Page 27 of Misery

---

"I'm going to shower," I say again.

This time, I move and feel his eyes on me as I walk away.

The bathroom is small but clean.

I strip off his shirt, catch my reflection in the mirror.

Pale skin marked by the past—the scar on my shoulder from hitting the counter, bruises long faded but remembered.

I look fragile. Breakable.

But I survived. I'm surviving.

The shower is hot, the water pressure better than expected.

I stand under the spray and try to make sense of the last twelve hours.

This time yesterday, I was getting ready for my shift. Normal day. Normal fears.

Now I'm in a killer's cottage, wanting things I shouldn't want, hiding from a cartel that really seems to want me dead.

I hear the bathroom door open. Freeze.

"Just bringing you clean clothes," Oskar says. "Leaving them on the counter."

The door closes again.

My heart pounds. For a moment, just a moment, I wanted him to stay.

To pull back the curtain. To?—

Stop.

I finish quickly.

I find he's left another of his shirts and a pair of sweatpants that will be huge on me.

No underwear because he wouldn't have any that fits, and mine from yesterday are...

I wrap a towel around myself.

Opening the door. "Oskar?"

"Yeah?"

"I need my underwear. From yesterday."

Silence. Then, "I washed them. They're drying on the porch."

He washed my underwear.

The Executioner did laundry.

I don't know why that makes my chest tight.

I step out in just the towel.

He's in the living room, back to me, on his phone.

---