There are seven grown men in this room on the second floor of my house. I recognize them all: my new guards, my father’s lackeys, various church members. The Reverend himself isn’t here, probably because he doesn’t want to risk besmirching his reputation any more than has already been done.

I sit quietly in a straight-backed chair, watching the TV mounted on the wall. On it, my father’s doing his full-on political act, somber-faced, looking as concerned as he can as he steps up to the microphone, sorrow etched into every line and pore of his face.

I’ve never hated him more.

Cameras snap away, and reporters start asking questions, but he puts one hand out, face still stony, and they all stop. He takes a deep breath, like what he’s about to say pains him.

“First, I’d like to say that the email did, indeed, come from my daughter Ruby,” he begins.

My eyebrows shoot up. I expected him to say that I’d been hacked or something, but this is a different approach. The men guarding me in the room murmur to each other, not a single one of them looking directly at me. It’s like somehow, I’m both the cause for all this fuss and completely invisible.

“I’m afraid that Ruby isn’t well,” my father continues, looking as sad and serious as he possibly can. “Her divorce and the ensuing spotlight have caused her mental health to deteriorate significantly, and in the past few weeks, she’s begun having certain delusions.”

Delusions.

My mouth drops open.

He’s calling me crazy. My own father. He’s telling everyone that I alleged all this because I’m a crazy person, that I’m imagining everything that’s happened to me.

Instead of just letting me go — his adult daughter — he’s telling the press that I’m literally insane.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt worse, or more helpless. I thought that this was a slam-dunk, a surefire way to make him let me out of the house, out from under his thumb, but it’s not.

Freedom is so close I can taste it — he’s having to answer for his crimes, at least; people are suspicious, at least — but he’s going to get away with it.

My chest tightens, and I feel like I can’t breathe, like the room is closing in on me, because I don’t know what else to do. I thought this was it, the thing that would burn every bridge I had with my family but that would at least get me out.

On the TV, he’s still going on about what a sad tragedy it is, and I’m fucking sure he’s tying it back to politics somehow. Reporters start shouting, asking questions, but he’s an absolute professional.

Think, Ruby, I tell myself, but I can’t think. I’m trapped, surrounded by the enemy, and right now I feel desperately alone and out of options.

I think of Gabriel, somewhere, waiting, trusting me that I’d get out and come to him. More than anything I wish I could, but there are two men in front of the door and five others just standing around, ready to tackle me if I so much as move.

So I sit there in stunned silence. I feel like all the blood has drained out of me, and I’m a dried, motionless, withered husk.

Then something happens. On the television. The camera swings around, the last shot of my father looking baffled. A female reporter says something hurriedly, and the picture is wobbling a little, like the cameraman is still adjusting.

And then, Gabriel’s face.

Everyone in the room takes a step forward except for me. I don’t move, but I lean in as the men I’m with murmur to each other in bafflement and confusion, because it’s not like any of them is particularly bright.

“Ruby is in there,” he says, looking dead into the camera. “Everything the Senator’s saying is an outright lie.”

“Now, you—” the camera wobbles and pans back a little, so we can see a female reporter, looking slightly out of breath like she’s been running, sticking her microphone out. “—Until recently, you were part of the Senator’s security team.”

Gabriel looks pissed, and he crosses his arms in front of himself, glancing over his shoulder. As he does, I realize: he’s right outside. The gate behind him is our gate, maybe a few hundred feet from where I’m sitting.

“That’s right,” he says, eyes flashing. “I was actually Ruby’s personal bodyguard, and I can state unequivocally that she’s not crazy, she’s not delusional, and the Senator is holding her against her will.”

The men in the room all move a little closer to the TV, enraptured, and I don’t move a muscle. I’m thinking about what Gabriel said, the first time we went to an event together, before he found me drinking vodka backstage.

About distractions, and how dangerous they are.

“Now—” the woman says, looking around, like someone’s talking to her. “Can you elaborate on the circumstances under which you left the Senator’s employ? I’m getting conflicting reports—”

“I had an affair with Ruby,” Gabriel cuts in. “Actually, that’s inaccurate. I’m having an affair with Ruby.”

