“I said I can’t.” Ashamed, I dropped my gaze to my lap. My loyalty was divided between the two people I loved most. It shouldn’t be divided at all—but it was.

Raven looked disappointed, but after a few seconds, she hid that expression. “Why?”

“Because…I can’t do that to him.” The truth was locked in a safe inside my heart.

Raven took a deep breath, and as she slowly released it, revulsion spread across her face. “Melanie, this is the man who raped you—”

“He didn’t.” My voice strengthened, because it was such a terrible accusation that didn’t fit Fender in the least. He could never do something like that. Not to me. Not to anyone. He always treated me like a queen, even when he didn’t know me. I raised my chin and looked directly at her, offended even though it wasn’t her fault for jumping to that conclusion. I hid every thought and feeling from her because the truth was worse than the assumption. “I never said that.”

“But he took you from the cabin, put you in another… He dragged his fingers against your cheek and said you tried to get away from him.”

I shook my head. “He put me in a different cabin so he could be alone with me, but he never forced me. He would just have dinner with me and said he would wait until I was ready. And then…I was ready.”

The look Raven gave me…was indescribable.

I couldn’t handle that stare. I just couldn’t. I looked away.

Raven was quiet, and the energy around her was so hostile that it seemed as if she might get up and storm out. She took a moment to calm herself before she spoke again, speaking to me like I was a child. “Melanie…I understand we’ve been in dire circumstances and it’s easy to grow attached to anything that’s comforting, but this is the man who enslaves and kills innocent women, women that we’ve known. How can you possibly feel that way about him?”

That was the million-dollar question. We didn’t have enough time for me to explain the depth of my feelings, how they started, how they became so strong. There was nothing I could do to make her understand. But then an idea came to mind, something she could definitely comprehend. “The same reason you feel that way about Magnus.”

The anger that appeared on Raven’s face happened instantly, her breathing deeper, her cheeks flushing slightly. She was livid. “They are not the same, Melanie. Magnus is nothing like that monster.”

“How are they different?” Defensive when I shouldn’t be, I met her head on. “Both men don’t hang the women themselves, but they both work there. How is it different? Magnus is just as guilty, and yet you look at him the way Fender looks at me.”