My eyes turn to Josh, who has now dropped Number Thirteen and is scurrying to his feet, tucking his dick back in his pants. I stalk towards him, fists clenched, panting with rage. I’ll kill him. No one touches my girls. No one forces themselves onto my girls. No one. I catch a glimpse of Number Thirteen, and she’s sitting, staring at her hand like it’s on fire. Tears are streaming down her face and she’s trembling. She looks up at me, and her voice breaks, “You let him hurt me.”

My entire body stiffens.

I let him hurt her.

Goddammit, I let him hurt her.

I don’t have time to stop. I will make this better for her, but for right now, I have to make him wish to God he’d never come into my home and taken advantage of my girls. I lunge towards him, catching him around the throat. I squeeze hard.

“It wasn’t what it looked like!” he yells, gasping for air. “She called me in here.”

This causes me to take his head and slam it onto the side of the basin. I hear his skull crack, hear Number Thirteen scream, and I see the blood beginning to pour from the split skin on his head. Josh twists his body, driving a punch into my stomach. I take a few steps back, growling. He charges towards me, and I duck out of the way at the last minute. He launches his body at me from behind, and his hand catches hold of my eye patch, tearing it clean off.

I spin to him, gripping his shoulders and bringing my knee up into his groin and hitting him twice. He drops to the ground, roaring in pain. I kneel down, capturing his head in my hands. I lift him up, and then I bring my head down, head-butting him so hard he blacks out. I let him go, and his body lands with a thump onto the floor. I rub my head, feeling my world beginning to spin. It takes a lot of force to take a man out with your head.

I turn, not thinking, and I look directly at Number Thirteen.

And I realize I don’t have my eye patch on.

I hear my own gasp as I stare up at him. I’m on the floor, and he’s looming over me, but even from down here I can see his face. My body prickles as I let my eyes travel over him, seeing him for the first time as a whole. He’s just staring at me, his mouth open slightly, panting. Our gazes lock, and for a moment there’s nothing but silence in the room.

Then I turn my eyes to his...oh God.

It makes sense now, as if everything we’ve been through in the past two weeks finally adds up.

He’s damaged.

He’s got one beautiful, blue eye.

He’s got one ugly, marred eye.

I stare at it, and I feel nothing but pure sadness for a moment. What was once a beautiful eye is now white. It’s still there, but it’s clouded over, and the surface of it looks...rough. That’s not all, though. The skin around that eye is damaged. He has no eyebrow; it’s just a mass of scarring. It looks as though he’s been burned. Tears well in my eyes as I let my gaze follow the impaired skin, and I see it goes down to his ear.

It takes up a little less than a quarter of his beautiful face, but the quarter that is ruined...is just that...ruined. His skin, his eye, the entire lot is just a mess.

I can’t tear my eyes away; I ey, pcan’t stop myself from looking. It’s so hard not to. When presented like this, he looks so different, yet, at the same time, he’s still so incredibly breathtaking. He spins before I can stare at him anymore, and he lifts his eye patch off the ground, pulling it on before turning back to me.

I stare at Josh on the ground, and my body trembles.

He tried to rape me.

Tears prick my eyes, and I feel a part of myself shrink deeply back inside of me. I drop my head and try to stop myself from vomiting. I stare at my hand, the one I so furiously wiped over the towel while William beat Josh. The hand he made me touch him with. I shudder all over, and I wrap my arms around myself, holding on tightly.

“Did he...hurt you?”

I lift my face and stare at William.

My broken William.

“No.”

“And did he...?”

Rape me? That’s what he wants to say.

“No. He made me...t-t-touch him,” I whisper.

William flinches, but he covers it quickly. Instead he reaches out and takes me under the arms, lifting me and pulling me to my feet. With his arms around me like this, I feel warm. He leads me out of the bathroom, and sets me down on my bed.

“W-w-where were you?” I cry when he leans back.

“I’m sorry, Number Thirteen, I didn’t...I’m sorry.”

He straightens, and I can see how much it has bothered him. His control was taken in his own home, and one of us was hurt because of it. He turns his face away, and I can see the burned skin on the side of his face. My heart stutters, and I can’t stop myself from wondering what happened to him.

“What happened to you?” I ask in a small, meek voice.

He jerks, his entire body flinching. He turns to me, and his jaw is tense.

“That’s none of your business.”

I narrow my gaze. “Is it why you have us? Did someone hurt you?”

He flinches again.

“I said, it’s none of your business,” he snarls, his voice dripping with venom.

“Do you think it disgusts me?”

The one eye I can see widens, like my question both confuses and shocks him.

“It should disgust you.”

“Why?” I say, getting to my feet. “Because you’re not perfect? No one is, William. Having a facial flaw does not change what’s inside. It doesn’t make you ugly—only you can make yourself ugly.”