“Ginny!” she heard, and knew it was Steve. He was always so angry with her. She wanted to say something, but no words would come and nothing made sense. It was the heat that made her so confused, the pulsing need that made her ache so badly.
Unmoving, she lay atop the blanket, shivering in the cold night air, her hands clutching fistfuls of wool. She was afraid to move, afraid she’d fall off the edge of the world where she was balanced so precariously.
From above, his voice lashed her again, sounding so strained, so sharp.
“Be still, Ginny! You’ve got blood all over you. Where are you hurt? Damn Luna, death was too easy for him.”
Another wave of heat engulfed her, and the wool was a harsh scrape against her back, making her cringe. He was saying something important, something she should comprehend…if only she could think straight! But the fever and chills overwhelmed everything else.
Her head tilted back, and more stars swam in front of her eyes. The night air was cool and silky, washing over her endlessly but not easing the heat that engulfed her. There was something important she should say, should do, but what was it…?
There was such a pounding in her head, a steady roaring sound that seemed to come and go, drowning out his words so that she heard only a few at a time.
“…lie still, Ginny…I don’t see a wound and you don’t seem to be hurt…did he hurt you? Jesus, so much blood on you…what’s the matter…?”
“Oh God, Steve…please…help me! I feel so sick!”
“¡Chingate! Ginny! That bastard! Did he give you something to make you sick?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, but stood up and pulled her with him, swearing softly. His hands were gentle, and she strained toward him, grasping at coherence.
“It’s so hot…Why are you putting that on me? Stop it!” Crossly, she shrugged aside the blanket he draped over her shoulders. He held her still, his grip firm as he wedged her between his thighs.
“Be still, Ginny. I’ve got to get you to a doctor. It won’t help if you fight me. God, you’re burning up with fever! How long have you been like this?”
But she was beyond answering him, beyond even fighting as the struggle to make sense of everything dissolved into a suffocating cloak, as if someone had pulled down a black curtain that made everything abruptly disappear.
The next thing she knew, she was in a bed in someone’s house, a real bed, with springs and an iron frame. Steve was slumped in a chair beside her. Beard stubble darkened his jaw, and he dozed, his chin digging into his chest.
Somehow, it was comforting. Ginny closed her eyes again and slipped back into a sleep that was much easier. If Steve was there, it would be all right.
It took days for the fever to subside, and she was incoherent and nauseous by turns, drifting between reality and vague, frightening dreams. Steve tended her with a gentleness she had never expected from him. He said nothing of how he had found her, nothing about Rafael Luna, and in her moments of lucidity, Ginny could not bring herself to mention him, either. When they talked, it was of mundane things, of the children or the weather, or of the little village in a green valley surrounded by hills where he had taken her to recuperate.
Ginny grew stronger every day, physically if not in spirit. As her body healed, she became more withdrawn. She wanted to hide from the world, from Steve, even from her own memories, and retreated behind a carefully erected barrier where she felt nothing. She wanted only to sleep, to dream of nothing. How could she bear it? She felt adrift, wounded, emotionless. Nothing penetrated the shell she built around herself like a high wall.
Early one morning Steve woke her from a deep, dreamless sleep to tell her they were leaving the village. Perhaps it was the way he said it, or the sudden dread of leaving the quiet village nestled in the palm of a ring of mountains where she felt so safe. But she rebelled.
“I want to stay here.” She lunged from the bed to face him with arms akimbo, chin lifted in uncertain defiance. “I have no intention of being dragged around the entire country without even knowing why, or where I’m going.”
A black brow arched in amusement. “Get dressed, Ginny. Or are you waiting for me to help you? It’s a surprise, and I don’t want to spoil it for you.”
Ginny gazed at him uncertainly, her brief defiance vanishing. There was something so different about him now, the way he watched her, helped her so tenderly, ignored her when she was ill-tempered. While she’d been mending, he had not left her side, but watched her with something like—like shame in his eyes.
I can’t bear it! After all that has happened, he must think me so loathsome, so defiled….
Turning away, she said without looking at him, “Oh, yes, you never miss a chance to show me that you’re stronger than I am. I suppose you’ll drag me kicking and screaming all the way to…to wherever it is you’re taking me.”
“Ginny, don’t make this hard on both of us. We can’t stay here forever.”
Agitated, she began to pace the floor, moving from the window to the door which was always closed at her request, a barrier to protect her from the world, from danger.
“Why can’t we stay here? I don’t want to leave, Steve. I don’t think…I don’t think I can!”
After a moment of quiet, he came to her. He put a
