Chapter 52: Steam Room Provocation
The shower room was a cavern of white tile and swirling steam, the air thick with the damp, mineral scent of hot water and the faint, coppery ghost of old blood. Ingrid stood under the punishing spray, her head bowed, water sluicing in rivulets down the tense cords of her neck and over the landscape of her back. Her hands, braced against the slick wall, trembled slightly. She was alone, or had thought she was.
Her fingers drifted from the wall, tracing the raised, angry line of stitches just above her pubic bone. The sutures were a stark black against her pale, water-beaded skin, a fragile dam holding in the fire Violet had lit inside her. Each throb was a memory of violation, of fingers that weren't Mark’s digging, claiming, tearing. She pressed the heel of her hand hard against the wound, using the sharp, clean pain to eclipse the deeper, sickening ache.
A low, familiar laugh cut through the steam, a sound like gravel shifting. “Admiring my handiwork?”
Ingrid froze, her spine locking. She didn’t need to turn. Violet’s reflection materialized in the fogged chrome of the shower pipe, distorted and wavering.
Violet moved with a serpent’s grace, her lean, oil-sheened body slipping through the steam to press against Ingrid’s back. The contact was intimate and violating. Ingrid could feel the hard points of Violet’s nipples, the wiry strength of her frame through the slick heat.
“Those cheap medics do shoddy stitch-work,” Violet murmured, her breath hot and damp against Ingrid’s ear. Her hands came up, not to touch the wound, but to slide over Ingrid’s hips, her fingers splaying possessively over the muscle. “I could have done a cleaner job. Slower, though. More… deliberate.”
Ingrid’s jaw clenched so hard her teeth ached. “Get your fucking hands off me.”
“Or what? You’ll bleed on me?” Violet’s laugh was a soft, ugly thing. One hand drifted lower, fingertips skimming the tender, bruised flesh between Ingrid’s legs. “Miss my fingers already, Iron Maiden? I know you felt me in there. Deep. I left a part of myself behind.”
Before Ingrid could shove her away, Violet shifted her weight. The movement was subtle, a dancer’s adjustment. Then came the pressure—a sharp, pinpoint cold against the soaked skin of Ingrid’s lower back, sliding down the groove of her spine.
The stiletto heel.
It was attached to one of Violet’s ridiculous, beaded flip-flops, but the thin, metal spike at its tip was very, very real. It traced a path of icy promise down Ingrid’s back, over the curve of her buttock, coming to rest with terrifying delicacy on the topmost stitch of her abdominal wound.
Ingrid stopped breathing. Every muscle in her body went wire-tight. The steam felt suddenly suffocating.
“I could pop them,” Violet whispered, leaning in, her lips brushing Ingrid’s shoulder. “One by one. Like little black seeds. It wouldn’t take much. Just a little weight.” She pressed down. Not enough to break the skin, but enough for Ingrid to feel the exact, lethal potential centered on that single, vulnerable point. A fresh, hot trickle of blood welled around the stitch beneath the pressure.
The world narrowed to that pinprick of cold metal and the roaring in Ingrid’s ears. She saw the medical gurney, Mark’s worried face, the feeling of being split open. She saw Violet’s triumphant eyes from the ring. The coals of her fury, banked and waiting, roared to life.
“Do it,” Ingrid ground out, her voice low and shredded. She didn’t move a millimeter, her body a statue of tension. “Give me the reason. Right here.”
Violet went still. The mockery in her posture faded, replaced by a calculating stillness. She knew that tone. It wasn’t the sound of a victim. It was the sound of a trap being set.
After a heartbeat that stretched into an eternity, the pressure vanished. The stiletto point lifted away.
Violet took a slow step back, her bare feet making no sound on the wet tile. “Where’s the fun in that?” she said, her voice losing its playful cruelty, turning flat and businesslike. “A back-alley stabbing? Too easy. Too cheap.” She smiled then, a thin, bloodless slash. “I want to see you try to beat me in the ring again. I want to feel you break properly next time. On camera.”
She turned and walked away, her form dissolving into the thick steam until only her voice remained, hanging in the humid air. “Keep the scar. Think of me.”
