Sometimes, the lush perimeter of tropical flowers, palms, ferns, and heliotropes disguising the security fence gave me flashbacks. On rare occasions, my breath would catch and literally stop me in my tracks. In those moments, I would see a woman with a bruised, swollen, unrecognizable face. Or a man in an aloha shirt, a koa wood band inlaid with black onyx and blue opal on the ring finger of his right hand. His head lying a few feet away from his body.

Right now was one of those occasions. With my hands propped on my hips, I pushed my shoulders back and my chest forward to allow more air to flow deep into my lungs.

This fence reminded me of the Tanaka compound . . . and Noboru Shinoda, the beheaded man. The heliotropes made me think of Heleena.

“Gemi?”

I blinked to clear the images from my mind. I blinked again and my sister’s beautiful, concerned face staring back at me from a few paces ahead became clear.

If plants and a fence did this to me, what kind of flashbacks did she suffer? Held captive in a shed so small there wasn’t enough room for her to fully extend her legs when sitting on the ground. Wrists and ankles rubbed raw from the ropes that bound her and prevented her from standing straight. Dehydrated. Covered in insect bites.

“Are you okay, Peep?”

I inhaled deeply, the peachy scent of plumeria and something almondy invading my nose. “I’m okay. Just thinking about housing.”

She’d buy that. We had been discussing our shelter, after all.

“Let’s talk about housing, then.” Ashlyn gave a go-with-the-flow shrug. “There’s only one one-bedroom apartment left and two huts.”

“We’ve got plenty of space.” I continued walking with her along the path of lava rock pavers set in pea gravel toward the north end of Palekana, our ten-acre shelter for women and their kids. Palekana meant a variety of things—saved, rescued, protected, security, safety—all of which was exactly what our residents needed.

“We agreed to keep the living quarters together, though,” Ashlyn noted as we passed behind the small but nicely stocked gymnasium and toward the cluster of housing options that occupied half of the property. “If we moved the playground equipment closer to the gym, we could fit in two or three more huts.”

“We could probably fit four more between the perimeter and the walking path along the west border.”

Most of the women would be okay with that. A few would not. It was only a visual barrier, but the three-foot-wide path gave those women an extra sense of security. They said it felt like a sort of invisible force field, another layer of protection keeping attackers or abusers away. Something I never would have guessed when we installed it. I simply wanted them to have a walking path.

“What about near the residents’ parking lot?” Ash suggested. “We could fit two or three huts there.”

We continued walking toward the lot, which only held a few vehicles. Less than half of the residents had cars. Those that did arrived at our gate with all of their possessions crammed into the trunks, backseats, and passenger seats.

As we got close, I envisioned more of the small structures there. “We could fit two. More than that and it will feel too crowded.”

“We could do one-bedroom huts instead of two.” Ashlyn shook her head, dismissing her own suggestion. “No, the huts are for women with kids. Two bedrooms are a must.”

As we stood there discussing eliminating or moving a section of the walking path and how close was too close to the parking lot—we decided our residents wouldn’t care if the view out their back windows was of a small parking lot—a car skidded to a stop outside the main security gate and a man jumped out.

Sticking his hand through the bars, he pointed at us. “I want to see Allana.”

Ashlyn grabbed my arm, her long nails digging in uncomfortably.

“Let me in,” he demanded.

I strode over to him. “That’s not going to happen. Men aren’t allowed inside.” Well, a few carefully vetted ones were, but this guy wasn’t on our nice list.

“She told me I could visit.”

“Allana has only been here ten days. We don’t recommend visits for at least two weeks. A month is better.”

Two weeks was the minimum cool-off period between women and their abusive partners. It got a little sticky when kids were involved. If the partner had the legal right to see their children, we had therapists who would supervise the visitations at a location in Kahului.

Once the cool-off period was reached, short visits were okay. We did not allow on-site visits, however. The residents could drive themselves to a public location if they had a vehicle, otherwise we’d give them a ride in our shuttle van. After a day or two of experiencing what we had to offer, the residents happily agreed to follow our rule about not inviting anyone to the shelter. That meant we had a bigger problem than Mr. Angry demanding to see his woman. Allana had broken our biggest rule.

“Let me in!” He shook the bars like a gorilla in a zoo.

I went to a keypad near the gate and opened the cover.

“Gemi, don’t.” Ashlyn pulled her phone from a pocket. “I’ll call the police.”

“I already called them.” My best friend, Risa Ohno, charged over from the main building directly across from the gate. “The alarm went off as soon as he pulled up.”

By alarm, she meant the doorbell sound that chimed whenever a vehicle arrived at our gate. An actual blaring alarm would be too upsetting for everyone, so we reserved that sound for true emergencies.

I entered a code into the keypad, and a three-foot-wide door clicked open. Slipping through the gap in a flash, I closed the door behind me and stepped toward the man. “You need to leave.”

The big Hawaiian puffed up his chest. Intent on maintaining his gorilla impersonation, it seemed. “Allana told me to come.”

“What’s your name?”

“Eneki Lee.”

“Well, Eneki Lee, Allana broke a rule. We absolutely will not let you in.”

