Page 83 of The Devil and His Goddess

What he did to me existed.

The pain existed.

Iwasn’tfine.

Chapter 30

Harper

IT WAS THE SECOND TIME that day I’d woken up under that white comforter, and this time was even more disorienting than the first. The only difference was Perseus wasn’t next to me. The chair sat empty, and the room was cold.

I didn’t remember leaving Silverlight. The last thing I remembered was sobbing in Perseus’s arms when darkness began to stitch across my vision. Everything went black after that, but I didn’t mind.

For a time, I got to forget.

For a time, I got to pretend nothing existed outside of that darkness.

But now I was awake and forced to remember. I was forced to acknowledge the truth.

Every inch of my body feltdisgusting. Nausea rippled through me, followed by the intense need to clean myself. I shoved the covers away and shot up in bed. The room spun with my sudden movement, but I uncaringly stood on wobbly legs.

Perseus opened the door then, carrying a tray with a bowl of something. He spotted me as I stumbled and immediately dropped the tray to rush to my side, catching me before I crashed into his nightstand.

“Har—”

“Don’t touch me,” I screamed as panic consumed my insides. Fresh tears rolled down my cheeks.

He sucked in a sharp breath but did as I demanded. He slowly released me, letting me find my balance while bracing a hand on the nightstand.

I choked down a wet breath and managed to wobble to the adjoining bathroom. I knew I had no right to use it as I pleased, but the need to wash, to get the repugnant film off my skin, was overwhelming. I blinked past my many tears and turned the shower on as hot as it would go. I stepped into the glass shower, still in my borrowed sweat pants and shirt with my leotard beneath. I breathed in the steam and heat, hoping it would provide some sort of reprieve from what clawed at both my skin and my insides.

It didn’t.

The water was scalding, yet I couldn’t stop shaking. I couldn’t fight the iciness filling my bloodstream.

The soaked clothes clung to me, and that constriction against my body made a new wave of disgust spiral through me. I gagged as I quickly peeled out of the clothes and threw all three articles across the shower, not wantinganythingtouching me.

Touching me where he did.

Touching me how he did.

I wanted out of my skin. I wanted out of this gross stain that now coated every inch of me.

I fumbled to grab the closest bottle of soap and picked up the leotard. Heavy cries rattled my chest and blurred my eyes as I lathered the soap on the dance uniform and scrubbed at my skin. Everywhere felt painted over with this film of hatred and antipathy, and I scrubbed at it, trying to make it go away. The feeling remained, though, even as the scalding water and rough washing turned my skin raw.

“Get off me,” I wailed between hiccups. I scrubbed harder at my chest until the water rolling down my form and traveling toward the drain became tinted red. “Get off, get off,get off!”

“Harper,” Perseus’s deep voice cut through my screams. He opened the shower door and snagged the hand that held the soapy and bloody leotard. “Stop! You’re hurting yourself!”

“Make it go away,” I sobbed, turning to look at him. My head swam with nightmarish images as my skin continued to crawl. “Make it go away, Perseus.”

His lips pressed together as his green eyes glistened. He didn’t release my wrist as he stepped into the large shower with me, his hair and clothes getting drenched as he did.

“Make it go away,” I pleaded and weakly pulled on the arm he held.

Dizziness swam through my head, and the heat only made it worse. My stomach churned as I wobbled on unstable legs. My knees would’ve cracked on the tile shower beneath me if Perseus hadn’t swiftly caught me around my middle to ease my fall.

The foreign arm around my abdomen made my stomach twist violently, and I immediately doubled over there on the shower floor, spilling the contents of my stomach. The hot water rushed the bile toward the drain. I watched it go as another tremor shook me and forced me to puke.

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