His Property(17)

But all he did was stare at me, his eyes cold, his shoulders pushed back. He looked nothing like the Liam I thought I knew, nothing like the man who’d touched the scars on my legs and told me I was beautiful until I believed it. Nothing like the man who had told me he was falling in love with me.

“Take care of yourself, Emery.”

And then he was gone.

As soon as the door shut behind him, I rushed to it, peering through the peephole. But the peephole only showed what was right in front of me, not anything down the hallway in either direction. I wanted to open the door, to watch him, the back of his suit disappearing, was hungry for one last look at him, desperate for a few more seconds.

But my pride kept me rooted to the spot.

I tipped my forehead against the door, feeling the cool, smooth surface against my hot skin. I pulled at my dress, which suddenly felt scratchy and too tight.

I reached behind me and pulled at it, but the fabric wouldn’t budge. I clawed at it, ripping the back, and stumbled into the bathroom, where I turned the shower on and turned the tap all the way over to cold.

I pulled the dress over my head and stepped into the water, taking long deep breaths. The water beaded off my arms, and I stayed under the spray so long that when I glanced down, my arms were covered in goose bumps.

All except my stomach, which was mottled and red. I touched it, but my fingers were numb, and so I couldn’t really feel it.

Was this was a panic attack felt like? My heart was pounding and my stomach was churning, but there was a weird disassociation I was feeling from my own body, as if I was wearing some kind of protective suit.

I sat down in the tub, letting the shower water pound down on me, still not feeling anything, letting my body get as numb as my emotions from the cold water that poured over me.

I wasn’t sure how long had passed.

Fifteen minutes, thirty minutes, sixty…?

I got out and stood in front of the mirror. My hair hung loosely around my shoulders, dripping wet, and water pooled around my feet on the floor. My haunted eyes stared back at me, and my lips had a bluish tint to them. There were red marks on my chest, and I reached up and touched them.

Hives.

I’d never had them before, but I recognized them from the time Maddie had an allergic reaction to some strawberries she hadn’t realized had been in a smoothie we’d gotten from the student union  .

The look of myself shocked me out of whatever reverie I’d been in.

“Jesus,” I murmured, rubbing my wet hair violently with a fresh towel, wrapping myself in the fluffy robe that hung on the back of the door. It helped a little bit, but I was still shivering.

There was a knock on my hotel room door, and when I opened it, my things were sitting there on the floor. Whoever had delivered it must have beat a hasty retreat.

Had it been Gustav, I wondered, or just a random employee of the hotel? My purse was there, my cell phone peeking out of the top. Next to it was my computer and my books, and the suitcase that had been packed for me by Francine just this morning.

There was a sealed envelope taped to the top of the suitcase, with my name printed on it in hastily scrawled capital letters.

I picked it up and slid my finger under the sealed flap, my heart pounding in anticipation. But there was no note – the only thing inside was a plane ticket and five one hundred dollar bills. The bills were held together with a silver money clip bearing Liam’s initials in the same script that decorated the handkerchiefs he used.

Under the clip was a tiny rectangular piece of card stock. For food and travel was slashed across the stock in black pen. The ‘l’ at the end of ‘travel’ was slightly smudged, as if he’d been in such a hurry to get rid of the note that he’d shoved it under the money clip so fast the ink hadn’t even dried.

Traveling money, I thought. Leave it to Liam to think that someone would need five hundred dollars to get home.

I checked my purse. Everything was there – my license, my debit card, the twenty-seven dollars in cash I’d had when he’d grabbed me that night. I remembered the number because I always remembered how much cash I had on me. There were two ten dollar bills, a five dollar bill, and two ones. I always preferred small bills, ever since I was younger, since they made me feel like there was more money. It was silly, but somehow it worked.

An hour later, hair dried, wearing jeans and a fitted white t-shirt, phone charged, I headed down to the casino shops to try to find something I could buy to sleep in – my California suitcase only contained the lingerie Liam required me sleep in, and there was no way I was wearing that -- and maybe something to wear on the plane home tomorrow.

The stores were mostly high-end places, with names I’d never heard of and clothes that wouldn’t fit me since I was bigger than a size eight.