I lay there helplessly in the darkened alley, the pain in my abdomen increasing at a frightening pace. The dark clouds shrouded the moon in the night-time sky of Boston as the rain soaked my freezing skin.

My body felt helpless to move as the tears burned my eyes.

"H…help. Someone please help me…" I called out into the seemingly deserted street.

I looked over to see the pieces of my shattered cell phone laying by a garbage can.

My voice cracked with the effort to yell at a loud volume. The pain in my lower body only reminded me of the painful act that the man had forced me to endure…

His arms grabbing me from behind, picking me up roughly to carry me into the seclusion of one of Boston's numerous alleys…

The way his hand prevented my failed screams for help to reach anyone's ears…

I forced the memory away from my mind as I reached for the whistle that hung from a chain around my neck. My limited ability to speak led me to purchase an emergency whistle for situations such as this.

My hands trembled with the cold as I raised the whistle to my lips and blew with all the strength I possessed. If I woke somebody up, then so be it.

The shrill noise echoed around me, bouncing against the brick walls of the alley. I lay my head back onto the hard ground and I felt a rock poking into my side.

At last, I heard footsteps among the raindrops falling around me. Two dark figures slowly walked forward into the area where I lay. I was starting to lose the feeling in my feet and legs since had chosen to wear shorts today.

"Hello? Is there anybody here?" A male voice called out from the tall dark figures. As they came closer, I quickly could tell that they were both men…and Irish men at that.

"I…I'm here. P- please help me." Finally, they came close enough that I could see them clearly from the faint streetlight in my peripheral vision. Both of them looked so much alike that they seemed to be twins. They kneeled down closer to me as they examined the position I held, lying helplessly on a cold alley street.

"Are you alright, miss?" The man with the blue eyes asked me in a calm Irish accent that sounded slightly soothing to my ears. He seemed to be the older brother of the two, but I couldn't focus on that as he helped me to stand up.

"Is there somebody we can call for ya?" The other man, the younger, asked me, sounding urgent and impatient to know what crime had been prejudiced on me.

My legs began to shake as the older brother helped to keep me standing, but I could feel the weakness inside me consume my senses.

"I…I was raped." I managed to whisper as I stared into the blue eyes of the man who held me up from the flooding alleyway of water.

The last thing I remembered seeing was the way his eyes flashed in anger and disbelief as I weakly confessed my plight of distress.

Everything went black.

.

.

.

Conner's POV:

Before I could see it coming, the girl's eyes rolled into the back of her head as she went limp in my grasp. She released an exhausted sigh as she fainted, falling backwards toward the ground. I managed to catch her before she could be injured any further.

Murphy looked between me and her, concern raging in his eyes. As twins, we were able to communicate with one another without having to say a single word. I knew what he was telling me.

We couldn't just leave this girl to freeze to death in this alley. She looked so young, so innocent. Her dark hair and clothes were soaked from the rain, but I didn't give it a second thought as I gently put one of her arms around my shoulders, preparing to pick her up.

I held one of my arms under her knees and the other under her back. This girl had a pretty petite body where she seemed to weigh no more than a doll. She probably hadn't had a decent meal in days, poor lass.

"Let's get her to some place where she'll be warm, Murph." I said to him, walking toward the main street. Luckily, our loft house wasn't far from the alleyway, so I could avoid any passersby's stares focusing on me carrying an unconscious girl.

Once we got to our rundown apartment, I laid the girl on one of our mattresses. Murphy grabbed both of our woolen blankets and covered her with them.

I silently wondered how long this poor young woman had been laying out in that fucking alley. Didn't anyone answer her cries for help?

A strange feeling of anger boiled in me as I turned on our makeshift heater, hopefully helping to keep her warm.

I buried my face in my hands as I sat down at our small kitchen table. Tomorrow morning was gonna be interesting when she woke up.

Hopefully, God had placed her into dreams that temporarily freed her from her situation… All I knew was that Murphy and I were going to have a hell of a time explaining why she was in our apartment, of all the safe havens she could have ended up in.

.

.

As the stormy night wore on, I chose to sleep on the ratty-ass couch while Murphy dragged his mattress next to it. We didn't want the girl to freak out when she woke up to a strange man sleeping just a few feet away from her.

