𝐂𝐑𝐘𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘 | mitch rapp

31. the toughest

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

THE TOUGHEST

Angeline felt a foreign warmth hover over her as the scent of old spice shower gel filled her nostrils. For a brief moment, it didn't matter – her eyes were closed and she was relaxed. However, something clicked and she shot up in a panic. Her gasp made Mitch jump from where he had been reaching over her to undo her seatbelt, his hands quickly stabilising her shoulders and stopping her from instinctively whacking him.

"It's okay, it's okay," Mitch said immediately, his tone firm and yet somehow so gentle. "It's just me. I was unbuckling your seatbelt. We're here."

Angeline swallowed the lump in her throat and attempted to ignore the blush creeping up her cheeks. "You should have just woken me up," she mumbled, undoing the seat belt herself as Mitch stepped back.

"I didn't want to," he admitted, "You're exhausted. You kept nearly falling asleep for a good two hours."

"I've been asleep for hours?"

It felt like she had only blinked. Her body still felt so heavy and sore, like it wasn't really her own and she was just wearing it. Angeline didn't want it. She wanted to abandon it and start fresh in a body that hadn't been abused and scarred and humiliated.

Mitch held onto the door as Angeline stepped outside, glancing around. The sun was setting, casting orange hues all around. The other people that Angeline had seen before with Mitch were nowhere to be seen, but she didn't question it. She couldn't be bothered and she had more worrying problems to dwell about. Like how she had seen her brother be murdered right in front of her, the torture she had endured, the fact that Mitch was alive and not actually dead, and whether or not the same could be said for her friends Paige and Ciara...

She hoped they were okay. If they'd suffered because of her shitty family then she would never in a million years forgive herself.

As she followed Mitch into a large house, which she assumed was yet another temporary safe house (God was she sick of those – but not as much as those dingy motels), all she could think of was how she was never going to be able to get over any of this. Many of her scars and wounds would heal with time, but the things she had witnessed and the people she had lost...

Angeline was terrified that along the way, she'd lost herself too. If that was the case, she would have lost everything. There would be no point in Mitch fixing up her wounds and trying to protect her anymore – there was nothing left of her.

"I want a shower first," Angeline said once they were in the foyer.

"No, we should –"

"Please, I feel like shit," she said quietly. "I'll be ten minutes maximum. I just want the blood off of me – and I want clean clothes and – and to feel like myself. The door can stay unlocked."

Mitch hesitated for a moment before he gave a small nod. "It stays open. I'll keep my back to you."

Angeline couldn't be bothered to argue, nor did she want to. She was just happy to be able to clean herself. It would be the first step of ridding what the Williams' had done to her.

Mitch gave her some towels and turned the water on warm for her. He stood in the door frame, his back to her like he had promised. Angeline pulled off her clothes and climbed inside. She immediately hissed, her body screaming at her to get out of the water – to stop torturing her wounds. The water slipping down the drain was tinted with her blood.

She stayed there, gently wiping all of her bruises and scratches and damaged skin until she deemed it clean enough. Angeline scrubbed her knotted hair and brushed it out with her fingers. Mitch called to ask if she was okay a couple of times and when he heard the water flick off, he had a towel being held out to her, his head still turned away.