Page 15 of Ripple Effect, Vol. 2

Completely naked, I examine the shadows in the creases where I’ve grown slimmer. Sharp, protruding bones and a flat stomach, where I once had softness.

Running my fingers over the strips of tape covering the gauze, I imagine him slicing into my arm and stitching me up after. A shiver ripples down my spine. Don’t think about it.

The multi-sized brass knobs of the shower look like something out of the Nautilus, and I flip the one I’m guessing is hot. Warm jets pound from the side spigots, creating a wall of water in the center.

I’ve never seen such a thing, and when it’s finally warm enough, I step inside walking through the wall with a smile on my face. Back and forth, I break the liquid barrier, feeling like a small child in a water fountain.

Flipping another knob turns on the top showerhead, where warm pulses beat against my chest. It amazes me how water not only cleans the filth, but can restore the soul as well. Turning away, the punishing spray pounds against my back in a mesmerizing rhythm of relaxation. The dizziness of before melts away into sleepy contentment. It’s been a while since I could take a shower, because Randy always insisted that baths used less water, so he never allowed Layla and I.

I reach for the bottle of shampoo, holding it to my nose as I breathe in the sandalwood scent. For a killer, the man has a certain opulence about him. I’d venture to say the shampoo that I ooze into my palm probably costs more than a week’s worth of groceries.

After ten minutes, I’ve washed my hair and body. Snagging the razor perched on a small marble ledge, I stare down at the exposed blade. Flipping my arm brings the black butterfly tattoo and the skinny white line hidden beneath into view.

A cloud of memories settles over my mind, robbing me of the relaxation.

The shower floor fades into a large white blur in front of my eyes, like staring at a blank screen. My eyelids are heavy from whatever drug they’ve given me, and I can barely stand on my own while the ice-cold water beats down on my skin.

“Wash yourself, bitch. And if I find a fucking trace of blood in here, I’ll slit your throat.”

I dare myself to look up at him, but courage fails me. Hours of lying strapped to the metal frame of a bed stripped all the grit from my attitude, leaving only fear and the cracked shell that still holds me together somehow.

Even blindfolded I knew his voice, so when the blindfold was eventually removed, I wasn’t surprised to see the friend of my foster father, who everyone calls Rook. The man is large and bulky, but not in a chiseled way, and based on his olive skin tone and dark hair, he’s likely Mediterranean. He reminds me of a crime boss, something out of The Godfather. Randy knows a lot of shady people, brings them around to his weekly poker games. This guy is the quiet one. The one who sets my teeth on edge whenever I catch him looking at me. And he looks at me a lot.

A sharp bite of cold steel nicks my wrist and the pressure in my fingertips subsides as I swing my hands around to the front of me. He’s freed my arms from the ropes whose bite marks will probably persist well into the week.

On my forearm is a black butterfly tattoo with a tattered wing—the one I fought to have put on me. The markings on the wings identify it as a Monarch.

Blood pools at my feet as I stare down at the drain, while my nose burns with the ache of having been punched there. The agony rattles inside my head, tamped below the effects of the drugs, but I don’t make a sound, not a whimper. Instead I shudder a breath, lifting my hands where the torn skin of my palms had scraped against the metal bed prongs. The room tilts, as a canon of butterflies explodes in my stomach, blackness rolling into my view like thunderclouds, until a rough hand grips my arm.

“Fucking hell, what did you do?” Randy’s voice hardly carries over the hazy clouds still passing through my diminishing field of view.

“Bitch wouldn’t hold still.” Rook’s voice draws closer, drowning out the sound of the water. “Fucking punched me when I loosened the cuffs.” He grips the back of my hair and tips my head back so the water splashes against my face.

I squint, unable to keep my eyes on him with the irritating assault of water pounding at my forehead.

“Who’s the mouthy bitch now, huh? Huh? How does that ink feel, girl? How’s it feel inside your skin?”

The question is a trigger that rips a sob from my chest. I’d been asked so many times over the last two days, and the pain that always followed prompts me to sag in his grip. “Good,” I whisper only as a means of avoiding the harsh slap or kiss of his fist at my ribs. I long for the blackness again. It’s kept me sane for the last couple days, falling in and out of lucidity. The pain disappears every time.

“Good girl.” His hand slides up my thigh and cups me in the front. “That’s a real good girl. I’m ready to collect my time on this one.”

“No. Bullshit. I never agreed to that. Not until she’s ready.” Where Randy’s voice typically elicits nausea in my gut, I’m relieved by his presence. “She’s got a full fucking pussy exam. See if she’s got diseases. Don’t need something cropping up because of your dirty dick.”

“Suck my dick, asshole.” The man reaches inside his pocket and pulls out a stack of bills. “Want your cut? Give me mine.”

In my periphery, I catch Randy jerking his head toward the door. “Talk to you for a sec?”

A sharp pain hits the apex between my thighs as he squeezes there, and I gasp in response, a squeal of agony escaping me. His lip curls into a wicked snarl before he releases me with a forceful push that knocks me into the shower tiles.

The two of them step outside the room, and I eye the razor blade across from me. It’s one of the old-fashioned kind with a full blade inside. I clamp my eyes to jagged flashes behind my eyelids, where visuals of the last few hours play on an endless loop. I flip open the top of it, my hands trembling, still thick from numbness, and remove the blade inside.

Brushing it gently across my wrist leaves an invisible line of death over the butterfly tattoo. “No one is coming to save me,” I whisper.

In less than a day, I’ve been broken, dragged through the barbed terrain of hell, and left raw, sliced open and bleeding.

Tears fill my eyes, and I position the blade against my wrist. At the click of the door, I press down into my skin, and swipe it across.

I stare down at the white scar that runs perpendicular to my veins—a stunt that scored me a comfy hospital stay. I later found it was more effective to slice along the vein.