Page 9

nine

T here’s something stuck to my face.

I can feel it with every exhale; the way the light material flutters over my nose and comes to rest on my skin when I inhale. My nose twitches, and I scrunch my face to get it to fall off.

But it doesn’t go anywhere, and I feel it stick against my skin, just above my eyebrows.

Opening my eyes with a groan, I feel myself going cross-eyed to look at whatever’s blocking half of my vision. My hand comes up, and I immediately snatch the small Post-It note off my face as I sit up.

Only to discover that the Post-It note is the least of my concern.

“What the fuck ?!” I snarl, looking down at myself. I’m completely naked, and as soon as I realize what’s dried on the curves of my hips and my inner thighs, the ache in my lower body sets in, a soreness I know all too well.

“Fuck,” I grumble, falling back onto the bed. “This is so fucked up.” Closing my eyes, I crunch up the Post-It note in my hand without looking at it, and let out an exhale.

Well, at least I’m not dead. Which was exactly how I’d expected to wake up, or…not wake up, as the case may be. The sticky note in my fingers finally makes me look over at it, and I pull it apart, separating the paper from itself so it’s legible.

I’m not sorry about the mess. See you soon, little bunny

P.S. I’ll kill your neighbor if she knocks on your damn door one more time.

P.P.S. Mi-da-zo-lam

I snort at the postscript, and wad up the note once more to chuck it across the room. The cloudiness in my head is fading, replaced with a disgusting clarity of the night before. Specifically, of Huxley terrorizing me in my house for the better part of an hour that ended in him drugging me.

And fucking me.

Apparently, he hadn’t stopped, even after I passed out. I don’t remember him finishing, and by the looks of me…he did so more than once.

The jolt in my stomach is definitely revulsion and distaste, I tell myself as I shove to my knees. My face curls in disgust at the feeling of his dried cum on my thighs, and I’m quick to walk into my ensuite bathroom and turn on the shower without looking in the mirror. I really, really don’t need to see what I look like right now. Especially not when I’m still unsure of how I feel about this.

Well, okay, I’m grateful he didn’t murder me. Pretty thrilled, in fact, that I get to spend another day on this earth that I share with Patrice.

But the rest of it?

I should feel revolted, I tell myself as I get into the shower. Normally I wash my hair first, but today I grab my sponge and dump way more soap on it than I could ever need.

I should feel disgusted. That’s my thought as I scrub my skin until it’s covered in a soapy lather. I’m not quite as much of a mess as I originally thought, though I definitely scrub more than once before moving to my hair and doing it all again.

I should not remember his stupid humor, or his lack of a temper, even though I tried my best to get away from him and cracked him in the face at one point. I shouldn’t remember the rough dominance of his first kiss, or the honey sweet taste of the second.

“You’ve got to get a boyfriend, Kai,” I tell myself as I scrub conditioner out of my hair. “Seriously, this is getting pretty pathetic. He’s a murderer.” My words echo back to me in the shower, and I glare up at the porcelain wall in front of me as hot water streams down my body.

One of my hands splays over my stomach, fingers outstretched, as I press lightly with my palm. I’m sore, but not in a damaged way. More like in a well-fucked way.

Too bad I didn’t get to enjoy it.

“No, bad Kai,” I admonish myself before I can continue with that thought. “That is not what we think of in this situation.” I should be glad I was asleep instead of conscious. I should be thrilled I didn’t feel him come inside me, or on me, or…anything.

I shouldn’t be disappointed that I passed out halfway through.

A terrible curiosity floods my brain as I turn the knob, the water pressure lessening before finally the stream stops altogether. Did he enjoy me being asleep? Was it better, or worse that way?

Did I do anything embarrassing ?

Once again, I remind myself, that’s not the issue at hand. Nearly slipping on the bathroom floor, I make it back to my room unscathed, wrapped in a towel so I can dry off while looking for clothes. Not that I do much more than grab the first comfortable thing I find, and I end up in a pair of loose PJ pants and a t-shirt that’s faded to hell but I’m pretty sure is for a band I never even listened to.

Finally, I feel comfortable enough to glare at myself in the bathroom mirror. I swipe my hand over it to clear some of the fog from the shower steam, and when I look at myself, I just…sigh.

It’s just me.

Still just plain old Kai. I look the same, with dark circles under my eyes that might as well be tattooed there. My auburn hair is soaked and plastered to my head, making me look like some kind of half-drowned animal. The ache in my abdomen is still there, still prevalent, but I’m pretty sure Tylenol, a heating pad, and last night’s nachos will absolutely cure that.

If not, then three cans of Dr. Pepper will probably do the trick.

The doorbell ringing barely surprises me, and I roll my eyes up at the ceiling as if hoping for an act of God to strike Patrice dead. I’m surprised she waited longer than it took the sun to rise to be over here, so I grab my phone from the nightstand where it was oh-so-kindly put to charge and shove it in my pocket before walking down the hallway toward the living room.

Everything really looks exactly the same. Even with the chase, we hadn’t really made a mess, and the place isn’t trashed. Nothing is missing, and nothing seems to be broken. Maybe Huxley really is the world’s most considerate home-invader.

Or serial killer.

Another ring of my doorbell makes me wonder how hard it would be to short circuit the thing, and I groan before opening it with a sharp, inward motion. “Good morning, Patrice,” I greet with a sigh, folding my arms and leaning against my doorway. “How may I help you this fine morning?” God, I don’t want anything to do with her, and I’m so tempted to tell her to fuck off that it’s unreal.

But I’d rather order food than deal with some made up HOA fine, so I plaster a smile on my face that I’m sure looks just as fake as it feels. Especially judging by her unamused, pinched expression.

“We need to talk,” my least favorite person in the world now that my uncle’s dead informs me. She looks tired, like she hadn’t slept, and I wonder just how long she spent peering out her window, trying to catch me in the act of something fine-able.

“Do we?” I murmur, pressing my fingers to the bridge of my nose. “Do we have to ?” But judging by the set of her lips and the glare in her eyes, the answer is yes.

Already I wish I was still in bed, still unconscious, and deaf to the Patrice-problems of the world.