Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 127249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Thumb…Noah…forefinger…Noah…
Am I supposed to do something? Feed someone?
Noah?
The door opens again. This time, a light comes on. I blink a few times for my eyes to adjust.
A woman enters, carrying a tray with a bowl and a spoon. Peroxide blond hair is tied into a thin, messy ponytail. Her features are delicate but also somehow hard. Maybe it’s the abundance of blue eyeshadow and the false black lashes that give that impression. Yet the gap in her crooked front teeth as she attempts a smile makes her look strangely vulnerable. So do her bony hips that are visible under a hot-pink miniskirt that she paired with a yellow crop top. Fishnet stockings and black ankle boots complete her ensemble.
She leaves the tray on the floor and picks up the bowl. Avoiding my eyes, she lifts the spoon to my mouth.
I don’t care if it’s poisoned. My mouth opens of its own accord, my tongue lapping at the content on the spoon. It’s lukewarm and meaty. I count every spoon she feeds me—nine—and then I drink the quarter glass of water she holds at my lips. The water is at room temperature and not cold like the sound of the ice has hinted. Or maybe that was a different day.
I drink it all. The water has a slight metallic taste and a mineral-rich undertone, reminding me of the tap water I drank, but I can’t remember where.
“There.” The woman dabs at my lips with a paper napkin. “Let’s get you nice and clean, okay?”
Unlike the men, she doesn’t have an accent. She sounds like a born and bred New Yorker.
She takes me to a room at the back with a toilet and shower. The tiles are chipped. They might’ve been white once, but they’re so dirty now it’s impossible to tell their original color. Crude words are graffitied on the walls. A lonely weed pushes through a crack in the corner where the water-stained ceiling caves. A musty smell of mold hangs in the air.
After disrobing me, she throws my soiled dress and torn stockings as well as my underwear in a garbage bag. I think I had one shoe when they took me, but I don’t know what happened to it. I don’t even know why I’m thinking about something so mundane.
I’m too dehydrated to need the toilet and too weak to stand on my own in the shower. She undresses and gets into the open stall with me, avoiding the spray of cold water as she lathers my hair and body with a bar of soap.
When she turns me around, she utters a gasp. “Sweet baby Jesus.”
I strain my neck to look over my shoulder.
Oh.
The scars.
“Christ. What happened to you?”
They seem to have always been there. I can’t remember how I got them.
She mutters something I can’t make out.
When I’m clean, she dries my body with a thin, scratchy towel. She puts her clothes back on before helping me into a dress. It’s an elegant dress, one without sleeves. Expensive. Exactly what Dante would’ve chosen for me. It’s a challenge to pull on the sheer stockings, but the woman—Oxo—helps me. I force myself to remember her name as it’s the only name they’ve given me.
She hands me a pair of flat shoes that matches the eggshell-color of the dress. While I sit on a bench in front of a broken mirror, she brushes my hair and twists the wet strands into a bun. Then she does my make-up, applying kohl eyeliner, dark eyeshadow, and red lipstick with a heavy hand. She finishes off with a thick layer of concealer under my eyes and a lot of blush on my cheeks.
When she’s done, she steps away to inspect her work.
“She needs jewelry,” a man says from the door.
At the sound of Hulk’s voice, a repulsive shiver crawls through me.
She scowls. “I’m not done.”
I turn to look at him. He’s wearing a dark suit and white shirt. It’s so strange to see him without the ski mask that, for a moment, I think the image is a mirage and not real.
But then he speaks again. “Hurry up.” His tone is brusque. “We leave in five.”
His black hair is pulled back from his face and tied into a man-bun, exposing a broad forehead and a sharp nose. In the darkness, I never got a good look at his eyes. They’re a nondescript brown, made a little more noticeable by the long lashes framing them.
Catching my gaze, he grins.
I look away quickly.
Oxo takes a pair of pearl earrings from the make-up box and fastens them to my ears. She does the same with a short pearl necklace that she clips around my neck. They didn’t take the ring on my left hand. Seeing that the diamond is worth a lot of money, I find that strange. Mind you, they did take the Rolex Dante had given me.