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I'd fought to get here and put myself through degrading rituals I'd never have participated in otherwise. I'd struggled to find Cole. I'd told myself I believed in his cure and now, in all honesty, my job probably did depend on me kicking the habit here. It was the fastest, surest possibility.
That meant I was stuck here.
The tears wouldn't stop coming.
A long time later I sat by the window, looking out at the setting sun. The mockingbird was pretending to be a car alarm. From elsewhere on the grounds I could hear people doing things, machines running, cars starting and stopping again.
No one had come to see to me. In the bathroom off my room I'd found a first aid kit and by rearranging my body parts like I was playing twister, managed to see myself in the mirror long enough to determine there were only a few places I wanted to swab with antiseptic.
I'd had the afternoon alone.
The last time Mark and I had sex, it was only the violent parts that had meant anything to me. I'd thrilled even as I was furious when he cuffed me.
When Jesse had pounded his fist into the pillow beside my head I'd been afraid – and thrilled and alive and orgasming.
When Cole had read me the salient parts of the contract, I'd expressed the horror of what he had in mind, reminded myself that if I ran, I had nowhere to run to.
But there'd been a deep part of me that I didn't want admit, that had been anxious and excited. After all, when Cole had stroked his fingers between my legs, he'd found me wet and slick and wanting.
I didn't want to admit to that part. I didn't want any part of it.
So where did that leave me? I'd already gone back to the job I loved and the work that called me, and found I couldn't do it for more than a few weeks before some aspect of it so distressed me I threw away common sense and started using again. What now?
For the first time in my life, I considered suicide.