After I stripped myself down to my underwear, I wrapped my tattered gray robe around me. Our old heater sat near where she lay asleep, so the rest of the place was pretty fucking freezing. I looked to where Murphy was opening the rusty refrigerator, rummaging through the numerous beer bottles inside.

"I'm tryin' to find somethin' fer her to drink in the mornin'. She doesn't look a day older than nineteen years old." I heard him say as the bottles clanked together in the fridge. A moment later, he let the door shut with a loud slam.

"Murphy, will you fuckin' be quiet?" I whispered loudly as he walked to his mattress, slumping down onto it. "You're gonna wake her up, man."

He looked up at me with an annoyed look in his cocky eyes. "Well, shit, Conner. We don't have anything else fer this lass except beer. She doesn't look like the drinkin' type to me." He raised his eyebrows in a double-meaning type of way as I heard the faint sound of whimpering from the other room.

"Great, man. Look what you did." I sighed as I rose up from the couch.

"What are you pissed at me about, Prince fuckin' Charmin'? It was your idea to bring her here, and you carried her to our house like Sir fuckin' Lancelot. That was just creepy, man." Murphy put his arms under his head to use them as a pillow as I silently scowled at him.

Turning from my twin brother, I headed to the mattress where the young girl lay sleeping. Due to the light in the room, I was able to see her more clearly. Her brown hair lay strewn along her neck and cheek, wet and tangled from her assault. Hoping Murph didn't see me, I reached down and gently pushed her hair away from her cheek so I could see her face.

As it turned out, she was actually quite pretty. Her pale skin shone from being in the soaking rain along with her wet brown hair. Her eyelids twitched as she dreamed, her forehead wrinkling in unconscious worry. Strangely, I found myself wanting to calm her, despite that I didn't even know so much as her name.

Leaning down on my knees by the mattress, I could hear her start to whimper again… and the silent anger filled me once more.

"Shh…it's all right. You're safe now. Nothing will ever harm you again." I whispered this only for her to hear. How could anyone want to hurt this girl? What had she done to deserve this? It truly made me sick that motherfuckers like that would do something like this to a poor young girl.

She started to calm down as she stopped whimpering. I couldn't help but smile to myself as her face became peaceful again.

As I rose to stand up again, I heard the sound of snickering behind me. "Wow, Conner. You've gone overboard." Murphy was leaning against the wall, trying to cover his laughing with his hands.

"Don't fuckin' start, Murph. She was having a nightmare. Look, tomorrow, we'll explain why we brought her here, and then we'll take her to the hospital." I looked at Murphy as he walked back to his mattress again.

As I followed him, I looked down and saw something lying on the floor by her mattress. It was brown and made of a kind of fake leather. It must have been her wallet that fell out of her pocket when I laid her down.

I knew it was wrong to peek in somebody's wallet, but I wanted to at least find out her name. Picking it up in my hand, I opened it and gazed at her I.D.

Her name was Danielle Smecker, and Murphy was right when he said she didn't look older than nineteen. Somehow, her vulnerable condition made her seem younger to me.

Closing the wallet, I laid it next to her limp hand on the blanket.

As I slumped back down onto the couch, I saw Murphy just staring at me with a smug smile on his asshole face.

"What's so fuckin' funny, Murph? Didn't Ma teach us to be respectful to women? " I groaned at the thought of him catching me trying to soothe our little damsel in distress.

"So, you peeked at her wallet, too. Yea, that's really respectin' the hell out of her, Conner." He closed his eyes, trying to hide his laugh with a big grin instead.

"I…I just wanted to see what her name was. And by the way, genius, you were right about her not bein' of the drinkin' age. I'll make her a glass of water in the mornin'." I told him, hoping to get Murph off my back.

"Yeah, you just wanna stare at her again, man. That's even creepier than carryin' her while she's sleepin." He laughed aloud this time, but not too loud.

"She just fuckin' passed out on me. What was I supposed to do? Throw her over me shoulder like a damn cave-man?" I nearly growled, surprised at my jumpy temper.

"Forget it, Conner. Let's just get some sleep." At last, Murphy shut up as he closed his eyes. I could see him start to smile as I laid my head on the rock-hard couch. "Hope you have sweet dreams, Romeo." He laughed softly to himself as I leaned over and smacked him in the side of his head.

As he quieted down, I clutched at the rosary that hung around my neck, silently wondering if God put this girl in our path…and in my arms…for a reason.