Rosalind
When I’m not drifting on a hazy ocean between worlds, I’m so out of it, I can barely focus, even walk in a straight line. Speaking is slurry, slow, and my brain is fogged.
I woke under the shower, a large hand holding me. I screamed and fought and hit and bit and then things went dark again. The next time that happened, I just sank down into a ball.
Things are so disjointed and nothing seems to flow.
Now, someone is standing over me. It’s him. The Granite Man. “Eat.”
“Can’t.”
“Eat.” I’m pulled up and a spoon is shoved into my mouth. “Swallow. It’s soup.”
I do as I’m ordered because everything is lead. When I’m finished being fed, I start to cry. He doesn’t say a word, just leaves the room after pushing me down and pulling that satin cover over me. Mercifully, the world goes away, and I drift down.
Only one thing is bright in my head: the rose. Nikolai’s handsome face.
It’s enough.
It has to be.
Sometime later, I wake to darkness, my mouth dry. I almost fall out of the bed as I try to stand up. I stumble like some kind of drunk zombie, knocking things down, banging into the doorframe of the ensuite, and I use my hand to drink water from the faucet.
When my thirst is slaked, I hold onto the edge of the sink, shaking because it took a great deal of effort to even walk this short distance, and now, I have to go back.
I breathe in deeply. “You got this, Rosalind,” I tell myself.
Somewhere in my head, Genius tells me to get my shit together. She’s not wrong. With a breath, I turn and make my slow and painful way back.
I return to bed, closing my eyes, the hated dress still on. Maybe it’s a new one, I don’t know. I’m vaguely humiliated, but there’s enough fogginess not to really feel.
“Nikolai,” I whisper. “I miss you. Please…”
He’s not here. He’s not coming for me. I know he somehow sent a rose, but what even is that? An empty token for a stupid girl?
I miss him, but I’m angry at him, too. He let this happen to me. I thought… I thought maybe I might mean something, as batshit as that might be, as wrong and fucked up as that is.
I’m just a thing to be used, and a pretty rose is meant to what? Say I’m not alone? Why isn’t he here? Why did he let this happen?
I curl up, miserable and cold inside. All I wanted was a normal life, one where I could finally step outside the prison of life on the run, a life of isolation until Genius, and let myself be me.
Whoever that is.
It’s why I wanted to do the pageants. That’s a deep secret I never let myself acknowledge before. While they were certainly a way to fast track my career, I truly did them to be seen.
Instead, I went from isolated prison to a gilded, pleasure filled cage of Nikolai, then into pink nightmare and drugged solitary.
The drug in the food starts to tug at me, but it’s not as strong as what I’d been given before. I’m not sure what that means, except that I can think a little more clearly.
I lay in this horrible bed, lonely, missing Nikolai, aching for him. Right or wrong, he’s the one thing keeping me going. That, and the rose.
Impartial hands strip me down and pull on another dress, moving over the buttons, trying not to touch me. At least I have on the cotton underwear. At least I have that.
I crack open my eyes, and there’s Rafe, Granite Man. He’s trying not to look at me, and I guess I should be grateful.
My mouth is dust, but I manage to croak out words. “Don’t.” He doesn’t pause, just continues to do up the buttons. “Please,” I whisper. “Don’t.”
“Ms. Finnegan, I have to. There, done.” He does up the last one under my chin, and then he looks me in the eye. “You’ll need to take off your panties. Sponge yourself. I’ve set it up.”
Heat burns me and I almost look away. “Why?”
“After that, you’ll have your smoothie. It has a half dose so do not fuck up. Act like it’s the full one, or it’ll be comatose for you and toast for me. Got that? And Thorne?” The gruff voice doesn’t change in tone or add a speck of emotion. “I get you want to fight, but don’t. No matter what.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I’m not your friend, so don’t think that. I’m your protector. You’re a job. I don’t get off on touching girls who don’t want me to touch them.” Or drug them. That seems to hang in the air, too.
I think about his words. I’m still foggy, and I’m still going to be drugged, but not as much. I need to be smart. I pick the battle, and more clarity gives me an edge. I’m not, however, just giving in. “On one condition: I dress myself from now on, and wash myself.”
“Just behave. Now, drink your smoothie.” He hands me a cold glass of thick green glop from the bedside table.
Kale. Spinach. Apple. Cucumber. That’s what I’m thinking from the look of it and the smell. Maybe yogurt: that’s also been the theme so far. I like smoothies normally, but with more fruit. These…these are gross. Still, I take it like a good girl and drink it, forcing it down.
He takes the empty glass and gestures to the bathroom. I don’t want to look this man-anyone here-in the eye, but I do. Maybe it’s stupid, but a part of me wants him to see me, what he’s doing, making me do. Rafe barely blinks.
In the bathroom, there’s a soft sea sponge and make up set out, and a big bowl filled with water, perfumed with a sweet, cloying, flowery scent. I push that away, pulling off the panties and bathing that way, even though I have memories of one of those humiliating showers from the night before. I try not to think about why I’m being made to do this.
After, I apply the makeup. Pinks, of course, and a simple black mascara. The lips and shadow give me an innocence that belongs on a little girl playing grown-up. The mascara is a hint of sex.
It turns my stomach.
“Your father wants pigtails,” Rafe says through the partially closed door.
That’s when I see the little, pink, bobble-headed ties. Seething, I do that, hands shaking, but even as that anger snakes through my veins, it starts to dull under a layer of fuzz. My limbs grow thick and heavy, not like usual, but enough to hinder.
When done, I turn and lurch out of the bathroom, and Rafe catches my shoulders. “In a few minutes, the first wave will wear off, but you’ll still be impaired. Not like this, but enough to feel it. Thorne?”
“Yes?”
“When we’re down there, you’re to kiss Mr. Finnegan’s cheek and call him Daddy. Understood?”
I mutinously keep my mouth shut. Finally, I nod. “Yes.”
“Sit.”