I am ugly. I am stupid. I am unlovable. I am worthless. I can’t get ES’s mantra out of my head while I wait for my turn to visit Sasha. The last few days have left me several shades of fucked up. And on top of everything else, I haven’t heard back from Summer. I hope and pray that Jaden’s hacker friends find something soon.

I lean against the wall and scroll through the notifications on the cell phone Jaden gave me and try to figure the guy out. Once in a while, I catch a glimpse of the cauldron full of roiling emotions under that calm exterior. He seems on edge a lot of the time. Maybe he’s just moody. Maybe . . .

Something touches my arm. I jump as if touched by a branding iron. My fists clench reflexively. I pant as adrenaline floods through me and squeeze my eyes shut, praying it isn’t one of the hospital staff thinking I’ve flipped my lid. I take a few deep breaths and ease the grip on the phone while trying to put a harness on my panic.

“Shit. Sorry. You okay?” Jaden looks as if he’s about to swallow a live goldfish.

“Yeah. Sorry. I’m still a little skittish, I guess. How is she?”

Jaden leans against the wall and runs his fingers through his hair, rearranging his wavy curls. His eyes reflect his despair. His fear and pain jolt through me. His love for his friend takes my breath away. Not good.

It’s back. The curse. Feeling what someone else feels, actually feeling their joy . . . or pain. Shit. I don’t know why and can never predict when. It has been so long since I’ve been in tune with someone else, and now Jaden.

I’d learned early on not to show that I can feel others’ emotional states. Not everyone, it’s random. Sometimes I walk into a room, and the tension hits me like an uppercut to the jaw. It’s particularly bad if I’m around someone ill—I feel their sickness. Sasha’s injuries are mechanical and will heal. Her sickness lies in her mental state. I can feel it from here. Jaden’s voice brings me back to reality.

“She’ll make a full recovery physically. It’s mentally I’m concerned about.” Jaden straightens and attempts a weak smile. “Want anything from Tim’s?”

“Three honey dip Timbits. No more, no less.”

He smiles as if acknowledging a kindred spirit who knows the meaning of self-discipline. “Three, it is.”

Before I have the chance to move, Jaden tips my chin and drops a light kiss on my forehead. “Thank you.”

I stand in shock for a beat, watching his cute ass walk away from me. It’s been just over a week, and I can’t figure out whether I’m coming—I wish—or going with this guy. Usually, by this time, I’ve been fucked and well and truly dumped. Not by Jaden. Oh sure, there was the other night, but he was drunk, and that didn’t count.

Jaden. I might need a therapist to figure him. Sometimes it’s obvious I turn him on. Minutes later he acts about as interested in me as he would his younger sister—does he have one? I don’t even know.

I watch until he rounds the corner, then shake it off. I silence my cell phone and dig deep inside to find the strength to give Sasha what she needs. The strength to absorb her pain.

Sasha smiles weakly as I approach the bed. Like many pale people, she looks like a corpse without her makeup, and the white surrounding her doesn’t do much to help. Neither does the washed-out pastel of her hospital gown. I drop my hands on the bed rail. She rests one of hers on mine.

“Thank you for coming,” she says.

“No worries.” I don’t have a fucking clue what to say next. Should I refer to the kidnapping or wait for her to bring it up? “How’s the pain?”

I figure that’s a safe enough topic and one I can talk about for hours. My endometriosis made me quite familiar with hospitals and surgery.

“Not too bad as long as I don’t move. The pain pump works pretty well.”

“What have they got you on?”

“Morphine. It made me sick, so they’re giving me something for the nausea.” Sasha raises the head of the bed and tries to shift up.

“Here, let me help.” I tuck my hands under both armpits and hoist her up.

“Thanks. You’re stronger than you look.”

“Yes, I am. Question is, are you?”

Sasha’s eyes fill with tears. “I don’t know, Rayne. I just don’t know.”

