Chapter 207: I don’t need help
"Maria... I know about Daniel. About what he did to you. I understand why it happened. But if you want us to help you, you need to write a statement. Everything. No holding back. You have to let us tell your story." Maria looked up, disbelief swimming in her bloodshot eyes. Her voice wavered.
"Why... why would you help me? After everything I’ve done?" April exhaled, leaning against the cold bars.
"Because nobody helped you when they should’ve. And it stops here." The cell smelled of old metal and damp walls, the kind of place where hope came to die. Maria sat there, eyes hollow but defiant, like a woman who’d already made peace with her damnation.
Rafael stood on the other side of the bars, his voice calm, steady, threading through the air like silk over jagged glass.
"Maria... listen to me. We can fight this. Maybe not wipe it clean, but you don’t have to go down like this. Not when you had every right to defend yourself."
But Maria shook her head, a slow, weary motion. That sad, small smile she wore was the same one he’d seen on too many faces of survivors — a smile that said I’ve stopped believing in rescue.
"No, sir," she whispered, her voice brittle as frost. "I’m guilty. Of all of it. I killed him. I meant to. And maybe... maybe I should’ve done it sooner." Her hands trembled in her lap, but she didn’t look away.
"I deserve this. And you—" she raised her chin a little, voice gaining a shred of the old Maria, the girl from before the bruises and broken ribs— "you have no business saving people like me."
Rafael clenched his jaw, anger flashing in his chest, not at her, but at everything that led to this moment. "You didn’t deserve any of what he did to you," he shot back. "You fought for your life. That’s not a crime. That’s survival."
Maria’s eyes glistened, but she refused to let the tears fall. "It doesn’t matter. I already made my peace." She stood abruptly as the guard locked her cell.