Chapter Thirty One

Kyla.

I jolted awake with a scream lodged in my throat, my chest heaving like I have been running for miles. My own voice shatters the quiet of the hospital room. “Please stop! Please stop, please” The words tumble out broken, desperate, ripped straight from the nightmare that dragged me back into the darkness I thought I’d buried. 

My body trembles, drenched in sweat, the thin hospital gown sticking to me. My hair clings dimly to my face. For a moment, I can’t separate my dream from reality, his hands, his voice, the belt striking the floor before it found my skin.

My eyes dart wildly, searching corners of the room like a terrified child. I expect to see him there, my father, looming with that cold glare and heavy hand. But instead, my vision clears and I find Jake there.

He is sitting in the chair beside me, his broad frame hunched forward, elbows braced on his knees like he’s been holding vigil for hours. His eyes meet mine, fierce and soft at the same time, a storm barely contained.

“You are okay,” Jake says quickly, his voice low but steady, grounding. He leans closer, his hand hovering near mine but not quite touching, like he doesn’t want to startle me. “Kyla, it’s just a nightmare. You are safe now. You are safe with me.”

I try to breathe, but my chest won’t loosen. It feels like the walls are pressing in, like my father is still in the room. My fingers claw at the sheets, searching for something to hold onto, something real.

Jake notices and takes my hand gently, his palm warm, solid. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs. “I’m right here.”

The dam inside me cracks. A sob breaks free, then another, until I’m trembling so hard the bed shakes with me. My throat burns from screaming, but I can’t seem to stop the tears that pour down. All the years of silence, all the years of pretending it was easier for me than for anyone else it all bursts out in jagged gasps.

“He, he wouldn’t stop,” I choke out, words tumbling without permission. “Every night, it was me. I took it so Amina wouldn’t, so she wouldn’t” My chest convulses and the words collapse into sobs.

Jake’s jaw tightens, his eyes flashing with a fury that isn’t directed at me but at the ghosts clawing at my skin. He shifts closer, pulling his chair right against the bed, and when I don’t flinch, he wraps his arms around me. I collapse into him like my body’s been waiting for this safe harbor.

His shirt absorbs my tears as he strokes my hair with steady hands. “He will never touch you again,” Jake says, his voice hard as steel. “Never. Not while I’m breathing.”

But I can’t stop the flood. The nightmare had ripped me back into that house every creak of the floorboards, every slammed door. My father’s breath sour with alcohol. His heavy boots. The sound of leather sliding from its loops.

“I used to pray he would hurt me instead of her,” I whisper into Jake’s chest, my voice ragged. “Every night I would wait for his footsteps, and I would pray he came to my room. Because if he hurt me, then maybe Amina could sleep. Maybe she wouldn’t know what it was like.”

Jake stiffens, pulling back just enough to look at me. His eyes are dark, shining. “Kyla”

“She thinks I had it easy,” I continue, shaking my head, tears streaking down my face. “She thinks I was the favorite, that I never suffered. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know I took it for her. That I begged him to choose me.”

The weight of those words makes my chest ache. I never thought I would ever say them out loud. I have carried that secret for years, buried it so deep that even I doubted my own memories sometimes. But the truth has claws, and it finally ripped itself out of me.

Jake cups my face in his hands, forcing me to meet his eyes. His thumbs brush away the tears I can’t stop shedding. “You don’t have to carry that alone anymore,” he says firmly. “You hear me? You don’t ever have to face those nightmares alone again.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, because the way he looks at me is too much like I matter, like I’m worth saving. The thought makes me both want to cling to him and run from him.

“I’m broken, Jake,” I whisper. The confession slips out raw, trembling. “You don’t understand, I’m not whole. He broke me.”

His grip on my face doesn’t falter. “No,” he says, his voice steady and unyielding. “You are not broken. You’re surviving. There’s a difference. You are here, Kyla. After everything, you are still here. That’s not broken, that’s strength.”

The words burrow into me, but the old shame fights back. “But Amina hates me,” I sob. “She thinks I was the golden child, and she’ll never believe me if I tell her. She’ll never forgive me for something I never did.”

Jake shakes his head. “That’s not on you. None of it is. Your father twisted everything he made you carry pain that was never yours to carry. Amina doesn’t know the truth yet, but that doesn’t erase what you did for her. You sacrificed yourself. You were a shield for her.”

The sobs slow, replaced by hiccuping breaths as I listen to him. My body still trembles, but the warmth of his arms anchors me. His words start to settle the storm inside, though I know it won’t disappear overnight.

I whisper, almost too softly, “Sometimes I wonder if it was worth it. Because she still hates me.”

Jake pulls me tighter against him, his chin resting gently atop my head. “It was worth it,” he says without hesitation. “Even if she doesn’t see it now. Even if she never does. What you did it came from love. And that matters. That matters more than her anger, more than the lies your father fed her.”

I breathe him in, the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath my cheek. Slowly, my heartbeat begins to sync with his. The edges of my panic soften, though exhaustion still drags at my limbs.

For the first time in years, I let myself be held. Really held. Not because I was expected to be strong, not because I had to protect someone else, but because I needed it.

Jake whispers again, almost like a vow, “You’re safe, Kyla. You are safe with me, I promise.”