COSMO
“Comeon.Getunder there.”
Hands shoved me into the shower, and I stumbled against the wall, my palms slapping on the tiles. I blinked at the FBI agent who’d led me to the showers despite my tantrum. I didn’t even know what time it was, but I was sure it wasn’t my bath time. I’d lost track of too many days. Of no guidance. Of no schedule to follow. And I was floundering.
“You have ten minutes to wash up and change before I take you back to your cell,” the man barked. “I suggest you get started.”
I caught my cracked and wobbly lip between my teeth and bowed my head. There was no door and not even a curtain to shield me from the agent. Agent Ellis, they’d called him. He was rougher than all the others, who gave me a wide berth while contemplating what to do with me.
After weeks of uncertainty whether I would still be alive the next morning, it felt good to let go of the fear… even if it meant the FBI had the killer law enforcement had been hunting for years. And all because I’d given myself up to them in a last desperate attempt to save my life.
Everything was wrong, starting with them wanting me to bathe myself. Didn’t they know it’d been years since I’d had to do that? It was Daddy’s responsibility to keep his boy clean. I clamped my eyes shut, fighting back the horrific images that battered my brain to let them in. But I was done grieving for a man who’d wanted me dead. Or so I’d thought. That dead man had been my lighthouse. Now, with it demolished, I was lost at sea.
“What are you just standing there for?” Ellis growled. “Don’t you know how a shower works?”
He stalked over to me, and I made myself as small as possible, clawed at the wall. He turned on the shower.
“Nooo.” Cold water beat against my body. Hard. The water pressure was too strong. My onesie soaked instantly.
“Jesus, I’m sorry.” He switched off the water quickly.
I shivered, my teeth chattering. I felt like someone had shoved me into a freezing lake. My numb fingers slipped off the tiles of the wall. I was shaking so hard my legs buckled, and I went down hard on my right knee.
“Augh.” Goddamn that hurt. Nausea rushed up. I tried to hold it back, but it was no use. Vomit gushed out of my mouth, although it was more bile and water than anything else. They had given me food, but I had just picked at it.
I dry-heaved a few times and moaned. My stomach cramped with a mix of nausea and hunger. I was used to Daddy punishing me with less to eat, but I’d never gone completely without food for a whole day. Not even Mother had been that cruel.
“Shit.” Hands clamped under my arms and pulled me to my feet, but they were gentler. The agent brushed my hair back from my face and held me by the jaw. “Listen to me. You’ve got to start speaking up and doing what you’re told, kid, or you’re going away for a long time. Fuck knows how you got yourself into this mess, but it’s a serious one. Now get up and shower. I can’t leave you alone as you are a prisoner. I have to watch you at all times. Get on with it.”
He released me, stepped away, and leaned against the far wall, his arms crossed over his enormous chest. I still had my clothes on, but there was no way I could shower like that. The onesie was practically ruined anyway.
I peeked at the agent. He was watching me, like Daddy used to do when he thought I didn’t notice. Then he would disappear into Mother’s room, and loud moans and grunts would come from their room. I’d confronted him once about him doing dirty things to Mother when he had forbidden me, but he’d said only grown-ups had sex. Since I was his little boy, I had to stay pure.
If I went to prison—and from all indications, I would—I didn’t have to worry about staying pure. Daddy had explained in great detail what men did to pretty boys like me in prison. Then he had given me the pill and told me to swallow it if I ever got caught. It would save me from all the misery of being used by inmates.
I peeled the onesie off and dropped it on the floor, then hesitated with my fingers in the waistband of my briefs. The white fabric was soaked through, and everything was already on display. Plus, this was the FBI. They might stare at me, and they might have shouted at me when I refused to talk, but none of them had put a hand on me.
They didn’t seem to know what to do with me since they’d brought me here yesterday. At least half a dozen people had tried to talk to me, but I hadn’t given them what they wanted.
I wanted to talk to only one man. The man who had visited me yesterday.
They hadn’t provided a washcloth, and I wasn’t used to bar soaps, but I didn’t have a choice. I washed quickly, uncomfortable under the agent’s gaze. I’d never been this exposed to anyone except for Daddy and Mother before. Whenever I glanced at Agent Ellis, the color in his cheeks was high.
On the steel counter off to the side, he’d put down a towel and an orange overall. I snagged the towel and rubbed it over my body, then got dressed. When I was done, I stood awkwardly. What now?
Agent Ellis shook his head. “That half-assed shower will have to do. It’s like you’ve never taken a shower before. You’re the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.”
But strange was good. It was working in my favor right now. So far, they’d been cautious because they didn’t know how to deal with me. Had I been a regular criminal, no doubt they would have already brought me to a formal lockup facility and thrown away the keys.
Agent Ellis took me by the arm and marched me from the bathroom. I kept my head down as we walked along the hall, past a couple of agents who stopped talking when we passed. They had to be discussing me. They were always discussing me as if I couldn’t hear every word they were saying, especially when they stood outside my cell.
The snippets of the conversation between the detective and the agent who was in charge had been interesting, giving me a new angle to work with.
I hated the small room they kept me in, but I had no choice but to step inside. When the door closed behind me, panic clawed at my throat and threatened to spill out. I huddled in the corner of the room with my knees up to my chest, plucking at the itchy overall. I would kill… ugh, no more killing. That was what got me here in the first place, but I would do almost anything to get my doll back.
I rocked back and forth and hummed to myself, the wordless tune of a song Mother used to sing to me. It wasn’t too long before my thumb found its way inside my mouth, and I rubbed the stiff fabric of the overall between my fingers to ground myself.
Daddy wasn’t coming. I inhaled a sharp breath and let it out slowly. Our last conversation echoed in my head, but I shoved it down. I didn’t want to be reminded about why and how he’d betrayed me. The one man I depended on for everything. To feed me and dress me. To raise me and guide me. To tell me when to kill and when to survive.