My huff of annoyance morphs into a growl of indignation when Tove pushes through the bathroom door before I can shut it in her face.
“I don’t need your help taking a piss,” I snap at the obnoxious female.
“No, but you must need help cleaning up, or you would have done it already,” she claps back, her brown eyes narrowing at the tattered gray skirt and top I’m still wearing and the matted, tangled state of my hair.
I fold my arms over my chest, my irritation deflating until I feel like a pathetic limp balloon. “I couldn’t figure out how to turn the water on, and I didn’t have anything to change into,” I admit softly, nodding in the direction of the shower that has no handles, heads, or faucets. I even scoured the walls, looking for a control center or hidden screen, but couldn’t find anything. I thought maybe it was motion activated, but no amount of jumping around, dancing, or begging encouraged the damn thing to cooperate.
Tove strides confidently toward the long vanity and the massive mirror floating behind it. She taps the glass, and a frame of bright blue and red command buttons light up along one side. She enters a quick sequence, and a baby waterfall drops out of the ceiling of the large shower stall.
I glare at the falling water. Of course it was the mirror. I should have guessed the key would be in the one place I’ve been actively avoiding even though I put the charmed anklet from the hospital back on.
“Got it,” I chirp, eyeing the control panel on the mirror like we’re enemies.
“If you tap the wall to the right, a recess will open with everything else you need. There should be a detangler in there too,” Tove offers, pointedly staring at the wild animal pelt that’s supposed to be my hair. “You just pour it on and let it sit,” she explains after a beat when it dawns on her that if I don’t know how to turn on the shower, I probably don’t know much about a lot of other things too.
I wish she was wrong. It’d be nice not to feel like a complete idiot around this caliber of tech and all of the fancy things here, but I don’t remember any of this from when I was little. We sure as shit don’t have stuff like this in The Scorch. We weren’t in a position to waste resources or our time on things like vid screens where we could watch shows about how the rich and famous lived or see ads for all the things that might make life easier. Things that we could neither acquire nor afford. I’ve spent time traveling around the southern territories but never anywhere even close to as nice as this bathroom alone is.
“The Horde’s best stylists will be arriving soon. They’ll get yournothing to change intosituation sorted. There’s a robe for you there when you’re done washing up,” Tove tells me, nodding to a folded pile of midnight blue silk sitting on the vanity.
The idea of a bunch of strangers invading my space with the sole purpose of playing dress-up makes my stomach clench. I wish there was a way I could get out of it, but I need access to Four Tiers and Paragon City, and I’m not going to get it naked—not the right kind of access anyway.
Tove leaves without saying another word, and I start peeling myself out of my grimy clothes. I stare at the charm on my ankle for a moment, wondering if it’s safe to get wet. After a beat, I decide to take it off, just in case. I know the magic powering the charm is going to fade at some point; no need to rush that along if I can help it.
Snubbing my reflection, I move past the mirror and the vanity and step into the shower. The stream of water is the perfect temperature, and I bite back a groan at how good it feels. Instantly I settle into the soothing heat, letting it relax me like this is my normal everyday routine. It should feel unnatural, and while a lot of it is foreign, I can’t deny how right it feels.
Endless food on call, soft blankets, luxurious living quarters, my own personal shower waterfall… I could get used to this. If I’d grown up here in Four Tiers, in the keep, like I should have, Iwouldbe used to this. I would be the scion everyone was curtsying and bowing to. It would be my ass they’d be kissing.
Ens and I would have been soft, cherished, pampered little scionesses. We would have worshiped our brothers and been protected by them. Our mom would have sung us to sleep and tried to keep us in line. Our father would have happily doted on us and spoiled his girls. We probably still would have been hellraisers. Ens and I had a knack for mischief even when we were young, but we wouldn’t be killers. We wouldn’t be the damaged, desperate survivors we are now. We would have been content, maybe even happy. Instead, our futures and our hopes were snuffed out, and everything was ripped away.
And now I need to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
I don’t know how long I stand under the cleansing spray, letting my thoughts wander and weave around my predicament and what to do about it. Muffled voices on the other side of the bathroom door finally pull me out of my head and get me moving again. I tap on the wall Tove instructed me to, and sure enough, a panel slides open to reveal rows of cleansers, moisturizers, polishers, and a bunch of other things I’ve never even heard of.
I spot a bottle of detangler and dump half of it on my head. The instructions tell me that microbots in the solution will instantly work through the snarls and mats without needing me to do anything else, so I get to work scrubbing several layers of skin off my body. I pretend all the raised lines and ridges I feel almost everywhere are no big deal, that it doesn’t bother me in the slightest that I can’t scrub the scars off too.
When the detangler stops tingling, I rinse it out and then wash my smooth, tangle-free hair twice before sealing a repairing serum into the tresses. I force myself out of the luxurious water, even though it’s tempting to spend the rest of the day here if for no other reason than to avoid the primping reality that’s waiting on the other side of the bathroom door.
The room is thick with steam when I step out of the shower, but a fan kicks on and warm air quickly dries me and my hair while clearing the air of the thick haze. I move to grab the sapphire blue robe off the vanity and freeze. I blow out a shocked exhale, and my warm relaxed muscles instantly grow taut and tense.
I knew it would be bad, that it would be startling. I gave Aeson and the others shit for their reaction, but this…seeing it head-on with nothing to soften the blow, I instantly know how awful my cruel words and callous judgments were toward Aeson and his Wing the other night.
The familiar stranger in the mirror blinks. I stagger closer to my reflection, my stunned gaze skipping from line to line and row upon row of ruin. The scars are three-inch vertical gashes, all perfectly spaced and even. I wear a collar of them around my throat, and a starburst pattern of them across my shoulders and chest. The marks stop just above my breasts and start again right below. They’re etched all the way down my torso, stopping at my hips. They encircle my arms in stacks and mar the entirety of one of my thighs. Wistan had promised to start on my calf the next time we spent time together, but then I got away.
I take in the places the bastard didn’t mark, my bikini line, my ass, my boobs, knowing full well his brand of pain would have crossed those lines eventually. Wistan kept the others from touching and taking, but only because he lived for the mind fuck of making me ceaselessly wonder if today would be the day he finally went there.
I stare for so long my vision starts to blur. Not from tears, but because I can’t seem to blink or tear my eyes away from what’s been done to me. I’m covered in a fucked-up chainmail of torment, the pattern purposeful and planned. It could almost be beautiful if you didn’t know the horror of what it was, how it happened.
But I do.
I’ll never forget.
I turn to take in my back, catching just a glimpse of the destruction there before I gasp and quickly hide it from view. The scars on my front are methodical, a calculated claiming of sorts done against my will. But my back, that’s what happens when Wistan loses control. That is raw fury and devastating havoc.
I’m marked by both aspects of the Tainted fuck, the calm control and the raging monster.
And now I’ll never stop seeinghimwhen I look atme…just like he wanted.
With a keening snarl, I smash my fist into the center of my reflection. The mirror spiderwebs from the impact and then shatters. My knuckles split on contact, and blood speckles the fragments of my ruined image before they go smashing across the counter and explode on the ground. I bite back the roar that wants to rip from my throat and close my eyes against the pain of needing to shift but not being able to. I would give anything to rip through this body and become a massive, enraged, terrifying dragon right now, and yet I’m forever fucking stuck with the horrors etched into the weak, fragile skin of my drake.
