Page 5 of Worth

I sneered at him with a surge of confidence, his disgust making me think he wouldn’t lay a hand on me. “Yes.”

He sighed. “We’ll get a Skin doctor out to give you something so we can skip your periods from now on.”

“Fine.”

Damien lunged forward faster than I could react. “I fucking hate it when they’re bleeding,” he muttered, tearing at my gown.

I swiped at his cheek with claw-like hands, drawing bloody lines there. Adrenaline raced through me as I realized he was going to fuck me anyway.

Before I could knee him in the groin, Damien backhanded me, making me stumble. “Little bitch,” he snarled, shoving me towards the bed.

He had been twice as brutal that night. I have the burn scars on my hip to prove it. I have matching burn scars on the opposite hip too, from where he punished me for spreading my legs for the doctor to do an exam before they implanted a birth control device in my arm, right under my barcode.

I rise from the chair, not more than a few bites of my flavorless oatmeal missing from the bowl. I go into the bathroom and run a bath, the water burning as I step into it. My skin instantly turns red and angry from the heat, worsened as I scrub at it mercilessly.

Once my body is missing at least one layer of skin, I work on my hair. Damien had insisted on never cutting it. Never once, in the three years I’ve been here, has a pair of scissors come near my locks. Every morning, my thick hair is a tangled mess. Every morning during my clean up, I have to get it combed out and wrestled back into a tightly woven braid that travels down to end near the middle of my back.

After I dry off, I reluctantly pull out a Friday dress, ignoring the itchy brown potato sack-looking thing I wear all the other times next to it. Only on Friday am I allowed out of my room, for a few hours. It’s the only time that Damien is home all day and can keep an eye on me since his wife refuses to. I can’t even remember the last time I saw Liz—maybe not since the day he brought me home.

I give myself a halfhearted inspection in the mirror to make sure not a hair is out of place. My skin is still tinged pink from my bath, so much so that it looks like I have applied a little too much blush to my face. In reality, I’m not allowed to wear any makeup. The bags under my gray eyes speak to my lack of sleep. I pull my golden braid over my shoulder, checking to make sure I haven’t left any loose pieces.

I glance into the mirror again and pick at my skirt in annoyance. When I’m allowed out of my room, I have to wear one of the three gingham dresses that were better suited for a five-year-old—thick straps at the shoulders, a full skirt bordered by a ruffle, and a sash that ends in a full bow, which has to be perfectly tied at the small of my back. Today’s is a yellow one that fits too snugly against my breasts—one of the few things that had gotten larger and not smaller with lack of sunshine and well-rounded nutrition.

My eyes fall onto the barcode on my left bicep, which was tattooed onto the skin before they forced me into Damien’s car after I was sold. One scan of it will tell the person scanning where I belong, like I’m nothing but a can of chicken noodle soup getting a price check. I finally rip my eyes away from it, checking my braid one last time.

When I am sure I look satisfactory, I go to the door and knock three times. Damien always waits for my knock, just outside my door, to come get me from my room on Friday. This morning is no different.

“Elizabeth, you look just darling,” he says, holding out his hand when the door is open wide. I fight an eye roll, not wanting to be denied outside time. He acts as if he hasn’t seen me in this very dress hundreds of times.

I work on not flinching as I place my hand in his, plastering on a fake smile. “Thank you, Damien.”

He spins me around slowly, looking at all angles of me. “Just wonderful,” he praises. Damien leans forward and presses his wet lips to my cheek. “You were wonderful last night,” he whispers in my ear.

I withhold a disgusted shudder. I know better than to answer that one aloud.

“Let’s get you some fresh air,” he says, cheery as he clips my iron cuff around my wrist. Attached to the cuff is a strap of leather that he hooks over his own wrist—my leash. I follow behind him obediently, out onto the front porch. This is one of the few times I comply with anything, desperate for fresh air and sunshine.

He settles into the chair he always does, snapping his newspaper open that he carried in the hand that wasn’t holding my leash. I kneel beside him on the deck, the wood cool against my bare legs, my skirt dangerously high on my thighs, and let myself feel the cool breeze that caresses my face. I take a deep breath, wiping the stale air of my room from my lungs.

I eye the headline on his newspaper—Rebellion Strikes Closer to Home—then put my head down, staying that way even when I hear the voice I dread most; dread even more than Damien’s. With any amount of luck, I won’t hear it at all during my time outside, but since when had I acquired any sort of luck?

“Good morning, Daddy,” Lauren drawls. She flops down in the chair across from us, eyeing me with a cruel smirk.

When I had first met Lauren, I’d been naïve enough to think she might help me. After all, I would have tried to help me if I were in her shoes. But for all that Lauren had her freedom and luxuries, she was selfish and just… mean. With every privilege afforded her, her sense of entitlement grew, and caused others to stay away.

As she sits in front of me, rolls of fat visible under her tight shirt and buttons stretched out from her ever-expanding waist, I can read the agitation in her movements. She’s looking for an outlet and I’m her favorite sacrifice.

Damien licks his finger, turning the newspaper page. “Good morning, honey. Sleep well?”

She makes a noncommittal sound, not taking her eyes off me.

Damien snaps the leash, jerking my arm. A reprimand. “Good morning, Lauren,” I say dully.

“’Good morning, Lauren,’” she mimics. “What’s so good about this morning for you, little whore?”

I flinch before I can control myself, even though Lauren is nothing but predictable. She, somehow, has mistaken her father’s abuse for affection and devotion. She despises me for every moment that he spends in my room, when I gladly would have given it up. I am a whore because I have his attention and not her. If only she knew some of the things Damien tried to coax me—and then beat me—into roleplaying with him.

If ignorance is bliss, Lauren should be fucking high on it.

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