Another Villainess

Chapter 24

I drag myself sluggishly off the bed and approach the door cautiously.

"Who is it?"

The other side of the door is silent for a while.

"Leondra, can I come in?"

I unlock the door and open it slowly.

"Eden? Why are you still up?"

He looks at me, water dripping from his hair and down his white undershirt from a recent shower.

"I can't sleep." He smiles. "Why are you awake?" He closes the door behind him. 

"The lightning." I sit back on the bed, yawning.

He stays by the door, his hands behind his back.

"Are you scared of it?" He casually asks. 

"Don't be silly. It just woke me up because it's loud, now go bring me a towel. I'll dry your hair."

His smile drops and he looks at me with surprise, but soon moves to the bathroom connected to my room.

I sigh and lean back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling, where a line of ants trail from a crack in the middle of it, to the window that once shone red lights.

Something falls in the bathroom, hitting the floor with a sharp clank, but by time I sit up to look over, Eden is walking to me and stands above me with a towel in his outstretched hand, his face indiscernably dull.

I take the towel and move back on the bed as he sits on the ground in front of me, his back slumped against the splintered bedpost.

Outside the thin walls of the inn, the streets roar with pellets of rain and thunder that sounds like gunshots.

Shaaaaa.

I hum quietly, rubbing his hair gently and watching his shoulders rise quickly and fall slowly each time my hand brushes against him. His white shirt hangs loosely, revealing large, messy scars across his shoulders connecting all the way to his back. I drop the towel over his head and look up to the ceiling again, for no particular reason, and sigh.

"Did you get these cuts from the same place as the ones on your hands?"

A clock ticks loudly, the room is eerily quiet even while filled with the roars from the outside.

"No." He lifts his hands and looks at his cut hands, scars cleaner than the rips across his back. "These are from training. Those are from this place."

He turns his head and stares up at me. I pull the towel forward on him nervously, keeping his face out of view, and trying to ignore the heat running down my back. "Go back and sleep."

He stands and turns towards me, bending down and putting a knee on the mattress beside me.

". . ."

He looks into my eyes steadily, he hovers his hand over my cheek for a moment before slipping my hair behind my ear. Water drips from the front of his hair and falls coldly onto my thigh making me to flinch, which causes his fingertips to brush my jaw. His eyes tighten and he jerks his hand away. His other hand, held near the side of his pants, which had been out of view, also drops to his side. He moves away. In the windows reflection I see something glint in the hand that he dropped to his side. 

"Go back."

He takes my hand and kisses the back of it. I feel every rough scratch engraved in it. 

"Yes, Miss." He leaves without any resistance. I hear the door of room 212 click shut from the hallway. 

I don't get any more sleep that night.