Vincent's POV
"I'm the girl you tried to rape last night."
My heart dropped.
No.
She told him everything. She pulled her voice down after the first outburst, but I heard every other word. She told him what he, along with his friend, had done to her. She told him she had chosen not to report him and hoped it was a decision she would not regret.
And then, at the end, before she left, she told him what she had said to the security guards and the nurses.
"I told everyone thugs attacked us together on our way back from night class."
She had protected him.
Even after everything, she had protected him.
I stepped back from the door. Behind me, the two security men I had asked to stay close started coming. I held up my hand, and they stopped.
I did not have the words yet for what I was feeling. My certainty about her had been so complete, and watching it dismantled by her words was disorienting in a way I had never experienced before. I had been ready to have her arrested.
And she had been in there telling my brother, who she had every right to despise, that she was showing him mercy.
I moved away from the door before she came out. I needed a moment to rearrange myself. But I barely had a second because she appeared in the corridor almost immediately, walking away quickly while wiping the tears from her eyes.
She had been crying.
Without thinking, I reached out and caught her arm.
I could see the confusion as she stopped and looked up at me. She did not know who I was.
"I'm sorry," was all I could blurt out amidst the crushing weight of what I had witnessed.
She glanced through the small window at Andrew, then back at me. I could see the unpleasant recognition taking form, and the look of repulsion that followed.
"Please," I said. "Just... wait. Please."
"Mister," she said flatly. "Let go of me."
I released her immediately.
She took a breath and turned to leave. I watched her go, watching her spine straighten with every uneasy step, watching her try to put herself back together. Something about the sheer labor of it, the way she forced one foot in front of the other, snapped the last of my composure.
Then she stumbled.
Her foot had caught slightly on the edge of a floor tile. Her legs were already unsteady from everything she had been carrying, and her body simply gave the stumble more weight. She dropped and I was by her side immediately.
My arms caught her at the waist before she reached the floor. She had closed her eyes, bracing herself for impact. When it did not come, she opened them slowly, and for a moment she just looked at me, at this stranger who was the brother of the man who had tried to destroy her.
My jaw tightened when I saw her grimace as she fought to keep the tears in.
Without thinking twice, I pulled her close.
She did not put up a fight. She just pressed her face into my shirt and wept, and I held her, saying the only true thing I could.
"I'm sorry for everything that happened to you. For what my brother put you through. If I could take it from you, I would."
When she pulled back, she wiped her face with the back of her hand and looked away from me.
"I'm going to be fine," she said. "I don't need your pity. He didn't succeed, after all."
She paused.
"It just gets to me when I think about what could have been."
"I know," I said. "I'm sorry."
She did not respond to that. She bent to pick up her bag, which had slipped from her shoulder during the near fall.
"Let me take you home," I said.
"Don't bother."
"Please. It's the least I can do right now."
She looked at me for a long moment. I could see her weighing it, weighing me, and I understood why. I was the brother of the man who had attacked her. I had no right to ask for her trust.
"You can say no," I added. "I'll understand completely."
"It's fine," she said.
The drive to her hostel was short. She sat with her hands folded in her lap and kept her eyes on the window the entire way. I did not try to fill the silence. It did not feel like a silence that wanted filling.
When I parked in front of the girls' hostel, she unbuckled her seatbelt and was halfway out the door before I spoke.
"Here." I reached across the seat and held out a fold of notes. "For whatever you need. For the..."
She looked at the money, then at me.
"Thank you," she said. "But no."
"I'm not trying to…"
"I wasn't hurt anywhere, so I don't know what that's for." She stepped fully out of the car. "Go take care of your brother. He's the one in the hospital bed."
Then she walked away without a second glance.
Just as she disappeared through the gate, I started my car and drove off, my head hot with fury.
For the first time in my life, I wanted to hurt my brother.