Duskwood: Unrecognisable

Part 7

Sweep by sweep, I could feel my hair falling. Though the room was quite, the sound of the electric razor was deafening. I know it wasn't on for long, but it felt like forever. When it finally ceased, my hair follicles still reverberated. I still didn't dare look. As long as I kept my eyes closed, the memory of my hair remained intact.

I jumped the first time Jake's fingers ran through what was left of my hair. His touch gave me goosebumps all over. As he applied the black dye to my hair, I started to relax. After the devastation of the razor, it was soothing. He cursed to himself as dye ran a bit more than he was expecting and he rushed to get to it with a paper towel before too much got onto my clothes.

"I should've made you strip," he mumbled.

"I definitely would not have," I shook my head.

"It would've been easier," he insisted.

"And I still would not," I reiterated.

"Why not? It's just skin. It's nothing that I haven't seen before," he said without thinking. "Of women in general! I didn't mean you specifically."

I opened my eyes to get a good look at him. I couldn't tell if that slip was intentional or not. He looked a bit embarrassed so I had to assume he didn't intend it. Nevertheless, my mind drifted back to those videos. It was so unbelievable that I started to wonder if my mind was playing tricks on me. My boyfriend and I had been together for the better part of a year. How did I not know he had been recording our most intimate moments? Was I seriously that naive? First Jake, then my boyfriend. I felt like next I was going to find out I am actually the illegitimate child of some obscure royal family. I wished I could just pick up my phone and demand some answers out of my boyfriend. I didn't know if there could ever be a plausible explanation, but I needed something to make sense for a change. What a time it was to be on the run. Nothing was ever simple in my life.

"Ok, you're done. Can you please lower your head under the faucet?" Jake broke my train of thought, pulling me back into the present.

He turned on the sink to get it to a decent temperature before I leant over it. I let the water run over my head for a while first and I was going to rinse it myself, but Jake beat me to it. He spent a long time massaging my scalp, far longer than what seemed necessary. I pulled away after it became clear to me it was sufficiently rinsed. As soon as I did, I saw my new hair in the mirror. Pitch black, very shortly cropped, but not buzz cut – he hadn't taken it all, but it was certainly different than it was before. Jake reached into his bag of tricks again and pulled out an old baseball cap to put it over my head. I had to say, I hardly recognised the person in the mirror. Sacrificing my hair had better been worth it.

"Say something," Jake was watching me uncomfortably. It was clear he felt very guilty about what he did.

"I don't know, I think I am in shock," I sighed. "Everything feels strange, like this is just one long nightmare."

I glanced down and saw all of my locks of hair forming a circle around me. Even then I was still in disbelief.

"I am sorry to have made your life so miserable," Jake said with a layer of annoyance.

"I don't blame you," I insisted. "I know you're just trying to keep us safe."

"I'm trying to get you home. I have a contact that can set you up with a new ID. Then we can get you across the border. From there, you can travel back to your country," he explained. "Maybe once this blows over, you might even get to go back to your family and friends."

"What about you?" I questioned.

"What about me?" he looked at me confused.

I turned to look at him directly. "What do you plan to do?"