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Her skin and bones held in place by me.
"See us together, baby girl," I whisper against her hair as I stare along with her. "See yourself for what you are."
"I can't," she squeaks, but there are too many of them. She can't fool herself in every single one. She starts to shake against me.
"You are more than your reflection," I continue as she starts to unravel. "You are mine."
Then she looks at the hundreds of faces of herself and screams.
18
AVERY
Idon't know how long I'm there, held by the creep and caged inside his prison. I stare with him, his arms wrapped around me, as we both look up at the quilt of mirrors blanketing the ceiling. Where are my chubby cheeks and the roundness of my face? What happened to my belly and the puffiness around my throat? The longer I stare, the more I don't recognize what I see.
Is this how he sees me?
Blue eyes made even bluer by the dark circles beneath them?
Hollow cheeks that curve around the bone?
A skeleton of my former self?
What happened to me?
When did I start to die?
It hurts to look at and know the truth, to not see the image of the overweight girl staring back at me. I think I preferred her over this.
We stand there, one of his arms around my middle, holding me in place, and the other beneath my chin, making me look at the mirrors.
The images distort and change, dysmorphia ebbing and flowing with the tide of each of my breaths. He lets go of me eventually and walks over to the bed in the corner of the cell on a rickety metal frame that looks like it might collapse at any moment. I don't know how I didn't see it before, but I watch him as he opens a black backpack that's atop the gray blanket. Does he sleep here? My heart skips a beat. He unzips the backpack and starts to unpack it across the bed.
Bottles of water.
Prepackaged cookies and crackers.
Two oranges and two apples.
Something wrapped in butcher paper that looks like a sandwich.
It's all food. Why is he unpacking so much food?
It hits me all of a sudden. Of course, he doesn't sleep here. This room isn't for him. It's for me, a cage designed just for me. I'm going to be sick.
"Eat," he tells me.
"What?" I ask him.
He raises an eyebrow like he's unimpressed with my question, but still, he repeats himself.
"Eat," he says again.
"No." I shake my head at him, my mind whirling with everything he has done. The urge to vomit almost wins out this time. "I'm not hungry."
He cocks his head at me, his eyes like two black orbs in the dim light of this scary place.
"You seem to have misunderstood the assignment, Firefly," he tells me. "Why exactly do you think I brought you down here?"