The men in the room start talking louder to each other, still ignoring me, the person they’re talking about. They bunch closer to the TV as they do, because they’re a pack of stupid gossipmongers.

“So you have reason to be angry at the Senator,” the woman says.

I stand, quietly, and look from man’s back to man’s back. I look at their doughy arms and their soft hands.

“Damn right I do,” Gabriel says. “He’s holding his adult daughter prisoner —”

I run.

In two steps, I’m at the door and I fling it open, burst into the hall, charge down the stairs. There’s someone posted at the bottom, and he moves to intercept me, but I fake right and dart left.

All he gets is my hand, and I swing my arm in a circle, getting him off me.

Gabriel taught me that one.

I don’t stop. I don’t slow down, even though the ruckus brings people out of every room as I bolt for the front door. It sounds like a herd of elephants is right behind me, galloping along, and then I’m there, at the huge, ten-foot wooden doors, and I turn the knob, slamming my body against one.

It opens slowly, like a tomb, the sunlight and cool fall air rushing in.

At the front of the steps is my father, staring back at me, face astonished. Beyond him is a nest of cameras, black holes all staring my way. Beyond that, a driveway.

Beyond that a gate, a news truck, three people gathered around.

Gabriel turns toward me, right as someone grabs my shirt and yanks me backward so hard it pulls me off my feet and I fall hard onto the floor.

For a moment, nothing happens. Everyone is staring at me, arms and legs akimbo on the floor, mouths open. My father is staring through the half-open front door, and I stare back, stunned.

Slowly, I realize there’s a sound. A dry, whispering sound, like leaves rustling, and I shake my head and take a deep breath and realize what it is: the sound of a dozen people clicking news cameras.

They just saw everything, and it takes me a moment to process what that means.

I get my feet under me, shakily. No one moves to stop me as I stand, brush myself off, push my hair off my face, cameras going constantly.

I step through the door, onto the front porch. I descend the steps, five feet from my father.

We lock eyes as I walk, but neither of us says a word.

I walk past him, onto the driveway even though I’m barefoot. The cameras turn en masse. Reporters start shouting questions, but I ignore them and keep going.

At the gate, iron bars in both hands, is Gabriel.

I force myself not to run, even though I want to run, skip, leap into his arms and cover his face with kisses. But that might look crazy, so I don’t.

At the guard gate, I just look at the guy in the shack. The cameras have followed me, and even though he looks nervous and frightened, he doesn’t fight me. He just hits the button and opens the gate without a word. On the other side, Gabriel’s grinning like an idiot.

I’m about to cry, the tears threatening to spill over, but as the gate hums and whirs, I smile back at him.

Then it’s open and I’m through and I’m in his arms, my head against his chest, and he’s squeezing me so tightly I can barely breathe but we’re rocking back and forth, together, cameras going off like crazy and people shouting questions at us.

I barely hear them, because I’m here, I’m safe, I’m barefoot on the sidewalk, and I just left behind everything I’ve ever known. We stand there for a long time, and I just breathe and cry and he holds me as tight as he can. Slowly, I start to relax, even though my pulse is still jumping.

We’re totally surrounded by people, but Gabriel ignores them as he pulls back, just slightly, and looks down at me.

“Was that the plan?” he asks, a smile tugging at his lips.

I smile back, even though there are tears falling down my face and I’m half-sobbing.

“Kind of?” I say, and he leans down and kisses me gently on the lips, his hand on my chin, and then on my forehead. After a moment, he takes my hand in his, totally ignoring the press standing around, screaming questions, and laces his fingers through mine.

“Come on,” he says. “I’ve got a white horse parked a few blocks away, only it looks a lot like a shitty old Hyundai.”

I swallow hard, still crying, still shaking and shocked and wondering a little if maybe I am having a delusion right now.

“You know sunset isn’t for another nine hours, right?” I ask.

He just laughs, and we walk down the sidewalk together, hand-in-hand, away from my father’s house.