Chapter 283: Pretty Face, Ugly Situation

The bathroom was at the end of the office hallway, opposite a closet full of cleaning supplies. Dove saw the rear exit just beyond it, a glass door with wire running through the pane. Outside, six feet of concrete separated the office from the vehicle shed.

She walked slowly enough to look unsteady. Her hip helped. So did the shaking she couldn’t quite stop, which was rude of her body after everything she had asked it to do today.

The former Warren guard opened the bathroom door and checked inside first.

"Really?" Dove asked. "You think I hid a beast husband in the toilet?"

He looked annoyed, then embarrassed. "Just hurry."

She shut the door before he could change his mind about giving her privacy. There was no lock on the inside. A rectangle of cleaner paint showed where one used to be.

Dove stood with her hand on the knob and listened to his boots settle outside. A fly battered itself against the high, narrow window. The room smelled of lemon cleaner poured over an old problem nobody had fixed.

She wanted Thorne. Not a powerful protector in the general sense. She wanted her husband, with his warm hands and the way he always moved her hair before kissing her shoulder. She wanted Edrik making some filthy suggestion from the doorway so she could tell him he was disgusting and watch him look pleased with himself.

Instead, she had a sink with a brown ring beneath the faucet and a man outside deciding how long she was allowed to pee.

Please tell me I have something that makes this easier.

You have stored supplies. You have private access. Your public shop is still paused.

I know where my underwear is, Sprout. I mean getting out.

The next-bond teleport offer remains locked.

She closed her eyes. Nobody is getting married in this bathroom.

I wasn’t proposing this bathroom.

That got a breath out of her that almost counted as a laugh. She needed it. Then she needed to think.

Her shield had already been used today. Even when it reset, it wouldn’t stop someone grabbing her. Resting Sweet Face made a stranger more likely to hear a harmless question; it hadn’t made Rusk forget who she was. Soft Landing helped her keep her feet. It hadn’t turned her into Edrik.

And the tail?

Still not enough information to promise anything.

She swallowed. Her tail’s torn end ached when she moved it. A little new growth was not permission to let somebody hurt her and hope she grew back afterward.

The guard knocked. "You done?"

"Unless you’ve got a spare knee, give me a minute."

She ran the faucet. It spat, coughed, and produced a thin stream of water that smelled faintly of metal. She let it splash into the sink while she sat on the closed toilet lid, facing the door.

Tell me if he opens it.

Your body will still be here.

I know. That’s why I picked the seat instead of falling over like an idiot.

She reached inward. The private space opened around her mind, familiar enough to hurt. Wooden counter ahead. Shelves to the left and back, stacked with food, clothing, and the things she had saved because she wanted a decent life. The blue pool sat to the right behind its low rim, the walkway clear between it and the shelves.

Her body hadn’t come with her. She could still hear the faucet through the bathroom, faintly, while she selected a small empty food container from the kitchen reward. The big jug was with Edrik. Empty. She remembered that before reaching for a thing she no longer had.

She filled the smaller container at the pool, returned her attention to the bathroom, and brought it into her hands. The cool plastic rested against her scraped knees. Outside, the guard shifted his boots. She held still until he settled again, then reached for her cloth.

Dove dampened a clean cloth from her wash kit and cleaned the grit from her knees. It stung. She hissed, then held still until the worst passed. The water soothed her skin, but she did not sit there waiting for every scrape to disappear.

She washed her face and neck too, wiped beneath her arms, and changed into a clean shirt from her owned clothing. The torn one went into storage. Her skirt was dirty but wearable, and she kept it because changing everything would invite questions she didn’t want.

The little container and cloth followed the shirt back into storage. She left the faucet running another few seconds while she washed her hands with ordinary water, then shut it off.

In the spotted mirror, her hair looked lighter near the roots where the dye was fading. She smoothed it with wet fingers and stared at herself.

"You’re leaving," she whispered. "You’re going back to them."

It sounded shaky. She said it anyway.

A few loose strands of fur clung to the back of her skirt. She caught them between two fingers, crouched as though adjusting her boot, and pressed them beneath the rough lower hinge of the bathroom door. Protected from shoes. Protected from the rain. Another small thing that might say she had been here.

She checked her pocket before opening the door. The clothespin was gone because she had left it for Edrik, not because they had searched her. She still had the small ordinary things she had carried inside, and an entire shelf of owned supplies nobody here knew how to reach. They had taken her somewhere. They had not taken everything from her.

When she opened the door, the guard looked past her into the bathroom.

"Where’d the shirt come from?"

"You kidnapped a woman with a shop. I was going to change eventually."

He looked at her face, then her hair, and lost the beginning of whatever he had meant to say. Her water had done that before. It didn’t make him safe. It made him distracted for a second, and she used that second to look down the hall.

A black radio sat on a charger beside the front office door.

Rusk’s voice came from the breakroom. "You don’t know what she can make disappear."

The guard’s attention snapped back to her hands.

Dove smiled at him before he could decide to hold them.