Page 6 of Cook

Why did men always need to do that? Why did they always need to talk?

“They’re safe, like you are. You are safe, Maddie.”

I nearly laughed. Safe? What did they think that word meant? Safe was a fairy tale. Something no one should ever believe, because someone can come in and steal it like a diamond in a matter of seconds. Safe wasn’t a thing.

A knock rattled my wooden door, and another woman poked her head inside. She didn’t try to force her smile on me, though her lips curled up around the corners. Kimmers waited in the hallway, wringing her hands, but the woman closed the door behind herself.

This must’ve been the other doctor Doc was talking about. Fun. I wondered how many they could pack into this room.

This woman didn’t wear a lab coat, but a pencil skirt and blazer, and appeared like she should be in a boardroom rather than whatever this place was. She wore her ashy blond hair in a severe French twist that accented the sharp cheekbones and pointy nose and chin.

Maybe she was distantly related to a bird.

“Hello, Maddie. I’m Doctor Ava Richardson,” said the new doctor.

The new doctor waited in front of me. Was I meant to give hera polite greeting? What would that look like? I couldn’t tell what she expected, unlike Signora’s johns. They were at least forthright about what they wanted.

Signora sometimes waited like this too, but it always meant that I had done something wrong. Whatever I did, it would always be wrong. And the smallest error left me battered, bruised, or worse... scarred.

The punishment, I figured out after years of trying to be good, often depended more on Signora’s mood and less on the crime.

“I see there was an accident with the food,” observed Doctor Richardson. Her eyes fixated on me, and I almost apologized.

Almost.

Apologies had never gotten me anywhere before.

Behind Doctor Richardson, Doc sighed as his bushy brows drew together. “Kimmers got too close to Maddie.”

“Then I’ll stay back.” Doctor Richardson sat on the floor a few feet away. “Is this enough space, Maddie?”

She was acting like I was an animal.

Was I not, though? Locked up and ogled at.

“Do you prefer to be called Maddie or something else?” asked Doctor Richardson. “Melanie was calling you Maddie, so I assume you go by that. Can you correct me?”

Melanie?

Mel. My sister. Was she here?

Memories floated back about when the bikers came to the old mill for Signora. The clash of glass and the booms from the guns. Mel had yelled for me, but it had been so many years. She had always been with me, at least in my imagination. In the chaos, I couldn’t be sure if she was real or all in my mind again.

There had been grunts, groans, and screaming, not only from me. Yet I’d screamed so much my throat had gone raw before I had curled into a ball in the galley. I’d pissed myself before they entered the galley, and I’d cowered as I’d waited and hoped I would survive. Or that death would come quickly.

Then,hehad been there.

“Maddie?” asked Doctor Richardson.

Before my eyes, the wooden floor cleared from a blur into slats, and I dragged my eyes up from the woodgrain running the length of the room.

Doctor Richardson tilted her head, her image flickering before my blinking eyes.

“What happened?” she asked. “Where did you go? Are you remembering the other night?”

Which night? Could the doctor not even say what happened to me? Or were they all going to dance around it?

The doctor kept staring calmly at me, as if she could see deeply into my soul.

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