My eyes lose focus again, wandering around the room, taking in every insignificant thing. It’s all new stuff, stuff I haven’t seen in three whole months, and it frightens me. The bed is too soft. The pillows are too firm. The ocean beyond too stark, too bright even in the moonlight.
The fact that Jase is just outside of the door is too much for me to bear.
“You won’t let him in here, will you?” I ask, finding Elliot again in the dim light. His shoulders sag, the muscles in his arms tense. I can feel the waves of frustration pouring off him and it scares me.
“What happened to you?” Elliot asks, and that makes me angry. How dare he ask me that question? I choke on a horrified sob as I push him away from me.
“Don’t you know?” I ask shrilly. “Can’t you see?” But then I remember he hasn’t seen what Dornan did to my stomach. Hasn’t seen the mess of barely healing flesh, the top layers violently stripped from me with a knife and cruel smile, as I screamed and begged for Dornan to stop. He hasn’t seen the scars inside my elbow, the secret map that marks out my descent from control to absolute chaos and dependency. He hasn’t felt the being inside me, making itself known with ill-timed prods and nudges that make me feel ill. I’m still wearing the stupid white sundress Dornan put me in, the one that has stretchy elastic at the sides. I lift it up, the exact same movement I made all those months ago when I asked Elliot to ink over the scars Dornan and his sons left on me. Those seven horizontal etches in my skin, the ones Elliot covered with his beautiful tattoo, are gone. It’s all gone, now, in its place something so grotesque I’m not even sure how to describe it.
“It’s gone,” I say numbly. “He cut it all away.”
There’s a strangled noise in the back of a throat, and it takes me a moment to realize the sound comes from Elliot, not me. His face falls; he swats my hands away from where they hold my dress up, causing the material to waft back down and settle above my knees. He pulls me close to him, smothering me in his embrace. I fight for a moment, until I remember I don’t want to fight; I don’t want him to go away. I don’t want to be alone. My entire body is shaking, poised on tenterhooks at what comes next. Stuck in limbo, stuck on this motherfucking boat that seems to be circumnavigating hell itself.
“We’re going to fix you,” Elliot says, drawing back and cupping my face in his hands. “Do you understand? We’re going to fix you, and then we’re going to kill that motherfucker. Do you hear me, Julz?”
My eyes well with fresh tears and I can’t see him until I blink them away. I nod vacantly; I hear him.
I hear him, but I’m not sure if I believe him.
Dornan Ross is not a man who will die easily.
Elliot leaves me eventually. Leaves me to be alone to stare at the choppy water outside. It’s settled a little, but it is still raining, and my window half submerged in the sea.
There’s a soft knock at the door. My heart leaps into my throat and I spin around, backing myself against the wall. I’m expecting Jase to have snuck in here, but it’s The Prospect. Luis, as Elliot referred to him.
I swallow thickly as I watch him enter the room, closing the door softly behind him. His movements are slow and cautious, his face friendly¸ and I get the feeling he’s moving around on eggshells while he figures out what kind of state I’m in. I must have that crazy bitch look on my face, I guess. Who knows?
He’s got clothes in his hands, folded, on top of them one of those TV dinners wrapped in silver foil. The smell makes me want to eat and be sick at the same time, and I’m confused as to whether I’m starving or nauseous. I guess I’m both.
He holds the clothes and food out to me before putting them on the foot of the bed.
“You should eat something.” He fishes something out of the pocket of his jacket and tosses it on the bed. A fork.
“Thank you,” I whisper, looking between his bright blue eyes and the food.
“The clothes are probably too big,” he says. He talks more softly here than he did back at Emilio’s compound.
“You killed Emilio,” I say suddenly.
He grins, nodding. “Yeah, mamacita. Yeah, I did.” He runs his tongue over his top teeth and watches me. He’s hovering, I suddenly realize. He wants to ask me something, or tell me something; I’m not sure which. My stomach roils at the thought Jase might be the subject he’s here for.
“Did Jason send you in here?” I ask harshly.
He quirks his eyebrows. “Nah, Giulietta. Your Romeo wouldn’t dare come near you in the state you’re in.”