For that, I should hate him. I didn’t.
Loving her meant wanting her to be happy; that was what made it love.
Luke was a different story. I wanted him near me, over me, inside me—his happiness secondary. And so I would continue to seek him out, endangering his career, his life, manipulating him into helping me for my own benefit. The little plastic badge that I’d stolen and used and discarded was no better than the plastic tiger replica on my fridge, a symbol to covet, a trophy of misuse.
Underneath her usual brusqueness, Jade had looked like the tiger that day, hunted, haunted. Ready to lash out, and God, I knew—I knew exactly how she felt. Reading my father’s files had brought it all back to the fore, all the quiet rage and seething shame, every gentle touch and cruel, wrathful word. Each paid-for fuck had pressed it all down, pushed back old hurts in favor of new ones. But seeing Luke seemed to soften me, weaken me, and now I felt each memory like a sharp new cut.
Somehow I ended up in front of the shelter. The squat brick building looked the same, but I felt a world apart from the last time I had visited Marguerite. I didn’t have an envelope for her today, but I did have a girl who needed help, one who was fearful and helpless.
This time, it was me.
Chapter Two
I felt hollow inside, from the base of my neck to the pit of my stomach. Empty and cold, the dubious relief of frostbite. Instead of pain, syrupy languor spread through my veins.
My reflection waited in the black-mirrored door of the shelter, and I watched it with a casual detachment. How pretty. A marble statue to be desecrated and then washed clean in the next rainfall. But there was no water this time, only parched lips and broken eyes.
The door opened. Relief flooded Marguerite’s face before she dammed it behind studied professionalism. Her minimal makeup was flawless as usual, her curves safely hidden beneath a severe black suit and skirt. She smoothed that skirt now, her hands twitching as if she wanted to reach out to me—or slap me. It could always go either way with her, and right now, I would have been grateful for both. Anything to make me feel again.
“I saw you on the news,” she said. “I assume you’re here to stay.”
Would she let me, if I asked? But I wouldn’t, for the very same reason I hadn’t brought Ella here in the first place. Henri was on the hunt, and this place was a too-easy target.
I shook my head. “I just stopped by… I came here because…” Because I thought she could give me advice. Something without pity, because I knew she didn’t have any.
Her lips tightened. Her hesitation drummed in my ears. She had helped a thousand girls. Why not me? Was I beyond repair, a lost cause? Then put me out of my misery.
Finally she gestured me inside. “Come with me.”
Our shoes clopped on the rubber floor, the sound bouncing off the egg-speckled walls. The fluorescent lights burned into my eyes, but despite that, some of my shock thawed. My tension eased. Strange, considering I’d just entered the human equivalent of the pound. The unwanted, the abused all crammed into cages, waiting for the world to want them again. But the air was bright and clean, and that was more than most of us would have asked for. The two girls who passed us in the hallway glanced at me curiously from beneath lowered lashes. No fear.
The sound of laughter and clinking metal on ceramic floated out from the cafeteria as we passed, comforting, familiar. It was like high school without the confusing and soul-deadening home life. Still, I didn’t doubt this place had its demons. They must have been banished to the shadows—neat trick, that.
I realized I’d lagged behind, and I hurried to catch up. “What do you do when someone doesn’t follow the rules?”
She didn’t look back. “It depends on the rule.”
“A big rule. Let’s say one of them punches the other in the face.”
“We don’t allow violence here.”
“She’s a rebel,” I said about my fictional rule breaker.
“We have a sliding scale of punishments, depending on the severity of the offense. There are a series of warnings. Then certain privileges will be removed. And finally, there are punishments.”
I grinned slightly, feeling back on solid ground. “Don’t tell me you paddle their behinds. That’s very naughty, Ms. Faust.”
Marguerite flashed me a repressive look. “If a girl is truly a danger to the others, we separate them. They eat their meals in their rooms and are given study work until they’ve shown they can interact with the other girls.”
We grew quiet, passing girls filing out of a classroom, giggling and bumping into each other.
“So basically, solitary confinement,” I said when they were out of earshot.