Over the next few hours, Ipswich and Flemming worked feverishly on my injuries. I blacked out through most of it, my awareness coming and going in fits of seething pain.

When I could talk, I answered their mimed questions on how each injury had been inflicted. Amidst my delirium, I might have fixated too much on the loss of my father’s letter, but Priest and Ashley understood my grief. Every word fueled the rage radiating off them.

I had so many questions for them. How did they know each other? What were their plans for tomorrow? And the next day? And next year? What did they discuss together over the past week? Did they share everything they knew about me? About my history with each of them? Did Ashley tell Priest that I’d started our relationship as a ruse to escape? That I hadn’t set out to fall in love again? Did they fight? Work things out?

They seemed tolerant of each other at the moment. I didn’t know what that meant and didn’t have the mental capacity—or the hearing—to interrogate them.

Exhaustion pulled at me, dragging down my limbs. I just needed sleep, and it heard my plea. It reached up from the depths and took me.

When I woke, the cabin was dark and empty, save for the glow of a single lantern. And Priest and Ashley.

I lay on the desk in a vacuum of unnatural silence. Ashley sat on the edge beside my head, washing my face and hair. Priest leaned over my lower half, running a warm, wet towel over my nude body.

The pain had ebbed into dull clenching convulsions, concentrating in my arm, my ribs, and the side of my head. I didn’t move, didn’t try to speak. The caresses of their hands felt too precious, each touch a heavenly balm on my battered spirit.

Priest took his time cleansing every bruise, contusion, and abused inch of flesh. There wasn’t a part of me he didn’t inspect and tenderly wash before he draped a sheet over my hips and stood.

Ashley finished with my hair, his fingers sliding unhindered through the long spirally curls. He’d removed every tangle, a task that would’ve taken hours.

From what I could tell, they didn’t speak to each other or make eye contact. Was jealousy simmering beneath the surface? Were they behaving themselves for my benefit?

I didn’t know what they were doing while I was unconscious. Trying to kill each other, perhaps. But I appreciated this. Everything. All of it. Just having them here was more than I could ask.

For the first time in weeks, I felt clean. Loved. Safe. Maybe I would survive, after all.