Insurmountable (Serpentine #1)

by Skye Callahan

  A security problem? I frowned.

  “You don’t have to worry about it. Take the elevator down to the Commons.”

  The Commons. The first time I’d see all the other girls again.

  “When you’re ready to come back up, see Drake—he’s the redhead who should be at the desk. Unless he’s jacking around and making an ass of himself too.”

  “Yes, Master,” I agreed even though the whole thing sounded quite intimidating. Instead of giving myself time to question it, I cleared the breakfast dishes from the table and filled the sink with hot water.

  Miles came up behind me and kissed the top of my head. “I’ll be home around six, but we’ll be expected in the Overlook for dinner.”

  Back to work. I knew it couldn’t last forever. Then, I looked down at my clothes—another of Miles’s shirts, a short sleeved grey t-shirt this time. “Master?”

  “Little Dove?” he matched my light tone.

  My heart thumped harder. Why’d he have to do that? “I need something to wear.”

  “That’s taken care of as well. A delivery will arrive around noon.” He held up a key on a silver necklace. “The door locks from both sides so you’ll need this to get in and out—and to accept the delivery.”

  Miles dropped the necklace over my head and pulled out my hair from under it.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, brushing his fingers against my jaw.

  I tried to find words, but failed and offered him a small nod instead. Freedom. Responsibility. Did he have any idea what that key meant?

  * * *

  The delivery arrived just after noon, just as Miles had promised. It was like an out of body experience walking to the door, pulling the key from under my T-shirt and unlocking the deadbolt. But the lump grew in my throat as I opened the door to three strange faces. They looked me over for a second and I stepped behind the open door to block some of their view. The first man brought in an arm full of bags and placed them on the couch.

  I thought there must be something wrong. Surely it didn’t take three men to deliver a few bags. Then, the other two men carried in a dressing table, while the first left and returned with a padded chair that matched the table. After they carried both pieces of furniture to the bedroom, went back to the hallway, and returned with three more boxes and a dresser to match the table set.

  What the hell?

  “The rest is up to you, slave.” With a lecherous wink, he handed me a slip of paper and they all left. I locked the door behind them and looked down at the paper.

  Have it organized by the time I get home.

  Organized? I looked at the clock. I had forty minutes until one when I’d planned on heading down to the laundry room to start the two loads of laundry I’d sorted out.

  Nerves shook my hands as I reached for the first bag. Lingerie filled it to the very top—pinks, purples, blues—every variety and color. Nothing exciting to me, but I picked up all the bags and carried them to the bed so I could dump them out and sort them. Thongs, lacy boy shorts, skimpy skirts, teddies, corsets. Most of the girls downstairs would kill for such a haul, but for possibly the first time since I woke up in Miles apartment, I didn’t feel a thing.

  After I finished with the first bag, I dumped out the second—expecting more of the same thing. Lingerie was all we were ever really given. We either walked around in pieced together underwear or naked. The contents of the second bag scattered across the bed. Pants. I picked up a pair of long, soft, pajama pants. A light lavender pair, black, pink, red. I rubbed the soft material against my cheeks.

  Pants. God, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slipped on a pair of pants, so I immediately pulled on the lavender pair, and folded the rest, stuffing them in the second drawer of the dresser. Next, I unfolded a stack of tank tops, T-shirts, and a thick robe that matched the black pajama pants. I pulled it on, too, over top of Miles’ T-shirt, and proceeded to put the rest away. The final bag was topped off with socks, stockings, and underwear. I turned to stuff them in the next drawer of the dresser, but it rattled and jammed as I tried to open it. I shook it back and forth a few times until it finally slid open to reveal half a dozen pairs of stilettos. Not my favorite footwear, but I’d gladly wear them if I got comfy pajamas in return.

  I scooped out all the shoes and lined them up along the top of the dresser, so I could put away the underwear. In the very bottom of the last bag, I found three pairs of pajama shorts and two pairs of jeans.

