Page 35 of Pose for Me
What happened to me? A few weeks ago, I was an FBI agent that hunted down serial killers, bank robbers, and the worst of society. Now, I’m a pitiful prisoner, stuck in this cell with no end in sight.
No matter how I try to shake this…melancholy, I keep getting transported back to my childhood, and I can’t pull myself out of it. I’m stuck. I just want words, conversation from the only person around. But he won’t even look at me.
I’m invisible.
I’m forgotten.
I’m not good enough for his words.
I can feel Ryell’s presence at my back, but he doesn’t place the food down on the floor and slide it through the small opening.
I don’t care. I’m so fucking numb right now, my brain checked out to anything besides surviving from one minute to the next.
How long will he keep me here now that I’m no longer entertainment for him? How long will I remain alive?
That shocked feeling at not caring if I live or die doesn’t even crop up anymore. I simply don’t care. Being dead can’t be as bad as being disregarded.
After years of being separated from my childhood, having it come backnowwhen I need to be strong is what’s breaking me. I can’t focus on my survival because my brain isn’t in this cell. It’s back in that mausoleum I called a home from when I was five until I left at seventeen. Trying to protect my brain from my past and trying to survive were two things I couldn’t do at the same time, so my brain retreated, and now my body is just here…waiting for the inevitable.
“Lane,” Ryell says in a deep, gravelly voice.
Like I’m doused with cold water, I jolt and turn over, looking at him with wide eyes. Did he really say my name?
He’s looking at me,actually looking at me, not off to the side, not to the corner of my cell. He’s meeting my gaze.
“Lane,” he repeats, and I watch his lips move. A flush blooms over my body, and my heart races.
My body starts trembling like I have the ague, making it hard to sit up. “Ry-ry-ry—” I can’t stop shaking, can’t stop my teeth from chattering.
He’s speaking to me. He’s looking at me. Heseesme.
The cell door opens, and Ryell steps inside. He walks over and kneels in front of me, placing a tray of food down. “You okay, Agent?” he asks, pushing my filthy hair back from my forehead.I don’t even care about the note of condescension in his tone. It feels good for someone to touch me again.
Since our night together, I missed his hands on me, missed how his touch was so sure, so commanding. Even now, when I can’t stop shivering, can’t stop the tears from spilling down my cheeks. “No,” I answer in a voice I hardly recognize.
Ryell stands to his full height and turns his back, and I cry out, not wanting him to leave me. But he simply retrieves the baby wipes from the sink. Kneeling again, he cleans my face, and I see the filth on the material.
“Have you been washing up?” he asks, wiping down my neck.
“What’s the point?” I ask in a thick voice. “You haven’t even noticed I haven’t.”
“Your stench is enough for anyone in a five-mile radius to notice.”
I can’t even muster the energy to be offended. Idosmell. There’s no reason to get up from my bed to make myself presentable when he didn’t even see me.
“Come on, Agent,” he mutters when he tosses a third soiled baby wipe on the floor. “Let me clean you up.”
Ryell stands and removes keys from his pocket. He unlocks first my ankle, then my wrist.
As soon as I’m free, I’m on him, slapping and punching him, fighting him with everything I have. Tears leak from my eyes as I scream and curse him, calling him every name I can think of for ignoring me. All the things I wish I could have done to my mother and father.
“Fuck you, Ryell, you fucking son of a bitch,” I shout as I punch him in the jaw. The blow barely affects him I’m so weak. “I fucking hate you!”
“I know, Agent,” Ryell says and grabs my arms, pulling me in close.
The fight leaves my body, and I slump against his chest, letting the angry tears flow. “Why? Why did you do that to me?” I ask, sounding more childlike than I want. It’s the burning question I wanted to ask my parents every day.
He shushes me, letting my arms go. Instead of trying to make a break for it like I know I should, I wrap my arms around Ryell, burrowing into his chest. I shudder against him when he holds me, rubbing my back in slow circles.