I pull a nearby chair closer to the bed. I clasp Sasha’s hand with both of mine. “Want to talk about it?”

“You know, don’t you?” Sasha’s voice is so soft, I can barely hear her.”

“Know what, hon?”

“What happened. What they did to me. Jaden told you.”

I make my tone match hers. “Jaden hasn’t said much of anything, but I can guess based on experience with Viper and hints Kat dropped. That’s okay. You can talk about it when you’re ready.”

Tears run freely down Sasha’s face. I envy the release. “He beat me. He let one of his goons rape me. Then . . .” Retching sobs make it impossible to hear. Reliving her fear makes me want to vomit. Forcing back the bile, I grab a handful of facial tissues and hand them to her. Once she regains control, she tells me everything. I’m not sure why; we barely know each other. There’s something about me that makes people confess the strangest things. With Sasha, all I can do is listen in stunned silence. Nothing I say will make it any better.

Sasha wipes away more tears and blows her nose. Now that she’s shared her story, the intensity of pain in her eyes diminishes.

“You know what bothers me the most?”

“It wasn’t your choice.” It’s always been about choice for me. I want to choose my destiny and positively hate that men think they can do it for women. When Viper took away Sasha’s right to choose, he demolished her personal power.

Sasha squeezes my hand, a dazed look in her eyes.

I jump up and straighten her blankets. “What do you need?”

“Sit. You surprised me, that’s all. Can you tell me your story?”

Which one? I dither for a beat. Does she want to know about being tricked out? Sure, that’s probably it. She no doubt thinks all kinds of bad things happened. In this case, bad is spelled V-I-P-E-R. He’s the only one who laid hurt on me during that vile time. Truth be told, the other guys had been kind of pathetic. A couple of them even wanted to talk. I’ve no doubt developed a few more neuroses because of the experience, but it wasn’t all that traumatic. Not like when ES fucked me. Not like when that bastard Kevin raped me. And then I know. That’s what she needs to hear about. I lean forward and grasp Sasha’s hand again, sharing my strength and healing warmth.

“Are you sure you want to hear this? It’s a bit gruesome. Not nearly as bad as your story, but bad enough.”

“I need to hear. Maybe it can help me figure out how to deal?” Sasha’s eyes plead. It isn’t the details so much as how I survived that she needs to know.

“His name was Kevin. Actually, it still is, but I’ll get to that later. This was the second time I was raped.”

“Just a minute.” Sasha grabs one of the hoses leading from the IV and presses the button attached. After a long moment, she sighs. “That’s better. Sorry.”

“No worries. Now, where was I? I was fifteen or sixteen at the time. I hung around with two guys, John and Howie. Howie came from one of the town’s poor families, you know the kind with fourteen kids who live in a shack without plumbing or heating.”

“No way? Fourteen kids?” Sasha’s voice is weak, but she keeps her gaze fixed on me.

“Yup. Not a word of a lie. Kevin was his cousin, and they had nine kids.”

“Where the hell was this?” Sasha’s eyes light with interest.

“Right here in Southwestern Ontario. Not that far from here actually. One of those small towns you’ll miss if you blink while driving through.” I nod. “Poverty, ignorance and prejudice exist everywhere, even today.”

Sasha grimaces. “Sad, but so true.”

“Anyway, Kevin, his sister, and some of their friends were going to the hotel in a neighboring town where my best friend lived. They offered a ride. We agreed to meet back at the car in the hotel parking lot after last call. Do you mind if I have some of that?” I point to the container of apple juice sitting on Sasha’s tray.

Sasha pushes it toward me. “Help yourself.”

I take a long pull and set it back on the tray. “I arrived back at the car before they did, so I got in the back seat to wait. A few minutes later, Kevin got in beside me. He was stinking drunk.” I shudder as the memory of the smell washes over me. “He had a knife. A big sucker like the one Michael uses in the movie Halloween. He tried to get me to go with him. I grabbed the headrest and held on, screaming for help.”

