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My fists bunched in his shirt at his back. “Hey, look at me.”
Slowly, as though it caused him pain, he lifted his head and focused his eyes on me.
“We’ll figure this out. If I have to go live in the shed for a few days, then so be it. I’m tough. So are you guys. But you will get through this. We all will.” My lips twisted into a resigned smile, but it wasn’t in my heart, and Zane saw right through me.
He released my jaw and stepped out of my embrace. “We need to get as much done in the next day and a half as possible.”
“How long does the detox last?” Rix asked. The fear in his eyes made my heart ache, so I abandoned Zane where he stood, since the sudden coldness he was regarding me with was enough to make goosebumps emerge on my arms, and I went to Rix on the couch.
He welcomed me into his lap, and I started playing with the silky, light brown hair on top of his head. It seemed to calm both of us down.
“Four to seven days,” Zane said, his shoulders slumped. He glanced at me. “Can be longer, though.”
I blew out a long breath. “Four to seven days. Maybe longer. We can do this. We’ve all been tortured by Moord. I’ve been starved for longer, left outside in the cold without shoes or socks for longer. We will get through this.”
My water on the stove was boiling again, so I reluctantly extracted myself from Rix’s lap and went back to filling up my bathtub.
In another twenty minutes, I had a steaming tub full enough to reach my belly button.
I hadn’t bothered to clean up after Zane’s and my impromptu, hate-fueled romp in the woodshed, so when I peeled off my clothes and looked at the back half of my body in the bathroom mirror, I wasn’t surprised to see all the dirt.
“Worth it,” I muttered to myself, remembering how raw and passionate he’d been. How rough and demanding, if not a little terrifying. But in the most exhilarating kind of way. For a second there I really wasn’t sure if he intended to fuck me or strangle me. And then when he was inside me, with his hand around my throat, that thought came back, but only for the briefest of moments.
Turning back around, I brushed my blonde hair off my shoulders and inspected my neck and collarbone. Bite marks and bruises made me look like I’d been attacked. The same could be said for my hips and inner thighs.
“Worth it,” I murmured again, smiling as I stepped over the edge of the tub and sank down into the bubbles, since we’d brought some of the delicious lavender body wash with us from the last place.
Leaning back against the end of the tub, I closed my eyes, reliving the last several weeks of my life and all that had happened. How much I’d learned, how much I’d grown.
I was never going back.
I would put a bullet in my skull before I went back to any kind of compound.
This brief taste of freedom was enough to make me realize all that had been kept from me for my entire life, and Moord probably knew that. Because I wasn’t a psychopath like a Kappa or Sigma, I wasn’t as easy to control, and if they’d sent me out on missions, I’d get a taste of the real world and never return. Or take a death of my own free will by the kill switch than let them use me and keep me caged.
And that was the truth.
Knowing what I knew now, I’d never want to return to the compound, to Moord, or a life of servitude, being a source, and killing innocent people.
These last few weeks meant everything to me, and even knowing what came next, their withdrawals, and the revolution—if we ever got there—I would do it all over again the same way.
I didn’t know what love was supposed to feel like, but if it was what I felt for Rix, Jorik and even Zane, then I loved these three men with all my heart and would kill for them and be killed for them.
I sat there in the tub until the water turned cool and goosebumps broke out along my arms. Only then did I scrub my body, top to toe, including my hair.
The water was a murky brown when I finally released the plug and watched what was left of the bubbles disappear down the drain.
Unlike the bath at the first cabin, which was big enough for two, possibly three people and very deep, this tub was only big enough for one person and had claw feet.
Everything about this second cabin was more rustic, dated, and old. But it was shelter from the storm, had a gas stove and a place to rest our heads.
Beggars couldn’t be choosers. And I’d gladly live in this place the rest of my life than go back to a compound.
Stepping out of the tub, I reached for a towel and wrapped it around myself, shivering slightly from the cool air.
It would be so nice to burn wood in the fireplace and heat the entire cabin, but we couldn’t risk the smoke. So we had to suffer through the chill and just layer up.
The mirror wasn’t even foggy anymore—the water had gotten that cool—but I took my time drying my body and my hair, enjoying the peace and quiet and my time alone.