“I think you will.” He stepped closer to me, almost chest-to-chest, demonstrating exactly why Allana needed a place like Palekana.

“Oh, dude,” Risa crooned. “You really shouldn’t do that.”

Ashlyn nodded in agreement when he looked at them.

“What’s she going to do me?” He snorted a little laugh and reached his meaty hands out toward my upper arms or possibly my neck.

What he planned to do I’d never know because before he could make contact with me I grabbed his right arm with my right hand and pressed the wrong way against his elbow with my left. While he whined about the pain and how I was going to dislocate it, I swung my leg behind him, connecting with the backs of both of his knees, causing them to buckle. He dropped hard to the ground. His knees impacting with the gravel on the dirt road couldn’t have felt good.

With my next breath, I darted behind him. While still maintaining control of his arm, I dropped to my back, pulled his arm up between my legs and diagonally across my torso toward my shoulder. Then I wrapped my right leg around his neck and hooked my left leg over my right ankle.

In other words, I had him tangled up good.

My goal wasn’t to hurt him, so I didn’t apply much force. In fact, if he hadn’t been so shocked that little ol’ me had taken him down, he probably could have gotten out of the hold. He was a big guy, after all, and appeared fairly fit. However, his elbow and now his shoulder surely weren’t happy at this point and were probably distracting him. And his knees had to be stinging from the gravel embedded in them.

“If you don’t want to be escorted,” I stated clearly, “I suggest you leave before the police get here.”

“That don’t matter,” he groaned. “I’ll just come back.”

I pulled harder on his arm, torquing his elbow even further in the wrong direction and making him moan loud with pain.

“Dude,” Risa called out, “I warned you.”

“You want to try again with a different answer?” I asked.

Before he could say a word, a squad car pulled up, squawking its siren. I lay there with my back to the car, listening to the sound of first one and then a second car door open and close. When footsteps on the gravel got close, I looked over my shoulder to see who had arrived.

“Officer Akana,” I greeted. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

His eyes narrowed. “Jessie?”

“Gemi,” I corrected.

“Right,” he said. “Gemi Kittredge. MMA superstar.”

The young officer standing next to him asked, “What’s that mean?”

“She’s the top-ranked MMA fighter on the island,” Officer Akana explained.

“Second best,” I corrected. “I lost a match.”

“How . . .” The second officer twirled a finger at the scene on the ground before him. Then he asked, “Can you teach me how to do that?”

“Sorry, I don’t teach men,” I explained, “but if you go to No Mercy gym in Kahului and talk to the owner, Salomon Kahumoku, he can help you out.”

“Can I get up now?” Eneki pleaded.

“Are you going to behave yourself?” I pulled a little harder on his arm.

He squeaked, “Yes,” as the officers winced.

I released my hold of him and jumped to my feet. Then I stood back while the officers helped him up.

“Are you pressing charges?” Officer Akana asked me.

“I want to,” Eneki insisted. “She messed up my elbow.” He winced. “And my shoulder. And look at my knees, man.”

Holding back a satisfied smile, I said, “No, we won’t press charges. The only reason I dropped him is because he stepped into my personal space, and I didn’t feel safe.”

The younger officer barked out a laugh. “You didn’t feel safe?”

“We did warn him,” Ashlyn said, backing up my statement. “He tried to intimidate her.”

“Bozo,” Risa muttered, earning a chuckle from the second officer.

“Help him into his car,” Officer Akana told his partner. “We’ll escort him back to Kahului.”

“Once you get him there,” I told Officer Akana, “explain that there’s no reason for him to come back. His girlfriend will be packed and out of here before lunch. It’s up to her if she wants to let him know where she is.”

The officer noted this for his report and then tucked his notebook into a pocket on his duty belt and his pen into his breast pocket. “Wish I could say it’s nice to see you again, Ms. Kittredge, but honestly, you scare the hell out of me.”

My turn to chuckle. “Stay out of my personal space and we’ll be fine.”

He took a dramatic, large step away from me, then gave a little salute as he returned to his squad car.

“Nice hold,” Risa commented as I stepped back through the door in the fence. “What’s that one called?”

“It’s a rear arm triangle choke. Very effective.”

Ashlyn made a disapproving face. “Was it really necessary, though?”

“Oh, come on,” Risa objected. “That never gets old.”

I shrugged. “You tell me if it was necessary. Deal with him right away or deal with him when he comes back, possibly getting inside next time. Possibly wielding weapons.”

Ashlyn winced and pushed her shoulders back and forth, up and down. “I suppose. Do you want to talk to Allana, or should I?”

“I’ll do it. And what’s the wince for? Are you empathizing with Allana’s tormentor, or is something wrong with your shoulders?”

She shook her head. “Just a little achy today. Didn’t sleep well last night. Or I slept in a bad position.”

As Ashlyn entered the main building directly across from the front gate, Risa and I headed toward the apartments.

“Is she okay?” Risa asked. “She’s been moody for the last couple weeks.”

“She has been,” I agreed. “I think she still has bad days, both physically and emotionally, from being held captive for so long.”

