“Did they arrest them?” she asked softly.

“They got every single one of them, sweetheart.” Tears welled in her eyes, and she said the thing that had been, I understood, the real weight on her all along — heavier even than her injuries.

“I was so scared,” she whispered, “that nobody would believe me.” And I sat on the edge of the bed, and I took her bruised hand as gently as I have ever done anything, and I gave her the only answer that mattered.

“I believed you,” I said.