Chapter 2 2

The taxi hit a pothole in Brooklyn, and Joanna's teeth clicked together with the impact. Pain shot through her pelvis, sharp and immediate, and she bit her lip hard enough to taste blood. The driver glanced at her in the rearview mirror. She looked away, out the window, at the familiar streets of her neighborhood.

They were wrong. Everything was wrong. The bodega on the corner, the laundromat with its flickering neon sign, the fire escape where Mrs. Chen hung her laundry-they all looked like props in a play she'd already left. Like she'd crossed some invisible line last night, and now she was walking around in a world that looked like hers but wasn't.

"Here okay?" The driver's voice cut through her thoughts.

Joanna looked up. Her building. The brick facade was crumbling in places, the paint on the door peeling, but it was hers. Her sanctuary. The place where she was Joanna Santana, responsible adult, not the girl who woke up in stranger's beds with blood on the sheets.

"Yes. Thank you."

She fumbled for cash, shoved it at him without counting, and practically fell out of the taxi. The morning air was cold against her legs, her dress riding up in ways that made her painfully aware of what she wasn't wearing underneath. She tugged it down, clutched her purse to her chest, and limped toward her door.

The key. Where was her key?

She dumped her purse on the stoop, hands shaking, rifling through receipts and lip balm and the detritus of her ordinary life. Her fingers closed on metal. She pulled it out, tried to fit it in the lock, missed, tried again.

"Joanna?"

The voice came from behind her. From the door that was already opening.

Joanna spun around. Leah stood in the doorway, coffee mug in hand, her dark hair still wet from the shower. Her roommate's eyes traveled over Joanna's appearance with the speed of someone cataloging evidence at a crime scene.

"Where the hell have you been?"

The question was sharp. Accusing. Joanna felt her face heat up, felt the lie forming on her tongue before she could stop it.

"I-at a friend's. Sarah from the gallery. We had wine, and I fell asleep on her couch. My phone died."

The words came out too fast. Too rehearsed. Leah's eyes narrowed.

"Sarah." She said the name like she was tasting it. "The one with the studio in Queens?"

"Yes. Her."

"Your dress is on inside out."

Joanna looked down. The seams of her red silk dress were visible, the tag scratching at the back of her neck. She hadn't noticed. In her panic to escape, she hadn't noticed.

"I was in a hurry. I have to-" She pushed past Leah, into the apartment, heading for the bathroom. "I need to shower. I'm late for work."

"Joanna." Leah's hand closed on her arm. Not hard, but firm enough to stop her. "Your neck."

Joanna's free hand flew to her throat. She felt them then-the raised welts, the tender spots where his teeth had been, where his mouth had marked her. Hickeys. She had hickeys. She was twenty-three years old and she had hickeys like a teenager.

"It's nothing. A rash. Allergic reaction."

"To Sarah's cat?"

"To the wine. I have to go."

She wrenched free, stumbled into the bathroom, and slammed the door. The lock clicked. She leaned against it, breathing hard, and finally let herself look in the mirror.

The woman staring back at her was a stranger.

Her mascara had smeared into raccoon masks under her eyes. Her lipstick was gone, replaced by swollen lips that looked like they'd been kissed raw. And her neck-God, her neck was a roadmap of bruises, purple and red marks that screamed sex, that announced to anyone who looked exactly what she'd been doing.

Joanna turned on the faucet. Splashed cold water on her face. Once. Twice. Three times. It didn't help. She still looked like what she was. A woman who had spent the night being fucked senseless by a man whose name she didn't know.

She stripped off the dress. It fell to the tile floor in a puddle of red silk, and she stepped out of it like she was shedding skin. Her reflection showed her everything she didn't want to see-the marks on her breasts, the fingerprints on her hips, the way her thighs trembled when she tried to stand still.

She turned on the shower. Hot. As hot as she could stand. She stepped under the spray and let it hit her, let it pound against her shoulders and her back and the place between her legs that still ached with every heartbeat.

She scrubbed. Soap. Loofah. More soap. She washed between her legs and her fingers came away with something that wasn't quite blood, something that made her stomach roll. She washed again. And again. Until her skin was pink and raw and she could pretend she was clean.

But she wasn't. She could still feel him. The weight of him. The stretch of him inside her. The way he'd said her name in the dark like it was something precious.

Joanna turned off the water. Stepped out. Wrapped herself in the thin towel that was all their crappy apartment provided.

She had to move. Had to think. Had to figure out what came next.

She dressed in her most ordinary clothes. Jeans. A gray sweater. Underwear that covered everything, cotton and practical. She pulled her hair back in a ponytail, hiding the tangles, and applied concealer to her neck with a hand that still shook.

There. Normal. She looked normal.

Except for her eyes. They were too wide. Too bright. The eyes of someone who had seen something she couldn't unsee.

Joanna grabbed her bag. Her keys. Her phone-she plugged it in for thirty seconds, just enough to get a sliver of battery. She had to get to work. Had to pretend. Had to rebuild her life around the crater that last night had left in its center.

She opened the bathroom door. Leah was waiting in the hallway, arms crossed.

"We need to talk."

"Later. I'm really late."

"Joanna." Leah's voice softened. "Did something happen? Did someone hurt you?"

The question hung in the air. Joanna thought of the blood on the sheets. The scratches on his back. The way she'd begged him for more.

"No," she said. "Nothing happened. I'm fine."

