Monochrome
It was the man from before, the one who had held her and danced with her, yet…it wasn't.
Dressed in a red turtle-neck, a long pleated skirt, and black high heels was a…woman? The body of a man but the posture and dress were distinctly feminine. Adelais blinked in disoriented confusion, eyebrows knitting downward in a faint frown as she tried to understand what she was seeing. It was the same body that had held her, but…who was this?
"Don't worry," she—he?—said softly as soft blue eyes looked over the four females in the room. A gentle British accent punctuated the words. It was so different from the rougher accent of the man that Adelais found herself relaxing without realizing it. "I'll talk to him; he listens to me," she assured them, eyes finally coming to rest on Adelais's sleepy, confused gaze.
Casey and Claire followed the woman's gaze with brief flicks of their attention, but Marcia was unable to tear her eyes from the one who had snatched her from the room.
"Oh, dear, did they wake you?" came the coo of the British accent, followed by a sharp click of the tongue as she stepped further into the room. Casey stumbled backward toward the bathroom, nearly tripping on her own feet, as the woman came toward Adelais. The older blonde could only blink in shock as the woman suddenly reached out to gently push aside a curl of blonde hair, tucking it behind her ear. "A woman needs her beauty sleep, yes?"
Soft as the woman's appearance and tone may be, Adelais could feel the roughness of callouses when fingertips caressed her cheek. Knowing better than to disagree, Adelais nodded numbly. The woman's hand came to a rest on her head, gently pressing until Adelais willingly lay back down in a similar position to the one she had woken in.
"Shh, back to sleep, dear."
When I tell you to sleep, you sleep!
Her exhale shook faintly as Adelais closed her eyes.
She stroked the soft blonde hair twice before removing her hand from atop Adelais' head, stepping away while folding her hands in front of her again. Glancing to the surrounding teenagers, her smile grew slightly tense as she returned to her position in the doorway. It was a relief to know none of the three had tried to make a run through the open door while her back was turned.
"Now, don't you worry. He knows that he is not allowed to touch you," she continued from her earlier assurances, relieved to see that Adelais had not picked her head up from the cot and appeared to have closed her eyes. She even looked relaxed. Her smile softened again as she gazed at the head of soft hair, but movement from Claire drew her keen eyes away. "He's not well," she whispered somewhat dramatically. "But, as I said, no need to worry."
Taking the time to look between the three teenagers, she finally gave a nod with a whisper of 'good' before grasping the handle of the door to leave. One last time, her gaze fell to Adelais, who—to the shock of the other three—appeared to have fallen back asleep.
Humming softly, pleased with herself, she turned and left the room with the four females behind her.
Hearing the soft click of the door, Adelais lifted her head slowly to see the woman had left. Casey breathed a faint sigh to know that Adelais hadn't actually fallen back asleep under the prompt of the strange man—woman?—that had just left. Claire looked at a loss for words as she glanced at the other three imprisoned in the room, then pointed toward the door.
"What…the fuck was that?"
"Dissociative Identity Disorder," Adelais answered calmly, keeping her voice low, swinging her legs off of the bed. She couldn't shake the feeling of the woman's gentle touch on her hair. Her torso had erupted in goosebumps upon initial contact, yet it was different than her usual reaction to touch. She hadn't felt the need to flinch away, or like the hairs on the back of her neck were reacting to a threat. It was like she anticipated the touch again, and her body was craving it.
First the man holding her so carefully, like she was made of glass, and now this woman stroking her hair with such a light caress.
"What?" Marcia asked first, looking over to Adelais.
"It's a mental condition. DID; when the mind creates alternate personalities—completely different people; like a women in a man's body—that are separate from the original personality. Apparently there're studies being done that support the separate personalities being real people. One personality is diabetic and the other is completely healthy."
Claire and Marcia stared at her like she was insane. "Are you freaking kidding me?"
Adelais fought the urge to roll her eyes. "It's just a thought," she defended, too exhausted—more emotionally than physically—to continue outright arguing with Claire and her minion. She would much rather they be as quiet as Casey, but that wasn't in their personalities. "That wasn't the man from before, it can't be."