“Where were his sister and the friends?”

“Oh, they arrived a few minutes later, laughing and carrying on. They helped him drag me from the car. They knocked my glasses off. Kevin was pulling me away, waving the knife in my face. His sister and their friends got in the car. I was frantic. I pulled away from Kevin and ran to the car. His sister laughed and rolled up the window. She kept laughing as she drove away. I tried to run. Kevin tripped me. He took me by the hair and dragged me—across the road and down a side street to the train tracks.”

“You must have been petrified.”

I pause for a second. I don’t like to think about how I felt that night. I felt nothing. That’s what I keep telling myself, but that won’t help Sasha.

“You know, it’s really hard to figure just how I felt that night. Yes, I was scared to death. My adrenaline pumped like some kind of pneumatic pumping system on steroids.”

Sasha nods. She knows just what I mean.

“I remember thinking I should fight more, but when he put that knife against my throat, I froze. I didn’t want to die.”

Another nod from the bed.

“That was the moment my BG was born, my bitch goddess. It was as if some part of me left my body and sat on my shoulder watching. She wasn’t scared at all. She was just, well, bitchy. She was my self-preservation; there was only terror left in my body. She told me to do everything Kevin said. I become the girl she watches.

He made her get undressed. He pushed her back into the gravel lining the train tracks. He pulled down his jeans and climbed on top of her. He tried to shove his dick in her.” A dull monotone takes over my voice. This isn’t BG talking. This is another part of my brain altogether. A part I want to run from as far and fast as possible. Sasha squeezes my hand.

“He got really angry when he couldn’t get inside of her. She was bone dry. He cut her.” My tone drops even lower. I rest my head on the cool metal of the bed rail. “It hurt so bad. So bad. When he was done, he staggered off.”

We listen to the pneumatic sounds of the monitors for several minutes. Sasha draws on my healing warmth.

“How’d you get home?”

“I hitchhiked. It was about two thirty in the morning by this time. I went back to the hotel parking lot and found my glasses, thank God. As luck would have it, one of the Courtney boys picked me up. They were the other poor family in town. They lived in the shack across from Howie’s. I could barely breathe all the way home and sat glued to the passenger door of his truck.”

“What happened?” Sasha breathes out the question.

“Nothing. It was kind of anticlimactic. He dropped me off safely at home.”

“So, you became the bitch goddess?” Sasha whispers. She presses her eyelids shut. “I’ll have to find me one.”

“I didn’t become the bitch goddess. She just comes out to play every once in a while.”

“Can you summon her on command?”

“Mostly no, but I’m getting better at it.”

“Did you ever forgive yourself for not fighting harder?”

“Not really, but I’m trying to stop blaming myself. I was making good progress with a counselor before ES sold me. Now, I’m just all kinds of fucked up again.”

Sasha lies back, eyes closed. She squeezes my hand once more. “Thank you.” She sounds drowsy.

I stand. “Get some sleep. I’ll come back later.” I turn to leave.

“Rayne?”

“Yeah?”

Sasha’s intense stare takes my breath away. “Take care of Jaden for me. Ignore the macho.”

“But—”

“Please!” Sasha starts to sit up. “Shit.”

“Okay. Shit is right. Lie back.”

Sasha grabs my arm. “Promise me. He needs someone to take care of him. At least stay until I get back.”

“Why me? You don’t even know me, and he doesn’t like me.”

Sasha barks out a short laugh and grabs her sides, grimacing in pain. I wait while she catches her breath.

“Oh, he likes you. Make no mistake. But, you know that.”

I want to argue but feel Sasha’s remaining energy drain from her system.

“You need some rest.”

She grabs my wrist. Her strength surprises me. “Promise me.”

“Okay, I promise. I’ll stay until you get back. If Jaden wants me to.”

She relaxes, and her lips form a tiny tight smile. “Oh, he wants you to, all right.”

She’s lost a tiny piece of her mind, but I admire her loyalty.