Skye wanted to give Jeffrey time with his parents, really, she did. If they took much longer, however, she would have to barge in and interrupt. She couldn't stand all of this waiting. Churchie had arrived shortly after Mrs. Tifton had said. Apparently, she gone to update her daughter in Boston about everything, and probably to revel in the fact that her own child was not missing. Skye frowned at that fault. That wasn't fair. Churchie loved Jeffrey like he was her own child.

Churchie's presence had comforted Skye, but not for long. She'd already worked herself into a near rage. If she didn't see Jeffrey soon, she would lose control. The first victim of her temper would be the innocent girl across the hallway that was tapping her acrylic nails on the arm of her chair. She was probably in elementary school. Why were elementary schoolers even allowed to have acrylic nails? Skye hated them. They were impractical and obnoxious, even for teenagers. After that, she would probably yell at Jane. She'd said she felt like kicking a puppy, and while there were luckily no puppies around, shouting at Jane would have a similar effect.

She was in the middle of searching for something to be angry with her sister about when the door of Jeffrey's room cracked open. Mrs. Tifton and Alec both slipped into the hall.

"He's asking for you," said Alec. He was looking at Skye strangely.

Skye stood up. "He's alright? How is his—"

Okay. Mrs. Tifton was hugging her. She embraced her so tightly that Skye's back popped. Her arms were pinned at her sides. She stood awkwardly, accepting it, but not having a clue what to do.

"Thank you," Mrs. Tifton whispered.

"I—what?" Skye stammered, too taken aback for coherent sentences.

"You didn't fail, you did protect him," said Mrs. Tifton, remembering what Skye had told her the last time she had tried to thank her for that very same thing. "I think you saved his life."

Skye shrank in on herself defensively. She didn't appreciate this sort of praise, and especially not from Mrs. Tifton. It was wrong. She didn't deserve it. She hadn't been with Jeffrey for three days; he had saved his own life through sheer will. The credit for that was his alone. She might have protected him from one thing, but she had failed to save him, just like she had said. She'd fueled Dexter's fire, and in the end, Jeffrey had gotten burned.

Skye wriggled away from Mrs. Tifton, who (naturally) was crying. She probably hadn't stopped from the moment she had first seen Jeffrey.

"What did he tell you?"

Mrs. Tifton tried to answer, but words failed her. She pressed her lips tightly together and only stared at Skye, weepy and wide eyed.

"He told us enough," said Alec, coming to her rescue. "Skye, we—"

"Of course he did," said Skye, cutting him off before he could thank her too. The idea made her sick. "I hope you had a nice reunion, because I'm going to kill him."

She went into his room before anyone else could find another thing to be fucking grateful about. She closed the door behind her with a soft click. She lingered, facing away from Jeffrey with her hand against the doorframe. She wasn't angry. It was just like him to credit her for his own survival and impossible resilience, but that broke her heart. She wanted him to see how special that made him. A flower of nerves sprouted in her chest. The initial joy of reuniting with him – of finding him alive had grown faint and translucent. This time, when she faced him and all of his battered glory, she would truly see him. Everything wrong with him would hit her like a bullet shot between her eyes.

She took a deep breath to steel herself and turned. Jeffrey was covered in bandages; where he wasn't, his skin was purple and green. The sight gave her vertigo. He looked better than he had – less like a moving corpse. He'd been cleaned up, so he wasn't caked with grime, but she somehow felt more upset. It was as if she'd been holding out hope that all his injuries would be washed away with his blood, and now that hope had been squashed into nothing.

Jeffrey smiled at her, but when he tried to sit up, pain quickly tore it from his face. He gave up that idea.

"Hey," he managed.

Skye knew that he didn't want to be stared at. She had felt the same way, but she couldn't stop herself. It was hard to believe that he was there in front of her, especially looking at him now and seeing what bad shape he was in.

"What happened?" She whispered as tears started to fall.

