Free Tempted by Molly O'Keefe

hand to her throat, gathering what courage she had.
    “It’s Anne Denoe,” she said. “From Dr. Madison.”
    “You…you alone?”
    She gave everyone around her a hard look and they backed up. “I am, Mr. Garrity. Can I come in? To see Stella?”
    “Oh, Mrs. Denoe, I think… I think I done something real bad.”
    She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to the door. “Is she breathing?”
    “I think so.”
    “Let me in, Sam, so I can check on her.”
    “Anne.” It was Steven behind her, urgent and scared. “You can’t go in there.”
    But then the door cracked open and the barrel of a gun came out. It was not the first time a gun had been pointed in her face, but she imagined that it never got less terrifying.
    Sam’s wild eye appeared behind the barrel.
    “Please, Annie,” Steven said, and the barrel of the gun swung over her shoulder towards Steven’s face.
    “Sam,” she said, stepping sideways between the barrel of the gun and Steven. “Sam, it’s just me. Just me coming in.”
    His wild eye trained again on her face. Over his shoulder, she was able to see just a small slice of the bed and on it, Stella’s legs. Unmoving.
    “Let me come in,” she said. “Sam. Let me see Stella.”
    The door eased open just a small crack and she slipped in, but Steven grabbed her hand.
    “Please, Anne,” he whispered. “Please don’t do this.”
    Her heart hammered in her chest, like a fist against her ribcage, and she didn’t turn back. Not at all. She just pulled her hand free, inch by horrible inch, from Steven’s touch.
    And walked into the room with the madman, his gun and the unconscious prostitute he may have killed.
     
    The room is not all that different from mine.
    Except for the man with the gun and the unconscious prostitute. And the smell. Blood and rose water and the urine and sweat that clung to Sam. To his clothes and hair. His dirty body.
    It was choking in this airless room.
    “Did I kill her?” Sam asked, pointing to the bed.
    Anne shifted Stella on the bed, so she wasn’t lying across it with her head hanging off the side. She pulled down Stella’s petticoats, covered her knees, offered her what little modesty she was able.
    Stella’s breathing was fine. Her pulse was fine.
    “She’s not dead.”
    There were no broken bones. No wounds but a gash on her forehead that was bleeding profusely. Annie used the edge of the pillowcase to clear the blood off her forehead and her hairline. Her face was already bruising. Her eye was swollen. Her lip split.
    Sam had beaten her.
    Her awareness of Sam was prickly and painful. She could feel him behind her pacing back and forth, gun in one hand, chewing the fingernails of his other hand.
    Sweat rolled down her back, under her arms.
    “Sam,” she said, unable to take it anymore. “Please stand still.”
    “Is she all right?” he asked.
    Anne poured tepid water from the pitcher into the basin and submerged the gray but clean cloth.
    “I won’t know until she wakes up,” Anne said, pressing the compress gently to Stella’s forehead and eye. There could be lasting damage to the eye. One of Father’s patients got kicked in the eye by a mule and he never saw out of that eye again.
    But she didn’t know enough to be able to tell if that would happen to Stella.
    Very suddenly she realized she didn’t know enough about anything that was happening in this room.
    What made me think I could do this? That I could handle any of this?
    Oh, why is it so hard to breathe?
    Stop, Anne
, she thought.
There is only room for one hysterical person in this room
.
    Once she had watched Dr. Madison lift Sam’s eyelids when he came in unconscious. So she did the same to Stella. Her eyes looked normal. Pupils were the same size.
    That’s good
, she thought.
That’s one good thing
.
    “What happened?” she asked.
    “I hit her.” Sam’s voice broke. “I hit her because she kept talking. She was talking and talking and she wouldn’t shut up. She