La’Nova’s jaw rolled as the water slid down her spine, pooling around her feet. Her skin burned from the cold, nerves screaming as her heart pounded loud enough to hear it.
“I’m killing him tonight…” Her stomach revolted.
She wanted to purge this week images and information from her brain. Every muscle inside of her knotted with rage, as the cold water forced her into the calmness that Luca preached to her about.
“This for the girl I used to be.” She allowed one tear to slide down her cheek then welcomed another.
“My parents who died begging….” A small sob escaped her throat.
Her next set of words had her covering her mouth. It brought so much pain that she wanted to drop down to her knees and let out a loud wail for Luca. She remembered him falling to his knees in his office, holding him and wiping at his own tears. Luca’s pain rain so deep that, La’Nova could still feel it in her bones.
“This for you too, Luca… maybe you’ll forgive me in another lifetime.” She choked on her hushed words.
The water numbed her skin until she barely felt it anymore. Her breathing slowed, her mind sharpened. She straightened under the spray of cold water and squared her shoulders.
Tonight was what Lennox called initiation night. A night full of humiliation and basically selling her soul to the devil once more. She had all the things she needed inside of the bathroom to prepare her for when she stepped out into her beautiful prison. She thought back to their conversation from earlier.
“Normally a couple of my men would take parts in initiation night,” Lennox stated in a playful dry tone.
“They love the new taste of freshly broken meat. In your case, nothing about you is fresh and you’re too broken beyond hopefulness. My men deserve only but the best, not obesity,” he continued.
“Here I was thinking it was my scar.” La’Nova scoffed, looking up into Lennox’s maniac dark eyes.
“No, the scar makes those big innocent gray eyes look alluring,” He licked his pink lips as his eyes dropped down to her cleavage then the rest of her body. “It’s all that extra greasy meat that makes me wonder if I want to do initiation with you or make one of my men go through with it.”
“I’d prefer if it was you.” La’Nova’s pulse slammed in her neck.
Lennox thought La’Nova was a fool. She knew he was only keeping her alive long enough to get her comfortable. He wanted that playbook and would kill anyone including his own soul to get it.
Soon as La’Nova stepped out of the shower she went into action. Expensive body oils, perfume, and hair supplies sat on the marble countertop. She skipped past it, trailing water along the way until she reached her pack of cigarettes. With calm hands she plucked a cigarette out, lit it and inhaled.
La’Nova looked at her naked drenched body in the mirror. She gazed deeply into her own eyes until she got lost within herself. She had dark sunken bags underneath her eyes. Six hours of sleep in a seven-day time frame had her halfway insane.
The only thing that kept her grounded was the mere thought of freedom. She blinked her eyes, continuing to stare herself in the mirror. The woman that looked back at her longed for just a moment in life where she felt sincerely at peace.
She wanted to learn how to truly love and accept herself. It amazed La’Nova how she battled with herself constantly still coming out victorious between choosing life and death.
The bathroom was quiet in a way that pressed against her ears, making her even more self-aware. Her palms braced against the edge of the counter as tears threatened to spill from the burningsensation of not blinking. She felt stripped bare of excuses and fears of what was to come as soon as she walked out of the door.
This was the past still clawing at her present since her future demanded answers to how she would live moving forward. The whites of her eyes were laced with red, pupils dilated trying to cut through their own reflection.
La’Nova was soul searching. Searching for a version of herself that could survive what was coming. She stared until the mirror felt like a doorway that would release her into another life that didn’t require looking over her shoulders or opening her legs for men that didn’t deserve the treasure between them.
She leaned in closer unintentionally until her breath fogged the glass, distorting the reflection that looked back at her. Her doe-shaped, gray eyes flared, her lips parted as a small, fractured sound escaped them.
“I’m going to succeed,” she murmured.
Her eyes finally blinked slowly. She gazed at herself intentionally. The bathroom around her sharpened into focus as if her senses had recalibrated. Every detail seemed louder now down to the faint hum of the overhead light, the subtle drip from the shower that she had just taken.
La’Nova dropped her cigarette butt into the sink. Her eyes flitted over the counter. She had no backup, no protection, just a creative mind, two hands, two feet, and teeth, which were considered her weapons of choice. She studied the hair supplies to see if one of them would call out to her to serve as some sort of protection.
Lennox said that it would be him to walk her through his evil initiation, but she was far from a fool. Tonight, she was willingto lay her life down on the line to kill him. It didn’t matter to La’Nova if she survived or died. She was going to give tonight all she had within her.
Surviving tonight meant being able to sleep good at night. Avenging her parents wouldn’t make their deaths feel better but it would for sure help her sleep better at night. Not having invisible chains attached to her ankles and wrists was better than looking over her shoulder questioning her freedom.
Her eyes landed on a metal rat-tail comb. With shaky hands, La’Nova reached out to pick it up. She eyed the pointy end of the comb then tried to bend it to see how durable it was. The rest of the items were useless. A plastic wide tooth comb, hard bristle brush, along with gel, edge control, and plastic black rubber bands.
She stuck the rat-tail comb through her shriveled up wet hair then picked up the leave in conditioner. She squeezed the leave in conditioner into her palm just as the bathroom light snapped off. Dark swallowed the room in one clean breath.
