“Yeah,” I told him. “Let’s go with that.”
“You haven’t read through the information.”
I sighed, glanced over it, and told him again. “We’re doing the chin implant.”
He handed me yet another stack of pages. “The lips are the most complicated, but before you look over them, here is how you’ll look with the changes so far.” He put a picture of me as I am now on the left hand side of his screen, the modified picture of me in the center, and what I assumed to be Christine’s driver’s license photo on the right side of the screen.
“Your lips are full, hers are thin. He says they’d never manage to make her lips look as good as yours while fixing a face damaged in a snow-skiing accident. I suggested you change everything else, and if anyone asks you can claim to have started getting injections to plump your lips up, like the stars do, only not as exaggerated.”
He motioned towards the pages in my hands, and I saw why he was reluctant for me to go this route. Making my lips thinner made me… not as attractive.
I took a breath and thought it through logically instead of emotionally. “If I’m taking on her identity, this isn’t about vanity, but survival.” I motioned towards his screen and said, “Show me all the lip options he provided, one by one, with about five seconds between each.”
I hated them all, but vanity couldn’t be the deciding factor. If I was going to change identities, I needed to do it right. Not ready to decide on the lips, I told him, “Go back to my lips and let me see what you have so far with the third nose, instead of the second.”
I shook my head and waved him back to the second nose. “It won’t add that much time to my recovery, since I’m doing the chin implant. May as well do it right.”
I showed him the printed page with the lips I thought most looked like hers. “If I was advising someone else, I’d go with these, but I want to talk to the doctor and see if he has any other ideas. Also, whether my lips, as they are, could plausibly be hers with injections.”
He nodded, saved the image, typed up some notes, closed his laptop, and put it on the coffee table.
“When Duke gets here tomorrow I’m going to need to get some work done, which means it’ll be the two of you, with me in another room. I need him to like and trust you, so he’ll let me stay in charge when he brings someone else in.” He tilted my chin up, forcing me to look him in the eyes. I glared at him as he asked, “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yeah. How do I know he won’t treat me like Bash?”
“You smart off to him too much, try to attack him, or make another escape attempt, he may very well treat you worse, and I won’t have the authority to stop him. I can try to talk reason to him, but… he’s our president, and it won’t be up for a vote.”
“Yeah, okay. I get it. Make Duke like me.”
“Good.” He smiled, tilted his head. “We need to decide what to call you. Crystal is close to Christine, but if you want to pick another long term name, now’s probably the time.”
* * * *
Brain
She sighed and said, “I want to be Destiny. Crystal was only because it was a play on words with Ice.” She was quiet, thinking, and I didn’t interrupt her thoughts. Finally, she asked, “What’s her middle name?”
“Grace.”
Her smile was huge as she said, “If I can’t have Destiny or Faith, Grace is almost perfect. If I’m going for a new beginning, it should be with a name I’ve never used before.”
I nodded. “Grace it is, then. I’m always going to think of you as Ice, but I can get used to Grace. Besides, it almost rhymes. Sort of.” She didn’t look convinced, so I laughed and said, “Fine, it ends in the same syllable. Picky.”
She smiled back, and my heart almost melted. Was this the first happy smile she’d directed towards me? Shit. I needed to do to more so I could see it — her entire face lit up. She was always beautiful, but when she smiled? Damn. I was okay with a different nose and chin, but I really wanted her to keep her lips. And her eyes. Bash had told me her eyes creeped him out, but they just endeared her to me all the more.
Chapter Ten
Ice
I was so tired as I climbed into bed, I didn’t complain as he locked the wrist and ankle cuffs onto me, and then locked them to the bedrails.
Brain had kept his back turned while I undressed before getting into the shower, and then had sat on the floor and let me take as long as I wanted under the glorious warm water. He’d handed me a towel over the curtain when I finished, and then turned his back so I could get out and put his shirt back on.