"He's just trying to scare us," Claire argued, unable to take Adelais's suggestion seriously. The older blonde shook her head, giving up, as she settled against the wall and drowned out the sound of Claire's voice.
She had the urge to reach up and stroke her own hair, wondering if she would be able to recreate the feeling that the woman had caused. It was like a soft stroke of fingers over ticklish skin; it made her skin pebble and shiver, but wasn't an unwelcome sensation. Instead, she stroked at her neck while wondering if the bruises she already had on her flesh weren't going to be the end of it all. Somehow, she couldn't imagine the two hurting her.
It was similar to her mother, doing what she was told would keep her safe, but at the same time her mother had no gentleness in her even when Adelais didn't get something wrong. Her mother hurt her just because she could; this didn't seem to be the case for the man and woman, the two personalities. Were there more? Was the man from before the original personality?
Closing her eyes when a faint throb began in her forehead, mostly likely from how she had woken up with a rush of adrenaline due to all the screaming, she heaved a low sigh. Claire was still trying to make sense of why the man would pretend to be a woman, and Casey was actively ignoring them as well as she sat on the edge of the cot, staring at the door.
Rising to her full height, Adelais kicked off the heels she had kept on for too long and turned to the washroom. "I'm going to shower," she announced, passing Casey as Marcia and Claire went silent.
"What? Are you serious right now?"
"He gave us a bathroom with a shower, god knows how long we've been down here and we don't have anything else to wear. If I can clean up a bit, I will," she explained tiredly. "And you're giving me a headache."
Adelais closed the door before Claire could speak, taking a moment to lean back against the wood and breathe in peace. This is what she had been missing in the real world? She spent so long locked away in her mother's home, wondering what was passing her by and this was the answer? Stuck-up girls like her cousin that assumed the ground she walked on was gold and she was the sun the Earth revolved around.
Pushing off the door, Adelais glanced over to the simple shower for a moment before she decided that a shower really would be best. The woman had only recently left, so she should have time to shower and dry off before anyone came back. There were several towels stacked on a little shelf beside the door, and bottles of no-name soap dispensers on the wall.
Collecting her hair over her shoulder, Adelais pulled her sweater over her head in one quick move. Her long-sleeved undershirt, tight enough to not be noticeable under the sweater, had a lower collar that showed the healing bruises around her throat.
Draping the sweater over the sink, she repeated the process until all of her clothing was stacked on the sink and she was standing in only her underwear in front of the mirror. Rotating her arm as she looked at her reflection, a new bruise was beginning to develop on her bicep from where the man had grabbed her when trying to take Marcia. The fingerprints were a darker shade than the rest of the mark, revealing how tightly he had grasped her.
Alongside the bruises were small collections of scars that were left from her mother's fits of rage; the swipe of a knife across her collarbone, gouged-in nails on her forearm, the mark from a stiletto heel when she stepped on her stomach. Even her father's belt mark flanked her thighs and ribs. She had to close her eyes to the sight, feeling them burn with the urge to cry as her throat constricted around a scream—or a sob.
Turning to the shower, she twisted the knobs to turn on the water and adjust the temperature.
It would be best to hurry, just in case the man came back.
It didn't take long for the water to warm, so she quickly stepped under the spray and let it soak her hair and flatten down the braid's crimped curls. She didn't take the time to enjoy the water, filling her palm with the bland shampoo. Rushing her showers was common practice for her, so she had her hair washed and rinsed before the bathroom had even begun collecting steam. Quickly washing her body with her hands, she made sure all of the conditioner was gone before shutting off the water.
If she had a clock, she knew she probably would have taken a little over five minutes.
Too long, too slow.
Pressing the ball of her palm against her forehead, which had only begun to pound more as time went on, Adelais blindly grabbed the top towel from the stack and brought it to her face. Wiping off the water as she inhaled the soft smell of laundry soap, she could hear the others beginning to talk again outside of the bathroom.
