ᴀᴘʜʀᴏᴅɪᴛᴇ // $ᴜɪᴄɪᴅᴇʙᴏʏ$

Chapter Forty Four

APHRODITE

I had told myself before that crying was pointless for someone who would never be able to stop. I still believed it and demanded from myself that I never give in to the act again, or at least try my very hardest not to.

But I knew that I had disobeyed myself during my time with Scott. I cried, I simply broke down in front of him, that night in the warehouse bedroom I eventually saw as home, the place I allowed so many mistakes to happen. I broke down in front of the one person I never thought would see my tears.

Crying is pointless for someone who will never be able to stop.

I repeated the statement in my head over and over as I headed for the police station and hated that I had to keep telling myself something like that in the first place. I wasn't going to cry. I was not going to feel that foreign water on my cheeks again because of something like this, leaving Scott, my kidnapper.

But pressure still built behind my eyes as I drove on. My chin still quivered now and then if I let my mind wander away from the simple task of returning to the world. My throat still constricted as I willed myself to get over this stupid feeling and not cry. Please don't cry.

I wouldn't cry for him because I would not miss him. I wouldn't long for him because I felt nothing for him. I wouldn't remember his hands on my body because I did not want him anymore.

Please don't cry.

I finally arrived at the police station, and I didn't know if I should be thankful for the distraction or simply terrified when the officers swarmed me like flies when I told them my name.

Two officers grabbed my arms, another furiously yelled into his communicator that they were on their way to the hospital with a priority one, and my things were taken from me as I was stuffed into the back of a police car, suddenly zipping through the streets of New Orleans with red and blue lights flashing and the siren screaming. I tried to tell them that I didn't need to go to the hospital, that I was fine. But they ignored me and shoved me through the automatic doors of the ER.

It was going to be a long night.

The officer in charge held up his badge and gave his brisk orders to the nursing staff, sending them all in a whirlwind when he gave them my name. Everyone seemed to know what had happened to poor Aphrodite Dillon, Scott Arceneaux's captive and unfortunate tortured toy.

"Someone get a kit and an examiner here in five minutes. I want her tested as soon as possible so we can start questioning."

I figured what the procedure would be like, knew what would happen to me if I let the assumptions of the city become the truth. For my own well-being, the truth of what really happened would become nonexistent. I kept my mouth closed and never mentioned the word consensual because both Scott and I understood that was what needed to happen. And even though I figured I knew the procedure, I was still a little shocked and uncomfortable when the whole thing finally began. Cops were yelling back and forth, nurses were running around like track stars, a doctor was found and pulled away from whatever other case he was working on to take the current one. Two nurses began peeling my clothes from my body. I opened my mouth to tell them to leave me alone, but instantly closed it when I spotted the detective standing outside the doorway of my hospital room watching me. I would probably be told later that it was for my own protection.

I knew that it was really because they wanted to know more about Scott, and that they were just itching to pounce on me with questions about him and his whereabouts.

After I was stripped naked and covered with just a thin hospital sheet, my examiner entered the room. He was an older man with streaks of grey through his dark hair, lean shoulders and a withered face. He perched a pair of flimsy glasses upon his nose, introduced himself as Dr. Mayville, and told me that my clothes would be given to me after inspection. I stared at him as I held the sheet against my chest, at the nurses hovering around me, at the officer watching me intently. I'd seen this type of procedure on TV.