  Jeans. Where in the hell am I supposed to wear jeans? Miles really has lost his fucking mind.

  I put them away, feeling ironically like a real person for the first time in years. After all the clothes were tucked away in my new dresser, I brought in the boxes and sat on the floor to rip the first one open. I sat up ten different bottles of nail polish, tucking them in one of the drawers on the dressing table. Beneath a manicure kit, I also found a large palette of eyeshadow, another with blush and contouring powder, concealer, a dozen sticks of eyeliner, twice as many tubes of lipstick, and a large pack of makeup brushes.

  I organized everything away in the dressing table, and ripped open the second box, wondering what on earth could be next—almost like Christmas. A strange and perverted kind of Christmas. The light smell of perfume immediately wafted out and on the top, sat two bottles of perfume, wrapped in plastic, and beneath those, bath salts, oils, bubble bath, lotion, lavender scented shampoo and conditioner. I gathered up everything for the bathroom and ran through the apartment to place them next to the shower and bathtub, then skipped back to open the third box.

  The third box was packed with a drawing pad, pencils, a set of paints and brushes and a thick pack of canvases. Miles had kept his word. He’d made me his own and for the first time in eight years, I had someone to treat me like a human.

  You’re still a slave, I reminded myself. And I still had two bags of laundry waiting in the other room, but instead of doing anything, I just curled up on the couch in my robe and soft pajama bottoms, closed my eyes, and pretended that I was somewhere else where I didn’t have a single care or worry.

  * * *

  At one o’clock I reluctantly pulled off the pajamas and robe knowing that I’d never get past the other girls wearing something like that. Instead, I put on a tank top and a pair of pajama shorts—it was close enough to a normal outfit for one of us. Then I grabbed the two bags of laundry and headed down to the Commons floor.

  The Retreat felt so much larger when I had to navigate it on my own. It was as if I could feel the eyes of everyone watching me through the cameras and peepholes. I kept my head down as I passed the redhead sitting at the security desk just off the elevator on the Commons floor. It was his job to make sure none of us girls wondered into parts of the Retreat when we weren’t requested. And supposedly to make sure that no one wondered into our quarters to get a freebie.

  The laundry room sat at the back of the Commons room—where all the bunk beds and personal belongings of the girls were kept. Not that most of us had much in that category. When we were shipped to a new location, we were only allowed to keep the clothes on our backs. And then, we were only given what we might earn by sucking off a guard or giving a regular patron a fantastically good night.

  “Look who’s finally returned,” Kat said, blocking my path. She’d been transferred in at the same time as me, and that was probably the only reason she remembered me. I’d only spent a few nights with the other girls, and they were so involved with their own cliques and business to notice the newbies.

  “I was sent down to do laundry,” I said.

  A blonde girl came up on my right. “By your new master?”

  “How’d you pull that off?” Kat asked.

  “I don’t know.” I tried to keep walking, but four more girls helped them circle me.

  “Share the secret, Alley. We all want pampered by a master for a while.”

  “Does he have room for another?”

  “Who do we have to blow?”

  The
questions and smug comments came all at once like a freak traffic accident.

  “Break it up,” a male voice yelled.

  I jumped at the sudden sound and looked over my shoulder to see Drake, watching us through the doorway until the crowd around me dissipated. I went straight to the laundry room and poured each bag of laundry into a washing machine. They were all fed the detergent and softener through tubes in the back of the machines, so I closed the lids and switched on the first cycle.

  That left me all alone in the laundry room, terrified to go back out into the other room. I’d imagined it would be bad, but I thought I’d be able to find at least someone to chat with.

  This was shit.

  I sat down on the folding table in the middle of the room and stared at the washers as they filled with water and chugged through each cycle. My mind lost to doubts and worries until the door to the room swung and I jerked around to look back. Three of the girls who’d cornered me when I walked in surrounded me again.

