Page 22 of Torin

“Jesus.”

Now I’m no longer running for my life, every bruise I collected during the crash seems determined to introduce itself.

I shuffle into the bathroom and flick on the light.

Yikes.

Dried blood has glued one side of my hair into a tangled mess. There’s a scrape along my jaw and a bruise beginning to darken beneath it. I look like I lost a fight.

Which, in fairness, is more or less what happened.

I turn on the shower and wait while the ancient pipes groan. A moment later, hot water rattles into the tub.

Thank God.

I peel off my clothes and leave them in a heap on the floor.

The bathroom light is brutally honest. There’s another bruise forming along my ribs and a patch of angry red skin across one shoulder where the seatbelt caught me.

I decide not to investigate any further. That’s tomorrow’s problem.

I step underneath the shower and close my eyes.

For a few seconds, I just stand there.

Water runs through my hair and down my face, carrying away dirt, blood and what remains of my wedding makeup.

The hairspray takes two rounds of shampoo. When I rinse the second one out, brown starts running down my body. I freeze.

Then I realize what I’m looking at. “Oh, thank God.”

I scrub at my hair, and more brown water swirls around the drain.

“Bye-bye, brunette.”

I turn off the shower and wipe steam off the mirror. My hair is auburn again and my skin has turned pink from the heat.

There I am.

Battered, exhausted, but recognizably me.

For weeks, everything has been closing in. Dad finding out what I was investigating. Realizing I couldn’t trust my own phone. Then Cade, East Ridge, and Dad calmly explaining what was going to happen to me as though I had no say in it.

By now, I was supposed to be in Cade’s cabin. In his bed.

Instead, I’m standing in Professor Bennett’s bathroom a hundred miles away.

A laugh bubbles out of me.

“I fucking did it.”

The smile that spreads across my face hurts my bruised cheek, but I don’t care.

Tomorrow is mine again.

I stand there grinning at my reflection until another thought intrudes.

Torin. The naked bear shifter who appeared out of the forest and ended up driving me all the way to Bennett’s door.