199

Serafina

It won't come off. That feeling of other people's hands on me. Men's hands. Their spit. Their semen. No matter how hard I scrub at my skin, it

won't fucking come off.

"Shit. Sera! What the fuck are you doing?"

I jumped when I heard Enzo's voice. "I can't get clean." Desperately, I looked up at him through the clear glass door of the shower. "I can't get clean!" My voice rose in panic.

He opened the door and grabbed my unhurt wrist, stopping my frantic movements. "What the fuck is this? What is this?" Wrestling the loofah out of my hand, he brought it to his nose. "What's on here?"

I started to cry as he searched the bottles in the shower until he found the bleach cleanser I'd found under the bathroom sink that I was now using as soap.

"Get under the water," he ordered as he took off his shoes and socks.

"But I'm not clean!"

"Under the fucking water, Sera." Fully clothed in jeans and a T-shirt, he got into the shower with me, taking up so much space he forced me to move back under the spray.

"I'm not clean," I sputtered as the water rushed over my head and down my face and body.

"You're not dirty," he ground out, and I looked up to find honesty in his dark eyes. "Sera, you are not dirty." But no matter what he believed, he was wrong. I would never feel clean again. And it had nothing to do with how many times I showered.

I felt the screams begin to rise inside of me and I tried with everything I had to suppress them, to think about something else. I was here now, with Enzo. He wouldn't let anything happen to me. Not again. I wasn't in that house anymore. I was back in Texas. In Austin. Enzo had saved me. Everything was okay.

It didn't work. Like a volcano that had lain dormant for too long, they pushed and swelled inside of me until they were leaking through the seam of my lips, no matter how hard I tried to keep them inside.

"Sera, look at me. LOOK at me."

Desperate now, I pressed my lips tighter together and found his eyes. They locked onto mine and wouldn't let me go.

"You're not in that house anymore. You're with me. You're safe." His voice was low and soothing, and I concentrated on what he was telling me. "Part of what's going on with you is that you're coming down off the drugs they gave you, and things might be a little crazy until they wear off completely. That's to be expected when they're given to you so consistently for so many days in a row."

I had no idea if that was true or if he was feeding me a bunch of bullshit, but I hung onto his words like they were a lifeline.

"Are you hearing me?"

I nodded my head and tried to answer him, but I was afraid to open my mouth. He took my face in his hands and kept talking to me. He pointed out things for me to look at, things for me to touch, placing my hands on his chest over the wet fabric of his T-shirt. Kissing the palms of my hands. The inside of my wrists until the panic inside of me began to subside.

I flinched when he innocently twisted the one my captor had yanked on. Enzo caught the movement and stilled. "Are you hurt?"

"Just my wrist," I whispered, trying to hold it up.

A murderous rage came into his expressive eyes as he eyed the developing bruises. "Who did that to you?"

"It was just an accident."

"Did you fall on it?"

Unable to look at him, I shook my head. I hadn't fallen. But I don't think he'd meant to hurt me.

"Someone hurt you." It wasn't a question.

"It was an accident," I repeated. "I don't think he meant to do it. He was just trying to get me up, and the drugs..." I trailed off.

"Who was it, Sera?" His voice was deceptively calm.

"I didn't know his name, but I think he's dead now," I told him, and frowned. "I think you killed him." I paused. "He never really hurt me before. Not that I can remember. He worked in the house. Dealt with the…" Rapists. "…customers. But I'm still glad he's dead."

He didn't say anything for a really long time. Beneath my palms, I could feel his body vibrating with anger that I wasn't capable of feeling yet, although I'm sure it would come. However, right now, I couldn't feel anything other than the residues of panic. Leaving my hands on his shirt, he rubbed my upper arms. "How you doing?"

"I'm not sure."

"You're still shaking," he told me. Then he suddenly changed the subject. "Tell me about what your life was like growing up."

I frowned. "W-What?" My skin burned where I'd scrubbed myself and his hands hurt where he touched me, but I felt like he was the only thing keeping me from falling down the spiral of my hysteria.

He picked up the bottle of shampoo and squeezed some into his palm. "Growing up. I wanna know what you were like when you were a little girl." Lathering it up in his hands, he started washing my hair. "What's your natural hair color?"

"My hair?" I was having a hard time keeping up with the conversation. I tried to concentrate on what he was saying.

"Yeah, your hair. Is it blonde? Red? Brown?"

"Um…" I tried to think back. "It was really light when I was little. But then it turned kind of dishwater blonde when I was a teenager."

"How long have you been coloring it?"

My eyes closed as his strong fingers massaged my scalp. "I didn't. Not until I came here."

"And you chose pink. Lean your head back."

I did as he told me, grateful to have someone else take over the task of washing me because it was everything I could do right now just to keep my panic in check. "I like pink."

"I like pink, too," he said quietly. "Especially on you."

Once the shampoo was rinsed, he conditioned my hair as I stood there like some kind of broken doll, moving only when he directed me to do so. The entire time, he talked, keeping me distracted and not allowing my mind to wander too much. He asked me questions. Told me stories about things he and his friends had done when they were younger that sounded too outrageous to be real.

"Your clothes are getting wet."

He blew off my concern. "They'll dry," he said.

I looked at this man, a man I barely knew, really. A man who was hard and dangerous. A killer. And yet, here he stood in the shower with me as I fought not to break into a million pieces, taking care of me. He'd found me all the way in Mexico. And not only that, he'd come after me himself and brought me home. I knew he'd killed everyone who was in that house, and I didn't care. I was glad.

What kind of person did that make me?

"Ready to get out?"

I blinked, pulling myself from my thoughts. "Yeah." The water was starting to cool down, and I shivered.