Torture to Her Soul
Page 28

And somebody's going to pay for it.
I struggle taking off the sweaty, stolen scrubs I'm still wearing, stripping out of them, leaving them in a pile on the floor. I start the shower, letting the water warm up, as my gaze surveys the white bandage on my side. I pick at the surgical tape, tearing it from my skin. I get it halfway off when there's a light tap on the bathroom door, my name softly called out before it opens.
From the corner of my eye, I see Karissa hesitate when she sees me standing here completely naked, but it only stalls her for a second. I'm still picking at the tape, hissing as I try to rip the bandage off, when she walks over and pushes my hands out of the way.
"Let me get that," she says, gently plucking it from my skin, making a face as she discards the bandage in the trashcan. I step over and survey the damage in the mirror. The wound in front is small, a perfect circle where the bullet sliced through the skin, but the back looks like it exploded out of me. The jagged, misshapen hole was haphazardly sutured closed.
"Oh God," Karissa whispers. "That's horrible."
"It's not so bad," I say. "It'll heal quickly. It'll all heal. A few days, and I won't feel it anymore. A week or two, and all I'll be left with are some new scars."
I turn away from her and climb into the shower, not bothering to close the curtain, not caring that I splash water all out on the floor. I'm too exhausted to care about anything today. I expect Karissa to leave me in peace, to walk back out the door, but instead she strolls closer to the shower. "Can I help you?"
"I don't know," I say. "Can you?"
She hesitates, wavering for a moment, before reaching for the hem of her tank top and pulling it off, tossing it to the floor with my clothes. I turn my head, closing my eyes, and let out a deep sigh as she undresses right beside me. I don't look—I can't. She steps into the shower behind me, her hands instantly running up my spine, sending a shiver through my body.
It's agony.
It's not in my nature to let anyone take care of me. I don't like relying on others for anything. But something inside of me breaks at the feel of her hands on my skin, her presence around me, as she tugs the shower curtain closed, casting the two of us in shadows.
She washes me as I stand there, gently cleaning the blood from around my wounds with a soft cloth, trying her damnedest not to hurt me any more. I stand under the spray letting the water rain down on me for a while, neither of us speaking, before the dizziness gets to be too much. Pulling away from her, I sit down on the edge of the tub, leaning my head against the tile wall.
She steps in front of me, under the spray of the water, and gazes down at me. No matter how hard I try not to look, my gaze rakes up her body, drinking in every inch of her frame, before meeting her eyes.
She says nothing.
I don't know what I'm supposed to say.
Instead, I wrap my arms around her, pulling her to me, my head resting against her stomach. She runs her hands through my hair, caressing it, as I close my eyes, letting myself, for the moment, feel it.
Feel it all.
Every bit of it.
Everything I avoid, and push back, and ignore.
I'm in love with the one woman I should never have fallen for.
We're a tragedy in the making. The game of tug-of-war we're playing will end up destroying us, because she doesn't have it in her to surrender, and I can't let go.
It's something else I love about her.
There's a fight in her.
But it's a fight that'll be our downfall.
Because I have that same fight in me.
We still don't speak. I hold her, until the water starts to run cold, a chill in the air making a shiver run through her. She pulls away from me, slips out of my arms, and climbs out of the shower. I sit there for a while longer, listening to her walk out of the bathroom, before reaching over and turning off the water.
I give myself one more day.
That's it.
Just one more, before the paranoia gets to be too much and I can't just lay around anymore.
I put on my brave face and force myself back on my feet. There's hell to pay with each small step I take, but I keep making steps despite it.
It feels like there's burning lava in my gut.
I grit my teeth and don't let it show, even when my vision gets hazy, even when my head feels dizzy, even when the pain makes my knees want to buckle beneath me.
Karissa isn't in the bedroom.
It's dusk, I think, or maybe it's nearing dawn. I'm not sure anymore. All I know is the house feels dark. Too dark. I lost hours, too many hours, hours that left me exposed and vulnerable. A nagging feeling continually hounds me, the silence deafening in her absence.
At first I think she's gone, but light streaming out from the bathroom pushes those thoughts back down inside of me. I find the bathroom door cracked open a bit and I push it open further, glancing inside.
She's in the bathtub.
I lean against the doorframe and watch her for a moment. The water teaming with bubbles shields the most intimate places of her body, but I can see enough for my imagination to take over.
Once again, I'm struck by how beautiful she is.
The relief of her presence is enough to dull some of the pain, at least temporarily. She's so ingrained in my life these days, burrowed so deep in my heart, that I think killing her now would really be the death of me.
I managed to survive last time love ripped me apart.
I don't know if I can survive that again.
And that's what Ray doesn't understand, I think.