The cold distance in his voice almost breaks my resolve. Almost.
"I didn't leave you," I say, the words rushing out. "I've been trying to tell you for days. I was taken, Falcon. Against my will."
His jaw tightens. "You left a note."
"They made me write it!" My voice cracks with frustration. "They had a gun to my head."
"Convenient," he says, the word cutting. "And the credit card? The security footage?"
"It wasn't me," I insist, taking a step closer. "They must have forced someone else to use it. To throw you off."
His laugh is hollow, devoid of humor. "You expect me to believe that after five years of nothing? No word, no sign that you were in trouble?"
"How could I contact you? They watched everything!" Desperation claws at my throat. "I tried to escape. Three times. They broke my fingers the first time. My collarbone the second." I pull down the neck of my shirt, showing the scar. "The third time, they showed me photos of you. Said they'd kill you if I tried again."
Something flickers in his eyes—doubt, perhaps. But the wall remains.
"If you were taken against your will," he says slowly, "you would have found a way to signal me. Left a clue in the note. Something." His voice hardens. "I knew you, Cara. Better than anyone. If you'd wanted me to know the truth, you would have found a way."
The accusation ignites something in me—a spark of anger that's been buried under fear and survival for too long.
"You knew me?" I step closer, heat rising to my face. "The woman you knew didn't understand that level of evil existed! I'd never been beaten, threatened, violated. I didn't know what they were capable of."
I push up my sleeve, showing a circular burn scar. "This is what happened when they caught me trying to hide a message for you in the trash at a gas station." I pull up my shirt, revealing the lattice of thin scars across my abdomen. "These are from when I screamed your name while being transported, hoping someone would hear."
Tears blur my vision, but I refuse to wipe them away. "I never stopped fighting to get back to you. Never. Even when they broke me in ways I can't begin to describe, even when I forgot what your face looked like, I held onto the memory of us."
His expression cracks, just slightly—pain bleeding through the anger.
"Five years, Falcon. Five years of hell, and the one thing that kept me going was knowing you were out there. That one day I'd find my way back to you." My voice drops to a whisper. "I never expected you'd hate me when I did."
He pushes away from the workbench, pacing the small space. "I don't hate you."
"Then what is this?" I gesture to the invisible barrier between us. "Why won't you believe me?"
"Because if what you're saying is true—" His voice breaks, and he turns away, hands gripping the workbench until his knuckles turn white. "If you were taken, if you were suffering all this time while I was... while I gave up looking..."
Understanding dawns. It's not that he doesn't believe me—it's that he can't bear to. Because if I'm telling the truth, then he failed me in the worst possible way.
"It's not your fault," I say softly.
He whirls around, eyes blazing. "Of course it's my fault! I was supposed to protect you. I promised to always find you, no matter what. And instead, I believed the worst. I gave up."
"They wanted you to give up," I say. "That was the point. They covered their tracks."
"I should have known better." He slams his fist against the wall, the sudden violence making me flinch automatically. He notices and steps back immediately, regret flashing across his face. "I'm sorry."
For the flinching. For the wall-punching. For five years lost. For all of it and none of it, all at once.
"We can't change what happened," I say, forcing steadiness into my voice. "But we're here now. I'm trying to help you stop them from doing this to other women."
He stares at me for a long moment, conflict evident in every line of his body. Finally, he shakes his head. "It doesn't matter now. The past is done."
The dismissal stings worse than any physical blow. "So that's it? You won't even try to understand?"
"What do you want from me, Cara?" Exhaustion edges his words. "A tearful reunion? Promises that everything will go back to how it was? That's not possible. We're not those people anymore."
"I know that," I whisper. "But I thought... I hoped?—"