Sometimes men are like pit bulls. A sweet face that will love you forever. For some that is true. But it’s far more likely that their DNA will contain an error. One that causes them to snap. Then they bite.

“They’d rather be in hell than with me.”

A warning that was missed.

Kya Limbya had a tumultuous relationship with Corwin, a coworker she thought was a friend, which later developed into a relationship. Cory asked her to lunch, not an uncommon occurrence. Two p.m., rather uneventful. Not much for conversation, he convinced Kya to get into his car. For a moment, she paused, but he claimed he needed to walk his dog. She begrudgingly agreed to go with him. Kya only intended to go to lunch, but the meaningless small talk convinced her that there may be a chance for a further conversation. A rocky relationship, but a desire for connection. He took her to his home in Indiana, nearly an hour away from her home in Pennsylvania. All she had wanted to do after lunch was to go home.

The sun slowly began to set on the hot day, and Kya asked Cory to bring her back to her vehicle, where they’d met for lunch. Cory insisted he then had to drop his dog off at home. Kya had no choice but to go with him. He invited her into his home, a small voice told her not to go, but she had been so beaten down before that she didn’t trust that voice. His home was colder than the air outside; he was a coworker.

Kya was an alcoholic, a well-known fact among the people in her life. Cory knew this, too. With knowing, he offered her a beer. One beer became three. Three beers became ten. Through the beers came the blackout. After a while, Kya came back to her senses. Her clothes on the floor, Cory on top of her. She was there, frozen; she closed her eyes just hoping it would end. As he finished his assault, she walked to the bathroom, still naked and confused. Sitting on the toilet, the realization that she had just been raped. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she stared at her hands.

The next morning, Cory’s cold eyes stared into Kya’s. He said to her, “Are you going to tell anyone what happened?” Her brain was clouded with shame and confusion, sent into silence.

Shamed by being violated, she was stuck. She was miles away from home at the mercy of Cory’s will.

Indigenous people make up over seven million people in the United States. Kya is indigenous, though not to the United States or the greater Turtle Island. Her people are the Nenets and Altaians in Siberia, Russia. She was brought to the United States as an infant after she was placed in an orphanage.

Over half of all native women will experience intimate partner violence. With only three percent of the U.S. population being indigenous, the devastating number is that 40 percent of sex trafficking victims are native. The crisis expands when we look at the Rights4Girls organization, which identifies that at least 86% of these perpetrators are not native.

True to Kya’s story, her abusers were predominantly white men.

Kevin Pribulsky walked into Kya’s life when she was 14 years old. He reached out to her and other minors through various social media platforms. She grew up in a chaotic home, one that pushed her to a life that meant escape. The summer she turned 15, 2014, she had gone into Kevin’s car.

Driving down Highway 56, a conversation of questions between them occurred.

”What is the worst thing you’ve done?” Kevin asked Kya.

Kya had replied that she had stolen money, not a lot, but enough to get by. Kevin’s response was quite different. He confessed to molesting a family member whilst she was a minor. Kya froze. She’d heard plenty of rape jokes growing up. Her heart beat sped up, nearly jumping out of her chest when she realized he was not joking.

Kevin stayed in Kya’s life for several more years. In November of 2022, Kevin had a few people over. Kya held the only medical marijuana card of the group. The dispensary closed at nine. Eight o’clock rolled around and Kevin was still not ready to leave. Kya grew anxious watching the clock, minutes ticking by. Kya heard something that sent a chill down her spine. Kevin mentioned a girl in Kya’s past. In the moments that felt like hours had passed, she looked this girl up on Facebook. Her information was public; Kevin had just admitted to sleeping with a 15-year-old.

The Washington State Institute for Public Policy reports that up to 35 percent of convicted rapists will reoffend. This does not account for the many perpetrators who go unconvicted.

The cycle of abuse is strange. Kya, a woman so sure of herself, was convinced she was going insane. Men who hold power will dismiss little things so the big things seem small. To her, the abuse is familiar. Safety is uncomfortable.

Kevin brought Dilon to Pennsylvania from his home in Florida. The two bonded over their love and creation of music. A hope and a dream. Kya knew Dilon was a felon; she assumed it was for drug charges. Holding no judgment for drug charges, she never thought to ask. She later learned this charge was for the lewd and lascivious battery of a 15 year old/. Before Dilon dropped his mask, Kya had told him and Kevin about the night Cory took her. They told her to confront Cory, that what he did was wrong and illegal. Soon, Dilon would turn his conscience off, too.

In the middle of 2022, Dilon slowly started to repeat this cycle. Kya didn’t notice this at first; the same comfort she’d learned was normal her whole life. Passive and sweet, knowing her history of substance abuse, Dilon pushed her to smoke. She was vulnerable. Saying no was not a choice. The marijuana smoke in her lungs, alcohol in her stomach, her brain grew clouded and confused.

