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Someone whimpers. I realize it’s me. My face feels damp, but I can’t move to wipe it away. I want to go back to that room, and I also don’t want to. My feelings around it are confused, mostly sad.
But there I am, and there he is, and we’ve drunk that bottle and are standing at the window watching the dancers when Silas bows, makes a grand gesture holding out his hand asking me to dance. I giggle, hiccup. The champagne. And when I walk into his arms, it’s warm and he’s strong and I rest my cheek against his chest and close my eyes. It feels so safe here. So safe with him.
But we’re not safe. I know. I look up at him, at his crooked nose, at the scar along his temple, and I know we’re not at all safe.
We dance, though, in that tiny room. I’m not sure how much is memory and how much is the dream, and I don’t care. I observe unseen, a voyeur in the shadows. There were other voyeurs too, later. How long did they stand there and watch us?
I’m sobbing. The scene is blurring, but I wipe away my tears because the dance is coming to an end, and we’re both a little drunk. Silas tips his head down, sets a finger beneath my chin to tilt my face up and I stare up at his beautiful, beautiful eyes. When he kisses me, I don’t close mine and he doesn’t close his. I’m sobbing, and when he rests his forehead against mine, he whispers words I don’t hear before looking at me once more. Before vanishing, leaving me not in that room but standing in the middle of the flames as my childhood home burns down around me and he walks away, stealthy in the dark.
I wake, gasping for breath. My eyelids fly open, and I stare up at the ceiling. My mouth feels like it’s stuffed with cotton. Nausea coils up my insides, and rolling onto my side takes every ounce of energy, my limbs leaden. I try to sit up but can’t.
I blink at the unfamiliar room not sure where I am or how I got here. Snow is a blur falling outside the window. We’re in a high-rise, and it’s nighttime.
On the nightstand, I see a glass of water, torn wrapping of what look like bandages. I peer closer and blink. There are syringes beside those wrappers.
My glasses are there. I manage to grab them but I realize they’re useless, one of the lenses smashed, the frame bent like someone stepped on them. I put them on anyway because it’s better than nothing.
I manage to pull myself up a little, feeling out of breath when I rest against the headboard. I look downat myself. I’m naked. The blanket is thrown carelessly over my thighs. Every inch of me aches and I can see the purple welts where he whipped me.
Ethan beat me. After finding Silas and me, he whipped me. I raise a hand to my mouth to stop the sob that bubbles up in my throat.
I push the blanket off my feet, which hurt the most, and see the blood staining the white sheets, see the dried crusts of it on my feet. He wanted to be sure I felt him with every step. I did. Oh, how I did.
Or was it that he wanted his father to see how thorough he’d been? What was it he’d said before we’d gone back down into the ballroom? I was lucky it wasn’t his father to do the whipping.
Sullivan Fox beat his son and his wife. He said so himself. How did I never know it? I lived next door to them for ten years of my life. I spent so much time at their house. How did I not see?
I shiver with cold, and when I draw the blanket up I see there, on my left hand, the ring I’d just given back. The ring that feels too tight now.
The door opens, the light from inside so bright I turn away. Ethan is talking with someone, another man, and the instant he sees me, his smile vanishes.
The man behind him meets my eyes. It’s the same one from the hotel. I draw the sheet closer before Ethan closes the door.
“Modest now? Really? We all saw you, Phee. Theguy out there, the cops, my father. My fucking father watched you, watched Silas Cruz rape you.”
“Rape?” I croak, my voice not quite working.
The glasses slide off my face and he crosses the room to take them. He looks at them, shakes his head and drops them onto the floor.
“I need those,” I say, my voice sounding strange, like it’s dragging. Heavy, like my body.
“They’re broken. They’re no good to you.” He walks over to the bed and my gaze is level with his belt. I find myself leaning away from him. “Relax. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You think that was up to me?” he asks, sitting on the edge of the bed, pressing on a bruise before peeling a bandage off the bottom of one foot.
“Ow.” I try to pull my leg away, but he stops me.
“I need to clean them. It’ll hurt, but you don’t want them infected. We have a big day.”
I’m trying to keep up but it’s like the words are coming too slowly. I follow his hand as it moves to the nightstand. He opens the drawer and takes out antiseptic and bandages and I see a half dozen syringes lined up inside.
“What are those?” I ask as he closes the drawer, cursing when it sticks, and he has to ram it in.
“Painkillers.”
“What kind of painkillers?” I wonder if they’re the reason I feel so groggy.
