I bit my lip in embarrassment, racking my now more-alert brain to remember something from this past week. I had flashes, intermittent memories. But as I gazed upon AK’s scratched skin, I felt my face drain. Images of me and him in his kitchen came to my head. I was against the wall, and he . . . he . . .

“We fucked,” I said. It was not a question. I knew it to be true. I brought one hand to AK’s face. He kept still, but his dark eyes remained on me as I traced the marks, the prints exactly fitting the size of my hand. “And I hurt you.”

“You weren’t yourself,” he repeated tightly. I thought he would knock my hand away, dispel my touch, but he did not. I stared into his eyes, and he stared back into mine. “Why?” I asked, baffled. “Why would you bring me here? I . . . I am no concern of yours.” I lowered my eyes in an attempt to block my building tears. The lack of alcohol was bringing forth the emotions I had long kept locked away, deep within me. “I am not of consequence to anyone but Lilah, I suppose.” My stomach dropped. “And though I do not remember, I am presuming she did not agree . . . with how I have been lately.”

“I got my reasons, Red,” AK said, using that name he had called me when he saved me from Meister. I faced him again, and something swirled in my stomach at the way he regarded me. His dark eyes were soft and kind. “Question is,” he said, turning his body further toward me, “why did you turn to the drink on the first place?”

My heart beat so quickly I could hear its rhythm in my ears. I took a long drink of water, feeling the flames heat my cheeks. I knew, of course. I knew why I had turned to drink. The pain I had lived with since I was twelve years old. The pain that time had not lessened but had only cut deeper with each passing day.

But I could not tell AK what haunted me most. I could not bear the judgment I would receive for what I allowed to happen.

I was a failure, and now I paid the price.

The drink took that away.

So I bared another regret.

“I watched. I watched them trial her. I watched Judah declare her a heretic of our faith. I watched as she cried and received lashes, as the crowd booed her and called her a whore. Then I . . . then her eyes met with mine.” I sobbed, choking, seeing that day as if I were still living it. “Her eyes met mine, and within them I did not see fear, but resignation.” I only realized that tears were falling down my cheeks when I looked at AK and his image was blurred. I blinked them away and shook my head. AK watched me. Watched me with those same kind dark eyes.

“The day you took me to her . . . ” I closed my eyes and replayed how her scarred face lit with light when her blue eyes fell upon me. “I did not know she had harmed herself, AK. I had no idea that she could not bear children due to her ordeal.” I gripped tightly to the glass in my hands, noting idly that the water was swishing from side to side. I was trembling.

AK clearly noticed. “You don’t gotta tell me no more.”

“No,” I protested. “I . . . I have to.” Now that I had spoken, I could not stop. I needed to say this out loud. “I remember them taking her away when she was a child, AK. I remember crying that my sister, my best friend, had gone. But I believed that what they said of her was true. That her beauty was given by the devil and that she was a blight on our faith. And I believed that the prophet would save her. AK, I remember rejoicing that she would be exorcised. I . . . I was happy.

“But that day, when she was tried and I saw her again, more beautiful than I could have imagined, I saw in her eyes that the Rebekah I knew was gone. That something had robbed her of life, the light I knew she had once possessed.” I cleared my throat. “Then I followed her to Perdition Hill and saw what the men of my faith had done to her.” Pain stabbed at my heart. “I saw this, AK. My baby sister. My best friend as a child. When I saw her at her home, revealing she was scarred and unable to conceive, I could not bear it. I . . .” I took a deep breath. “I found the bottle on Ky’s porch, and it made me forget.” Deeper, darker thoughts threatened to break through, but I pushed them away. I could not cope with them all right now. “I did not want to be aware of anything. The drink took it all away.”

“You were a victim of that fucking cult too, you know?” My head snapped to him in surprise. Something passed over his face, and in a move that shocked me even more than his understanding, he raised his hand and brushed the tears from my cheeks. His palm opened, and I rested my head against it.

“I was not a victim,” I said when my tight throat would allow. “I was complicit I watched my sister get hurt and did nothing. I am no better than those who hurt her.” I was talking of Lilah, but I saw something else in my head. I was complicit in something much, much worse. Something unforgiveable.

“You’re wrong, Red,” he said, and though his words found a corner in my heart to burrow in, I could never believe that they were true.

AK held me as I cried. I did not understand why he did, but I took comfort in his kindness. No man had bestowed on me such grace before. I opened my raw, swollen eyes. AK was still watching me, like a guardian angel.

A devil with angel eyes.

“I’ll tell you one thing, Red. Liquor is a good servant but a fucking cruel master. You keep going the way you were, and you’ll be more than fucked.” He slid his hand from my face, and I instantly missed its warmth. Sitting back in his chair, he gestured to the house. “You’re here to make sure liquor becomes your bitch again. Not the other way around.”

Despite the weakness in my body and the emotions dripping from my heart, I found myself smiling at his strange use of words. Perhaps he found it amusing too—I was convinced that under his handsome dark demeanor, I saw the tug of a smile.

A yawn tore from my mouth, and tiredness crashed into me at full force. “You need sleep,” AK said. I completely agreed. “Sleep as much as you can over the next couple of days. If you sleep you won’t feel as bad.”

“You have dealt with this before?” I asked, and by the subtle flinch of his head, I knew it was true. His expression said it all.

I left AK by the fire. As I entered the house, I glanced through the kitchen window at the mysterious man that had somehow become my compass in this outside world.

His body slumped in his chair, and his head was in his hands. For a minute, I thought I saw his shoulders shaking as though he were breaking apart into tears. But I was sure it was just the trick of the light. AK was a strong man with, I believed, a beautiful heart. I was sure nothing could make him crumble. I wished I had a morsel of his strength.