The moment we’re inside, he abandons my wrist and leaves me standing at the entrance.
He moves for the double metal-framed bed in the far corner. It’s wedged up against the wall, just like the one across from it, with a barred window between them.
Samick grabs the bedframe, then slides it effortlessly down the room, closer to me in the entryway.
There’s no cell door. Like those gates in movies, or the metal ones for extra fucked up prisoners. It’s just an open doorway.
Must be one of those with a sliding door, another automated one in this block.
Maybe the whole prison is like this.
The shout of unsteady metal jolts to a stop. Samick has pushed the frame against the wall, an arm’s reach from me, and—from the top bunk—he gathers blankets and flimsy pillows.
As he makes the bottom bed, I consider the cell.
It’s more spacious than I imagined a prison cell would be. But it has a toilet, a metal sink, and two double bunk beds.
Been a long time since I slept on a bed. Even if the mattress is thin and the blankets are coarse, it’s better than the grass and the graves and the rocks I’ve been sleeping on.
But what snags me is the window.
Long and narrow, metal bars are checkered over it to prevent escape—but I still see it.
A wisp of pallor, of freckles, of blue like cold diamonds…
It’s me.
I wander closer to my barred reflection—but I make it just two steps before I’m yanked back into a solid chest.
Anoomphis pushed out of me.
Samick’s hand is flat and firm on my middle, pinning me to him.
Arching my neck, I scowl up at his icy face.
His upper lip curls. “Do not get close to the window,” he says it like it’s obvious.
And it is.
Hail could shatter that glass at any moment, and there I was, distracted by the possibility of seeing my own face for the first time in…
Too long.
How long exactly, I’m not sure.
Months, at least.
An entire winter—but longer, because we travelled north into parts of Canada that don’t thaw.
We chased the winter, then down its tail into a wet season.
My period is what throws me.
I’ve had it once since Samick basically kidnapped me. But I know I’ve been with him a lot longer than a single cycle. And before him, my period was all out of whack in the blackout.
Stress, I told myself.
But now…