My sister had been held in that shed for almost a month by a woman who called herself Mother. Her real name was Sakura Ando. Ashlyn had worked for Sakura as a modern-day geisha, entertaining members of Tanaka-kai, one of two yakuza factions on Maui. Ashlyn and the oyabun or leader, Kenichi Tanaka, had fallen in love, and Sakura wasn’t happy about their relationship. To put it mildly.

I wonder what would happen if Sakura found out Ashlyn and Kenichi had gotten married a month ago. If she hadn’t yet, she surely would soon. Sakura was in a detention facility, awaiting sentencing for her crimes, but I’d be shocked if she wasn’t getting news from the outside regarding her precious yakuza.

The shelter had two apartment buildings—the first close closer to the main building and the second near the security fence. Risa led me to the second building where Allana shared a two-bedroom unit with another woman named Yuka. Risa knocked hard on the door, and seconds later, an excited Allana opened it. Her smile faded when she saw us standing there.

“Come with us, please.” Risa’s tone was that of a disappointed mom. One I knew too well. As did her seven younger brothers and sisters, I’m sure.

We crossed the large patio between the matching eight-unit buildings to Risa’s apartment. Risa still worked part-time as an ER nurse at Maui Memorial but wanted to be part of the shelter too. In lieu of a paycheck, she chose to live rent free in the unit closest to the front door. This was a great option for her and good for us because this way there was always someone available for the residents at night.

“I feel like a dorm manager at college,” she had said when we moved her in. The smile that kept popping up on her face as we unpacked her belongings told me how excited she was to be moving out of the questionable apartment she’d lived in for the last couple of years.

“I wouldn’t know,” I’d replied. “I never lived in a dorm.”

Because for my first few years, we couldn’t afford it. And then because it didn’t seem necessary, considering Kenichi Tanaka had purchased a gorgeous condo for Ashlyn and me by association.

We entered the living room of Risa’s apartment, and Allana flopped onto the first available chair.

“Guess who was here for you?” Risa began our conversation.

“Where is he?” Allana’s eyes darted around the room like he might be hiding behind the curtains or in the small kitchen.

When the women came here, they were either terrified that their partners would show up looking for them or desperate to see them because they felt guilty for leaving. Allana didn’t quite fit into either category.

“The police escorted him back to town,” I told her.

“You arrested him?” she wailed.

“I said escorted, not arrested.” Before she could say another word, I asked, “Do you remember the rules you had to agree to before we let you move in here?”

Allana pouted and tugged at a thread on her shirt hem. “Yes.”

“Specifically,” Risa added, “the one about no visitors? No partners, no friends, not even your mom.”

“I remember,” Allana mumbled.

Sitting in the chair across from her, I rested my elbows on my knees and leaned toward her. “Do you remember the consequence for breaking that rule?”

Her eyes went wide. “You can’t kick me out. I can’t go back to living with Eneki. I told you that he hits me.”

Risa tossed her hands in the air. “Then why did you tell him to come here?”

Allana swallowed. “I wanted him to see that he couldn’t get at me. That I was finally safe.”

She was lying. Although I couldn’t prove it. I saw the glow on her face when she thought it would be him on the other side of the door. Like an addiction to anything dangerous, such as an extreme sport, being addicted to a dangerous person was hard to walk away from. Allana wanted to know she was loved. She wanted a family who would stand with her against the cruel world. I empathized with that because even though I was thirty years old, I wished for the same thing. I had every day since our mother walked out on Ashlyn and me almost fourteen years ago.

I steeled myself for what I had to do. “The problem is you put the rest of the women here in danger.”

“Eneki would never hurt anyone else,” Allana insisted.

“Maybe not physically.” I thought of how he stood so close to me we were practically touching. “But you know that the women here suffer from more than physical wounds. Most are also trying to heal emotional ones as well. And plenty of them are terrified of men. That’s why we’re so cautious about who we allow to enter.”

Risa set down her phone, on which she’d been typing a message. “Maintenance is bringing boxes over to your apartment as we speak.”

“You’re really going to kick me out? That’s it? One strike and I’m done?”

This was harder than I let her believe. “You put other residents’ safety in jeopardy. Especially Yuka’s, because I assume you planned to bring Eneki to your apartment.”

“No, I—”

“You understood this rule when we let you in. It was in the contract you signed in big, bold capital letters and we verbally stated it at least three times. We won’t dump you on the street, but you can’t stay. We’ll contact a center in Wailuku and bring you there. They’ll help you get resettled.” I stood. “Let’s go. We’ll help you pack.”

“Actually,” Risa said, “I need to get to get over to the clinic. Class starts in ten minutes.”

I nodded. Everyone who volunteered here either had a service to offer—such as the lawyers who offered our residents pro bono legal services—or agreed to teach the residents some kind of skill. Even the janitorial staff gave classes on proper cleaning techniques, which were surprisingly well attended. I taught self-defense. Ashlyn taught beauty and gave motivational self-esteem talks. Along with being here every night, Risa ran first-aid classes and worked at our little physical and mental health clinic.

“Let’s go,” I told Allana. “Your ride will be expecting you in ninety minutes.”