She tried to picture herself going back to her family's house and walking through those familiar rooms and sitting in chairs and opening doors and sleeping in her childhood bed. It felt all wrong, like she'd be a ghost in that place she knew so well.
And how would she deal with her mother and her brother? And the glymera?
In the aristocratic world she'd been disgraced before she'd been abducted. Now she would be shunned outright. Being handled by a lesser... trapped in the ground... The aristocracy didn't handle that kind of ugliness well, and they would blame her. Hell, that was probably why her mother had been so reserved.
God, Bella thought. What was the rest of her life going to be like now?
As dread choked her, the only thing that held her together was the thought of staying in this room and sleeping for days with Zsadist right next to her. He was the cold that made her condense into herself again. And the heat that stopped her from shivering.
He was the killer who made her safe.
More time... more time with him first. Then maybe she could face the outside world.
She frowned, realizing he'd been in the shower for quite a while.
Her eyes shifted to the pallet in the far corner. How did he sleep there night after night? The floor would be so hard on his back, and there was no pillow for his head. No covers to pull up against the chill, either.
She focused on the skull beside the folded blankets. The black leather strap between the teeth proclaimed it as one he had loved. Obviously he had been mated, though she hadn't heard that in the rumors about him. Had his shellan gone unto the Fade of natural causes or had she been taken from him? Was that why he was so angry?
Bella looked toward the bathroom. What was he doing in there?
She went over and knocked. When there was no answer, she opened the door slowly. A cold rush shot out and she jerked back.
Bracing herself, she leaned into the freezing air. "Zsadist?"
Through the glass door of the shower, she saw him sitting under an ice-cold spray of water. He was rocking back and forth, moaning, scrubbing his wrists with a washcloth.
"Zsadist!" She ran over and pushed the glass aside. Fumbling with the fixtures, she turned off the water. "What are you doing?"
He looked up at her with wild, crazy eyes as he kept rocking and scrubbing, rocking and scrubbing. The skin around the black-tattooed bands was brilliant red, completely raw.
"Zsadist?" She straggled to keep her tone gentle and steady. "What are you doing?"
"I... I can't get clean. I don't want you to get dirty, too." He lifted his wrist and blood oozed down his forearm. "See? Look at the dirt. It's all over me. Inside of me."
His voice alarmed her even more than what he'd done to himself, his words carrying the eerie, groundless logic of insanity.
Bella picked up a towel, stepped inside the stall, and fell into a crouch. Capturing his hands, she took the washcloth from him.
As she carefully dried off his ragged flesh, she said, "You are clean."
"Oh, no, I'm not. I'm really not." His voice started to rise, a terrible momentum growing. "I'm filthy. I am so very dirty. I am dirty, dirty..." Now he babbled, the words running together, the volume lifting until hysteria pinged off the tiles and filled the bathroom. "Can you see the dirt? I see it everywhere. It coats me. It seals me in. I can feel it on my skin - "
"Shh. Let me... just..."
Keeping an eye on him, as if he were going to... God, she didn't even know what... she grabbed blindly for another towel and dragged it into the shower. With a reach around his big shoulders, she draped him in it, but when she tried to pull him into her arms, he shrank back.
"Don't touch me," he rasped. "You'll get it on you."
She sank down to her knees in front of him, her silk robe catching the water, drinking it up. She didn't even notice the cold.
Jesus... He looked like someone who'd been in a shipwreck: his eyes wide and demented, his soaked sweatpants clinging to the muscles of his legs, the skin of his chest covered in goose bumps. His lips were blue and his teeth chattered.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered. And she wanted to reassure him that there was no dirt on him, but knew