Home Entertainment Game Technology Six months after a bullet left me paralyzed, my fiancée secretly ordered the staff to stop my afternoon therapy because she believed helping me was pointless, but the exhausted aide earning twenty-five dollars an hour refused to treat me like a lost cause. I had spent my life surrounded by men terrified of my name, yet it took one brutally honest woman washing my back to make me realize the person wearing my engagement ring had already abandoned me.352

Tessa never apologized before touching me.

She simply told me what she was doing.

“Left arm around my shoulder.”

I obeyed.

“Push through your right palm.”

I pushed.

“Again.”

“My shoulder hurts.”

“Your shoulder complains about everything.”

“So do you.”

“Yes, but I'm useful.”

Warm water slid over my back.

For a while, there was only the sound of cloth against skin and the faint hum of traffic beyond the windows.

Then Tessa grew quiet.

Not normal quiet.

I had learned the difference.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Tessa.”

She rinsed the cloth.

“Don't use that voice.”

“What voice?”

“The one that probably made grown men confess to things they didn't do.”

“Worked more often than you'd think.”

She lowered her eyes.

Then she said, “Your afternoon therapy was canceled.”

My fingers tightened around the stainless support rail.

“By whom?”

She hesitated.

That was answer enough.

“Arya?”

Tessa nodded.

“When?”

“Last night.”

“Why?”