  “I’m just doing laundry and minding my own business,” I said.

  “Too good for us now, huh?” Kat put her hands on her hips and stared down her nose at me. She was one to talk.

  “Of course not.” So, now I had to take it from both sides. Perfect. Not quite the paradise I’d hoped for. And I knew it would only get worse during dinner at the Overlook.

  The first washer buzzed so I jumped down from the table, intent to get everything moved over to the dryers and get back to the apartment as quickly as possible, but I only took two steps before something tightened around my neck. I grasped at the tight fabric, choking, as someone dragged me back to the table. One of the other girls grabbed my arm, helping the first pull me up and across the table on my back. Then, three more girls came into the room, restraining my arms and legs while I gasped for air. Kat put her hand over my mouth and held an index finger over her lips, telling me to be quiet.

  I just wanted air. Oxygen. A breath.

  The fabric around my neck loosened, and I inhaled sharply through my nose.

  Kat stood over me, her face inches from mine until it was all I could see. “Such a lucky, lucky girl, aren’t you?”

  I tried to shake my head, but she held it in place. I didn’t dare make a sound or draw the attention of the guards. It’d all only make the situation worse.

  Backing away slightly, Kat held my head steady while another girl pressed two strips over my eyebrows. They were thick and sticky….

  Fuck. Wax strips. I struggled against all the hands holding me against the table and yelled against the hand on my mouth, but Kat jerked my head back, busting it against the table. Then she ripped off the first strip.

  “Wonder what he’ll think now.”

  “I thought we were just going to scare her,” one of the girls said, loosening her grip on my ankle.

  “Shut up, Lux, and hold her down.” Kat ripped off the second strip. My eyes watered until I couldn’t see the ceiling or the faces of the girls around me anymore.

  “Kat, we’re going to get in trouble,” another girl said.

  “You going to run upstairs and tattle to your Master?” Kat asked, yanking my hair again.

  I shook my head, but how the hell was I supposed to explain it? He was going to notice.

  Instead of releasing me, she gathered my hair, pulling it all above my head.

  “Please stop. I won’t tell him anything.”

  She pulled up a huge pair of scissors and started chopping at the handful of hair she held. Then, she pressed the blade of the scissors to my cheek. “He’ll get tired of you, bored of you, and he’ll come to us. Remember that.”

  I sobbed and curled up as they released me, leaving me alone again in the laundry room. The locks of hair they’d cut from my head laid on the table next to me. Unable to bear the sight, I shoved them off the edge of the table, into the trash can of lint. Then, I slid off the edge of the table and pulled the clothes out of the washer, stuffing them into the dryer as I caught my reflection in the window of the dryer door. No eyebrows. Fucked up hair. Nothing would fix this. And Miles would be pissed. Beyond pissed.

  What if he sends me back?

  What if….

  I curled up on the floor next to the dryer to wait for the clothes, pulling my knees up to my chin and trying to figure out how to make all of this go away.

  Haunt Me

  Miles

  “Alley,” I called as I entered the quiet and seemingly empty apartment. I’d slipped away early when Drake messaged me that something went down in the Commons while Alley had been doing laundry.

  The bathroom door was closed, so I tried the handle. Locked.

  “Alley.” I pounded on the bathroom door. When she still didn’t answer, I slipped a pin into the hole and pushed the door open.

  Alley sank down into the full bathtub until only her face remained above the water, half concealed by her messy hair.

  Not messy.

  I squinted at her. “What happened?”

  A tear rolled down her face and she slipped completely under the water.

  “Alley.” I reached into the water and pulled her above the surface. She bit her bottom lip for an instant before a sob broke free. I pushed the hair out of her face and noticed that her eyebrows were gone, and her hair was half chopped off. “What happened?”

  She shook her head.

  “Did the other girls do this?”

  She shook her head again, refusing to answer. We’d come so far, and suddenly we were back to this shit.

