Page 72 of Rejected Hollow

The blonde girl crouched beside the pool and reached for me.

Before I could pull away, her hand closed around my wrist.

She yanked hard.

I came halfway out of the water with a gasp, twisting instinctively as I tried to cover myself with my free arm. One arm stayed clamped across my breasts, but below that there was nothing between my body and the lamplight.

The flash went off.

Then it went off again.

And again.

Each burst of white light filled the steam and left bright shapes floating across my vision. I heard all three of them laughing while I fought to pull myself free.

The blonde girl finally released my wrist.

I fell backward into the pool hard enough to send water over my face and up my nose.

"Don't worry, Stray," Delphine said. Her voice was gentle enough to make it worse. "We'll caption it kindly."

Then they took everything.

My clothes. My towel. My shoes.

My glasses.

Delphine slipped those into the pocket of her black jacket and gave the pocket a small, satisfied pat before turning toward the stairs.

The three of them left together.

Their laughter followed them up through the cavern, growing fainter with every step until eventually it disappeared.

After that, there was only the sound of the sea beyond the rock.

I stayed in the water.

For a long time, I couldn't make myself move.

I crouched in the corner of the pool with my arms wrapped tightly around my knees and the water pulled up to my chin. I was shaking hard enough to disturb the surface around me, though I barely noticed.

Without my glasses, anything beyond a few feet had dissolved into steam and lamplight.

I had no clothes.

No towel.

No shoes.

And somewhere upstairs, on Imogen's phone, there were photographs of me.

All of me.

Every part of myself I had spent years learning to hide, turn away, pull in, or pretend not to care about had been caught under a camera flash. By breakfast, those pictures could be on every phone at Ironmoor. They could be passed under tables in the Great Hall while people tried not to laugh too loudly. People I had never even spoken to could know exactly what I looked like naked before I knew their names.

You're a lot, Wren. In every way.

Daniel's voice came back first, followed by Delphine's, and then the girl at school who had called me Cruella because of the white streak in my hair. I remembered Daniel's mother asking whether I had considered ordering the salad. I remembered every changing room where I had faced the wall while getting dressed, every photograph I had avoided, every shirt I had tugged down over my stomach without even realizing I was doing it. I remembered every small way I had taught myself to take up less space before anyone else had the chance to tell me I was taking up too much.