There was such a pounding in her head, a steady roaring sound that seemed to come and go, drowning out his words so that she heard only a few at a time.

“…lie still, Ginny…I don’t see a wound and you don’t seem to be hurt…did he hurt you? Jesus, so much blood on you…what’s the matter…?”

“Oh God, Steve…please…help me! I feel so sick!”

“¡Chingate! Ginny! That bastard! Did he give you something to make you sick?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, but stood up and pulled her with him, swearing softly. His hands were gentle, and she strained toward him, grasping at coherence.

“It’s so hot…Why are you putting that on me? Stop it!” Crossly, she shrugged aside the blanket he draped over her shoulders. He held her still, his grip firm as he wedged her between his thighs.

“Be still, Ginny. I’ve got to get you to a doctor. It won’t help if you fight me. God, you’re burning up with fever! How long have you been like this?”

But she was beyond answering him, beyond even fighting as the struggle to make sense of everything dissolved into a suffocating cloak, as if someone had pulled down a black curtain that made everything abruptly disappear.

The next thing she knew, she was in a bed in someone’s house, a real bed, with springs and an iron frame. Steve was slumped in a chair beside her. Beard stubble darkened his jaw, and he dozed, his chin digging into his chest.

Somehow, it was comforting. Ginny closed her eyes again and slipped back into a sleep that was much easier. If Steve was there, it would be all right.

It took days for the fever to subside, and she was incoherent and nauseous by turns, drifting between reality and vague, frightening dreams. Steve tended her with a gentleness she had never expected from him. He said nothing of how he had found her, nothing about Rafael Luna, and in her moments of lucidity, Ginny could not bring herself to mention him, either. When they talked, it was of mundane things, of the children or the weather, or of the little village in a green valley surrounded by hills where he had taken her to recuperate.

Ginny grew stronger every day, physically if not in spirit. As her body healed, she became more withdrawn. She wanted to hide from the world, from Steve, even from her own memories, and retreated behind a carefully erected barrier where she felt nothing. She wanted only to sleep, to dream of nothing. How could she bear it? She felt adrift, wounded, emotionless. Nothing penetrated the shell she built around herself like a high wall.