s face peering in at me.

He looked up at me with wide, angry eyes and I opened my mouth and screamed as loud as I could.

“Bea!” I cried. “Bea! BEA! Help!”

Footsteps echoed down the hallway and my bedroom door flew open, followed by a frantic, wild-eyed Bea brandishing a baseball bat.

“There’s someone out there! A man was looking in my window!”

“Shit! Call 911!” She flew out of the room and I heard the front door of the house burst open. My heart pounded with fear as I dialed my phone.

When I realized I was being put on hold, I cried out in anger.

“Dammit!”

The occupants of the safe house filed into the living room, with our barebones staff that consisted of Bea and two other young counselors, running outside to chase off the man. By the time the operator answered the phone, they were walking back in.

“He’s gone,” Bea said, listening as I rattled off our address and told the operator what happened.

“We have a unit in the area, they’ll stop by shortly.”

“Please hurry,” I said. “We’re a domestic violence safe house.”

“We know, ma’am, the police are on their way.”

I hung up the phone with my heart threatening to burst from my chest.

“What did he look like?” Bea asked.

By now, everyone was crowded around me. The front door had been locked and bolted again and every window in the house had been double-checked.

“Tall guy. Bald. White, late thirties, early forties. He was just standing there staring in…”

“Did he have a goatee?” One of the ladies who’d just arrived asked, clearly fearing for her life.

“I think so,” I said, shrugging.

“It could have been him,” she said, her voice shaking. “He may have found me! He said he would, he promised he would find me and kill me.”

“Nobody knows you’re here, Sheri,” Bea walked over and pulled the sobbing girl in her arms. “It was probably just a neighborhood peeping Tom or something.”

“I don’t know. Jeffrey’s smart. All of his friends are cops! They could have given him the address!”

“Shh,” Bea said. “You’re safe here, I promise.” She shot me a worried glance over the girl’s head and I shrugged. She and I both knew there were no real guarantees of safety. Not even here.

She held her while the girl cried in her arms. I heard Alex cry out and I ran into our room and scooped him up in my arms, my heart in my throat, as I held him close. I was shaking, the realization that some strange man had come just feet away from my precious boy beginning to dawn on me.

That very well could have been the girl’s boyfriend.

It could have been anybody. Nobody goes looking into the window of a house that didn’t belong to you with good intentions.

I looked around at the drab bedroom, feeling more unsafe than I had in a very long time.

Before I could think about it any longer, I shut the bedroom door, drew the curtains tight and grabbed my cell phone.

He answered on the first ring.

“Jason, it’s Daisy…”