She towelled down the rest of her body, making sure she wasn't going to leave water on the floor before she stepped out. The tiles were cold under her feet, prompting her to begin dressing quickly. A fairly recent belt scar stung with sensitivity as she pulled her pants over her hips, causing her to hiss faintly. Ignoring the sting, she continued to pull on the rest of the clothes while being mindful of her wet hair. Rubbing it down with the towel would only do so much.
Hanging the towel on the hook on the back of the door, she then began the meticulous process of checking over the washroom to make sure she hadn't left any signs that she was there. No hairs or smears on the mirror, the metal taps were still clean and the only thing out of place was the water inside the shower. If she had a rag, she would have wiped that down, too.
Adelais took a brief moment to press her fingers above her eyes, wishing the pain would stop, before she stepped back out into the main room. The air felt cooler compared to the washroom, and it made her wish she had her scarf back. Her sweater was warm enough, but the moisture from her hair left the back of her neck and her skull chilled.
No one said anything as she returned to her place on the cot with Casey, hair collected over her shoulder to try and contain the drips. They just watched in silence as the oldest of them pulled her uncomfortable boots back on, protecting her chilled feet.
Now that someone had used the shower properly, Marcia looked tempted to go and do the same. Adelais was surprised it had taken her this long, since she was the one who had peed on herself to get back inside the room.
"No one's going to jump out from behind the curtain, you know," Adelais finally commented, causing Marcia to flinch slightly, not expecting the comment. Finally, the older woman heaved a soft sigh. "I know it's not much, but I'll stand in front of the door. If he comes back, I promise I will try to stop him."
The dark skinned teenager hesitated a moment before the urge to clean herself overpowered everything else and she rushed passed Adelais into the washroom. Casey, without a word, shuffled over to where Adelais usually sat near the pillow and opened up the end of the bed for her to sit while Marcia was using the shower.
Taking the seat offered to her, Adelais began to slowly run her fingers through her hair to remove any tangles that had developed. Thankfully, the conditioner he had provided did most of the work, but she used it as a distraction as she remained near the door while the shower turned on at her back. She had to repress the thought of the mess Marcia was going to make in the small room; she would just have to go back in and clean it again.
Once her fingers ran through her hair without catching, she twisted it into a coil and tucked the tips into the collar of her sweater, keeping them pinned. It would keep the strands pinned as they dried—her best solution, since the man had taken the tie from her hair when removing the braid and pins.
"If you hate me so much, why'd you come?"
Claire's sudden question drew Adelais's green eyes in her direction, but only out of the corner of her eye. Otherwise, she remained motionless, one ear on the shower with her attention centered toward the door. If the man returned, she doubted there was much she could do to bar him from passing but she had promised Marcia. As annoying as the teenager may be, she did not deserve to be sexually assaulted in the shower.
Adelais kept her voice low and her tone even, revealing little, "Mother made me."
It was difficult for Casey to hold in her reaction to that simple sentence; she was able to repress it to little more than a hard swallow.
"And you couldn't just say no?" Claire scoffed. The very idea of telling her mother no returned dark, unwanted memories that caused a shiver the skitter down Adelais's spine and her skin to pebble in discomfort. She had only made that mistake once. "Seriously, what did I do to make you hate me?"
It was clear that Claire was still griping about her recent loss of temper.
"I figured it was clear why I don't like you," she finally answered. "The world is so black and white to you, so easy to understand. The little grey areas in between are totally overlooked. This, right now, is a grey area. Because you don't have an answer for what to do; there's no special trick that will get us out of here. Trying will just get you hurt or killed.
"You've been sheltered and coddled, fed the world on a silver spoon. In the real world, there's no shelter and no silver. I don't hate you for that, though, it wasn't your fault your parents gave you everything with little struggle from you. I hate you because even now, so far from that shelter you're used to, you refuse to see this as anything more than black and white. You're still forgetting the grey areas."
With her attention returned to her task, Adelais ignored Claire's aghast expression.
Grey areas. What was the grey area when it came to the man, so neat and arranged, dressed in monochrome steel? There was no black and white when it came to him; the confusion he caused her placed him into an area as grey as his clothing.