Jeffrey didn't answer her. He was staring at her the same way she was looking at him. Skye sat next to him on the bed. She wanted to crawl in and live there, just the two of them. She slid her hand into his, hating how half of it was obscured beneath a brace.

"What did he do to do you?" she asked again.

She felt Jeffrey stop breathing. He closed his hand tightly over hers. His fingers dug into her skin. When he realized, he forced himself to relax.

"You're the only person I'll tell," he said.

It took Jeffrey a long time to get the story out. He kept losing his place and zoning out as he forced himself to remember. Skye said nothing as he described being tortured with knives and electricity, whipped with a chain, and choked repeatedly with one until he nearly passed out. Her breathing was rapid and shallow, like she'd sprinted up a flight of stairs and was trying but failing to hide how exhausted she was. Tears were gushing from her eyes in a constant current. She couldn't distinguish one from another. It was like the 60% of her body that was water was pouring from her tear ducts in one stormy torrent.

"Then he left me like that, and he never came back," Jeffrey finished.

He might as well have carved her heart out with a butter knife. Piercing pain ripped through her left shoulder like the beginning of a heart attack.

"Because he got arrested," Skye croaked. She wasn't sure he knew that. "He's going to prison for good."

Jeffrey looked down the length of his broken body. He inhaled sharply, trying to calm himself. His muscles were clenched so tightly he shook. He was fighting tears.

Skye lay a hand across his chest and stroked her fingers beneath his collarbone. "You can cry, Jeffrey. It's okay."

Jeffrey bit his lip. He shook his head and blinked what must have been a dozen times. "I don't want to. I don't want to let him hurt me anymore." He tried again to breathe deeply, but the air stuck before it reached his lungs. "But if I'm going to talk about it, I…I—" He was tipping over the edge. Skye could sense he was about to plunge off of it. "I can't help it."

He plunged. She could still feel him warring with himself, but he was losing. Skye wanted to vomit. His anguish wrapped itself around her stomach and twisted it into a sailor's knot. It was psychologically torturing him to cry. Jeffrey had been tortured enough. He didn't need this. She put both of her hands to the sides of Jeffrey's face. She stood so she could lean over him without touching him, and she kissed him. This time, she remembered to be gentle. With hardly any pressure, she brushed her lips over his and caressed his cheeks with her thumbs, wiping away each tear as it fell. The kiss tasted like salt. She didn't want to stop, but her own crying intensified until she was forced to pull away. She didn't have control over her mouth. Her lips trembled.

"I love you," she said, so breathy they were hardly words. She rested her forehead against his, her hands still on his face. "I love you, Jeffrey. You're so strong." She backed up so she could look him in the eye. "You're my idol and my hero."

Jeffrey held his arm out to her, but Skye hesitated.

"I don't want to hurt you," she said.

"Please," he whispered.

Skye shifted her stance so she could comfortably hug him. He pulled her closer until she was laying on his chest. She did her best not to let her full weight fall on him. His chin lay over her shoulder, his arms folded around her and trapped her against him like iron straps.

"Seven hours and thirty-eight minutes," Jeffrey said into her ear. "That's how long it lasted. He told me when he left."

A strangled sob burst from Skye's throat, one that was half scream. She lost the will to restrain herself. She hugged Jeffrey back as fiercely as he held her.

"I can still feel it. Like it's happening again."

Skye's shoulder itched where it was damp from his tears. Her face was crusty and wet.

"I'm not strong, Skye. I'm not. I let him break me." Jeffrey started to sob. He moved so that his mouth was pressed against the base of her neck as he tried to trap the sobbing inside. His teeth scraped against her skin when it escaped with a force that jarred them both like the room had started to shake. Skye knotted her fingers in his hair, tugging him so much closer to her that she actually lifted him an inch from the mattress. She didn't let him go until his sobbing faded and his tears slowed to a trickle.

She sat on the edge of the bed and held both of his hands. "You know you didn't deserve this, right? He didn't brainwash you or anything?"

Jeffrey studied her with eyes still red and watering. "How do you know I said that?"