She stepped into the shower, the warm water dancing across her body. Dilon followed her into the shower. The dread filled her stomach as his eyes changed. All Kya could do was close her eyes and hope it would end.

Marijuana was the most important thing to Dilon. Kya was still the only person in the area with a medical marijuana card. Dilon’s behavior was dependent on the weed in his system. Her safety was reliant on her providing him with weed.

Kya considered killing Dilon one night. In his violence and power, he held her down and raped her. In her own bedroom, she was stuck. All her brain could do was look for freedom. Through her tears, she caught a glimpse of her battle axe. As the thought flashed through her mind, one gave her pause. Dan’s children were in the home. Kya’s humanity gave in as she endured his assault. Better her than them.

A few weeks later, Kya was beyond exhausted. Her morning sickness and tender breasts led her to take a pregnancy test. The most agonizing three minutes of her life were waiting to see the results. The two lines appeared in front of her eyes; no one could miss them. Her heart sank to her stomach, vision blurry as her eyes welled with tears. She tried to speak, but her voice was stuck. She relied heavily on her upstairs neighbor, Daniel Maerzluft, and a friend she considered her big brother, Fred Rogers.

With Dan and Fred as her witnesses, she called Dilon. Through words that paused and wavered, she told him that she was pregnant. The silence on the other end of the phone was deafening. Met with that sickly sweet voice again, he told her that he was going to become a musician and that she would be alone. He was not going to be involved. His words circled in her head, wondering if she had truly gone insane. She blocked him. Dilon’s aggression left her no choice.  Kya lost her baby in the end and not a few months later, Dan’s mask would slip too.

On average, it takes a woman seven attempts to leave an abusive relationship. Even after leaving, people tend to fall back on what they know. Bouncing from one abusive situation to another. It can create a sense of safety in the chaos. A nervous system stuck in a world that is so disconnected from reality.

Dan lived upstairs from Kya. Kya was standing in her kitchen when she heard him yelling. The kind of tone that makes someone jump, it was beyond clear that he was incredibly drunk. She’d never heard him through the ceiling before. November 16, 2022, the screaming came from his drunken irritation. With her children in the home, Kya kept her ears alert.

“I’m just gonna (expletive) kill myself.”

She froze.

She questioned whether she had heard him say those words. Her body alert, she kept her home quiet. Her hesitation to call authorities came from her personal experience with the Police. That a singular threat often led nowhere. Though several would warrant an investigation. A second threat never came that night.

Dan befriended Kya. He showed her a love she craved, an addiction. She was pressured and coerced into drinking alcohol whilst on gabapentin. A medication in which drinking is not recommended. Dan drank nearly every night, though he consistently denied being an alcoholic. Their social circles were enmeshed, tangled deeply. They lacked proper lives without the other. Dan’s love bombing created an insufferable and dangerous codependency.

Kya chose to speak to Dan about the loss of her child and her previous assaults. Her vulnerable state and desire for connection made Kya the perfect victim. He saw this as an opportunity. Dan forced himself onto her, kissing her as she froze. The mind just stops.

Months after this incident, she found the courage to confront him. The trembling in her voice but her words stayed strong.

“It just blows my mind that kissing someone after talking about rape extensively that night was, like, the appropriate move,” Kya said. “Maybe that’s a generational thing.”

Kya spoke to Dan with much more grace and patience than he’d ever given her.

“Maybe you’re misinterpreting it completely,” Dan said.

Kya was not misinterpreting his words. She had been so beaten down that she didn’t trust herself to believe that these were warning signs that would escalate. Her memories are hazy and fragmented; many of her memories of her time with him live on in photos. She recalls the many mysterious illnesses she endured when in his company. The District Attorney and Kya’s therapist both concluded her mystery illness may have been caused by a drug called gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB). GHB is a sedative drug that can cause amnesia. Through her drug-induced memory, she recalls being violently raped by Dan. These are memories of the body, not the mind.

In late 2025, Kya brought her stacks of evidence to the police. The District Attorney stressed how much he believed her, though he didn’t believe she could win a criminal jury trial.

That same hollow, sinking feeling hit her again. She’d spent years fighting for her life, but couldn’t gain justice.

“Is this it? What happens next?” Kya asked herself.

Sometimes justice looks a little different.

December 4th, 2025, Kya once again came face to face with Corwin McKinney. Justice is not only a jury trial, and closure doesn’t necessarily mean confrontation. This time, her closure came from reporting Cory to his manager and informing his employer of his past. Her mind froze, but her body moved. Stuck in a moment where she felt disconnected from reality, like a character in a video game. She watched herself take this moment to regain her voice. Closure can be found anywhere.

Kya found it in this tiny piece of control. A small moment where her voice could be heard, and someone would receive a consequence.

Safety isn’t always putting the pitbull down; sometimes a muzzle is enough.