It was always a choice I had to make. I never had the blind courage to take Paige and run. Rhys was the kind of man who wouldn’t take no for an answer. He wouldn’t stop for anything. And I knew the stats as well as any other woman. I knew that my life would be in the most danger at the very moment I tried to leave. I used to lay awake nights, Rhys next to me in the bed, and make lists in my head. Places he would be least likely to find us. Places he wouldn’t think to look. Places he hated, so he’d never search there. Places he loved, so he’d assume I went elsewhere.

And if we were in hiding, we’d need a plan for making it work long-term. We’d have to change our appearance. Change our names. It was a different world already than the one I grew up in. Everyone has a smartphone with a high-definition camera. Anyone could take our photo and post it on the internet. Living off the grid with a child didn’t seem like a real option. Where would she go to school? How would she find friends? I knew I wouldn’t be enough for her. Not forever. But if we ran, other people would always be a danger to us.

So I didn’t run.

I told Paige to hide instead. I held both her hands and looked into her eyes and told her to hide.

“I thought it would be better,” I finally say. “That’s why I did that. I’m sorry I asked you to do that. I’m sorry I had to ask you.”

“It’s not your fault,” she answers with a yawn, and the words shock me. Not my fault. The things Rhys did weren’t my fault, but choosing to stay? I bear at least some responsibility for that. “Daddy hurt you, but you protected me. Didn’t you?”

“I tried my best.” My love and guilt and sadness and pride threaten my voice. They make it something small. “I tried to keep you away from that.”

“That’s why you didn’t want me to make a sound. So he would hit you instead of me.”

I can’t speak. My heart is breaking. It’s already broken, but it breaks again. I gather her into my arms and smooth her curls. She’s right. I was trying to keep her from the sound, of course. I tried to keep him calm for as long as I could. But in the end, at the heart of it—I wanted him to go after me. Tire himself out on me.

The guilt I feel about all those harried, whispered conversations about staying in her room and staying quiet is nothing compared to how I would feel if he’d hurt her.