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A knock sounds on the door. Ji-hoon doesn’t like me answering it, but he’d also get furious if I didn’t because it would garner suspicion.
With no good option, I open the door to Selina, who is holding Jayne’s hand.
“Um, hi! I’m Selina! would you,” she points to me, “…eh…playground…with kids?” She hands me a paper with sloppily written Korean handwriting.
“Wouldyou like to take the kids to the playground?”
My understandingof English has grown with Trent’s and Duri’s help. When we’re alone, Duri teaches me simple words. It’s hard, but I’m determined to eventually be able to speak to others.
Ji-hoon never wanted me to learn English. Now I realize it was to isolate me.
I smile and say, “No-thank-you.”
“But mom!” Duri cries.
Selina frowns, her eyes drilling into mine. She hands me another paper.
“Is everything okay?”
My anxiety spikes,but I know better than to let it show. So I nod, smiling.
She shakes her head back and forth. “Come-with-me.”
“No-thank-you.”
She hands me another slip of paper.
“We are worried about you.”
I rereadthe words a dozen times, wondering how I should respond with my limited vocabulary.
When Ji-hoon saw me alive with the boys, one might have expected him to be elated.
He wasn’t.
He ushered me back to his apartment after I was done with in-processing and has forbidden me from leaving.
He brings me food, and grills me every time he comes home from doing whatever it is he does at the lab he works in.
He’s tried to bed me a handful of times, which hadn’t happened in so many years.
Before the apocalypse, I would have denied him nothing. Now, I’ve changed. I don’t accept him in bed, and that infuriates him.
And I suspect that right now, Selina is looking at Ji-hoon’s handiwork on my face. I’d forgotten to cover up the bruise with makeup, or perhaps it was a conscious decision.
If it was, it was a stupid one I will surely pay for.
“How did you get that?” She points to my temple.
I understand her perfectly, but I can’t muster a response.
But I don’t have to.
“Hyun made that mark,” Ji-hoon says.
He’s standing behind Selina, waiting to enter the apartment, his face a blank mask of patience.
He doesn’t look a monster, but I am convinced he is worse than the dead.
