by Elena Monroe
Eve.
Her not being a stranger should be a treat too, but she left for Denmark when we were thirteen. That’s when our thick as thieves mentality died.
Now she was some princess by marriage, ever since her mom fled the country for some asshole willing to drag Eve out of my bedroom when she forgot to say goodbye.
Those memories were ancient history, a whole suit of armor ago and a part of my mind I kept under lock and key.
MOM: Don’t forget to pick her up from the airport tomorrow morning.
I didn’t bother to respond, since the message was already four hours old, and I was still scrubbing the sleep from my eyes after falling back to sleep when I hung up with Vic. I guess I had drunk myself into a nap, still holding the Hennessy bottle on my thigh.
He thought he killed Dante, a man that wasn’t going to be put down easily. He was a prepared man who probably wore Kevlar to bed.
Sitting up, I cracked my neck, adjusting my posture, at least I wasn’t still drunk. I walked that fine line daily.
Looking to the left-hand side of my phone, I read the time: 8:57 p.m. Perfect timing. Most of my job took place at night, since what I did at the Clave was the backside of deals, trades, and inventory of the people we kept as slaves.
Shocker, but if you thought I was a good person, I’m pretty sure I just cemented my tragedy in your heart as a lost cause.
Tonight would be different, only slightly, but now I was on damage control.
I stepped back into my boots that I had kicked off earlier during the struggle to get the cap off the Hennessy bottle. Everything was a struggle when you took being famine this seriously. I was toned, but slender in a way that seemed frail, making simple tasks pretty hard.
I had always been frail, and without Eve defending me every step of the way, I’ve had to either rise to the occasion or sit my ass firmly on my couch with a bottle of top shelf liquor, waiting for this shit show to be over.
Grabbing my keys off of the table where I dropped them, I popped a mint into my mouth just in case some newbie cop felt like trying to look badass by pulling over an Astor. It wouldn’t be smart, but most people weren’t even using the ten percent of their brains that we have access to.
I slipped into my car, an all-black Aston Martin One-77 that felt like butter even against my skinny jeans with the knees frayed.
Fuck, I should have slept here.
Last time I fell asleep in my driveway with nips stocking the floor like a package store and the car still running, the cops got involved because of my nosy neighbors. That kind of trouble wasn’t worth even this kind of comfort.
I had to be at Sins and Forgiveness about an hour ago for the shipment to come in with Dante, if he was alive. He was our ground man. He was responsible for moving products and acting as the middleman for us so our hands stayed clean.
God forbid anyone’s hands be dirty. Mine were already filthy.
Everything bad we did went through Sins and Forgiveness, like a checkpoint that required a seal of approval from one of the four of us. Normally, it was Vic or I, but now that he was drowning in some distracting euphoric state, I was the only one left abiding by the rules.
Speeding into the parking lot behind the nightclub, I haphazardly pulled in close to the backdoor with my legs still feeling slightly like Jell-O from the remaining alcohol still in my system.
The truck, about the size of a U-Haul, sat at the edge of the dead parking lot, like an oversized shadow meant to torment you. S&F was closed on Tuesdays for this exact reason. After an incident a few years ago when one of the girls had enough balls to get loose, kneed one of Dante’s men, and managed to get my knife out of my back pocket, we figured playing it safe was easier.
I still had that scar along my ribs to show for it. I deserved it as much as I deserved the liquor drying me out and the substance I avoided just to die quicker.
Life was a great depression.
If I was void of all the things keeping me alive, then I would be welcoming death, right? Wrong. I was still here, breathing.
Shoving my keys in my back pocket, I headed through the heavy black door that read Employees Only in block letters. Yanking it open, I felt my muscles cramp and the hunger rumble in my stomach for more time, more life, more hope that I wasn’t going to give it.
The club was pitch black with only neon marking a path to the bar and Dante shouting to his guys to hurry up. Couldn’t blame him, he didn’t want to be in a room with what we had to do either.
Guess he wasn’t dead after all.
“So you aren’t dead,” I shot over the noise as I slipped behind the bar, rifling through the top shelf bottles.
No one said I had to be sober.
The cages the dancers used when we were open were now occupied with scared girls who were blind folded, with running mascara down their faces and their limbs shaking so hard I could hear their bones against the metal. Every time I heard that rattle, it was a punch to the gut I had to swallow and stand up anyways.
Eve wasn’t here to stand between me and the bad stuff anymore. And tomorrow when I pick her up? It wasn’t going to be any different because her Bowy was gone. All that was left was a shell of man she shouldn’t marry.
This nightmare was my life, and in this story, I was the villain, helping it all become a reality.
“I missed you too.” Blowing me a kiss, he tapped the bar top, wanting some of the same brown liquor I poured into the short glass for myself.
Once the silence between us was too much for him to take, all you heard was fear, thick fear edging the rest out when he spoke again, “You picking a girl tonight? Spoils of the night.”
I downed the second glass with ease. Honestly, my tolerance for getting fucked up was pretty high. I could drink more than my body weight, snort more blow, down more pills, and still feel human enough to get the job done.
“No, I have to be somewhere when this is over,” I bit out, remembering I had to court my childhood best friend who had abandoned me.
