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32
IRINA
Light pressed at my eyelids.
With the disorientation of the first stirrings of my mind, I smiled faintly. Basking in the warmth of the after, taking pleasure in those moments before the pain hit.
It came in a flood, a tidal wave crashing over my head and threatening to drown me. It stole the breath from my lungs, ripping a strangled groan from my throat. “She’s waking up,” a feminine voice said, delicate fingers squeezing around my hand.
“We need to get her cleaned up,” a man said. “I need to see what I’m dealing with better.”
“Irina, open your eyes, honey,” the woman said, squeezing gently again. They fluttered open in response, finding Ivory staring down at me. She smiled, her face turning toward the man who stood next to her.
Scar’s dark eyes met mine, his hand holding a cool cloth to my forehead. He smiled when I looked at him, his face wet and eyes relieved. He touched a bottle of water to my mouth, frowning when I turned my head away. “Hey, Butterfly,” he murmured, tossing the cloth and bottle to the floor behind him. “We’re going to take you in and wash you up, okay?”
He slid his arms beneath my body on the mattress, lifting me off the soft surface. As my body and limbs curled around his and the pressure shifted, I felt my eyes burn with the threat of tears.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured, touching the side of his head to mine as he moved into the bathroom. Ivory walked ahead of us, turning on the shower. She tested it while Scar set me on the closed toilet and stripped down to his briefs. Ivory glanced over at him in surprise, but looked away to give him privacy when his hand went for the belt at his waist.
Once the shower was the right temperature, Scar picked me up and stepped into the shower. I winced the moment the warmth touched me, chasing back the chill to my skin, and used my good arm to grab at the wall of the shower.
It hurt, the water turning pink with blood as it enveloped me. “Hurts,” I rasped, my throat clenching around the words with dryness and an ache.
“I know,” Scar said, as the dirt and grime were washed away, leaving my skin to breathe for the first time as the blood rinsed off.
“There she is,” Scar said, looking down at me with a smile I knew wasn’t genuine. There was nothing left in me of the woman he’d known. Nothing left of the woman who’d worn red lipstick and pretended to be confident enough to take on the world.
I wished that I was in the tub, and that he and Ivory would leave so I could sink beneath the water and let it fill my lungs. It would hurt less than the water stinging the wounds on my stomach, making me feel like someone had reached a hand inside and torn out my organs.
Scar moved efficiently, running the cloth over my neck and shoulders. By the time he washed the dried blood away from the edges of the words etched into my stomach, I wanted to scream. I trembled with the urge, holding it back with closed eyes and whimpers that seemed too loud in a room filled with only the sound of running water.
Scar finished cleaning me, wiping every trace of blood from my body to the best of his ability. Ivory supported me as he got out, drying himself off before he reached in and pulled me out of the water. He didn’t bother to change his briefs, setting me on the toilet again so that he could dry me efficiently.
His efforts were wasted as the worst of the wounds on my stomach and from my leg leaked fresh blood. He wrapped the towel around me, lifting me into his arms as I sank into the numbness that came on the heels of the pain.
Living in that place where I couldn’t feel seemed like a blessing, and I cursed every time I’d cut myself. Every time I hadn’t appreciated the beauty of feeling nothing.
I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
