I stand undressed before Coby, unashamed, compliant, gone. I’m not here, this is just a hollow shell, my body waiting for him. Waiting.

“Turn around,” he commands.

I obey.

He sits on the bed and studies me, the bruises on my hip where McBane hit me with a bottle when he came by last week, the cigarette burns along the inside of my arm, the scars…

When Coby’s hand touches the small of my back, where the skin’s raised from wounds that will never fully heal, the touch is so kind, so unlike anything else I’ve ever felt before that it wrenches me back into the present, into this tiny room where I’m naked and cold. Warm fingers tentative and unsure trace the patterns that scar my back and buttocks.

I hold my breath, almost afraid to let it out and shatter this sudden tenderness.

Behind me I hear the creak of springs and then Coby’s hands slip up my back, around my waist, over my arms as he stands. “Who did this to you?” he whispers, so low that I might have imagined the words.

He turns me around and I don’t like the incredulous anger I see in his eyes, the harsh frown on his lips. When he looks at me, demanding an answer, I don’t know what to say.

His hands are strong on my chest. He thumbs the crescent-shaped scar that curves beneath one nipple, another McBane trademark. I can’t meet his gaze anymore. I can’t bear to see the pain in those silver eyes, so I look down past the thick hair curled at my groin. I just want this over with already.

He hasn’t hurt me, no, but I can’t take much more of this compassion.  I’m not used to it, I don’t know how to reply. When his arms envelop me, I close my eyes and stand still, let him pull me close, hold me. I don’t know what else to do.