Chapter 4

My silent compliance seemed to enrage Sarah more than any act of defiance.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you!" she screamed, her voice echoing in the cavernous bathroom.

She kicked the plastic basin of cleaning supplies I had been forced to bring in earlier. It skidded across the wet marble floor, spilling soapy water everywhere.

"You think this is a game? You think your silence is some kind of victory?"

She stalked towards me, her heels clicking angrily on the tile. As she got closer, the ship, which was a massive cruise liner, swayed with a particularly strong wave. Her foot hit the slick, soapy patch on the floor.

Her arms flailed, and for a split second, she was falling.

My body reacted before my mind did. I lunged forward, my hand shooting out to steady her. I caught her arm, my grip firm, stopping her from crashing onto the hard floor.

For a moment, we were frozen. Her, off-balance and surprised. Me, holding onto her, my heart pounding from the sudden movement. Her eyes widened, a flicker of something I couldn't name-shock? confusion?-passing through them. It was the first time in years I had touched her for any reason other than to be hurt.

The moment passed. She ripped her arm from my grasp as if my touch had burned her.

"Don't touch me," she spat, her voice laced with venom. She regained her footing, her face flushed with anger and embarrassment.

As I stumbled back, my foot slipped on the same wet spot. I fell hard, my head cracking against the edge of the marble bathtub. A sharp, bright pain exploded behind my eyes, and the room tilted. Black spots danced in my vision.

When my head cleared, Sarah was standing over me, looking down. But her anger had been replaced by that same strange, frozen expression. Her eyes were fixed on something not on me, but beside me.

My worn-out jacket had fallen open when I fell. Tucked into an inside pocket, now partially exposed, was a small, plastic-wrapped object. It was the last thing I had of my family. A tiny photograph of my parents, smiling on a beach. It was old and faded. I had managed to hide it from her for three long years.

Her gaze zeroed in on it. I saw her remember. I saw the memory of the day she found my other things-a watch from my father, a book from my mother-and burned them in front of me, telling me that criminals didn't deserve mementos.

A slow, cruel smile spread across her lips.

"Well, well," she whispered, her voice a low purr. "What do we have here?"

She knelt down and plucked the photo from my jacket before I could react. She held it between her thumb and forefinger, studying the smiling faces of my parents.

"You've been hiding this from me, Ethan," she said, her tone deceptively soft. "After I told you to get rid of everything."

She stood up and walked over to the large bathtub, which was filled with steaming hot water for a bath she had planned to take. She held the photo over the water.

"You know," she said, tapping the photo against her nail, "This wound on your head looks nasty. It should be cleaned. With salt."

My blood ran cold. I knew what was coming.

She tossed the photo onto a small table, just out of my reach. Then she grabbed a large container of bath salts from the edge of the tub. She unscrewed the lid and poured a heap of coarse crystals directly onto the bleeding gash on my head.

The pain was instantaneous and blinding. It was a searing, white-hot agony that felt like my skull was on fire. I screamed, a raw, animal sound of pure torment. The salt bit into the raw flesh, an unbearable, chemical burn.

"Does it hurt?" she asked, her voice calm. "Good."

She grabbed me by the hair, my head still on fire with pain, and forced my face down into the steaming water of the bathtub.

The hot, salty water flooded my nose and mouth, burning my lungs. The sting in my head intensified a thousand times over as the water hit the wound. I thrashed, my survival instincts kicking in, but her grip was like iron. She held me under, my body convulsing, my lungs screaming for air.

Just as the world started to go black, she yanked my head out of the water.

I coughed and sputtered, vomiting a mixture of water and bile onto the floor. My head felt like it had been split open.

"Let's try that again," she said.

And she pushed my head back under.

Over and over, she drowned me, pulling me up at the last possible second, only to shove me back down into the torturous, salty water. Each time, the pain was fresh, the terror absolute.

Finally, she threw me back onto the floor. I lay there, a shivering, broken mess, unable to move, my body screaming in protest. I was barely conscious, the world a blurry haze of pain.

Through the fog, I saw her walk towards me. She straddled my hips, pinning me to the floor. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright with a feverish intensity.

"This is a punishment, Ethan," she whispered, her breath hot against my ear as she unbuckled my belt. "This isn't about love. This isn't about pleasure. This is about reminding you who you belong to."

She ripped my pants down, her movements rough and efficient. There was no gentleness, no affection. It was a violation, cold and calculated, another way to assert her complete and total dominance. As my body was invaded, the waves of pain from my head and the waves of violation became one, a nauseating tide pulling me under into a place beyond feeling, a dark, empty abyss where nothing mattered anymore.