I wrap my arms around her and pull her to my shoulder. “Sabrina, it’s okay,” I say low in her ear as she struggles against me. Her shrieks turn to sobs and she buries her face in my neck. “It’s okay,” I say again, stroking her hair.

Her knees buckle and I lower us both to the floor, where I hold her as she cries. Everyone is watching, and Izzy moves toward us with wide eyes.

“Get Janice,” I tell her with a tip of my head at the door to the shelter. “She should be at the desk. White hair and glasses.”

She nods and jogs off in that direction.

“Keep practicing,” I tell the rest of the group.

They look at me warily, but then move back to their places.

A minute later Izzy is back with Janice, the women’s counselor. She helps me scoop Sabrina off the floor, whispering to her the whole time that she’s safe. She gives me a sad smile and a nod as she guides Sabrina back to the shelter.

I watch after them and wish there was more that I could do to help her.

Once the group has kicks down, I move on to the knee-to-the-balls maneuver, the ripping-off-of-the-pinky maneuver, and the thumb-in-the-eye maneuver.

After class, when I go to check on Sabrina, Janice tells me she’s with Dr. Harris and she’s finally talking.

“Thank God,” I say, blowing out a relieved breath. “What happened to her, anyway?”

“It’s a little sketchy,” she says. “She doesn’t have any known family, and so far she’s not really been talking, but the police found her and another girl chained up in the basement of a condemned building in Oakland, beaten and starving to death. They brought her here when she was released from the hospital. The other girl didn’t make it. The police are hoping she’ll be able to tell them what happened eventually.”

“Jesus,” I say, acid rising in my throat. “Do you think she’ll be okay?”

Janice pushes her glasses up her nose and leans her elbows on the desk. “It’ll be a long road to recovery, but at least she’s on it now. With support, I hope she’ll be fine.”

My eyes flick to the closed door of the counseling room and I’m reminded how I got here in the first place. I took up karate when I was a kid because, even though they called the place Mom took me a “mix martial arts” studio, that’s all they taught. Kicking the crap out of all the big cocky football players in my class was how I kept all my teen angst in check.

When I first met Katie in seventh grade, she’d just moved to town. She was very overweight and painfully shy, and she relentlessly got picked on by class bitch Stacey McCarran and her group. I wish I could say I was brave enough to jump in and tell Stacey to leave her the hell alone. I wasn’t. But one day I waited until the bus pulled away from our stop, then grabbed Katie and brought her home with me. I spent the next month teaching her some basic karate moves. Thankfully, she never ended up needing to use any of them, but during that time we got to know each other, and I realized she was one of the coolest people I knew. When she finally got up the nerve to tell Stacey McCarran to go to hell, I decided I needed to be brave enough to be her friend.

That’s when I realized that helping people is a two-way street. You gain as much as you give. I took self-defense at the Y and started teaching my friends at school some of the stuff I’d learned. By high school it sort of grew into a club. So when this opportunity to help at the shelter came up, even though it was Mom’s suggestion, I jumped all over it. That was four years ago. I’ve met a lot of really scared women during that time, but I’ve never seen anything like this.

I want to walk into the counseling room and give Sabrina a hug. I want to tell her to keep fighting and she’ll be okay, even though I can’t imagine how that could ever happen. But more than that, I want to kill whoever did this to her. “When she’s done, tell her to call me if she needs anything—or if she just wants to, I don’t know, hang out or talk or whatever.”

“Will do,” Janice says, then smiles up at me. “Good work today.”

“Thanks,” I say. “See you next week.”

But as I go back to the multipurpose room to collect Izzy, I can’t help wishing there was something I could do to unbreak girls like Sabrina.

Izzy and I walk out of the shelter a few minutes later, sweaty and hungry. We stop at a diner near the BART station.

“That was pretty intense,” she says once we’re seated.

I nod. “A lot of those women have been through hell.”

“That girl . . . will she be okay?”

“I hope so.”

The waitress comes and takes our orders. I don’t let her escape until I have a steaming mug of coffee in my hand.

When she’s gone, Izzy looks at me. “So, what’s been going on with you?” she asks. “I know we don’t know each other that great, but the last week you’ve been . . .”

“Off,” I finish for her.

It’s true. Since that night with Harrison eleven days ago, I haven’t been feeling it like I was. I try to tell myself it’s not because of him, but I know in my gut it is. My tips this week have taken a hit, and Nora moved me off center stage. I’m sure she’d cut back my shifts, and maybe even fire me, if she had anyone else to cover. But it’s all made me realize maybe this job isn’t a long-term solution. Problem is, I don’t have another one, and even with my crappy tips, I don’t know where I’d find one that pays this well.

“So, feel free to tell me to shut up, but if there’s something you want to talk about . . .” She trails off with a lift of her perfect black eyebrows.

I sip my coffee. “There was this guy at the club. He was there my first two nights.”

“The guy that shook you up in the VIP room?” she asks.

Felt me up, is more like it. I look up at her and nod as I feel my cheeks warm at the memory.

“How bad did you break Ben’s rules?”

“I let him touch me.” I wince a little as I say it, but she doesn’t even react.

“That’s all?” she says.

I take a long swallow, feeling my face pull into a cringe. “I wanted more.”

“You wanted more? Or he did?”

“I did. But I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual,” I add, remembering the feel of him grinding himself against me.

She props her chin in her hand. “Are you seeing him again? Because you know, what happens outside of the club on your own time isn’t any of Ben or Nora’s business.”

Something jumps in my chest. I hadn’t thought of that. But it doesn’t matter. “He’s gone. He went back to L.A.”

She tips her head at me. “So, if he’s gone, what’s the problem?”

I plant my elbow on the table and rub my forehead. “I can’t stop thinking about him. I’ve spent a grand total of ninety minutes with him, but I can’t get him out of my head. And I’ll never see him again, so it’s just . . . so fucking stupid,” I finish, tugging on my hair.

She sighs. “Well, if it makes it any easier, most of the guys that come into Benny’s aren’t all that hot, so you’re probably safe from here on out.”

“Yeah, I guess.” I blow out a sigh and let go of my hair, twisting it into a knot at the back of my neck. “You’re off tonight?”

She nods.

“Jonathan’s got a gig at Astray. I was planning on hanging out there with his girlfriend. You in?”

Her eyes widen, white saucers in the middle of her black-coffee face. “J has a girlfriend?”

“Yeah . . . though he seems to have trouble remembering it sometimes.”

“Damn, that boy is tasty.” A slow smile breaks over her face. “You two seem pretty tight. You ever done the deed?”

I smirk at her. “That’s pretty personal, don’t you think? Especially considering you just said you barely know me.”

“I’ve seen you naked, girlfriend. That makes us . . . something.”

I blow out a laugh and lean back in my seat. “How long have you danced at Benny’s?”

She lifts a shoulder in an almost shrug. “About two months. I just moved up here from L.A.”