"Dexter made an appearance. He told your mother you did. He pretty much announced to the whole station that he raped me. I threw a stapler at him, all very exciting stuff."

"Did you hit him?"

"Right in the back of the neck," said Skye. "But Jeffrey, I'm serious. Did you start to believe him?"

Jeffrey swallowed and tightened his jaw. "No. Not about that."

Skye let herself breathe again, until she started wondering which of Dexter's delusions Jeffrey had believed.

"I said a lot of things. Whatever he wanted, actually."

Skye lay next to him on the bed. Her legs draped over the side so she wouldn't crowd him. She didn't pressure him to tell her more.

"My socks were in my mouth. I couldn't actually say words. I think that was his favorite part."

Skye's face was maybe six inches from Jeffrey's, but he spoke so quietly she barely heard him. Sweltering mortification radiated off of him. She could almost see it, like heat shimmering above the turf during one of her particularly hot soccer games.

"He gagged me, and I still said everything he prompted me to. Word for word." His face was an impossible shade of crimson. He lifted his hand to his face to cover his eyes. "He loved it. He said it aroused him. He'll cherish that memory forever because I was weak enough to give it to him. I hate myself for that."

"Don't. You did what you had to do to survive."

"No." Jeffrey took his hand from his eyes, but he would not look at her. The only other time he had ever been so avoidant of her gaze was when Dexter had made him finger her. This shame cut him just as deep. "I did what I thought would get him to kill me."

Skye wanted to cry again, but she thought that would only make him feel worse, so she didn't allow it. She softly pressed her lips to the skin where his neck connected with his shoulder. It was frighteningly hot, like he had a fever well above 100.

"I said he owned me. I said I was worth nothing and I deserved everything he was doing to me. I apologized to him, Skye. He was torturing me, and I called him sir." Jeffrey hid his face behind his hand again. It was stark white against his flushed cheeks. "He told me to say I was his slave." His broken voice shook. He was crying. "He had me chained up and gagged, I think by that point I was naked, and I literally said that I was."

There was Skye's limit. That was sick. She jumped from the bed and stumbled to the sink to throw up. His slave? No. She didn't want to think about why Dexter might have stripped him, but before she could stop herself, she had figured it out. She knew a bit about the government and torture and interrogation. Target the most sensitive parts of the body for the quickest results. She wretched again. She rinsed out her mouth with the provided mouthwash, then cupped her hands and filled them with water.

When she returned to the bed, Jeffrey was not watching her. He now had both of his hands over his face. He was silent, but he was quavering from suppressed sobs.

"That's evil. He's a monster," said Skye. She crawled beside him and tugged them away. He resisted a little, then let her. She lay her head on Jeffrey's shoulder and focused on stabilizing her breathing. Her pulse was throbbing, and she couldn't quite feel her legs. Her hands were tingling with anxiety. She felt like she was about to perform in front of a large group of people and she had forgotten to prepare. She despised public speaking. Here, her audience was one, but the stakes were so much higher. She spoke slowly and deliberately, but she couldn't keep her voice steady. "I know what it feels like to be ashamed because of Dexter. When I am with my family, I want to disappear because how can I face them, knowing what he did?"

Jeffrey held his breath, then let it out with a shudder. Skye slung her arm across him and lightly curled her hand around the side of his neck. She traced her thumb over the corner of his jaw. Both of them were breathing fast, the sounds comingled in a fretful symphony. Skye rose and fell with the movements of Jeffrey's chest.

"I'm supposed to be the strong one. The fighter, the one that triumphs over adversity and brushes it off like it's no big deal. I feel like a fraud, because he took everything from me. He used me and then he threw me away like nothing. I'm supposed to live with that and move on, but I don't know how," said Skye. She snuggled closer to him and nuzzled her face into his shoulder. "I know that this shame you're feeling isn't going to go away, but you don't ever have to feel that way around me. Okay? I understand. You're not alone."