  “Did you do this?” I knew she hadn’t, but I needed her to give me something.

  Again, just a shake of the head.

  “Then, who?”

  “I can’t,” she whispered. “I don’t know.”

  “You can’t tell me or you don’t know?”

  “I’m sorry.” She tried to slip away again, but I held tightly to her arm, making sure to keep her above water.

  “If it happened on the Commons floor, all I have to do is pull up the footage. I’ll know who did it.”

  “No,” she sobbed.

  I wished I could just drag the answers out of her. “You don’t have anything to worry about.”

  “That’s just the point.”

  I clenched my teeth. Nothing was more frustrating than trying to get answers from someone afraid to give them. Against my instinctual anger, I kept my voice calm and steady. “Start at the beginning and tell me what happened, Little Dove.”

  “They wanted me to know I’m not better than them. If you go after them, they’ll blame me for that, too.”

  I ran my fingers through her wet hair and kissed her forehead. “They’ll get over it, but I can’t simply let them go.”

  The water in the tub was barely warm, so I released the plug.

  “I’m not ready to get out,” Alley said.

  “You’re going to turn into a very wrinkled Little Dove if you stay in the water much longer.”

  “Are you going to send me away?”

  “You think I would have bothered to get you settled up here if I intended to send you away.”

  “It’s only a matter of time,” she muttered. “We’re all replaceable.”

  “Don’t fucking listen to Ross.”

  “It’s not just Ross. It’s every man who walks into one of these places. We’re all the same. They’re all the same. Another day. Another fantasy. We’re just swirling around the drain waiting to get sucked in and never come back.”

  I hit the drain plug before the tub had emptied completely, but she continued staring right at the drain even when the water stilled. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “Just another fantasy. Do I look like your dream girl now?”

  “You look a lot better than the women in my dreams.” For the most part, they were usually dead. I didn’t know how to convince her, though. Where this life had left off in tearing her down, the girls had picked up. Some of them could be as bad as our patrons, but then, that’s exactly how they were
molded and shaped. It’s the only way they coped with this life. I couldn’t even understand my own attraction to Alley. Why it pulled at me so deeply.

  I’d been with more girls that I could possibly count. I’d brought them to my apartment, enjoyed them at parties, dinner meetings, in hallways, and corners. I started long before any man should—before I was even considered a man by most modern standards. I’d had a share of men, too. I’d been on Alley’s side of things for a short time. After my mother died, they descended around me like vultures. I knew exactly the length certain men would go to get what they wanted. They didn’t care that I was ten. They didn’t care that I knew nothing of the world or how to fight for myself—or even that fighting for myself was possible.

  But I still managed to find myself. Even in that impossible situation, I discovered a way to make myself useful. They manipulated me, but I caught on and manipulated right back. I learned the business. I picked up on languages and I learned about people—what makes them tick and what their weaknesses are. For the bosses, that was money and power. There was always more to be had, and the greedy bastards wouldn’t leave any stone unturned. I found all the little holes and figured out how to seal them up until Milo couldn’t help but take notice. He covered up my past—no one wanted to listen to the son of a slave—but he’d never make me forget.

  Maybe Alley reminded me of the few memories I had of my mother. Maybe she reminded me of myself. Maybe it was the countless girls I’d had to carry out myself after drug overdoses, beatings, and suicide attempts. Maybe all of that was catching up to me and I couldn’t turn away anymore.

  I turned the hot water on, making sure it wasn’t hot enough to burn Alley and let the tub refill. I reached over her to the back of the tub and opened one of the bottles of bubble bath I’d had delivered for her, and dropped a cap full into the tub. Then, I stripped off my clothes and stepped into the tub behind her.

  “You’re mine, Little Dove,” I whispered against the back of her ear. “Mine. Nothing anyone else does or says matters. If I wanted a temporary arrangement, I wouldn’t bother with the furniture or clothes, I’d simply go downstairs and pick a girl out. Do you understand that?”