Looking over his shoulder first, he leaned into the bar, grabbing my wrist and turning over my hand to a point that it should hurt, but I was too drunk to care. He growled, “Tell Vic I don’t give out second chances. You’re pissing off the wrong people.”
“I heard he shot you. Now I believe it…” I drank up, ignoring the sharp pain in my wrist now exploding under the skin.
“Your daddies aren’t the ones in charge. I expect an apology to nurse my ego before I do something rash.” His voice was permanently raspy, but his threats were smooth.
Pulling my wrist back, I stared at him, unamused, dead in the eyes, and my body not being much help either. “We don’t apologize, so get right with your gods and figure out your own fucking problems.”
Walking towards the fear, I ran my finger down the metal of the cage, letting it catch on each of the metal bars, while I took in the women still blindfolded. “Where are they from this time?”
“Greece…” His voice reeked of arousal for all the girls, half-naked, wearing the same style satin teddy, just all in different colors.
“How many?”
“Enough. Ten. Next week, the shipment for the Grove will arrive, unless you feel like offing some now. Any worth losing?”
My stomach wrenched up into knots, and I tried to swallow down how much this never became normal, no matter how comfortable I was with blood. Blood was better than what these girls were in for.
Anything sexual turned me off. All I ever lusted for was companionship, and that feeling never lasted long.
Taking one more look at the girls, I walked to my office in S&F on the second floor, essentially hiding until it was 7 a.m., when I had to be at LAX to pick up Eve. I still had hours to burn, and making arrangements for these girls seemed easy enough, even with the large amount of alcohol in me.
Some of them would go to a house on Elysium Island with the den mother.
Some of them would be ultimately sacrificed.
Som
e of them would be bought and sold like cheap furniture.
That was always the hardest part: choosing who lived through Hell and who got to die quickly, before the real pain started. This life was painful, and there was no easing that.
I always choose one, though, to keep me company, while the darkness consumes me. I always end up letting them go after, but I’m pretty sure Dante is onto me or thinking I have a basement full of dead girls.
Killing time in my office and doing all the follow up work, I texted Vic before I made any move to leave to get Eve.
ME: He’s alive. Told you. Everything can be explained.
VIC: Everyone has to die eventually. I don’t share.
ME: Justice? She looks like she shares alright. With half of LA probably.
Justice wasn’t the kind of girl who let herself be slut shamed. She was going to get her rocks off and enjoy it, just as much as everyone else does.
Sex leaves a fingerprint of confidence and comfort that people wear on the outside.
I just wear black on the outside and fuck my hand only when my balls start to hurt. It wasn’t sexy, confident, or even that comfortable. It was controlled and my own way of not having to be touched.
VIC: Watch your goddamn mouth. There’s more there than my inability to share.
ME: Like? Feelings?
We were the two least likely to get into that kind of trouble. We were bulletproof and indestructible.
Waiting, with my eyes on my phone, I finally pulled them away once the three dots stopped showing up and no message appeared on my end. He responded, then deleted it, because I would love-shame him the way other girls probably slut-shamed Justice.
Tucking my phone in my back pocket, I ran my palms down the front of my jeans, trying to get the nerves to come off and stay off.
Everyone was already gone, the girls in holding and Dante’s men out of sight, so I breezed through unbothered. Behind the wheel, I felt my car start up with a thunderous roar, and I didn’t even wait for it to warm up in the California chill before taking off. The sooner Eve could hate me would be the sooner this idea of marriage would be off the table.
The airport was dead with cabs lining the curb, and almost every person I saw was carrying a pillow. Most people didn’t take overnight flights or even felt comfortable enough to sleep on a flying tin can. I was one of them—irrationally terrified of flying so much that if I couldn’t drive there, then my feet were staying planted right here.
Leaning against the passenger side door, I looked down at my undone boots, my black skinny jeans, my shirt with bullet holes in it, and my blonde hair, which was without a doubt going to be a shock. My hair was naturally dark, but when you aren’t having sex that leaves so much extra time for activities.
I spotted her before she spotted me. Baby blue dress down past her knees and sparkly white heels; none of it was very Eve. She played harder than most guys and resembled a tomboy most of the time, until she grew boobs on me when we were younger. Her features were all the same as I remembered, just grown up now: big blue eyes, full lips, and long hair so dark it was almost the same color as coal.
Looking down before she could see me, I crossed my ankles trying to look casual. I didn’t want her to see anything, except how much I didn’t want to be married.
“Bowy?” Her voice sounded only half familiar. It was the same tone and pitch, but this time, it was like some modern day princess who needed to filter everything through some poise first.
“It’s Bowen,” I said, while taking the handle of her suitcase.
Throwing her arms around my neck tightly, I felt her body against mine that started up parts of me I wasn’t used to feeling. Stiffening under her touch, I pulled away. “Get in the car.”
Her smile was like a lightbulb in my darkness, so significantly bright that I almost forgot we lived on opposite ends of the day.
Without argument, she slipped into the car, like a princess would—gracefully.
As soon as I sat down behind the wheel, she grabbed my leg with her hands. “I have been waiting so long to see you again, Bowy. I already don’t want to leave.”
