Chapter Nineteen
Raine
For a few seconds, I’m nowhere. Then sensation clicks in—weight, warmth, the faint pull in my neck where I slept wrong. Uncomfortable, but not catastrophic.
There’s no panic this time. Just…disorientation.
I breathe through it, counting silently, until I can inventory what’s real.
Safe house.
Bed.
Asher.
Food.
Choice.
The room is dim and quiet. Too quiet. I strain to hear the whir of the cameras, the endless hum of the ventilation system. Footsteps. Anything.
It’s warm in a way that still feels suspicious, but not actively threatening.
I turn my head carefully. Asher stands near the chair. The window shade is up. Rain streaks the glass, blurring the lights outside.
It’s dark.
My heart stutters—not because I expected morning, but because I can tell it’s not. Time has edges again. Day and night are no longer…theoretical.
Day. Days. They had me for days. My brain reaches for a number and comes up empty.
Asher sets a mug on the small table by the chair and turns, hands loose and relaxed at his sides.
“Forty minutes,” he says, anticipating the question before I can ask. “Give or take. You drifted. Restless.”
The ache behind my eyes pulses. Without thinking, I lift my hand. But my fingers are too clumsy and brush my temple instead.
Something sticky catches.
The table.
Strapped down.
Hands pressing electrodes to my skin. Shoving a thick rubber guard between my teeth.
My lungs seize. I scrape at my temple with my palm, catching hair, smearing the adhesive, making everything worse.
“Raine.”
Asher’s voice cuts cleanly through the spiral.
I choke back a sound and force my hand down. Something sharp and rough spikes, but it doesn’t drag me away completely.
“Can you look at me?” he asks, giving me an anchor.
I do.
“You’re safe,” he continues. “You’re not back there. Nothing’s touching you. Nothing’s going to.”
The room sharpens at the edges. Enough to matter.
He waits until my breathing evens out enough to count as breathing before he speaks again.
“Can you tell me what just happened? Or do you need me to talk? To stay quiet?”
I hesitate. Needing is a mistake. Needing means permission. Leverage.
In the end, it’s his eyes that convince me. The care in them.
My fingers tremble, but I force the words out before they slip away.
“It’s still there.” I lift my hand in the vague direction of my temple, too afraid to touch the sticky residue again. “On my skin. Everywhere.”
That’s all I can give him, and I’m terrified it won’t be enough for him to understand.
Asher frowns, his gaze sharp but not unkind. My heart rate ticks up again.
“Do you want to shower?” he asks.
Not ‘are you okay?’ Not ‘what’s wrong?’ Just an option.
Suddenly, I’m hyperaware of the grime coating every part of me. The stench of sweat and fear and too many hands. The rough seams pressing against my skin. My entire body is one raw nerve I can’t soothe until I’m clean.
“Yes.”
“There’s a walk-in,” he says. “With a bench and plenty of hot water. Can I help you up?”
I swallow. The room tilts a few degrees. “N-no. On my own. Please.”
He nods. “Understood. I’ll stay right here.”
Standing is harder than it should be. Not pain exactly. Disagreement. My body hasn’t decided that I’m allowed. Or that gravity won’t actively try to kill me.
I sway, then catch myself against the wall. My shoulder protests. It’s manageable, but those few degrees of tilt have turned into more, and I’ve only been upright for three seconds.
“Come closer?” I ask. “But—”
“I won’t touch you,” he says. “I will catch you if you fall.”
I hate how much that helps.
The bathroom light is harsher. Bright and clean and overwhelming after so long trapped in that hood. I keep my eyes down, refuse to look anywhere close to the mirror, and brace myself against the counter. Asher turns the water on, tests it, adjusts, tests again.
“What now?” he asks.
Heat creeps up my neck. Words lag behind the need. “I can manage the pants. Not the shirt. Lifting my arm is…too much.”
“I could cut it—”
“No.” The word tears out of me, panic spiking so hard, my legs start to tremble.
He holds up his hands. “Nothing happens that you don’t choose. Not here.”
I believe him. My nervous system doesn’t.
“Can I tell you what I think will be easiest?”
An offer. Not a command.
I nod.
“Don’t move the injured side,” he says. “Lean forward. Gravity will help. I can guide the sleeve off your good arm, then over your head.”
It makes sense.
“You’ll have to touch me.”
“I’ll do my best not to.”
The gentleness in his tone is enough to convince me. I lean forward, palms on the counter, tile cool and solid beneath my hands.
“I’m going to stand behind you,” he says. “If you’re ready.”
“I am.”
The shirt drags over my shoulder blade. Catches briefly in my hair. My throat closes. The world narrows to fabric and breath and the memory of the ties cinching around my neck.
