Chapter 35 9 AM #2
She pushed herself up from the sofa, swallowing the cry that rose in her throat.
Her vision swam, darkness encroaching at the edges as blood rushed from her head.
One step. Then another. Her legs trembled beneath her, threatening to fold with each movement.
The bedroom door seemed miles away, an impossible distance across the luxury apartment that mocked her broken state with its pristine surfaces and soft furnishings.
Don’t look at him. Don’t let him see what they’ve made of you.
Greyson took a step toward her, his arms reaching for her, preparing to help. She took a step away from him and his body froze mid-motion, his fingers curling into fists as he brought his arms back to his body.
She dragged herself forward, one arm wrapped protectively around her shattered ribs. She could feel Greyson’s eyes on her back, burning into her, but she didn’t turn. Couldn’t face the judgment, the disgust, the hatred that would be written there.
The bedroom door gave way under her touch, swinging open to reveal the only place she suddenly felt safe.
Her gaze fixed on the bathroom door across the room.
Just a little further. Just a few more steps and she could collapse in private, could let the tears come without an audience to witness her final humiliation.
Her foot caught on the bed’s edge, sending her stumbling. Pain exploded through her chest as her broken ribs protested the sudden movement. Still, she bit back the scream, refused to give voice to her weakness.
She made it to the bathroom, her hand closing around the doorknob as if it were a lifeline reaching out to her. She put her weight onto it as she dragged herself the last few steps into the room. The door swung closed as she let go of the knob and grabbed on the towel rack.
Only then did she allow herself to sag against the cool wall, legs finally surrendering to gravity. She slid down slowly, each inch a fresh torment, until she sat crumpled on the floor, knees drawn up as far as her battered body would allow, trying to catch her breath.
The marble tiles were cold against her skin, a small mercy in the inferno of pain that was her existence.
She stared at her reflection in the glass shower door—a stranger looked back at her.
A creature of bruises and blood, one eye swollen shut, the other haunted and hollow.
Her face was misshapen, cheekbone possibly fractured, jaw bruised and tender.
Her hair hung in matted strands, stiff with dried blood.
This was what remained of Shadera Kael, the Daggermouth. This broken thing on the bathroom floor.
She pushed herself toward the bath, reaching up to turn the faucets with hands that shook violently.
Water thundered into the tub, steam rising to fog the mirrors, to blur her reflection into something less monstrous.
The sound would mask her tears, her weakness, would hide from Greyson the final dissolution of whatever strength he might have thought she possessed.
Tears came then, hot and stinging as they tracked down her battered face, mixing with fresh blood where they found cuts not yet closed.
Her shoulders shook with silent sobs that sent waves of agony through her chest, but she couldn’t stop them now.
Everything she’d held in during the beatings, during the endless hours in that cell—it all poured out of her in a flood she had no power to contain.
The water continued to rain down, its roar almost loud enough to drown out the sound of her own shuddering breaths.
Almost, but not quite. She needed to get in, to wash away the blood and filth, to feel clean again, if only for a moment.
But the thought of removing her clothes, of seeing the full extent of what they’d done to her body, made her stomach heave.
Still, she had to try. Had to at least attempt this tiny reclamation of dignity before they forced her onto that platform to play her part in Maximus’s twisted ceremony.
Her hands found the counter’s ledge, using every last ounce of her strength to pull herself upward.
She gripped the hem of her torn shirt, steeling herself for what was to come. Then, with a quick breath that sent knives between her ribs, she tried to lift it over her head.
The pain was immediate and overwhelming.
White-hot agony ripped through her torso as her arms raised, pulling at muscles that had been pulverized, at skin that had been split open and should’ve been stitched back together.
A scream tore from her throat before she could stop it, primal and raw, echoing off the tiled walls.
Her vision tunneled, darkness rushing in as her legs gave way beneath her. She was falling, dimly aware that her body was about to hit the unforgiving bathroom floor, that the impact would be one agony too many. But the blow never came.
