No Quit

Chapter 7

The room was dark when Sandra opened her eyes and immediately pain began filtering into her consciousness from various parts of her body. She grunted and pushed up onto one elbow and held her breath. Her breasts hurt, her thighs burned and her face felt thick and puffy. She hitched her way to the end of the bed and levered up onto her feet, groaning and almost falling over. When she reached the bathroom and flipped on the light her breath caught again at the monster in the mirror.

The left side of her face was swollen and the eye was red. Her lipstick was all over her mouth and chin and her hair looked like it had been brushed with an electric fan. The only top she had hung in tatters from her shoulder and her torn bra was down around her waist.

Sandra leaned hard on the sink and turned on the cold water. The cloth sent a wave of short relief through her head as she placed it on the puffy cheek and she edged back to where she could sit on the toilet lid. Things just had to change—and fast.

Gabe was a psycho and the longer she was with him the worse it was going to get, although the way she felt right then it didn't seem possible. She soaked the cloth in cold water again and held it on her face, rocking back and forth until the fog in her head began to break up and she could hold a thought for a reasonable length of time.

When Gabe came back to the room she was sitting in the chair with the sheet from the bed wrapped around her and the cloth on her face. He made a rude sound and tossed a shopping bag on the bed then went to the dresser, removing a bottle from a brown paper bag.

"Reassessed your role on this team yet?"

She didn't answer.

He tipped a generous amount from the bottle into a glass and leaned on the dresser looking at her. "Just to clarify things, the only thing you get half of is the front seat of the car. Next time you want to talk back about what you get just remember last night."

She jerked her head up and shot a look to the window. Last night? How long was I out? She watched him drink and then he capped the bottle and set it aside.

"I got you some stuff to wear since the crap you had got in my way." He picked up the shopping bag and tossed it on her lap. "Put it on; let's see how it looks. There's some makeup crap in there too. Actually, this'll help with the disguise, eh? Mrs. Maxwell had a fall. Ooh, too bad, such a nasty bruise."

She slowly lifted the bag and stood from the chair. Her legs shook and the pain in her face and groin made her gasp slightly.

"C'mon, hurry up for Christ's sake." Sandra moved to the bathroom and closed the door. "Oh, suddenly Miss Modesty." He made a nasty sound with his mouth. "Just hurry up, bitch."

In the shopping bag Gabe had provided were navy slacks, a short-sleeved blouse in blues and yellows, a set of racy lingerie all lace and frills and a pair of yellow sling heel sandals. Foregoing the silly, strip club bra, she tucked the lingerie into the empty shopping bag and put on the rest. Surprisingly he'd managed the correct sizes and the outfit was not unpleasant to look at, at all. Some saleswoman must have advised him, she sighed, brushing her hair, he couldn't pick his nose without direction.

The makeup was generic in shade, likely because he couldn't answer any of the questions from the saleswoman properly, but with the mascara and lipstick she managed to regain some attractiveness to her battered features. She went back into the bedroom and stood unhappily by the door.

"Oh boy, aren't you the fashionista." He handed her the credit cards he was holding and told her to get busy.

"I can barely walk, Gabe. I need more rest. What the hell did you do to me?"