We were in a standoff.

She was winning.

Regan hadn't uttered one fucking word since she regained consciousness a week ago.

The first few days, she had an excuse. Having that tube shoved down her throat for so long caused her a lot of discomfort. A discomfort I hated she was very familiar with after spending more time in this hospital than out of it this past month.

Now she was just being obstinate.

No one asked her to talk about what had happened. Frankly, none of us wanted to hear about it—not yet. It was obviously too raw and traumatic for her to speak of, and we'd be the worst kind of jackasses to insist she tell us anything. If she wanted us to know, she'd tell us when she was ready.

One word. I only wanted one word to pass from between her lips.

Just one sound.

When the doctors and nurses came in, she only nodded or shook her head. They learned very quickly to only ask her yes or no questions. Some psychobabble bullshit doctor had said she may never speak again. Something about it being common with patients who had survived incredibly distressing and violent encounters.

Fuck that.

I knew she could talk.

I was the only one who knew.

I was the only one who was here at night when she had the nightmares.

I was the one who held her while she cried.

It was in my arms that she would fall back to sleep.

And then, when the sun rose, she'd go mute as if nothing had happened the night before.

She also refused to let us touch her. The only people that she granted that permission to were Beth and a select few of the medical staff.

And me under the cover of darkness.

No one with light hair could get close to her.

Joshua had started wearing knit beanies to hide his hair when he visited just so he could come in the room and stand in the corner. It was as close as he dared to get until she indicated otherwise.

Recovery was going to take a long time. Fine. I accepted that as soon as I saw her mangled body on that fucking table in the warehouse. No one was rushing her to do anything.

Except speak.

That was my demand.

I had to know what she needed, wanted, what would upset her, comfort her ... anything. I wasn't good at this stuff. If I wasn't ordering someone around, demanding them to do as I bid, I didn't know how to figure out what they needed.

With Regan, it used to be easy. She unknowingly always broadcast her needs to me. It was in the way she looked at something or spoke, touched or withdrew, moved or held still - I knew how to read her so well. She was an open book for which only I had the translation.

 Now my girl was just blank pages.

Grunting with my ever-increasing frustration, my hands tugged at my wet hair. Noah stopped by a little while ago to sit with her while I took a break for a shower and a meal. It was honestly surprising to all of us that he was failing at getting her to speak. We thought that if any of us would succeed, it'd be him. Out of the three of us, he was the one she allowed to get closest to her bed.

Actually, I hadn't even tried. I was harboring an assumption that she'd prefer me to stay away. I was grumpy, mean, short-tempered. The opposite of what was good for her right now.

Noah and Joshua were the easygoing ones - Joshua had jokes and smiles, and Noah always knew what to say and how to act.

Fuck this. Since when did I care about any of that?

I stared at her as she held my gaze, the occasional blink the only movement from her.

Go on. Say something, I silently urged her.

You first, her glare seemed to challenge me.

I've got all day. It was a lie. I only had about another fifteen minutes.

Her eyes flickered to the IV still hooked into her hand and then back to me. So do I.

What was she waiting for?

My phone went off, breaking our quiet challenge.

Walker's text flashed on the screen. He's awake.

I sat up, my heart speeding, and a rush of adrenaline forced me to almost jump from the chair. My lips started to turn up in a smile before I caught myself, glancing at Regan to see if she noticed. She watched me carefully, eyes narrowed and scrutinizing my reaction.

My reply to Walker was short. On my way.

Grabbing my jacket, I strode from the room, stopping briefly at the door to look over my shoulder at Regan.

"I'll be gone for a few days, baby. Be good."

Twenty minutes later, I stalked into the warehouse feeling happier than the day I first laid eyes on my beautiful girl in the library at school. Riley and I had just finished fighting over a book, Joshua intervening before it got bloody, and then she ran in, waving a paper around and smiling. Her drawing of the school had been chosen for the contest in the local paper. Her excited babbling continued while Jay and Riley joined in. I tuned it all out, focused only on the redheaded ray of sunshine who was the most radiant girl I'd ever seen.

As I grinned down at a very weak and terrified-looking Stephen, that memory played on repeat in my mind.

I was going to get my ray of sunshine back.