She pushed past her roommate, out the door, down the stairs. The morning air hit her face, cold and clean, and she walked toward the subway with steps that were almost steady.

She was fine. She would be fine. She just had to keep moving.

It wasn't until she was standing on the platform, waiting for the train, that she remembered. The thing she should have thought of first. The thing that made her hand fly to her stomach, pressing against the flat plane through her sweater.

Protection. He'd used protection-she remembered the tear of foil, the moment of pause before he'd pushed inside her. But that was before. Before the second time, or the third, when she'd been half-asleep and he'd been hard against her hip, when she'd reached for him without thinking-

The train roared into the station. Joanna didn't move. She stood frozen on the platform, her mind racing, calculating, terror building in her chest like a physical weight.

She needed a pharmacy. Now.

---

The CVS on Atlantic Avenue was bright. Too bright. Fluorescent lights that made Joanna feel exposed, visible, like every person in the store could look at her and know exactly why she was there.

She found the aisle by memory, not by looking at signs. Family planning. The words were clinical, polite, nothing like the panic that was making her heart race.

She stood in front of the display. So many options. Condoms. Lubricants. Pregnancy tests. And there, on the bottom shelf, behind a plastic security case that required a clerk to unlock it-

Plan B.

Joanna reached for it. Her hand was shaking so badly she knocked over a box of condoms, sent them scattering across the floor. She knelt to pick them up, cheeks burning, and heard footsteps approaching.

"Need help finding something?"

The clerk was young. Maybe twenty. He had a name tag that said BRENDA but he was clearly not Brenda, clearly covering someone's shift, clearly looking at Joanna with the kind of knowing sympathy that made her want to die.

"No. I'm fine. Thank you."

She grabbed the Plan B box-emergency contraceptive, for use within 72 hours, not for regular birth control-and practically ran to the self-checkout. The machine beeped. Demanded an employee override for the locked case.

Brenda-not-Brenda appeared again, key in hand. He unlocked the case, scanned the box, and looked at Joanna with eyes that were trying not to judge.

"These work best if you take them as soon as possible," he said. "There's a water fountain by the bathrooms if you need it."

Joanna shoved her credit card into the machine. Didn't meet his eyes. "I'm fine."

The receipt printed. She grabbed the box, shoved it in her bag, and walked out of the store with steps that were too fast, too desperate. She turned the corner, into the alley behind the building, and ripped open the packaging with fingers that wouldn't cooperate.

One pill. Small. White. Innocuous.

She put it on her tongue. It tasted like nothing. Like chalk. She swallowed dry, felt it catch in her throat, forced it down with a swallow that hurt.

Done. It was done. She was safe.

Joanna leaned against the brick wall, breathing hard. The alley smelled like garbage and exhaust, but she didn't care. She was safe. The pill would work. She wouldn't be pregnant with a stranger's baby, wouldn't have to explain to her mother-God, her mother-wouldn't have to watch her carefully constructed life crumble into something unrecognizable.

She pushed off the wall. Took a step toward the street.

Pain.

It hit her low in her abdomen, sharp and cramping, like the worst period she'd ever had concentrated into a single moment. Joanna doubled over, gasping, her hand flying to her stomach. The wall was there, cold brick against her palm, and she leaned into it, breathing through her mouth, waiting for it to pass.

It didn't pass. The pain ebbed, then surged again, worse this time, radiating down her thighs, up into her lower back. She felt wetness between her legs-not blood, not yet, but something that made her panic spike all over again.

She needed a doctor. She couldn't go to her regular clinic, couldn't explain this to Dr. Patterson who'd known her since she was sixteen. She needed somewhere anonymous. Somewhere no one knew her history. A private clinic on the Upper East Side felt like another world, so far removed from her own that it might as well be anonymous. And her insurance, thank God, would cover it.

Joanna pulled out her phone. The battery was dying, but she had enough to search. Private clinic. Upper East Side. Gynecology. Same-day appointments.

The first result was a name she didn't recognize. Marion Evans, MD. Upper East Side Women's Health. The website showed photos of a waiting room that looked like a luxury hotel lobby, all velvet and marble and soft lighting.

Joanna clicked the appointment button. Selected the first available slot. Entered her insurance information-thank God for the gallery's mediocre but functional health plan-and received a confirmation text.

Eleven-thirty. Two hours from now.

She could make it. She had to make it.

Joanna straightened. The pain was still there, a dull throb now, manageable. She walked toward the subway with one hand pressed to her stomach, trying to look normal, trying to be normal.

Behind her, in the penthouse of the Plaza Hotel, Cain Reed stood naked in front of the shattered mirror of his bathroom. Blood dripped from his knuckles, mixing with the water from the faucet, swirling down the drain in patterns that looked like abstract art.

He didn't feel the pain. He was too focused on the image in his mind. The girl. The way she'd felt. The way she'd run.

His phone was on the counter. Alex's voice came through the speaker, professional, apologetic.

"We have her name, sir. Joanna Santana. But the corridor cameras were down for maintenance last night. We have no footage of her departure."

Cain's jaw tightened. He picked up a shard of mirror, watched his own reflection fracture into a dozen pieces.

"She just took Plan B at a CVS on Atlantic Avenue and is now in agonizing pain. She's looking for a doctor. My mother's clinic, Upper East Side Women's Health, has an opening at eleven-thirty. Make sure she's the one who gets it."