3 “Agnes!” Martha wailed, clutching the pale arm of her only daughter. “Is he really worth it? Worth this?”

Agnes’s blank eyes were fixed on her mother as she went in and out of consciousness. Her body was unloaded from the back of the ambulance like a raw meat delivery to the local butcher. She was unable to muster the energy to raise her head or her voice in response. Blood soaked through to the pleather pad beneath her, collecting and then streaming toward her dark teal ballet flats before finally trickling down the stainless steel leg of the gurney.

“Agnes, answer me!” Martha...