Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 54871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
It was safe.
And then… it wasn't.
The water is warm.
That's the first thing that registers—warmth, seeping into muscles I didn't realize were clenched. He lowers me into the tub slowly and carefully.
I drift, detached, disconnected from myself. My thoughts scatter and reform, scatter and reform. Fragments of sensation that won't coalesce into coherent meaning.
The hot water.
His gentle hands.
Violence I can't quite reconcile with this tenderness.
My mind feels afloat. Drifting somewhere above my body, refusing to fully inhabit this moment. Like I'm watching myself from a great distance—a girl in a bathtub being washed by a man whose hands cut the fingers off a bad man.
The contradiction should mean something. Should provoke some response. But I can't hold onto thoughts long enough to examine them. They slip away before I can grasp their edges, leaving only this strange, cottony emptiness where my reactions should be.
He's washing me now. Gentle strokes with a soft cloth, starting at my shoulders, working down my arms.
His voice washes over me like the water. Meaningless sounds arranged in meaningless patterns. Small talk. He's making small talk while he cleans the blood off my skin.
The cloth moves across my collarbone. Down my sternum. Gentle circles on my stomach.
He sighs.
The sound cuts through the static in my head. Sharp. Real.
"Scarletta." His hands stop moving. "Are you OK?"
Am I… OK?
The laugh almost escapes. I feel it burbling inside my chest.
Something dark, and bitter, and completely inappropriate. A sardonic little huff that would say everything my mouth can't form into words.
But then—
He killed him with his bare hands.
He came while doing it.
He could do the same to you.
The laugh dies in my throat. Survival instinct floods through me, cold and clarifying. I know this feeling. I've written this feeling a hundred times—the moment when a character realizes they're in actual danger and their body takes over, does what needs to be done to stay alive.
"Please answer me. I'm worried."
I look at him.
Really look. For the first time since the maze.
His eyes are searching my face, and there's something in them that might be genuine concern. Or maybe just calculation. How big of a threat am I? How damaged? Beyond repair? Does he need to kill me too to keep himself safe?
These questions form and reform on repeat as I nod my head. "Yes," I say. My voice sounds distant. Mechanical. "I'm OK."
His shoulders relax slightly.
"Thank you," I add, because that's what you say, because that's what keeps you safe. "For saving me. He was going to—"
My voice catches.
He was going to do terrible things to you.
And then this man did terrible things to him.
"He hurt me," I finish. "You stopped him."
The unmasked man's hand cups my face. His thumb traces my cheekbone, catching something wet.
Tears. When did I start crying?
"I'll always stop them," he says. "Anyone who tries to hurt you. I'll always stop them."
He leans forward and presses his lips to my forehead. Soft. Careful. Like I'm something fragile that might shatter.
Then my cheeks. One, then the other. Kissing away the tears I can't seem to control.
His mouth finds mine and the kiss is—
Tender.
That's the word. Not hungry. Not demanding. Just gentle pressure, his lips warm against mine, asking nothing.
I cry harder.
He pulls back and resumes washing me. Methodical. Thorough. The cloth moves down my legs, between my toes, back up again. He tips my head back to rinse my hair, supporting my neck with one hand.
None of it is sexual.
All of it is careful.
When he lifts me from the tub, I don't resist. He wraps me in a towel so soft it feels like being swaddled in clouds, patting me dry with the same meticulous attention he gave to washing me.
"Arms up."
I raise them. He slides a white button-down shirt over my head—his shirt, I realize, recognizing the smell of him on the fabric. Then white boxer shorts that pool around my hips until he helps me fold the waistband over. Once. Twice. Three times before they'll stay up.
"Sit."
I sit on the edge of the tub. He produces a comb from somewhere and works it through my wet hair, starting at the ends, patient with the tangles.
No one has combed my hair since I was eight years old.
The tears come again, silent this time.
He doesn't comment. Just keeps combing until my hair lies smooth against my shoulders.
Then he picks me up and carries me outside.
The night air is warm. Stars overhead. The sound of waves somewhere in the distance.
A plane waits on the runway. He carries me up the stairs and through the cabin to a tiny room near the back with a lay-flat chair—the kind you see in first class sections of a commercial plane, but wide enough for two people.
He puts me down, then climbs in beside me and wraps his arms around me from behind, pulling me against his chest.