The kiss was brief. Not enough time to process. Not enough time to react. But the afterimage burned in my brain, a white-hot echo that didn't fade.
She dropped back onto the pillow and closed her eyes, a trace of a smile still lingering on her mouth.
I stared at her for a long time, trying to control my breathing. I didn't understand what exactly I felt, only that it was new, and raw, and terrible.
I wanted to protect her from the world.
From Valmont.
From Father.
Even from me.
46 kimmy
I woke to throbbing in my jaw and the smell of clean sheets against my skin.
For a second, as I lay there with my eyes shut, I didn't know when or where I was. Then it all came back—the club, the dark room, Caius's nasty face leering inches from mine, the flash of a whip, the way my pulse went flat at some point of the evening.
But I wasn't there anymore. I was somewhere else.
I opened my eyes and stared at the high ceiling, recognizing the loft's bedroom. A shade was yanked halfway across the window. Pale daylight streamed through and scattered the overcast across the floor.
Right… It'd been raining on and off this entire week.
I licked my lips and tasted salt. My mouth was a mess and it hurt when I moved my jaw.
My phone was on the nightstand, plugged into a charger next to the clock. I hadn't taken it with me last night. Seven had said it would pose a security risk. Even bringing the burner along was dangerous. The only means of communication with the outside world was the microphone in the pendant.
I reached over and touched my neck. Still there.
My relief was instant.
After a few minutes of breathing, I grabbed the phone and checked the time.
1:24 PM.
Two missed calls from Brynn. One from Geneva. One from Margaret.A voicemail from Katrina. There were a few more texts from work, but nothing urgent.
I sat up. The world dipped and took a second to steady itself. My neck felt like someone had been at it with a cheese grater. I carefully worked my jaw. It was sore and there were scabs in my mouth but nothing seemed to be broken. The left side of my head hurt above my eye. I reached up, felt the swelling and a small bandage in the center of it.
I was still in the same skimpy underwear from yesterday, but now I had a white dress shirt over it, with all the buttons fastened except the top one. It was too big. Probably, Seven's.
I brought the sleeve to my nose and inhaled it.
It was his. It had his scent. That weird combination of cedar-y laundry detergent and leather.
I shimmied to the edge of the bed and put my feet down, wincing at the new set of aches that came alive. I remembered, hazily, being carried—through the corridor, across a parking lot, a jacket pressed around my shoulders, Seven's voice. His face.
My head spun a little from the fact he'd bared his face.
Had I dreamed it?
There were glimpses of another man in my head. Or maybe it had been part of the same dream, someone kneeling at my side and shining a penlight into my pupils.
I was confused, wondering if all those broken fragments were figments of my imagination.
I limped to the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror, bracing for the horror show. It wasn't as bad as I'd feared, but it wasn't pretty either. The makeup was smeared in stripes down my cheeks, a droplet of dried blood at the corner of my mouth, and my hair was a tangle that might never come loose. There were handprints on my neck, faint but unmistakable. The bandage above my eye was tiny contrary to what I thought it'd be.
