“We need to find somewhere safe for you until I can find a home for all of us, you, me, and Izzy.” A house of some kind or a flat, they’ll rent somewhere first. She could find a different school for Izzy if necessary. Anything is possible once you make up your mind.

The dark eyes flare, hope or mistrust, she isn’t sure which. How much can Lina understand? It’s ridiculous that she doesn’t know still exactly how well they can really communicate. The kettle has boiled. Melissa makes a cup of tea, adds honey, then gives it to Lina. She sits next to her again, watching her sip and the color creep into her cheeks.

All the questions she can’t ask jumble in her mind: How often did he hit you? How many times were you raped? Why didn’t you tell me? But she knows the answer to the last one: Lina didn’t tell her because she was ashamed, as she herself has been, for years. Lina’s hand is trembling, the tea almost slopping over. Melissa takes the cup and puts it on the table. Someone else will have to ask her those questions. She’ll give answers more easily to a counselor than to the wife of the man who hurt her.

“Should we tell anyone that we are going? I know you split up with your boyfriend, but maybe there’s someone—?”

At the mention of the boyfriend Lina shakes her head so violently that her hair flies about her face; perhaps he hadn’t been a boyfriend after all, but just the last in a line of criminals who handed her over to men like Paul. They might still be around, keeping watch, ready to track her down if she tries to leave. Lina needs to go somewhere safe, but has she the right to take her away from the place she knows, as if Lina were her property? Has she the right not to?

“If I can find a place for you to go, would you allow me to take you there?”

Lina stares at her, her eyes narrowed with concentration, the effort of taking it in.

“There are places, houses, where women go when they’ve been hurt, where they couldn’t find you.” She can take her right now and return for Izzy later. “I’ll need to make a phone call, but if you’re okay with it, we should leave pretty soon. What do you think?”

Lina looks around the kitchen, the cupboards, the sink, the stove where she cooked, the window she’d gazed from, as if she’s saying goodbye. Her focus settles on the little cat, curled now in her basket. Melissa waits, her heart beating fast.

“Lina?”

Lina looks up at her. “Okay.” She nods slowly. “Okay.”

“We may have to drive for a while. Can you put what you need in a bag, your passport and something warm to wear?”

“Passport.” Lina shakes her head. “Your husband has.”

Paul must have taken it for safekeeping, or more likely, to prevent her escape. “I’ll find it. In the meantime, would you like me to tell the police what’s happened?”