The woman who lives here is Maria Alvarez. I doubt it’s her real name, but I don’t doubt she has medical experience. She changes my bandages every few hours like clockwork, her movements gentle and precise. On my second day awake in her care, she makes me stand up and start moving.

Even knowing how important it is that I regain muscle as soon as possible, I call her every name in the book. She just laughs, and I keep grumbling until she guides me into a bathroom. I’ve never been so glad to see a toilet in my life. Or a bathtub. It’s not pretty, but together we manage to wash my hair and scrub away the grime that my previous sponge baths couldn’t.

Day three and four follow the same pattern. Bland gruel for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Exercise in the morning and evening. We make it down the hall on day three. On day four, we reach the living room before my legs give out. As she helps me into an ancient wheelchair, Maria tells me I’m pushing too hard.

I tell her she needs to push me harder.

She tries.

By the end of my first week of rehabilitation, I can walk unassisted to the living room and back. I’ve also had her taper me off painkillers. Whatever was in the pills she routinely gave me, it packed a hefty punch. And I need my wits. I need my mind, splintered as it is.

On the eighth day, I take the new splints off my fingers. I’ve been putting it off, but I need to ascertain if there’s nerve damage or any complex fractures.

Perched on the edge of my narrow bed, sunlight blankets my back. Through the open window I hear the distant roar of surf. I can’t see the ocean from my room, but Maria told me it’s not far. My goal is that by the end of the week, I can walk far enough to glimpse it.

When I finally take a break, I’m sweating from fatigue and opiate withdrawal, my hands aching badly. Just as I’m debating whether or not to give in to the tears pressing against my eyes, a shadow fills the doorway.

Liam.

This is his first visit since the day I woke up. He looks slightly better; like he’s slept, at least. Although I don’t want to feel relief, I do. One of my frequent nightmares during the last week was that he wouldn’t come back. That he would leave me here, broken and alone.

“How do you feel?”

I shrug, wincing as my back twinges. “Where did Chris learn to break bones? He’s pretty good at it. Clean breaks. They should be healed in another few weeks.”

Liam leans against the doorjamb, crossing his arms over his chest. “Do you actually expect me to answer that question?”

I glance up, my expression neutral. “Not really. I do have a question, though—who’s Maria?”

“She works for a local cartel. Used to be a nurse before her husband got caught up in a bad business deal. Now she’s paying off his debt.”

“How did you find her?” Even as I ask the question, I know his answer.

“It’s what I do.”

“Where’s her husband?”

“Where do you think, dove?”

I flinch, lifting my hands as if I can block myself from that word. From him.

“What’s wrong?” he demands.

Shaking, I lower my hands. “You can’t call me that ever again. Never. Ever. Again. Do you understand?”

He’s across the room in seconds and kneeling before me. Fingers grip my knees, but lightly, as if he’s afraid to break me. Too late. I stare at his strong hands, dotted now with small scars, and remember them bruising me. Remember loving it, begging for it. Exulting in it. I long for the ecstasy of surrender like a lost limb—it’s never coming back, but it still aches.

“Eden, look at me, please.”

No command in the tone, just pleading. I look up. When our gazes clash, it feels like the air is sucked from the room. I want so badly for him to erase the pain. To erase everything. To become the sun again, blotting out my darkness. But there’s too much darkness now.

“I can’t,” I gasp, pushing his hands off my knees. “I can’t talk about it.”

There’s death in his eyes—Chris’s death.

“He called you that. How did he—” He stops, shakes his head. “You don’t have to tell me.”

I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. “It’s okay. I told Alexis. When I stayed with her in L.A. I still can’t believe…” I shake my head helplessly. “I was so wrong about her. I ignored all the signs. The drug use, the erratic behavior. I wanted so badly for her to be someone she wasn’t. God, I’m an idiot. I fell for it. For all of it.”

A maelstrom of pain whips against the steel cage around my heart. A little slips free, shortening my breath and misting my eyes. After all that happened in the basement, I’d truly wondered if I’d ever cry again. If my capacity for suffering had been reached.

Wrong.

“I’m sorry, Eden. For the way I told you. You didn’t deserve to hear it like that.”

My eyes closed, I focus on my breathing and rebuild the barriers around my heart. I straighten my spine, ignoring the immediate burn. When Maria showed me my back for the first time, I could hardly believe what I saw—how such small wounds could cause so much pain. It’s no fucking wonder that flaying people is such an old, effective torture.

He’d taken my skin three times. Three strips, roughly an inch wide and three inches long. Parallel to each other, in a neat little row right between my shoulder blades.

I give myself a shake and open my eyes. “Have you ever been flayed alive?”

Liam’s brows lift. “As opposed to being flayed dead?”

My lips twitch. Morbid amusement, it seems, is our primary defense mechanism. At least we have something left in common.

“It’s not pleasant.”

“No, I’d imagine it’s not. How are the painkillers?”

I snort. “You mean the heroin?”

Liam smirks. “Yes.”

“I’ve been off it for a day now. Hence the sweating and shivering.”

His gaze tracks over my damp neck. Deep down, past the darkness, I feel a frisson of awareness. A feeble flame that gutters and dies from lack of oxygen.

“Why are you here, Liam? What do you want from me?”

Surprise briefly lights his eyes, mellowed the next moment by anguish. “Where else would I be?” he whispers.