Page 35 of Hallow’s Crown
“For now,” I say.
He shrugs, sipping his coffee watching me watch him. “Gunna go shower.”
I barely hear him over the running thoughts in my head.
Tomorrow, the Ministry will call for a review and accept or deny my request to oversee his training..
Tomorrow, the House Brooks will want to know if I deviated from the Crown protocol.
Tomorrow, there will be a thousand new problems to solve, and I will solve them all.
But tonight, there is only the taste of coffee and blood, and the memory of what it feels like to want a thing so much you’d risk your own annihilation just to keep it close.
I finish the coffee. The bite mark on my wrist throbs in time with my pulse.
I hope it scars.
Chapter Nine: Samuel
Icome to in the guest bathroom. I must have blacked out against the tile, because when I come to, my knees are bruised and the shower is running. There’s a towel bunched under my ass, and my shoulder is jammed up against the baseboard, an angle that makes everything from neck to ribcage ache like a bad tooth.
Dragging myself up by the counter, my hands slip on the edge of the sink. The light overhead is brutal, a daylight-white LED that shows every vein, every fading bruise, every crusted scrape. I look like a goddamn victim, or maybe the criminal.
Maybe both.
The shower is separated from the rest of the bathroom by a slab of frosted glass and a lip of black granite. I step in, leaving a trail of blood and something darker behind me. The glass is cold against my palm, and the water is freezing. Cranking it to hot, the steam rises almost before I finish twisting the tap. I let it go scalding before I get under, because I want to feel every inch, every nerve, every mark.
The water hits the first bruise and I hiss. My body wants to flinch, but I make myself stand there, let the heat sear in. There’s a raw patch at my wrist, skin flayed in a perfect ellipse from the restraint; each drop that touches it is a little miracle of pain. My left hip is an ombre of purple and yellow, painted in the precise shape of Bentley’s hand. There’s a row of teeth marks above my right collar bone, some shallow, one deep enough to bleed, all angry and almost pretty in their regularity.
I scrub with the rough side of the washcloth, work up a lather that smells like oranges. The water slides down my body, taking skin and grit and dried cum with it, painting the tile a soft, milky pink. I watch the swirl go, more fascinated than disgusted. It’s not the worst cleanup I’ve ever had.
As I work my way up, I check on the rest of the damage. My ribs are bruised, some so deep I can still feel the heat of his skin. My thighs are scratched to shit. My hands are the worst—knuckles split, one nail blackening, the right palm still sticky.
My face… I avoid that until last. I don’t want to see the eyes. I know they’ll give me away, and I can’t afford that, not even to myself.
I rinse off, flick the water from my hair, then go for the shampoo. It’s unscented, probably custom, the sort of thing you only find in places where everything is designed to be minimalist.
The shower door is a nightmare to open with wet hands, but I manage. I dry off with a towel that’s whiter than any I’ve ever owned. It doesn’t smell like bleach, and it’s some puffy, fluffy thing.
I wipe the mirror with the edge of the towel, and my face blurs into something unrecognizable before it comes clear. The first thing I notice is the bite at my neck, the tiny half-moons of torn skin. The second is the black ring around my left eye. I don’t remember getting hit there, but maybe I lost track.
I stare at myself for a long time, waiting to see if the face in the glass will blink first.
It doesn’t. It just looks back, eyes deep and magnetic, mouth a tight line.
Something changed.
Maybe Bentley set the monster free.
Maybe he caged it.
Either way, I feel different and I look it, too.
On the counter is the uniform he gave. With a sigh, I get back into them, knowing these clothes seal my fate.
Four days ago I was a contractor, today…
I’m something else entirely.
