Hope «h.s.»

Thirty-Eight.

Chapter 38:

The shower was physically cold but it gave me warmth to some measure. As soon as the beating stream of water hit the floor, I started crying. I figured the strange man, Jazz, was waiting quietly on the other side and I was in no position to make myself look anymore weak to him that I already had.

Only a bar of soap was found on the floor, but I did not care. I just stood with my face in the stream, crying. But after a couple of minutes, I thought it would be best to clean my wounds. I bit my lip while trying to hold back a scream, but the attempt failed. I must had been drugged for days to get such bad wounds like this.

I decided to clean my body off and use some soap in my hair. Jazz was right, it was tangled up pretty bad. I smoothed it out in a bout two minutes.

Stepping out of the shower was the worst experience ever. I thought the water was cold, but the air temperature seemed to drop ten degrees during my shower.

I could not find a towel in the bathroom as I stood there naked and shivering. For a second I debated opening the door and asking for one but I settled for just air drying, even if it meant hypothermia. 

I was hoping to find my old pants and sweatshirt sitting on the counter, but instead I found a long, white cocktail dress folded neatly with matching high heels. Slowly walking over to the outfit, I glided my hands over the material, not believing what I was seeing. It looked and felt like the most expensive thing I have touched yet.

As I held it to my damp body, it seemed to have fit perfectly. Even though I had no idea where this came from, I was very grateful that it came at all. I twirled around with the gown held to my body when I noticed that my tears fully stopped. I neatly knotted my hair into a bun and slipped the dress over my head.

Once the dress and heels were on, I cracked the door to check for anyone but it flew open not even a second later.

Jazz was there looking down at me, licking his lips and undressing me with his eyes.

"I was hoping you would look for this," he said while gesturing to the towel in his left arm.

I stared at the floor. I did not want to be looked at, especially by him. I wanted to get out of this mystery place and go back to Harry, Rene, school, even my father for all I cared.

"Okay," he said rudely once he noticed I was not going to respond to him in any way. He grabbed me and we started walking.  "You are going to meet Terrance. And as a bit of heads-up, he hates you. You are the daughter of one of his sworn enemies in his part of business. I suggest you be nice and actually speak to him."

Jazz stopped, opened a door, quickly shoved me through, and slammed it behind me.

I slowly turned around to see a long dining table set in the middle of a cozy-looking room. There were men standing like statues in each corner of the room. But what really caught my eye, was a familiar man that stood up from his seat at the head of the table.

He was someone I saw at my house one time meeting with my dad. At the time, I had no idea what his business was at my house, but now I had a clue.

He was my father's competition in the drug dealing business.

"Welcome Miss Armstrong. Can I call you Piper? I'm Terrance."