Violet Grenade(88)

But this place is not the dream I created. It's just a dusty house where girls trade their virtue for bronze coins they'll never touch. When I complete my chores and leave their home, it feels anticlimactic. That's it? I keep thinking. The holy grail of Madam Karina's Home for Burgeoning Entertainers? I watch from the Lily house window as the Violet girls walk back from breakfast.

They stretch in the morning and smooth their tangled hair. Their faces are free of makeup and their clothes mismatched. The oldest can't be more than twenty-four. One girl reaches down and scratches her crotch while yawning. And Lola walks in the back, mumbling to herself about who knows what.

They don't look like the glamorous, untouchable girls I've seen in fleeting moments at market or outside the main house window. In this light, they aren't Violets. They're just girls who were nudged, little by little, to become what someone else wanted.

As I let the curtain fall back into place, and Marie yells for me to get my lazy rear moving, the last of Madam Karina's illusions is broken. 





Chapter Fifty-Six

Huckleberry

My hands sweat as I wait for Jack to arrive. I've already reserved the room, showered, and pulled on a pair of snug jeans. Even my hot pink wig is in place.

The Punk Girl with spiky black hair, Amy, is watching me with interest.

"Tonight the night, Cinderella?" she asks.

I rub my damp hands on my jeans and stare at the ceiling.

"Yeah, it is." She laughs and elbows the girl next to her. The other girl makes a crude gesture with her mouth and hand, and the two crow harder.

Marie comes in and sees that two of her girls are heckling me. She smiles and says, as if I asked for her help, "They're not going to treat you any differently than they were treated."

"I don't expect to be treated differently."

Marie cocks her head. "How'd you move up so quickly anyway? You got a magic vagina?"

Amy slaps her knee and bends at the waist, howling. Then she shoots upright. "Nah, that's not it. Look at that face she's hiding. Men want to wreck her. She's got that scared, skinny, victimized thing going on. Makes them want to rescue and ravage her at once."

I curl into myself, imagining what they're saying is true. Is that all it comes down to? Men like Jack want to steal that fragile innocence away? If so, I wish I could spoil the surprise. Whisper that I've helped end a half dozen men's lives as I bring him to completion. Maybe I will.

Wilson taps his fingers inside my brain, waiting. I won't let him come out and play. Not tonight. Every time he raises his voice, I push him back down. Last night I wanted him close, but I've decided that this is my battle, and I need to do it alone.

I rub at the six written on the back of my hand. It would be harder to move up here than in the main house. Glad that's not a concern anymore. I'm still rubbing circles over my hand when Jack arrives. He's wearing a charcoal gray suit that has him sweating like a pig on the spit. He's carrying limp red roses in his hand and a bottle of champagne in the other. I almost feel a twinge of sympathy over the look of excitement on his face.

Until I remember that he basically wants to buy me off someone. And that he doesn't find that problematic. And that he is a thirty-one-year-old man bringing flowers and sinful expectations to a seventeen-year-old girl in a desperate situation.

The sweat on my palms breaks out across my entire body as he moves toward me. He takes my hand and, without asking if I'm ready, directs us toward our tiny room across the kitchen. A laundry room. A place where things are cleaned and reused.

Jack puts the roses and champagne in the hall, already forgotten. "I brought your money," he says, withdrawing an envelope from his pocket. "Had to sell my father's guitar to get it." I peek inside and see tight green bills. My heart picks up when I realize this is really happening. Jack doesn't seem to have the same hesitation, because he tucks the money away and leads me toward the bed.

"Tell me you can't wait until I take you away from here," he says against my neck.

"I can't wait," I whisper.

He runs his hand under the back of my shirt. "Tell me you've wanted me from the first day you saw me."

"You know I have."

"Say it."

"I've wanted you."

I am a puppet playing Simon Says.

Kiss me like you mean it.

Ha, ha! You didn't say "Simon says."

His lips move up my neck and toward my mouth. Two thousand dollars. That's my price. No, my price is freedom. My price is enough money to get my friends to safety. To find help for girls being kept in cells. To give two stiff middle fingers to Madam Karina.