Jeffrey released a single audible sob before he choked it off. He slung his elbow over his face. His fingers grazed against Skye's face. He shook so violently he could have been having a seizure. A garbled cry jumped out of Skye's mouth. She inhaled such a deep gasp that her throat made a sound like the bark of a seal. Her lungs ached. "And Dexter? He can call you his slave and say that you're worthless, but he did not break you, because you're here. You survived, and you're perfect."

Jeffrey dried his face with the back of his hand. His blush hadn't subsided any. He was still feverishly hot. He wouldn't so much as glance at her. "I gave up."

"That's okay. That is okay." Skye held him with no intention of ever letting go. She placed another kiss to the crook of Jeffrey's neck.

"Do you know what you're worth to me?"

Jeffrey laughed a little, but without any humor. Remnants of crying still clung to his voice. "Probably a little more than what I'm worth to Dexter."

Under normal circumstances, a comment like that would elicit a response like, "marginally, if you're lucky," but not here. Skye had never been more serious. She gently trailed her lips up Jeffrey's neck, ghosting kisses over each ring of bruising. When she reached his ear, she whispered, "You know what I said about soaking up the universe?"

"Ha," said Jeffrey. "Yes."

"You are my universe." Her voice cracked as tears pricked at her eyes again. Impressive, really. She'd thought she was all cried out. These were different. Saying those words out loud had tugged at her heart and made her an unfamiliar kind of emotional. She moved her mouth down his cheek, kissing along the rope burn his gag had scraped into his skin. She stopped halfway, though she didn't pull back. "You are the most valuable thing in all of time and space."

She finished her trail of kisses across his face. It took three for her to reach the corner of his mouth. "And I fell so completely, disgustingly in love with you."

Finally, Jeffrey made eye contact with her. He started to smile. "That was all very romantic of you."

"Ugh, I know. You can never tell Jane."

Jeffrey kissed her. Skye would have been happy to continue that for quite some time, but she thought of something she had to get off of her chest.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"For what?" Her hair was hanging in her face. Jeffrey tucked it behind her ear, but it fell right back down.

Skye sat up. "Jeffrey, I really do love you. I know that now, so I'm sorry that something this awful had to happen to you for me to figure that out."

"Bonehead."

"I'm serious. I was a shit friend."

Jeffrey started to say, "You don't have to—"

"I couldn't admit it until Dexter put a gun in your mouth. Not to you, not to myself. I'm such a bitch."

"Skye, it's okay," said Jeffrey. He rubbed his hand over her forearm. "I already know that."

It was sweet of him to tease her. "Still, I'm really sorry."

"Thanks."

"I'll make it up to you, I swear," said Skye earnestly.

Jeffrey bolted upright so quickly that he cried out. "Okay, no. You did. A million times over. I'm in your debt."

Skye looked down at her hands. "I wasn't trying to be a hero or anything. I just acted on instinct."

Jeffrey shook his head. "Instincts are about surviving. You almost got yourself killed."

"For you," said Skye. "I would have died for you with no regrets."

"Everyone thinks that is such a romantic statement," Jeffrey grumbled. "In reality, it seriously sucks."

"Romance is stupid that way."

"Maybe you're right."

He put his hand on Skye's leg and rubbed her thigh with his thumb. For some reason, that made her breath catch. She placed her hand in the curve of his elbow. She felt so much safer when she was touching him, just like she had in the trailer.

"It killed me, what he did," said Jeffrey. "You were protecting me the entire time, and I couldn't save you once. I'm sorry I couldn't protect you back."

That was unfair and so entirely untrue. "What about when you were upstairs, and I screamed at you to run? You could have gone out your window, but you came looking for me. You got on the floor and let him take you because if you hadn't, he would have killed me. Jeffrey, every single thing you went through is directly related to you saving my life. You could have gotten away."

"I never would have left you."

"Sounds familiar, doesn't it? We saved each other. So don't you dare give me that crap, okay? We're not keeping score."

