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The entryway went very quiet.

The front door hadn't latched properly. Two of Lucas's teammates stood behind him in the gap, visibly uncomfortable, trying to smooth things over.

"Sylvia, he's not himself tonight. The fever — he didn't mean any of it."

"Look, the way you've been testing him every evening, who wouldn't eventually snap? Let it go."

"That thing six months ago — he ended it. He told us himself."

My stomach lurched.

Six months ago.

I was sixteen years old. My stepbrother and a group of his friends dragged me into an alley behind the school — a black stretch of nothing, no lights, no one around.

When they tore my clothes, it was Lucas who came. Eighteen years old, red-eyed and wild, swinging a brick until they ran.

He pulled off his school jacket and wrapped it around me, tight, like a bandage.

He cried harder than I did. He held me and said: Don't be scared. Whoever touches you, I'll kill them.

Because of what happened in that alley, I could barely let my own husband touch me after we married. Any unexpected contact made me shake. Lucas used to hold me through it, over and over, his lips against my forehead.

Don't be scared. There's no rush. I'll wait as long as you need.

I used to believe he was the one who pulled me out of hell.

Then, six months ago, his stomach was acting up and I went to his station late at night to bring him medication. I found him with the new trauma counsellor. He had her pressed into the sofa, both of them frantic, his hands in her hair. Her black lace bra was hanging off the shoulder of his rescue team uniform — that uniform he was so proud of.

When he heard me in the doorway, he dropped to his knees. He swore he'd been drunk. He swore he'd mistaken her for me.

Twelve years.

Twelve years I'd believed he was the person who dragged me out of the dark.

I hadn't understood that the person who lifts you out of one abyss can drop you into another.