"I don't want you to be the one who does this, Ryder."
Walking back to the side of the bed, I searched her face for the answer to why. Why couldn't I avenge the death of our child?
"What does it matter if it's me who does it? You'll be free and I would have protected you, finally."
"Is that what this is about to you? You being some big protector for sad, pathetic Serena?"
My emotions spun out of control after everything that had happened that day. "I promised to protect you and I failed! How do you think that makes me feel?"
Exhausted from my failure once again to protect her from being hurt, I sank down in the chair next to the bed and hung my head. I understood that she didn't want to be a victim anymore, but that didn't mean I didn't want to protect her because she was the woman I loved.
She gently stroked her hand across my back as I sat there hating what was happening to us. "Ryder, I don't need you to protect me. All I need from you is your love."
Looking back toward her, I asked, "What if I want to protect you? What if that means something important to me?"
Her hand trailed down my arm and she weaved her fingers through mine, squeezing our hands together. "There was a time that all I thought I needed was someone to protect me, first from my father and then from Oliver. In fact, if you had asked me this afternoon if I needed you to protect me, I would have said yes. But something happened when he pushed me down those stairs and I lost the baby. I woke up in this bed and all I knew for sure was I never wanted to feel that weak again. I never wanted to feel like I had no power ever again in my life. I won't."
I looked down at where our hands met and brought her fingertips to my lips in a kiss. "What does that mean for us? What am I if I'm not the one person you trust to protect you?"
She smiled for one of the first times since I'd entered her hospital room. "Equals, like a man and woman should be."
I didn't mind the idea of Serena being my equal. From the first moment she appeared at my room right after I arrived at the house, I'd thought she was far superior to me, and not only because she came from money and I came from The Pit. Something inside her made her sweeter and kinder than anyone I'd ever met. I wanted to have someone with those qualities in my life.
"You've always been better than me," I said quietly, slipping my hand from hers as I stood to walk to the window again.
"That's not true, and you know it. I'm just some poor little rich girl with a powerful father. At least that's all I've been, but now I want to be more. I want to be someone who has control over her life instead of being sold to the highest bidder and forced to live with other people's decisions."
As I gazed out at that place I imagined in the mountains where we could finally be free, I said, "You want to be like your father."
From behind me, she said, "Maybe I want to be like you."
Her answer made me chuckle. Turning back to face her, I asked, "Like a junkyard dog? You're not the biting type."
"Not the biting type but the type of person who has the power to say no."
Her newfound strength didn't frighten me, but I worried what she might want to say no to. Or who.
"I would never say no to you, Ryder, if that's what the look on your face means. You're the only person I know cares for me."
"So this is about having the power to get your revenge on Oliver? Because I meant what I said about revenge. I've seen what it does to people like you. It'll eat you up from the inside, Serena."
She placed her hands over her belly and nodded. "I want the chance to make him pay. I need to do this. I hope you can understand why."
Part of me did. Although I'd come around to wanting a child after she told me, Serena had lived with the baby inside her, something I could never truly feel. Whatever Oliver had taken away from me, he'd taken more from her when he decided to kill her and our baby.
But another part of me didn't want to think about how different things were for her and simply wanted to exact revenge on the man who had hurt the woman I loved and killed my child. That part didn't want to stand aside and let her do just that. That part wanted to look him dead in the eyes as the life drained out of his body so he'd know who he'd crossed before he left this world.
Accepting for the moment that Serena needed me to support her in this, I asked, "So what do you plan to do? I can't stand the idea that you're going to have to go back to that apartment and live in the same house as him. I don't trust that he won't try to kill you again."
"He won't. He pushed me down the stairs because of the baby," she answered as she fought back tears.
And for that one horrible act I'd someday get my revenge, even if it didn't mean killing him.