Page 54 of Under Your Scars

I.Am.Not.Christian.Reeves.

CHAPTER 16

THE ANGEL

When I wake up, my head isthrobbing.

My apartment is a mess. Snacks, a tequila bottle, and dirty tissues litter my kitchen. My red dress is in shreds on the floor.

What the fuck happened last night?

I remember taking off my dress, and eating until I felt sick to my stomach, and I briefly remember waking up in the middle of the night shivering because I was naked, but otherwise, nothing seems out of place or abnormal despite the gaps in my memory. I stumble to the bathroom, where I cringe when I see myself in the mirror.

I look, and smell, andfeellike shit.

I take a shower and brush my teeth,twice, because I feelthatgross.

It’s only when I emerge from the shower that my eyes finally focus on the world around me, and I let out a shriek when I notice a giant bruise on the curve of my neck. I slap at it with my hands as if that will make it go away, but any hopes I had of it being some rogue makeup disintegrate when I notice fuckingteethmarks.

My stomach curdles then, and I lean over the toilet just in time to empty my guts out. When I look back up in the mirror and get ready to brush my teeth for the third time, my lip begins to quiver and a few tears escape my eyes.

I bang my fists on the counter. “Why me?”

I know it was the Silencer. I have the sneaking suspicion that it’s not the only thing he did to me. My fingers graze between my legs, poking to try and find any physical evidence that I was touched by him, but I’m not sore and there’s no burning. I even take a hand mirror and double check, but I don’t see anything that would lead me to believe he took advantage of me last night. I find it hard to believe he fuckingbit melike a savage and did nothing else to me.

I’m going to give that bastard hell the next time I see him.

My stomach hurts and I can’t drink enough water to quench my thirst. Clean and fresh, I make my way to my freezer and pull out two frozen sausage croissants and stick them in the microwave. While I’m waiting for them to heat up, there’s a knock on my door.I flip my hair over my neck to cover the bruise.

I open it, and a sweet older man greets me. “Elena Young?”

“That’s me.” My eye twitches when he hands me a beautiful arrangement of purple and white roses wrapped in ivory parchment paper. I close the door and notice a tiny purple envelope is taped to the bouquet. I rip it open to find expensive parchment paper embossed with the Reeves monogram inside, with Christian’s neat handwriting scribbled across the page.

I’m sorry.

I throw the note in the trash. I scoff when I find twenty missed calls from him and a dozen texts that get increasingly more desperate between last night and this morning.

Christian makes my insides twist in all the wrong ways, and if he thinks some flowers will heal the ache in my chest, he’s dead wrong.

I had to cut up my favorite turtleneck sweater to turn it into a makeshift crop-top to hide the bite mark on my neck, because makeup did nothing to cover the deep purple bruise.

Just another thing to my list of grievances against our resident homicidal maniac.

Every night when I arrive at the club, there’s always a moment of tension right as I walk through the doors. I always expect Frank has somehow tied the Silencer’s retaliation back to me and will punish me for it.

Thankfully, Frank has been keeping to himself atop the Hellfire Lounge. He hasn’t had me come up there since his friends were killed, which doesn’t make me feel any better. It only makes me feel like he’s plotting his revenge.

Kate and I have bonded a lot since I started. At first, I didn’t think she liked me because I kept stealing all her tips. She was short with me like the other girls here, but after I was forced to work naked, I think she realized that I wasn’t her enemy. She’s become my sister in a really fucked up ‘we’re prisoners here but pretend we’re not’ sort of way. I asked her about covering for me the other night when I missed my shift, and she said Christian waved too much money in her face for her to resist. Everyone has their price, I guess.

Kate elbows me. “Hey, your sugar daddy is here.”

Speak of the fucking devil.

I frown when I make eye contact with Christian on the other side of the circular bar. My heart skips a beat when I spy a split lip and a bruise on his cheekbone.Did he get in a fight?

“Pft.” I roll my eyes and release myself from the tight grip his eyes had on me. “He is not my sugar daddy. He’s not my anything.”

“Really?” Kate asks, handing a drink over to a patron. Her voice hitches as she teases me. “That’s not what it looked like the other night when you came out of those private suites with that post-sex glow.”