After a few moments of silence, I hear the door shut, and Ivy comes to sit in the chair next to the bed. I feel her eyes on my face, and I wonder if she thinks I’m pathetic. The old me would have cared. She would have sat up straight and made some bitchy remark to show her… and the world… that nothing gets Mercedes De La Rosa down. I’m realizing just how much I don’t care about others’ opinions anymore. That woman died somewhere between Judge’s capture and my rebirth.

“I know you’re hurting,” Ivy says, her voice quiet but firm. “And I know you aren’t the kind of woman who accepts help easily, particularly from someone like me. I think, coming to understand Santiago as I do, it’s safe to say you are another De La Rosa who found a way to thrive in chaos and pain. You learned to go it alone, and that’s admirable. But right now, you need to learn to accept help when it’s offered to you, regardless of the source.”

Her observation throws me slightly off-kilter, and I don’t want to admit that she’s right, but I can’t deny it. Santiago and I are very much the same. We were raised with brutality and a militant structure, each of us finding our own ways to cope in such an emotionally sterile environment. Mine was never allowing anyone to see me falter. Never letting my head hang for even a second. Allowing anyone to see me vulnerable was unfathomable. Even now, it pains me to consider accepting comfort in my darkest hour. But Ivy has made it clear she knows that, and still, she has no plans to go anywhere.

“It isn’t the source,” I rasp, my voice hoarse from sleeping too much. “I hold no ill will toward you anymore, Ivy. I just don’t know how to do this.”

She’s quiet for a pause, and then she surprises me by moving to sit on the bed next to me.

“I know it’s not something we can talk about easily,” she says. “But I have been where you are. I have felt what you’re feeling right now, and I almost let that darkness consume me. I wanted your brother’s love. I wanted his warmth, and I thought I would die without it. It’s the kind of pain that becomes a part of you until you think nothing can touch it. But I’m here to tell you there’s one thing stronger than that pain. One thing you will come to understand.”

“And what is that?” I choke out.