amping around her bicep like iron. He looke

at me," he drawled, his vo

ance pierced through the humiliation, burning hot. She was not

d hard against his chest, shoving herself away from him. "I don't n

e surprise flashed in his icy eyes. Her

long strides forcing her to hop and stumble to keep up. He pulled her into a bathroom-one as large as

door clicked shut behind her. He reached

water erupted from t

a brutal physical assault, a punishment both intimate and impersonal. She shiver

it dry, watching her. His expression was cold, his pos

he said, his voice easily cutting through the roar o

blow, shattering what little dignity she had left. He saw

last flames of the drug-induced heat. The chemical haze faded, and

. He was cleansing her. Eras

pised most. That path was forever closed to her. She had been playing

fusion transform into clear, sober intelligence, and t

f the bathroom, leaving he

d without looking back, his f

freezing water wash over her-washing away the drug, washing away the last of her desperate, naive hope. The shivering

began to form in her mind, forged in the cold and the humiliati

egic Capital. She would play his game, by