“Tell me to go fuck myself if you need to, but—” He turns from me, bending low to pull a pair of scissors and electric clippers from under the sink.
Tears immediately well in my eyes, making the smile I almost had from the way he talks to me like I’m an old friend fade into a distant memory. I knew this was coming. It’s something I’ve wanted to do since the very first time I looked at myself in the mirror at the hospital. My vanity isn’t something I’m proud of. There are so many other things to worry about now, but my long, gorgeous hair isn’t that anymore. It’s dry and brittle from weeks of malnourishment and dehydration, and there are chunks missing, some down to my scalp in places from the men cutting it to keep pieces for trophies.
His face falls when he turns around to present me with the tools. My fingers grow sore from twisting them together in front of me, but I give him a nod.
“I can have one of the other girls come in and do this. They may be able to do a better job.”
He must be talking about Emmalyn, the club president’s wife, or even Misty, the nice lady who stops by to visit periodically. They each give me the space I need, hovering in the doorway to speak, but I don’t want anyone here to witness this. Hell, I don’t even want Ryan to participate, but I know I won’t be able to do it with one arm.
“It's fine,” I mumble, hating the huskiness of my own voice, knowing it won’t get any better unless I start talking more often.
Tears stain the front of Ryan’s borrowed shirt as he first uses the scissors to clip away the remaining long strands. My shoulders cool when the hair falls to the bathroom floor, but it’s the sound of the buzzing clippers that make me sob the hardest.
Knowing it needs to be done, Ryan doesn’t falter once he gets started. He doesn’t speak over the hum like he normally would when he knows I’m anxious, and for once, I’m grateful for the reprieve. I love hearing his stories, but a distraction is the last thing I want right now. As each piece falls to my lap and surrounds my feet, I can’t help but wonder if my hair was what drew that man in the parking lot to me, and with each strand that’s cut away, I feel freer, safer from the possibility of it ever happening again.
“It’ll grow back,” Ryan assures me when he turns the clippers off and sets them aside.
When I stand, I reach for the clumps lying on the floor, but his hand on my shoulder halts me.
“Don’t worry about the mess. I’ll clean it up. Here.” When I look up, he’s holding the plastic bag for my arm.
The steam from the shower fills the room, casting us in a damp halo that makes things seem a little easier than they actually are.
Remaining speechless as he secures the bag isn’t new. It’s like this every day, and just like every other morning, I don’t step back to get undressed until after he brushes his lips across my forehead.
“Jump in the shower,” he says with a smile. “You stink.”
This morning his teasing doesn’t put a smile on my face. This morning I’m too burdened, too stuck in my own head to appreciate his efforts.
His lips turn down in a frown before he can stop himself, but he doesn’t say anything as he turns around to face the closed door, giving me the privacy I need to get undressed and into the shower.
I don’t bother to hide my tears or muffle the sobs that rack my body as I use more shampoo than necessary to wash my now bald head. The shower is one place I can grieve where Ryan doesn’t run to me to ease my pain. The tears are usually cathartic, mixing with the warm water before disappearing down the drain, but this morning they only seem to bring more pain.
I’m sick and tired of crying, of being afraid of my own shadow. I’m disgusted with myself for holding onto this stranger, and he has to be feeling the same way. Although he hasn’t said a negative word, I know he has to be getting tired of my neediness and the pity party I can’t seem to drag myself out of.
The psychiatrist who visited my hospital room before I left told me that things like this take time, that getting over the atrocious things that happened to me wouldn’t happen overnight. He expected things to get worse before they got better. He recommended a daily routine, but also trying new things, finding happiness in situations I could control before branching out and being more adventurous.
I could laugh at the memory if I weren’t so beat down right now.
Adventurous?
The most adventure I’d seen since arriving here was following Ryan out of this room in the middle of the night to grab something to eat, but one of the other guys was also burning the midnight oil, and I hightailed it back to the room before we even made it out of the hallway.
“Mia?” Ryan says. “Did you hear me?”
“What?” I croak.
Is he putting his foot down, telling me I have to get my shit together and get back to my own room?
They offered me one, and I stood in the middle of it for all of twenty seconds before I followed Ryan to his room and crawled in his bed without even asking permission. Max frowned before trying to tell me it wasn’t healthy, but Ryan told him to shut the hell up and ushered him out of his room.
“I think you’d enjoy the New Year’s party happening later.”
My body freezes, hand turning to cement on my thigh as I wash. Parties at the compound were always happening, but Thanksgiving was brutal, the holiday serving as a vacation for many men who arrived looking for a good time. Many women participated, seemingly willingly to avoid the punishment that came with saying no, but I never was able to manage it. I fought every single time, and unfortunately, it’s exactly what a number of them enjoyed the most. I swallow, shoving down those thoughts before they can manifest into something worse than the tremble in my hands and a racing heart.
“It’s just going to be the guys. Em and Misty will be there. You can meet Makayla and Khloe. I think socializing will be good for you.”
Anger seeps in, and I’m glad it’s replacing the terror that’s threatening. Anger is something I can handle.
Who the hell does he think he is? This man doesn’t know a damn thing about me other than I was an idiot and fell for a pretty-boy smile in a parking lot that landed me straight into the pits of hell for seven weeks. Shit, he doesn’t even know that much. I haven’t confessed a word about the day I was taken.
With rough, pissed off hands, I climb out of the shower and towel my skin dry as best I can. The absence of my hair makes things a ton easier, and that makes me even more bitter. I hate everything that was taken from me. I hate being here. I hate needing him to comfort me, and most of all, I hate being weak and fragile, terrified of my own damn shadow.
The Mia Vazquez that existed a year ago wouldn’t take shit from anyone. That girl would’ve been dead inside of a couple of days inside the compound. She would’ve willingly died before letting those men take from her. That girl was gone long before that guy grinned at me with what I thought was charisma and charm that transformed into hate and malicious intent by the time he tied me up and shoved that bag over my head.
Jason made sure that I was already beaten down and mostly broken by the time I was abducted. Jason put himself first, making sure to remind me that his job was more important than mine. It paid the bills my hourly wage at the specialty print shop couldn’t even begin to touch. It didn’t matter that my last year of college was spent crying for my dead brother until I got the notice that I flunked out. It didn’t matter that I was so overcome with grief that I didn’t even care about my own life until it was too late to go back and finish school so I could be a rock star in public relations like I’d always dreamed. My dreams didn’t matter then, and they sure as hell don’t matter now.