Panic flares. Too dark. Trapped. Can’t see. No!
“I’m stopping,” Asher says. “Until you tell me to continue.”
The panic doesn’t vanish. But it stops climbing. I count. Three in. Hold. Three out.
“Okay. Now.”
I squeeze my eyes shut as the shirt passes over my mouth and nose, the roughness brushing my cheeks, trapping my breath for a half-second too long.
My shoulders lock.
Then it’s gone.
For a moment, I don’t move. Hunched over the sink, bare skin prickling in the cooler air. Exposed—but untouched.
“I’ll give you some privacy.”
He retreats without being asked. I don’t want to be alone. Not…completely. “Door open,” I manage. “If I need…”
“I’ll come,” he promises.
I wait until I can’t see him before I take off the pants, then sit on the bench under the spray.
The water runs faintly brown.
I get enough soap in my palms to lather, but sensation floods in without warning. Too many inputs overloading my system at once.
I brace my hands on my thighs and force myself to stay seated.
In. Out. Count the drops. Notice the sound.
The water hits unevenly. Higher pitched where it strikes the metal drain.
Softer against the tiles. The temperature stays constant.
Warm. The pressure doesn’t change. My breathing evens out first. Then the tremor in my hands.
Enough that I can take the thick washcloth and start to drag it over my skin.
But the adhesive is too strong.
Every tug sends a sharp spike of panic through my chest.
“Asher,” I say, surprised by how much my voice shakes. “I need help.”
His bulk fills the doorway, but he doesn’t enter. He waits, his eyes locked on mine. “Tell me how.”
“There’s…it’s sticky. My forehead. My…chest. I can’t…”
“I have alcohol wipes in the cabinet.” He rummages under the sink, then straightens. “May I come closer? You’ll see my hands the whole time.”
I nod carefully.
“There were electrodes.” The words almost break me. “I can still feel them.”
“Bastards,” he mutters.
His eyes flick away from me for half a second, and his teeth grind together so loudly, I can hear them. When he meets my gaze again, he’s steady. Present.
“I’ll start with your left temple. Only when you’re ready.”
He steps into my sightline, hands visible, then kneels beside the bench. Water soaks into his clothes.
I nod. “Okay.”
The first swipe burns faintly. Not pain. More…prickling.
I flinch anyway, and Asher goes very still.
“We can stop.”
“No. Please. I can’t…live with this feeling.”
He works slowly. Every movement preceded by words. Every pause offered without comment until my breathing steadies again.
By the time he finishes, my whole body is shaking. The residue is gone. The memory isn’t.
Asher steps back, waiting for me to say we’re done.
My hands shake uselessly on my thighs.
“I can’t wash my hair,” I whisper. “Reaching up…”
“Okay. Same rules. You say stop, I stop.”
Asher
I wait for her to nod before I take a step closer.
Asking me to remove the adhesive from her temples and chest almost broke her.
Yet, she only hesitated for a few seconds before mentioning her hair. I hope that means she’s starting to understand I won’t hurt her.
My socks slosh against the tile. The water’s soaked through everything, plastering my blue button-down to my chest, tugging at my slacks so every step feels like I’m walking through sand.
I don’t care. Whatever she needs, I’ll give her.
“I’m going to adjust the spray first. My left hand will be just above your forehead to keep the water out of your eyes. Okay?”
She manages a tiny nod. It’s obvious my hands anywhere terrify her, but as soon as the warm water hits her scalp, her shoulders lower slightly.
“I’m going to touch your hair in a moment. I’ll be as gentle as I can with the knots.”
“Slowly?”
The single word almost breaks me into pieces. It’s so desperate, so thin. She’s practically begging me for the smallest kindness.
“Yes. I’ll go slow. If you need me to stop, I’ll stop. Or I can get you a towel right now and we can be done with this.”
I move my left hand enough to see her eyes. She has to know all of this is her choice. That she’s in control.
“No. Please…”
“All right. I’m going to touch you now.”
Her light brown locks are tangled, greasy, and covered in a layer of grime so thick, brown rivulets run over her shoulders and down the drain.
She’s bruised almost everywhere. Jawline, collarbones, back, arms, hips, knees… I do my best not to stare—to keep my gaze from drifting to any place…intimate—but I’m not blind, and I know what all these marks mean.
I’ve seen most of them before, and none of them are accidental.
They’re the signs of long-term captivity. Bruises this deep don’t develop overnight. The nerve damage in her hands can’t happen in twenty-four hours. I don’t know how long they had her, but it must have been at least four or five days.
I’ve handled enough extractions, experienced the fallout. I’ve learned how to move. How to talk. How to slowly ease a person back to a place where they can speak and move on their own.