"Okay. You're right," said Jeffrey. "And Skye, thank you for doing that for me. I haven't said that yet." He brought her hand to her lips. "It's not possible to do more for a person than that. I hated it. I kept thinking why didn't he gag you too when he tied you up? Then you wouldn't have been able to tell him. It tore me apart." He was getting emotional. It was becoming difficult for him to talk. "It still does, and it always will, but thank you."

Skye felt a surge of emotion. "You were worth it. All of it."

She kissed him with a renewed passion, like she had to compensate for every minute she had almost lost. Jeffrey sucked her bottom lip between his teeth. The tiniest little moan escaped Skye. She felt him smile.

When they broke apart, her eyes wouldn't focus. She felt drunk.

"You okay?" Jeffrey asked.

"Yeah," said Skye, snapping out of it. "That one just knocked me out a little bit."

Jeffrey grinned at her. He played at his own lip with his teeth. God, what was he doing to her? She watched his mouth with hypnotic fascination.

"I have a question," said Jeffrey, when he had tired of teasing her. "Does all of this mean that you do want to be my girlfriend?"

Tired of teasing her physically. Skye rolled her eyes. "Yes, dumbass."

Jeffrey raised his hands. "Just checking. You were very against it before."

"Not that against it," Skye muttered, fully aware that that was an absolute lie.

Jeffrey laughed at her. "Really? Sorry if I missed you hitting on me."

Skye smiled guiltily. "Shut up."

Jeffrey laughed again, then winced. His pain brought reality crashing back. His green eyes filled with empathy and concern. "You don't have to talk about it, but if you want to, I'm here. Always," he said. "You're not alone either."

Skye looked out the window, gathering her thoughts. Did she want to talk about it? She wasn't sure how to know if she did. Rape had intruded some of her thoughts the past several days, but she had been frantic about Jeffrey. She'd distracted herself with that, she could push it away. It had felt wrong to focus on what she had been through when Jeffrey was presently being abused. But now…

Skye crossed her legs at the knees and ankles, as if doing so would block out the memories of Dexter forcing himself between them. Her muscles flexed taut, instinctively trying to shield her.

"It was worth it. That's not a lie, but…" She didn't know how to talk about it either. She was discovering that she knew next to nothing. "But that doesn't mean that it wasn't…" She trailed off again. Wasn't what? Terrible, torture, the worst thing imaginable. The words hung unspoken between them, thickening the air until it suffocated her.

"I feel disgusting. I can't clean myself enough." She wanted to take an acid bath to burn away his touch. She pulled Jeffrey's arm around her shoulders to remind herself that physical touch wasn't always detestable and intrusive. Sometimes it made everything better.

Skye felt like hiding her face the way that Jeffrey had. Instead, she made herself look at him. She had said that he didn't need to be ashamed with her. She did her best to follow her own advice. She could talk to him. Only him.

"It helped me that you were there," she said. "But I'm sorry that you had to watch."

Jeffrey skirted his thumb along the side of her jaw. Her skin tingled. "Don't apologize for that."

"Sometimes I couldn't hear you. It hurt too much, or I was too caught up in the fact that I was really, actually, in that moment being raped that I couldn't feel anything else. But I knew you were there, and I knew you were trying. I think that's how I got through it." It was starting to scare her, talking about it. It took all of her self-control not to look over her shoulder to see if Dexter was there. At times, this all still felt like a dream, and when she woke up, she would be bound helplessly again, stuck waiting for whatever Dexter would do to her next. Nightmares weren't the only reason she was afraid to sleep.

"But when we were outside and he raped me again, it was just me and him." Her words were fighting her. She could hear her subconscious willing her to shut up and keep it a secret. Why are you telling him this? It nagged at her. She gulped back that question. This wasn't shame she was feeling. She was afraid. She didn't want him to look at her differently or be disappointed when he learned that she wasn't so indestructible; she had almost lost herself. He wouldn't, the rational side of her brain knew that, but rationality held no power over her. She couldn't fight that fear. It almost won; she was ready to stop there. She didn't want to take that risk. Jeffrey wouldn't ask her to continue.