I was set on dying, not having to relive my emotional trauma with someone who can pity me or hold me close and tell me it’ll all be alright.
So what that priest raped me until I was convinced I was gay.
So what I let myself get fucked at Patmos until I realized I’m not gay.
So what I starve myself, drown myself in alcohol, and when I’m so inclined, I run a sharp piece of razor over my sensitive skin.
I didn’t need to hear her justifying my bad behavior, and I didn’t need to downplay it either. It was getting worse as time went on, but I didn’t care as long as people kept their worry to themselves.
“Sorry, don’t really remember you. All I know is I’m supposed to let you follow me around and get a taste for married life.”
I saw her 1000 watt smile fade into disappointment when her grip on my thigh softened into barely being there. I remembered everything about her and her painful departure, but I wasn’t about to admit that, not when it was pointless. We were two different people now, and meeting as strangers was a lot easier.
“Okay, it was a really long time ago anyways… Well, I’m here for the next few weeks, so I am excited to get to know you now.” She adjusted her hands to herself, perfectly placed in her lap, while settling into her seat.
I let the silence take over when I turned the key and looked over my shoulder to pull off the curb. I knew what was coming, and I needed to drop her off at my place before shit hit the fan with Vic laying some archaic claim to Justice that could end up resulting in the unnecessary death of Dante.
JUSTICE
The office was quiet when I walked in with all my supplies under my arms, having sprung for an Uber this morning.
I still wasn’t doing much but answering the phone and ordering Vic’s lunch, so I decided to use the time to finish some signs for this weekend's march. I came prepared with colored poster boards, markers, and even some glitter for good measure.
I also brought a peace offering for Vic, after clearly messing up when it came to Rodriguez. Vic made it pretty clear that he could handle his own messes, even if that didn’t ease my anxiety whatsoever.
Warhead lollipops for my desk—I knew he’d see them; he was too perceptive not to.
Deciding I was going to set up camp in his office, I dropped all my stuff on the floor, making sure my coffee was close by. I swore I still had one eye shut the whole way here.
I didn’t expect anyone to be here for another hour. Not that I was hiding, I just liked to be prepared. Being prepared for Khaos to walk into any room is like being prepared for someone to light a building on fire.
You will never see it coming.
“Well, you aren’t Vic. What’s all this, buttercup?” His sneakers at this vantage point were beat up, taped up, and no longer white, where the sole and Vans logo was.
“Protesting stuff. The Axe is an anti-rape device that isn’t legal here and should be.”
Continuing to sprinkle glitter over the words Pussy Power that I had already outlined on the pink poster, Khaos squatted down to me. “Did you ever consider that some girls like to play that fantasy out?”
Giving him a stern look up through my lashes, I let the glitter dry before starting on a new poster when he sat down, crossing his legs, shoving a handful of Starbursts into his mouth. Picking up a marker, he pushed out his hand. “I can draw a penis. I’m kind of an expert.”
“Oh, I know all about how experienced you are around a penis…” Smirking at him, I was being bold in letting him know that I knew his business. Ethan had a big mouth and wasn’t shy enough when it came to gossiping about Khaos and their alone time.
“And where did you hear such things?”
He was interested, and all I did was smirk in response, because we both knew the only place that would come from was his assistant, who had a boyfriend, but also a bad habi
t of screwing everyone but that boyfriend.
“Gossip is a nasty thing… I, too, heard some things. You have a cop friend, and you’re dragging him into Clave business.” He was only looking at the poster board, drawing curly pubes around the balls with the silver marker.
“Rodriguez? Did Vic tell you to ask me about him?”
I could feel the annoyance sharpen my spine, even hunched over a poster, on the floor, on my hands and knees.
“Depends... are we still pretending you don’t look at him the same way he looks at you? I don’t go around killing random guys for you like some knight in shining armor.”
“Maybe I don’t need saving.” Arching an eyebrow at him, I tried to take inventory of his expression and what that truly meant for Vic and me.
I didn’t need saving or a knight in some fancy Armani suit, but whatever blushed inside of me when he protected me hadn’t been turned off yet. It was hard to turn it off, when what we did last night was so clearly not just sex anymore. We were connecting and coming in ways that felt like a wakeup call I couldn’t miss.
“We all need saving, Justice. We’re all sinners here.”
“Saving, no saving, sinners or saints… doesn’t make it okay to send in backup to ask me about Rodriguez when I already explained.” I felt the anger in my voice vibrate in my throat.
“He’s my brother, and that means making sure the first girl he loves doesn’t fuck him over. You don’t have to tell me anything, because I already know. You two have a good time now and again, but he deserves to know that you’ve made mistakes too… You aren’t all high and mighty on your crusade horse.” Tugging on my hair, he stood up almost choreographed as Vic stood in the doorway.
“What’s going on here?” Vic looked confused, which meant he didn’t give Khaos a push or sanction him into probing me about Rodriguez. He had a lollipop in his mouth with his lips puckered around the white stick, waiting for an answer.
“Goodluck, man…” Khaos pushed by him, slapping his shoulder before exiting.