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“No,” I shout too loudly. “No do-doctors, please.”
“Mara.” He sounds genuinely petrified and so incredibly guilty. “You’re hurt.”
“No, I’m no-not.” I drag my hand across my thigh, wiping away the droplet of blood my attacker’s nails caused my skin. “It is barely a sc-scratch. I’ll be fine.”
I wobble unsteadily when memories surface faster than I can shut them down.
Those were similar to the words my father said to my mother when she found the bruises and grab marks Dr. Babkin left behind the first time he raped me.
It isn’t that he didn’t believe me, more that he was happy to use Dr. Babkin’s marks to hide his own felonious acts.
Confident I am seconds from being sick, I issue Ark a weak smile before racing through the exit Rafael used moments ago.
Ark shouts for me to stop, but I can’t. I’m too trapped in the horrors of my past to keep my secrets to myself, and I don’t want their ugliness to change how he looks at me.
25
ARKADIY
The popped buttons I anticipated seeing in Mara’s shirt occur to mine when I dress in a hurry. I stuff the crinkled hem into the trousers I pull on sans underwear before I stuff my sockless feet into the shoes I toed off on my way to the shower.
I wasn’t showering to imbed more of Mara’s scent into my skin. I was trying to man the fuck up. The only time I ever achieve that is in a bathroom, so I was hopeful a ten-minute head soak would pull my head out of my ass enough to stop me from doing something stupid that would hurt Mara.
Unintentional or not, that was never my aim.
I want to protect her, not cause her more harm.
I may have lost the chance now.
I’m out of the servants’ exit in under thirty seconds and racing down the corridor, my feet thumping as much as my fist when I threw it into Paarth’s face.
I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did. Violence is rarely the solution, but fury engulfed me when I noticed how Paarth was towering over Mara while tears glistened in her eyes and she pleaded for more than her virtue.
Tillie was featured multiple times during her begs.
As was another name I tried to pry from her the night we met.
I don’t know the whereabouts of Dr. Babkin, but I do know one thing.
When I find him, he’s a dead man.
The anger in Darius’s eyes when he notices my approach announces that Paarth’s punishment is far from over. The promise in his narrowed gaze frees me to follow the direction of his head nudge. He jerks it toward a pre-war elevator I didn’t know this building had until now.
Mara’s sniffles quieten when my hand shoots between the steel doors, stopping them from closing. I move to the far left of the elevator almost too small for two before entering, ensuring there is plenty of space for her to exit if she so wishes.
The tightness in my jaw slackens when she doesn’t immediately flee. She hogs the panel like one push of a button will pop open the doors, her eyes facing the front.
I hate her shakes when the elevator doors close before it commences its descent. They cut me to pieces, but since they couldn’t create one-tenth of the damage already done to my body, I accept them without protest before encouraging more.
“Don’t touch me-me,” Mara pleads when she hears my steps, the quick return of her stutter doubling my fury.
“I’m not going to touch you.” She doesn’t respond, but she must believe me, because she doesn’t issue another plea for distance for my next steps. “I just want to offer you support.”
“I’m okay. I-I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. Stop saying you are fine. That man tried to brutalize you.” I can barely get the words through my clenched teeth, but I continue since I know she needs to hear this. “That isnotsomething you need to be okay with. What he did to you isnotokay.”
“He di-didn’t do an-anything.”