I washed my face off as I waited for the tub to fill, scouring the skin to get all of his jizz off.
Facials were good and fun and sexy with someone you loved. With the random jackass kidnapper, definitely not.
Emotionally drained, physically pained, I was left wondering why I enjoyed him before. The elevator had been hot. In fact, most every other time had been pleasure filled.
He liked to dominate, to be in control, and that translated into passion and need for my body. But what he did that night was for pure humiliation, to put me in my place.
It worked to a point. I was humiliated.
Frothy bubbles formed a layer on top of the filled tub. The warmth burned my cold skin as I slipped my legs in, but soon morphed into a soothing heat.
I hissed each time the water hit one of the welts, my hands shaking as I sunk down. All the way down I went until the water consumed me, then back up, leaning against the side of the tub.
I was going to die. Not later, not of old age. I was going to die—shot in the head—my body dumped possibly somewhere no one would ever find. My family would never know what happened to me.
Just another slain beast. Used and thrown away.
Tears welled in my eyes, my face scrunching up as small sobs shook me. I reached up, my hands covering my mouth in an effort to muffle the sound, to muffle the pain not only from him, but from my own ears.
Maybe I hadn’t really accepted the situation until then. My fate. Maybe I lied to myself. Maybe I buried it all away in order to endure, to live just a little bit longer.
Some things were pretty certain—Six was ruthless, and I would die by his hand.
“Are you finished?” Six asked as he reached across the coffee table.
I looked up at him as I took another sip of my wine. Glancing down at my plate, there was still half a chicken breast and some cheese and baguette, but I nodded anyway and turned toward the window just in time to see the Eiffel Tower start twinkling in the moonlight.
It was late, and I was hoping the wine, which Six ordered, would make it easier to fall asleep. Five days had passed, and I had become very blasé.
My spark was gone, or at least hiding. Depression was overpowering everything, and I had no will to do anything. Even sleep eluded me as my mind whirled about nothing. I stared up at the ceiling, blank, unresponsive in the night.
It wasn’t me. I wasn’t me.
Cracked and broken as I tried not to cry, thinking about everything that was wrong. Accepting that I was already dead inside. Being on my period didn’t help, nor the trip with him to a pharmacy, the hormonal shift making my depression worse.
Purple and yellow still covered my skin, but ever so slowly waned away.
Six’s eyes were on me, as they had been for days. I hardly spoke? just stared out the window as he stared at me.
Sex wasn’t the same. I wasn’t the same. The whole fucked-up situation wasn’t the same, and I desperately wanted to brighten up, to sass him back like usual, but I just didn’t have the energy for it.
Cabin fever made my skin itch, and hours on the clock ticked by in slow, repetitive succession.
Purgatory. Trapped in an endless cycle of rinse, repeat boredom.
Unlike the last hotel, Six never left. All business was conducted on either his laptop or phone. There seemed to be a lot of waiting in the killing game.
Once the last sip was gone from my glass, I set it down and stood up, stripping off my lounge pants and sweatshirt on my way to the bed. I burrowed under the covers and shortly thereafter, Six did the same. His right arm became my pillow, as it was every night, while his left wrapped around my waist, pulling me to him.
Stiff, on edge muscles soon relaxed as I settled against his body. Every night, no matter how angry or hurt, it happened—I melted into him. Even that night, after his show of power.
Maybe because encased in him, I knew I was safe. The safest place to be was wrapped in the arms of the scariest monster, right?
“We’re leaving in two days,” he said, his lips brushing against my neck.
I didn’t respond right away as the news took me by surprise. There’d been no indication. “Where are we going?”
“Miami. Jason thinks Five might be there.”
“Who’s Jason?” Nine said the same name when we went to talk to him.
“My handler.”
Somehow, that one word made me chuckle inside. It sparked the usual me. “Handler? What’s a handler? Does he handle you? Is that like fondling?”
Silence. His usual non-response.
When I decided he wasn’t going to answer, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and attempted to drift off. It was working. I was almost there when he spoke, startling me back awake.
“He’s my liaison with Home. He doles out the assignments to each Cleaner.”
I’d heard the title Cleaner that time as well, but what was Home?
“What’s a Cleaner?” I asked, hoping he’d continue opening up.
“The boogeymen who take care of things nobody else wants to know about.”
Six definitely fit that name. “A Killing Corps.”