Page 14

After what I'd just survived, I should look… I wasn't sure. Traumatized?

This was the classic scene in a suspense movie where the actress stared at her face in the mirror after the shit hit the fan. Usually her cheeks were gaunt, her eyes dark and hollow, her hair a rat's nest of knots.

I placed my palms on the smooth countertop and leaned in closer, because I didn't trust what I was seeing. WTF?

Between the bright flush on my cheeks, the dark pink of my swollen lips, the smeared eye makeup that passed for a smoky eye, and my windswept curls, I resembled an over-sexualized heroine. Even the torn collar of my dress exposing just the top of my lace bra seemed more a calculated decision than an accident.

I should look traumatized.

A normal person would look traumatized.

I backed away from the mirror until I hit the far wall. I slowly slid down to the floor, watching my reflection disappear from view. With my knees curled up to my chest, I stared at the hazy swirls of white trapped inside the hard black marble.

Every step of the way, I'd been controlled, manipulated, bullied, and dominated into obeying Sebastian. He'd even chosen the clothes on my back.

He determined everything.

If this had happened to me a few months ago in New York, I would be in the fetal position right now. Buying into the weak and vulnerable narrative my mother had drilled into my head since I was a child.

But that wasn't what had happened.

I rose and crossed to the mirror.

Again, I stared at my reflection. The reflection of a badass female who fought back.

I tilted my head to the left, then to the right, trying to assess this new internal image of myself.

And that was when I saw it… The blood.

Just under my jaw on the right side, splattered along my neck and into the collar of my dress. Still tacky and warm.

Blood ruthlessly shed by Sebastian.

With a cry, I grasped the rock crystal soap dispenser and slammed it into the mirror. Right in the center of my reflection. The mirror cracked and splintered into a jagged spiderweb. Just like the back window in the car…when the first bullet hit.

A grim sense of satisfaction ripped through me. I hit it again.

A sharp knock on the bathroom door made me turn my head so quickly that my neck kinked.

A rush of hot blood just under the skin raced up my neck to the back of my skull at the sound of Sebastian’s voice calling through the door. "Sabrina?"

I stood there rubbing the side of my neck. Silent.

He knocked again. Harder this time. The doorknob rattled.

Then he banged on the door. "Sabrina! Open this door. Now."

I shook my head as if he could see me through the thick wood.

The doorknob rattled a second time.

Then a loud thud shook the door on its hinges.

My body started at the sound.

Another thud.

The air in my lungs seized as my fingers curled around the rock crystal dispenser, its pointed edges cutting into my palm.