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“I need a bath,” Rose answers, disappearing through one of the many doors in the room. I take this time to evaluate the area. I need a bath, too. I haven’t had one in—I’ve lost count. Twenty-two girls—but I find my body cemented to the bed, unable to move. I’m free physically (or am I?), but mentally the shackles have only tightened.
My eyes close.
The Jordans were the third foster family I had been invited into. I appreciated them because they allowed me to do the things I still loved to do—like dance. There was an old studio on the corner of Beacon Street in downtown Phoenix. I’d dance there every Friday. It was rundown and aged, but that wasn’t because of the owner’s negligence, it was simply because she couldn’t afford to maintain the upkeep. The passion still burned in her eyes whenever she would watch me dance, and you could see that that was why she kept the studio open--to simply admire the art of dance.
I was walking to the bus stop after a late-night session, flicking through the music on my iPod, when I felt the familiar wave of his presence. My footing halted. My fingers flexed over my iPod as sweat slipped down my temples. Slowly, I brought my eyes up, tearing the earphones out of my ears.
I stopped breathing when I felt him behind me, his breathing on my nape. “We’ll be back for you, Little Bird.” The Shadow pressed into me from behind, his hard chest to my back. “I’ll always be back.”
I suck in a breath at the familiarity of the voice. Do I know The Shadow?
The more the voice replays in my head, the stronger the familiarity. Or maybe I’ve just heard his voice and words so much that I’ve started to think that I know him.
Once Rose is out of the bath, I slip in and remove my soiled clothes. Clothes that I never thought I’d be rid of because they were stuck to me like a second skin, rotting into my pores and leaving their stale stench embedded into my bones. I give the tub a quick wash before filling it up. There are delicate soaps sitting on a small table that’s beside it, a copper bowl filled with bath bombs and salts, and a monstrous size glass Chanel Chance perfume bottle sitting on the bathroom counter. The walls are a clean white, a complete contrast to the people who live here. The tiles are a deep mahogany red. An interesting color choice, I think, but it only intensifies the opulent ambiance of the overall house. I drop one of the bath bombs into the water and watch as it fizzes, filling the room with sweet aromas that have me sighing in release. I quickly dip into the bath, wincing as the hot water drowns my sins away. Stings pinch at my skin from the temperature, biting me all over my flesh. I duck beneath it, my hair floating in the water as the world silences. Everything is so quiet when you’re under water. Like you can block out the world and be alone with your thoughts.
Thoughts I don’t necessarily want to be alone with.
I pop back up, brushing the hot water away from my face. Scrubbing away the excess from my eyes, I jerk up when I see Kingston at the end of my bath, glaring at me.
I should scream.
I want to scream.
I can’t scream. Instead, I sink farther into the water in hopes that the purple dye from the bath bomb hides all of the parts I would rather he didn’t see right now.
“Ah…” I clear my throat, trying to find another word for what the fuck are you doing in here that won’t get me killed.
His jaw tenses. I can see the muscles on either side flexing with every clench. His eyes are dark, moody and brooding, and I’m every bit intimidated by this man. “Can I help you?”
Can I help you… The first words I speak to him, and they’re can I help you.
His top lip curls slightly, his eyes dropping to my lower body. “Undecided.”
“What are you doing in here?” I clench my thighs closed further, in pure paranoia that he can see beneath the dyed water.
He stares at me, dropping all of the dead expressions that he had on his face just seconds earlier. “What’s your name?”
“What?” I exhale, puzzled by his question.
“What’s your name?” He repeats, his expression remaining the same.
“Dove?”
There’s a long stretch of silence before he kicks up from the tub. Everything slows as he passes by me, his smell drowning the sweet scent of my bath.
“I’m confused.”
He pauses right beside me, and I look up at him from my position. He’s studying me, but I can’t understand the method in which he’s learning. “Good. Oh, and Dove, lock your fucking bathroom door.”