Walker had done a fantastic job of setting the stage. Stephen/Phillip/I didn't care what the fuck his name was, lay naked and tied spread eagle to a table in the same area of the cold, wet warehouse that Regan had been found in. Unfortunately, the same table was unavailable for our use since it was in evidence, but this one would do just fine. Next to us was a smaller table, all assortments of torture instruments and accessories set up for me. Pliers, hammers, knives, chains - I laughed when I noticed a broken broomstick.

Walker had thought of everything.

"Sometimes even I'm a little scared of you," I told him, picking it up.

Stephen whined behind the duct tape covering his mouth.

Walker shrugged. "Be happy in your work, right?"

I swung the broomstick and then gave my wrist a quick rotation, getting a feel for it. "Absolutely."

The wood made a sickening crack as I brought it down over Stephen's ribs. His scream was a sound from the heavens. I swung it down a second time, this time directly onto his bleeding and obviously infected bullet wound in his thigh. His eyes bulged, his scream cut off as he vomited beneath the duct tape and then began choking on it since it had nowhere to go but back down his throat.

"Disgusting," Walker sneered, letting him choke for a little while and then ripped off the tape, jumping back to avoid the spewing sick Stephen blew all over himself.

"Vile," I agreed.

"Please!" Stephen yelled, gasping and crying up at me.

"Please?" I repeated. "Please?"

Walker shook his head. "Can't believe he really just said that."

Stephen looked frantically from him to me. "You can't do this. The police -"

He threw up again when I punched him right in the dick.

"I can do whatever I want." I hit in the ribs with the broomstick again, followed by a hard punch to his lower abdomen. He pissed himself.

"No! Please!" he wailed.

"Did you listen when Regan begged you to stop? Did your sick sister?"

I turned back to my supplies, setting down the broomstick and picking up a blow torch and a piece of rebar. Oh yes, we had been able to tell the type of instrument used to burn my girl. The pattern from the metal had been visible in her wounded flesh. He started screaming in terror, the sound high-pitched and annoying.

God, he was such a pussy.

"Scream all you want, no one can hear you. But you know that already. That's one of the reasons you chose this place. Regan had screamed and screamed for days, and no one could hear her."

It didn't seem my words were sinking in. Walker dumped a bucket of ice water on him. He sputtered, which was better than the incessant screaming. And it washed the foul puke off of him.

"Listen closely," Walker ordered and grabbed Stephen's face, forcing him to look at me. I fired up the torch.

"Regan is still alive. Even after everything you did to her, she lived. She's awake and recovering. It took her a long time to get to this point, though. She was unconscious for over a week." Leaning back on the work table, I put the end of the rebar into the flame. It would take a while to get hot enough for what I wanted to do, so I continued. "Nine days, to be exact. And in those nine days, I cataloged every single injury you gave her. Every burn, every cut, every bruise - I have it all memorized. I studied her charts so I'd know every internal wound, puncture, tear, and gash. If you wanted, I could draw a perfect diagram of all of it. Do you know why I memorized it all?"

As expected, Stephen didn't answer. Walker gave his head a shake. "Answer him."

"Wh - why?" he stammered.

"So I could do it all to you. I'm going to hurt you in every single way you hurt my girl. Every. Single. Fucking. Way."

He began thrashing against his bindings. Walker let him go, only to watch in delight as he struggled and pulled until he was panting in exhaustion. None of the ties had loosened, and now he had rope burn. This was turning out to be funnier than I intended. Joshua would be laughing so hard if he was here.

He'd never see any of this. Neither would Noah. They didn't even know Walker found him. As tough as both of them were, this was something I had to protect them from. If it were a matter of simply shooting Stephen in the head, either of them would be capable of it. But this? The level of torture I intended to inflict on Stephen was not something I wanted them to see me doing or have them be forced to live with. This was my burden.

This was my contribution.

I pulled the rebar from the flame and set down the torch. "How many days did it take for you to break Regan? Two? Three?"

Pure panic showed in his eyes with every inch closer the metal got to him.

"No, it was longer than that, wasn't it? She fought you until you broke her arm and wrist, her face. Maybe until you dislocated her goddamned jaw."

He was trying to pull himself together, attempting to come up with some witty retort. His mouth opened, shut, opened again, and then he made the worst decision available to him.

"She panted like a bitch with my dick in her mouth and gun up her cunt."

