Venetian penthouse: Sam & Cris
Sam hadn't unlocked the door after the phone call with Neil. She knew she should, yeah? She knew the old woman was probably going to call the fucking hotel locksmith soon, or that the guards were going to break the shit down. She knew the concern was that she was smashing glass from the bathroom mirror, or that she was trying to find a way to break the fucking windows, or that she was going to cook herself in the fireplace. She knew, but she still didn't fucking move, and it wasn't just the sedatives that were still way too fucking heavy in her system. Numb, she felt numb, and numb wasn't something Sam did, and it wasn't something Sam liked. She didn't even think of going to do some fucked-up shit to herself; it felt like too much work.
Her mind wrapped in invisible cotton, she managed to move from the chair to the floor, and she sat with her back against the foot of the bed. She wanted to get out of the fucking scrubs with the red-dotted ditches, and she wanted to shower off the feel of the fucking straitjacket. She wanted the hot water to scald away the nothing that filled her fucking brain, but she just sat there, and she stared at the electric flames in the fireplace. She lost track, and time was sand in a sieve, fine grains, and this room always fucking confused her. It was soothing for the same fucking reason, and she tried not to remember Micah, but Neil had planted the fucking seed, and it was trying to push up through those fine grains and sprout.
The knob turned, or it fucking tried to.
She turned her head, too fucking pale, those dark circles under her eyes angry smudges of charcoal on too-white parchment. But the voice made her move, yeah? Not Abuelita. Not the guards. She was slow, but she moved.
She didn't bother standing, yeah? She didn't even think to fucking stand. Hands and knees, and her dark hair a tangled mess, and she rocked back onto her bare heels and unlocked the door. The knob turned from the inside, and she pulled the door open as far as she could without moving. The opening was a foot wide, and arm stretched up, red dots vivid fabric-stains against the doorframe, she looked out. At that level, Cris' stained pants were the first fucking thing she saw, and what Neil said about Micah came smashing back against her head like some fucking out of control memory that she had to blink away. She shook her head, like that would dislodge remembering, and she touched her fingers to the sticky-dark stain that was nothing against dress-black.