Arms caught her, breaking her fall, cradling her against a solid chest. She felt herself being lowered gently to the floor, heard her name being called from what seemed like a great distance.
“Shadera. Shadera, look at me.”
Greyson’s voice, urgent and tight with an emotion that didn’t sound like disgust, that didn’t sound like hate. His hand cupped her face, thumb brushing across her injured cheek with impossible gentleness.
The contact broke something in her—some final wall that had been holding back the tide of her grief and shame and despair. A sob ripped from her chest, then another, until she was crying openly, ugly sounds tearing from her throat as she curled into herself.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped between sobs, the words falling from her lips in a desperate litany. “I’m so sorry. For everything. For Brooker. For not knowing. You were right. I am a murderer. I am a monster.”
Her good eye sought his face through the blur of tears, searching for some hint of forgiveness, of understanding, but it refused to focus.
His arms tightened around her, drawing her closer, one hand cradling the back of her head.
He held her as she cried, her tears soaking into his shirt, her body shaking against his.
He made no attempt to shush her or stem the flow of her grief.
He simply held her, solid and present, an anchor in the storm of her despair.
She didn’t know how long they stayed that way—her broken and weeping, him silent and steadfast. Time seemed to lose meaning, stretching and contracting with each shuddering breath.
The bathwater continued to run, filling the tub to its brim before the automatic overflow kicked in, maintaining the water level with a gentle gurgling sound.
Eventually, her sobs quieted, exhaustion claiming what remained of her strength. She sagged against him, drained and empty.
Still, Greyson said nothing. The silence between them had changed, though—no longer charged with anger and betrayal, but something almost like acceptance.
Finally, he shifted, his arms adjusting their hold on her but not letting go.
“I’m going to help you,” he said, his voice low and rough, as if the words were being dragged from somewhere deep inside him. “Let me help you into the bath. Let me help you get out of these clothes.”
It wasn’t forgiveness—not yet. It was a man showing that he still had a heart, that despite his own pain the good man she’d come to know still remained.
Greyson’s hands trembled as he reached for the scissors in the bathroom cabinet. Not from weakness—though his body still ached from captivity—but from the storm of emotions that raged beneath his skin.
Anger at his father, at the men who had done this to her.
Guilt that twisted like a knife in his gut for how he’d treated her, for the words he’d spoken in cold fury.
And something else, something that terrified him more than either of these—a desperate tenderness that threatened to shatter what remained of his carefully constructed walls.
She sat with her back facing him, small and broken, a shadow of the woman he’d first encountered, and every instinct in his body screamed to protect her, to heal her, to never let her be hurt again.
He sunk back to his knees, scissors in hand, her ruined clothes stuck to her body with dried blood and sweat. Her breathing was shallow, carefully controlled to minimize the pain.
“I’m going to cut these off,” he said, his voice gentler than he’d intended. “It’ll hurt less than trying to lift them over your head.”
She nodded once, a small, tight movement that revealed how much pain even that simple action caused her. Greyson swallowed hard, pushing down the rage that threatened to consume him at the sight of her suffering. Rage wouldn’t help her now. She needed steady hands, calm words, careful touch.
He began with her shirt, slipping the blade of the scissors under the hem and cutting upward in a slow, deliberate motion.
The fabric parted easily, revealing inches of skin mottled with bruises—some fresh, some already beginning to heal.
Blood pooled underneath her skin that threatened internal bleeding coming from somewhere in her abdomen.
But it was what he saw beneath the injuries that forced the oxygen from his lungs.
Scars. Dozens of them. Old and silvered with time, crisscrossing her body in a chaotic pattern that spoke of years of violence. A knife wound just below her ribs, puckered and raised. A burn that covered her left side, the skin mottled and uneven. Bullet wounds. So many bullet wounds.
Her body was a battlefield, a record of survival written in scar tissue and damaged flesh.
Greyson’s fingers stilled on the scissors, his throat tightening. These were the evidence of a life lived in brutality, of pain endured and overcome time and again. How had he never noticed? How had he been so blind to the story her body told?