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I ran over to the room where I'd slept last December when my apartment had been broken into, and I darted into the bathroom and tried to take the fastest shower in the world.
It didn't work.
I stank.
So bad.
Even after dousing myself in soap from top to toe, including the poor foot that had stood on that disgusting floor, I reeked of dead fish.
Every time I raised my arms to my nose and scented it, the need to retch grew stronger. Stronger.Stronger.
Until…
I puked.
Straight into the shower stall.
For a second, I remained leaning forward, hands on my knees to prop myself up as the shower spray beat down on my spine.
The angle didn't help with the blood rushing to my head but I just breathed through it until I was strong enough to straighten up. I pushed my back to the wall and stared blindly ahead.
"Aidan," I whispered miserably, wishing he were here but knowing that he couldn’t be.
I thought about how he'd looked at me as Lucas drove away.
Men who went to war sometimes died in the process...
I swallowed down the urge to vomit again and forced myself to focus on what mattered here.
It was the intense scrubbing of my arms that had fed the frenzy of emotions, and I shoved them back down, packed them deep within me because I didn't have time for them right now.
Hell, I never had time for emotions.
My body tensed as I physically forced myself to think about something else, and mechanically, I grabbed the soap again, dragged the towel from the wall where I'd hung it, and I poured it liberally into the folds.
Using that to scrub at myself, I cleansed my body for what had to be the tenth time.
Only, when I raised my arm to my nose, the scent was still fucking there!
Another frenzied bout of rubbing my skin occurred, resulting in me puking once again.
"This is ridiculous," I snarled under my breath even as I was retching.
Forcing myself to recover, I ducked my head under the shower, and I decided that I'd run out of time.
Aidan could be arriving at the cement factory by now and I didn't want to miss that.
Soaked, I switched off the water at long last then stepped out. After, I draped a towel around me to dry off, then another around my hair. I grabbed the bathrobe on the back of the door, one that scented of detergent, and I shucked into it.
I'd prefer to be dressed, but beggars couldn't be choosers.
Covered enough for decency, I opened the vanity unit, found some alcohol pads in a well-stocked first aid kit, and swiped them over my wounds.
I’d been in a road traffic accident before so I knew the drill where chemical burns from airbag deployments were concerned.
There was grit in one of my cheeks and that hurt like a motherfucker to dislodge, a splinter took too long to retrieve as well. Parts of my face were bright pink and oozing pinpricks of blood by the time I was done.
After going over my cheeks with another pad, I reached for the tube of antibiotic cream and dotted it over the tender flesh, finding myself grateful for the harsh scent as it overtook that disgusting smell of fish.
