I nod quickly, a small smile tugging at my lips despite the anxiety I have roiling in my gut.
“Thank you, Rowan.”
He freezes again, stopping so close to me his chest could brush mine if I inhaled too sharply.
“Say that again,” he says, his voice low. His expression shifts to something urgent. Something pleading.
“Thank you, Rowan,” I repeat, the words coming out on my exhale with no thought.
His eyes fall shut for the briefest of moments before he nods jerkily and steps out into the hallway.
“You’re welcome, Mirabelle,” he says with a last nod before tugging the door closed behind him.
It shuts with a definitive click, and I freeze in the small space, steam swirling around in the air and beginning to fog up the mirrors.
Privacy.
As my hands come down to the hem of the borrowed hoodie, my eye catches on the bathroom doorknob. There’s a lock.
From my side.
I could lock everyone out.
I spin around so my back is to the door, my hands fisting in the soft, worn fabric of the hoodie.
No. I can’t.
Rowan never said I was allowed to use the lock.
But he never said I wasn’t allowed to use the lock, either.
I’ve never been allowed to use something like that. I’ve never been on this side of a door lock before.
Rowan is nice. He’s given me a warm shower and soft clothes. I should be on my best behavior with him.
I take off Rowan’s hoodie, neatly folding it and leaving it on the bathroom counter, right next to the clean set of clothes he left for me, and slip past the shower curtain.
The water is divine. It’s the perfect temperature. Not too hot, not too cold.
As it flows down my body, I lose track of time. Panic flares up in my throat when I realize.
When am I supposed to get out of the shower?
Rowan never gave me a time limit. Most of the handlers at the facility would wait around during our assigned shower time, telling us when it was time for us to get out. There was never time to just relax under the stream.
The few bottles of Rowan’s shower products along the wallcall to me. My hair is in dire need of a wash, but I’m not sure if I’m allowed to use any of those either.
My pulse races, and panic claws up my chest.
I don’t want to do the wrong thing.
I don’t want to get punished.
Not here.
Not when I know the punishments here will be so much worse than the kinds of punishments handlers would give us at the facility.
A whimper leaves my throat as I bury my face in my hands.