Ingrid stood rigid, the water beating down on her. Her hand, still pressed to her abdomen, came away smeared with fresh blood where the heel had been. The pain was a distant thing. The humiliation, the violation—they were fuel.
She looked at her crimson-smeared fingers, then slowly, deliberately, made a fist. The blood seeped between her knuckles.
Next time wouldn’t be in a ring. It would be in a pit. And there would be no cameras.
The steam seemed to crystallize around Ingrid’s resolve, each droplet a frozen promise. That thin, mocking voice was still fading, swallowed by the humid air and the rush of water. Violet thought this was over. She thought she could walk away.
Ingrid moved.
It wasn’t the pained lurch from the ring, but the fluid, explosive uncoiling of a predator who had been playing wounded. She pivoted on the ball of her foot, water whipping from her body in a sharp arc. Her right hand, still smeared with her own blood, shot out and clamped around Violet’s retreating wrist.
The bones felt like brittle twigs in her grip.
Violet had time for a single, startled gasp before Ingrid wrenched her backward, using her own momentum to slam her into the slick tiled wall. The impact was a wet, meaty thud that stole the air from Violet’s lungs. Her head snapped back, cracking against the ceramic.
“You talk too much,” Ingrid said, her voice a low monotone that cut through the shower’s roar.
Violet’s eyes, wide with shock and sudden pain, tried to focus. Her free hand, the one holding the beaded flip-flop with its stiletto heel, flailed wildly. Ingrid caught that wrist too, slamming it back against the tile beside Violet’s head. She held her there, pinned, a butterfly on a board.
“Let go of me, you psychotic bitch!” Violet snarled, struggling, her body slick and writhing.
Ingrid didn’t answer. She just increased the pressure on Violet’s wrists, grinding the small bones together until a sharp cry of genuine pain escaped Violet’s lips. Her fingers spasmed open. The flip-flop clattered to the wet floor.
“You wanted to pop my stitches,” Ingrid murmured, her face inches from Violet’s, her steely eyes devoid of any emotion but cold focus. “Let’s see how you like it.”
She released Violet’s left wrist and drove her knee, hard, into Violet’s lower abdomen. It wasn’t a fighter’s blow meant to wind; it was a precise, brutal piston strike aimed deep into the soft tissue. Violet buckled, a guttural retch tearing from her throat as her body folded over the point of impact.
Ingrid held her upright by the one remaining wrist, keeping her from collapsing into a heap on the floor. She watched the agony contort Violet’s weathered face, the bitter green eyes glazing over.
“That’s for inside me,” Ingrid whispered, her breath hot against Violet’s ear.
She then yanked the stunned woman forward and spun her, shoving her face-first into the same wall. Before Violet could slide down, Ingrid’s arm hooked around her throat from behind, applying a chokehold that had nothing to do with sport. It was pure, efficient compression.
Violet’s hands scrambled at Ingrid’s forearm, her nails digging bloody furrows into the wet skin. Her legs kicked weakly, her bare feet slipping on the tiles. A raw, choked sound, the last of her air, escaped her.
Ingrid held it for a count of three, feeling the frantic pulse hammering against her bicep. She leaned in, her lips almost touching Violet’s ear.
“And that’s for thinking you could walk away.”
She released the hold.
Violet dropped like a stone, collapsing into a gasping, coughing heap on the shower floor. Water sprayed down on her heaving back, diluting the thin trails of blood from where Ingrid’s nails had bitten deep. She clutched her throat, her body wracked with spasms as she fought to drag air into her bruised windpipe.
Ingrid stood over her, chest rising and falling steadily. The fire in her core was now a cool, satisfied hum. She looked down at the woman who had violated her, who had whispered filth in her ear and threatened her with a razor heel.
She toed the beaded flip-flop with its stupid, dangerous stiletto, sending it skittering across the floor to land near Violet’s trembling hand.
“Keep it,” Ingrid said, her voice flat and final. “Think of me.”
She turned her back, stepped out of the shower spray, and reached for a towel. The steam began to dissipate, revealing the stark reality of the scene. One woman standing, one broken on the floor. The water swirling at the drain was tinged pink.