Isleen’s first shower post-torture-trailer had been last night. It’d been an efficient scrubbing-away-the-past kind of shower. Afterward, she had been so exhausted that she’d crawled in the giant bed, sunk down in the mound of pillows, and zonked out. Until she found herself outside with Xander.
But this shower, this one was pure pleasure. The shower nozzle rained warm water over her, sluicing and sliding down her body in the most soothing of caresses. Energy and excitement and gratitude coursed through her. Gran was alive. And Row was wonderful. And Xander… Being with him went beyond the physical into the mythical. They shared a connection that seemed only possible in fairy tales, but was somehow real. She could feel it in the way he looked at her, almost like he absorbed her, instead of seeing her.
Her new life was extraordinary. It really was. Happy tears swelled and spilled and mingled with the water as she washed her hair and body with beautifully scented soaps. The smells were a miracle to her nose so long deprived of appealing aromas. She rinsed the last of the suds from her body and then gave full freedom to the happy tears.
But her stomach tightened in on itself, tighter and tighter, until it felt like a heavy stone in her gut. Was she that hungry? Row’s butterscotch pecan pancakes were waiting for her when she got out of the shower, but this didn’t feel like hunger.
The stone in her stomach moved, traveled up her throat, and gagged her. She coughed, but the sound was no ordinary clearing of the throat. She recognized it for what it was—a sob. Before her brain could rein in the madness, another sob caught her, bending her double under its dark wave.
No. Life is good now. I’m happy now. I’m safe now. Her pep talk had no effect.
The past—all the things she’d shoved down into that grave in her mind—was about to rise from the dead. The eruption of horror and terror and ugliness was about to bury her.
Too weak to fight, she sank to her knees, crying for the happiness she’d only touched with the tips of her fingers. She could’ve had a wonderful life. A life where horror didn’t exist. She wanted that life. She deserved that life. Not this fear. Not this pain.
She slammed her forehead into the tile floor. Lights glittered in her vision, and a starburst of agony burned in the middle of her forehead. An odd thing happened: some of the past sank back into its hole. She whacked her head against the floor—harder this time. Then again. And again. Until she’d reburied all those memories so deeply she’d need a deep-sea drilling rig to find them.
A hot poker of pain thudded in the center of her forehead, and it felt wonderful. Physical pain was easy. Cuts and bruises healed on their own with no effort on her part. She stretched out underneath the spray, her cheek resting against the tile wall, and closed her eyes. On the back of her eyelids, red and orange strobes of color pulsed and faded in perfect time with her heartbeat.
A knock on the bathroom door startled her upright. Dizziness swayed her body, and her vision throbbed in time with the thumping of her forehead.
“Isleen?” Roweena’s tone carried the same frantic edge it had when she’d thought Isleen was missing.
“Yes?” Isleen tried to pack as much normalness in her voice as possible.
“No hurry or anything. I just wanted to let you know that breakfast is ready.”
“Um, go ahead and start without me. I’ll be a few more minutes.” Isleen pulled herself to her feet, leaned against the tiled wall until the world stopped rocking, and then turned off the taps. Other than the pounding in her head, she felt surprisingly all right. Almost as if nothing had happened, when what had almost happened was a mental eruption of volcanic proportions.
“Sweetie, is everything all right?” Row’s voice, speaking without the noise of shower, was laced with compassion and concern.
“Yeah.” The lie slipped out smoother than it should have. “Just lost track of time.”
“Well, I’ll see you in a few minutes then.”
“Yep. Just a few minutes.” Isleen waited, breath caged in her lungs, for Row to say something further, but only silence stood on the other side of the doorway.
She rocketed out of the shower like a sprinter at the sound of the gun. She dried and dressed and brushed her hair and teeth and refused to think about what had just happened beyond the evidence staring her in the mirror. The center of her forehead was just a little red. No big deal. She jogged from her room and didn’t stop until she reached the staircase. Calmly, slowly, deliberately, she walked down the steps toward the clatter and clink of silverware on plates and the smell of breakfast.
The table was loaded with pancakes, syrup, eggs, bacon, and fruit—a glorious bowl of strawberries and blueberries. Her stomach roared at the sight. She barely stopped a dribble of drool leaking from her mouth.
“There you are.” Row’s lavender hair glowed from the sunshine streaming through the kitchen windows. Her tattoos somehow seemed more vibrant and shocking in the morning light. “Holy hell. What happened?”