Page 25 of Silenced

Didn’t he have a skin graft?

Surely that’s standard practice in Russia too, especially for a man this wealthy.

Completely in the dark as to where my mind has gone, the stranger draws the expensive fabric down his hips as he simultaneously toes off his shoes.

I don’t know where to look and, this time, it has nothing to do with scar tissue. Hell, that’d be easier to study than—

A breath hisses from between my teeth.

It’s the first time I’ve seen an erection in years because as Harvey’s situation worsened, he wouldn’t let me see his penis. But that this stranger has an erection, period, means…

“Are you going to rape me?”

His frown makes an appearance at my words. “I will never hurt you.”

Ha.

A likely story.

“Why are you getting undressed?”

“Nudity isn’t dangerous.”

“There’s no need to get naked at all!”

He doesn’t listen.

While I know he can’t hear me, I scream and start to sign, “Don’t ignore me!”

Christ if I haven’t signed those words so many times in my goddamn life. My father was deaf and he was like talking to a wall sometimes, and that had everything to do with his imperious attitude and nothing to do with his perforated ear drums from a workplace accident.

Then, my captor is naked and memories of my beloved father fade to nothing.

Still, that’s when he signs, “I’m not ignoring you.”

I grit my teeth, refusing to peer below his neck, until he moves nearer to me, snagging his knife along the way.

My breath hitches in my lungs as he draws the blade nearer and, eyes wide with fear, I back into the vanity, pressing my spine to the mirror, pleading, “Don’t hurt me.”

His hand swipes down in the universal ASL for ‘never,’ but that goddamn knife comes closer, closer…

That’s when the strap of my bra pings as he slices it in two.

I swallow in response.

“You are soaked in vomit.”

Well, that’s rude.

My scowl is inconsequential to him. “I can undress myself!”

“You smell and need to shower and you cannotdo it yourself.”

I shove my balled fists at his shoulders. The burst of energy I experienced earlier depleted my meager reserves, but I have to try even if the move hurts my hands more than it hurts him.

Only, my weak resistance is batted away like I’m as inconsequential as a moth butting heads with a lightbulb.

He ignores the fists I press to his shoulders, too, because he’s clearly an asshole.

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