When Aivena returned to her lab, she acted like her last experiment was no more odd than the one where she compared the red and the blue parts of my hair. She had to force me to pull a strand of each out with a threat of punishment first, of course.
I did the same. The flame of hope I had in me was for me alone. I held onto it and hid it from her eyes. That would've only made my imprisonment worse. That hope filled me where simmering anger burned out charred hollows inside my soul and helped me to bear my current state of existence. But for anyone's eye, I became only more tired and despaired, for which I had a lot of reasons.
I couldn't say what was worse—when Aivena was around or when she wasn't. Her presence meant more humiliation, torments, and looking in her bitch face. She didn't try anything sexual again, but he had plenty of imagination when it came to doing things to me I didn't like.