She forged on. She shed her armor, lay down her shield, and faced the battlefield, completely vulnerable. "He beat me, and he choked me. He bit my…" She stretched down the collar of the sweatshirt. She would just show him. The teeth marks hadn't yet begun to fade. She didn't completely flash him, just enough so he could see the purple indentations Dexter had left there, like nasty claims on her flesh.

Jeffrey's eyes flicked down for only a moment before they returned to her face. Skye actually heard him grind his teeth. He gave a start, and his hand flew to his jaw. His squeezed his eyes shut, clearly in pain, then exhaled and relaxed. He lay his hand over Skye's arm. He didn't acknowledge that he was hurt. He was focused on her.

The pause had knocked a sizeable dent in Skye's bravery. It was hard for her to start up again. Her throat was raw and scratchy, her words grated against it. "He shoved my face in the dirt and fucked me."

Jeffrey tilted her head gently to look at the scrape across her face. The scabs had started to flake away that morning. He planted a lingering kiss on her cheekbone, just under her eye. Skye blinked back tears.

"He called me a white trash whore," she whispered. "He said the only thing I am good for is a quick dirty fuck." It stung. It didn't matter that it wasn't true, the insult had with her. "You weren't there. He wasn't just trying to get to you anymore. He said that for me. It hurt—" She stopped until she was confident that she could keep her crying at bay. "It hurt me differently."

"Skye, listen," said Jeffrey. He pushed her hair back from her face. "You're going to go to college, become an engineer, a scientist – whatever you want. And when you get your Nobel Peace Prize because you've changed the world, Dexter can watch you from hell and choke on his white trash whore bullshit."

It should have made her feel better. "How can I do any of that when I don't even know how to make it to tomorrow?"

"Misery loves company, right? We'll get there together."

Jesus Christ, she loved him.

"He choked me unconscious while he was still inside me," said Skye. "I thought he was killing me. I thought the very last thing I experienced was going to be rape."

Jeffrey closed his eyes and rubbed his lips together. When he looked at her again, his eyes were wet. "That's what he said. He told me he shot you in the face before he was done. I heard the gunshot, I thought—" He started breathing very deliberately to force himself to stay calm. "He convinced me that you were dead. I tried not to believe him, but I did."

"What else did he say about me?" asked Skye.

"He taunted me about killing you. He said it was my fault." Jeffrey stopped talking a little too quickly.

"Is that it?"

Jeffrey turned his head away from her. "That's it."

"Are you lying?"

Jeffrey nodded.

"What did he say?" It was stupid of her to ask.

He turned back to her with torment all over his face. "That is never coming out of my mouth."

His tone told her there was no room for argument. She decided she was grateful. She would only torture herself with that knowledge. Dexter's touch was still deeply imprinted on her body. She didn't need to give herself more to recover from.

"I've never been the girl that's afraid of being raped," she said, moving on. Sort of. "I never thought about it. I didn't think I had to worry; I could handle myself. It just wouldn't happen to me." Skye chewed on the inside of her cheek. "I should've worried about it. It's a nightmare. I'm going to be terrified of it for the rest of my life."

"You're a survivor, Skye Penderwick," Jeffrey whispered. "I love you."

That, they both were. Skye tried to cling to the definition of "survivor" that she'd always believed: someone who is powerful and strong. It was slipping away. She saw a survivor as someone lucky, bruised and damaged beyond repair, who still has to face every day like the trauma is behind them. Done, past tense. The trauma would never be past tense.

"Kiss me," she said. "I don't…I don't feel him when you do."

Jeffrey slid his hand under her hair and wrapped it loosely over the back of her neck. "Then I'll kiss you forever if you want."

He did, and every time his lips touched hers, the smallest sliver of her pain withered away.

Forever turned out to be no more than a couple of minutes, for then the rest of the Penderwicks at last filed in to see Jeffrey.