The metal sizzled when I stabbed it straight into his bullet wound hard enough for the bar to come out the other side of his leg, clanging into the surface of the table. I left it there, impaled through his thigh. He had passed out. He needed to be awake when I decided to pull it out.

A gun in her - I shoved the image from my mind. The doctors knew she had been raped and sodomized. They had collected samples for the rape kit and handed it over to the police. There were expected lacerations and tearing that accompanied rough sexual assault.

But a gun?

Now I had yet another method of torture for Stephen. I'd shove a gun so far up his ass he'd be gnawing on the bullets while he begged me to let him die.

Walker snorted from where he was standing on the other side of the table, arms crossed and frowning down at Stephen.

"What an absolute pussy."

"Wake him up."

Walker snapped open a smelling salt packet and practically shoved it up Stephen's nose. I returned to the table and waited for him to stop coughing and gagging at the ammonia smell. With my back turned to them, I used the moment to take in a few steadying breaths. Things were about to get dark and stay that way for a while. I needed to clear my head of Regan, Noah, and Jay. I couldn't bring them on this descent into hell. I wiped my mind clear of everything except revenge and turned. Time to really get to work.

"You can't even make it thirty fucking minutes before fainting."

My fist crushed his right eye socket.

"Twelve days of this."

I cracked his other cheekbone.

"Twelve."

My elbow snapped his ribs.

"Fucking."

His shattered front teeth split my knuckles open.

"Days."

*************************

Six days later, I stumbled back into the hospital, covered in Stephen's blood and gore and sleep-deprived to the point my feet barely carried me to Regan's room. Walker, Ben, and Raphael escorted me the whole way there, clearing my path and warding off any staff that attempted to come to my aid. I'd get help later.

I had to see my girl.

I had to tell her it was over.

Walker suggested cleaning up and resting before bursting into her room to announce Stephen had died crying like a baby, laying in his own blood and shit like the rabid animal he was. But it couldn't wait that long. She had to know now. 

Noah and Joshua were at her door waiting for me. Walker called ahead to tell them we were on our way and that Stephen had been dealt with. He shared no details of how. They'd give me hell for disappearing for almost a week, refusing to tell them where I was or what I was doing. That would wait. Both of them took one look at me and rushed to help, each ducking under my arms to support me and pull me into the room.

Regan was up and out of bed. She was pacing, limping only slightly, her left arm still in a cast. The bruising around her eyes and cheeks was a lovely faded color now, and only a few small bandages remained on her neck, arms, and legs.

She was fucking beautiful. Goddamned perfection. I croaked out a desperate sound at the sight of her, and she whirled, watching wide-eyed and open-mouthed as Noah and Jay brought me closer.

I pushed them away, frantic to go to her. Forgetting that she may not let me touch her or want me near her, my hands reached forward and clasped open air. For one confusing second, I thought she had jumped away, and then my hazy brain registered that I had fallen to my knees in front of her.

"Baby," I whispered. "It's over. I did it, baby."

Regan inhaled sharply, her brilliant eyes round and shimmering with tears as she stared down at me.

"Stephen is dead. I did it. I fucking did it."

Noah and Jay were talking to Walker behind me. I couldn't make out the words. Without thinking, I grabbed Regan's waist and pulled her to me, resting my head on her abdomen. She stiffened and fought my hold.

"Fuck, I'm sorry. I'm sorry," I held my hands up, releasing her, but instead of running from me, she dropped down and clasped my face in between her good hand and cast. "What -"

She searched my eyes. "You did it?"

Her voice. My God, her voice. My eyes slid shut at the sound of it. "He's dead."

Everyone fell silent and watched us embrace, kneeling together on the cold floor of her hospital room. Her body was pressed into mine, my arms clutching her to me just as tightly as she held me, and we both kept talking over the other, not caring in the slightest.

"I killed him, baby."

"Mal, you did it."

"All for you."

"It's really over."

"It's over. You're safe."

She was sobbing into my neck. I breathed in her scent, my face buried in her hair. Someone's arm draped across my shaking shoulders, followed by another one. Noah and Jay knelt with us, wrapping us into a group embrace, and Regan cried harder. No one said anything; all of us were simply content in being together again.

Our foursome was whole and healing.

We were safe.