Page 13 of Voracious

“You can pull the curtain across and open it when you’re ready for us to come back in.”

He’s doing his job wrong. The door clicks closed, and I drag the fancy paper curtain around the bed before I change. I keep my underwear and socks on, so he doesn’t know my weakness and hold the back of the gown closed. My body aches when I try to fasten the knot, so I fold the fabric under me and wait without moving the curtain so I can delay it all. I don’t know what’s going to happen, this room has no stirrups. There are no injections set up like a factory line and it’s fully private with plush furnishings.

Dropping my head back against the cushions, I close my eyes and stroke my fingers along the edge of the soft sheets. The pillows are like clouds and the mattress is soft. I always thought hospitals, even normal ones, had horrible beds and food. The shows I watched always had jokes about them as a societal reference point.If they were wrong then all the other things were wrong too. It doesn’t matter anyway since I don’t have friends so I can’t copy them like I thought I could.

The anticipation is worse, so I lean over and grip the curtain to drag it open without opening my eyes. My contacts are itching, my eyes are too dry and they’re sticking to my eyelidswhen I blink. The doctor comes back in with the two dickheads who stand like guards, their arms crossed, and faces set in straight lines. He comes to my side and explains everything he’s going to do before touching me. I’m not some weak little flower that’s going to flinch when I lasted six hours with Amon at his worst for fuck’s sake.

Nodding along where I’m supposed to, I suck in a breath as he presses against my stomach with his fingers. He moves further up, and I band my arm across my waist to hide the older scars and my tattoo, but it causes the gown to slip off my shoulder.

Vlad narrows his eyes at the joint and I quickly pull it up. Weird fuck, it’s only a shoulder, there’s nothing even on it that’s interesting. My other one has my tattoo, skulls and roses mixing with cathedrals and art reaching my wrist. Everything I’ve always wanted to see lives on my skin so I can look at it whenever I want.If Dima steals my money, then I won’t be able to finish it. I hope I can, I want a spaceship and little aliens to fill up my other arm.

The doctor has a calm soothing voice but there’s fear in his eyes as he holds his stethoscope and asks me to lean forward. My eyes close knowing what he’s going to see. The mottled skin reaching around my ribs, it doesn’t go up high enough to be seen in the dresses I was required to wear. Yulia and Marlo made sure I’d always be pristine while working —because no one wants to buy beauty from something ugly.

He moves the cold flat metal around my back, but he hesitates, seeing the tattoo between my shoulder blades. He doesn’t have a Russian name so he must only know the meaning behind it due to working with the Bratva. I want to tell him it’s not true, that I didn’t touch any of the children like that and I was forced to teach them. I’ve never seen it fully; I wonder if it’s grown with me. The poorly done two-inch mermaid has hisjudgement and if he’s normal, he’s going to stop being nice. If he’s like the doctors I know, he’s going to show me videos and tell me stories. I don’t want to know them and then I’ll have to deal with Vlad hitting me when I kill the doctor on his payroll.

The doctor steps back once he’s done listening to my lungs and he doesn’t address anyone other than me.

“I’ll get a technician to do an ultrasound and then we’ll go from there.”

I know what they’re used for, and I don’t need it, so I say, “I’m not pregnant.”

There’s no chance when I don’t have periods and I haven’t had to let anyone touch me in two years. Evil and eviler snicker like fucking children and one of them mumbles under their breath.

“Thank fuck.”

He doesn’t say anything and remains professional, explaining it’s to check my organs before leaving. I thought he was going to be a good doctor, but he leaves them behind. He’s still speaking to me the same despite seeing the tattoo so he can’t be normal. But Vlad is here, he’d know if the doctor was a nonce because he plays the same game as me. Dima stands at the door checking we’re alone while Vlad moves closer with his no-bullshit tone.

“Are you going to make me look weak?”

Dickhead. I’m alive, I survived what no one else could. I don’t tell him that or he’ll go in a mood thinking Amon is a threat to the Bratva when he’s just a normal psycho instead of an affiliated one.Oh, I wonder if Amon is my friend. He might be, I know where he lives, and we technically have a common interest even if he pays me to be there.

I brush the thoughts away for another time as Dima clears his throat. I stare straight ahead at my hoodie so no one can take the money wrapped inside it, and my voice comes out bored.

“It’s a private matter, nothing to do with you.”

Vlad doesn’t argue and Dima has another burst of humanity as his eyes soften. I don’t need anyone’s fucking pity. Nothing has happened to me that I didn’t choose. I wasn’t mugged or viciously brutalized as I walked home. I was paid for a service, and it may be different than what I trained others to do but all I know is how to earn from my body. Whether it’s fighting or fucking. These dumb fucks wouldn’t understand that with their happy little lives and people who talk to them.

Vlad finally fucks off and I deflate when Dima stays behind. My eyes burn with internal and external irritation, and I close them, getting peace. Humming a song in my head makes me feel better. I don’t know where I heard it, but it’s always been there, without any words, just a rhythm. I might have made it up and convinced myself of familiarity when I was in my hopeful stage.The hopeful stage was stupid, and it was before I became Ana, back when I had no name and I thought that I could stop it all, stop Yulia.

Something touches my cheek and I flinch, blinking as my vision blurs. The abrupt movement has my contacts sticking to my dry eyeballs until I blink a few more times to set them back in place. Dima’s ugly face is above me and he does that weird thing of staring into my eyes as he speaks quietly without adjusting his roughness.

“They’re going to do the scan, you fell asleep.”

I didn’t dream, the bastard woke me up when I wasn’t being punished. Fucking prick.

Ignoring his presence, I lay flat and stare at the ceiling. All public buildings have the weird tiles with little dots in them. Do they buy them from the same place? Even in different countries they have them and I’ve always wondered if there’s a big warehouse that makes each square for everyone in the world. They must earn a fortune if it’s been monopolized. If I had anormal life, that’s what I’d do. Make something really simple that everyone needs and never thinks about, then I’d be rich without having to be around people. Island rich.

SIX

Dima

I’m contemplating asking the doctor to give me an eye exam while I’m here because I can’t tear them away from Ana. Every time she blinks her irises wobble. She’s doing it on purpose to make me fucking crazy. Getting a reprieve from her physically as she goes for a scan doesn’t allow me the same mental peace. She’s intriguing in such a disturbing, fucked up way, like a murder documentary. I want to watch and examine her but from behind a screen so I can turn it off when it gets too fucked up.

It’s too similar to my mother, not her childhood, but the adult Ana putting on a strong face and pretending it doesn’t hurt while she’s black and blue. Life is giving me a second chance to save someone else when I couldn’t do it as a child.

The door opens and the stubborn shit limps in when she should be in the wheelchair. My lips twitch seeing her toes painted pink, I’d thought she’d be a black or red type, not soft and pale. My eyes are fucking with me again as she walks around the bed and little flashes of pink and white show on her heels. The porter gives her a sad smile and tries too hard not to look at me as he leaves.

They all think I fucking did this to her. I’ve used my hands for a lot of things but never on a woman I’ve been involved with. It’s my line, a territory I’ll never breach because my father keeps sending fucking letters as a reminder of what not to be. Katya always tried to burn them, but I read every single word, his bullshit remorse, and excuses. How he’s found God, wants to turn his life around. It’s all bullshit.

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