by JA Huss
She’s drunk. And she made a mistake.
I put both palms on the table and push my chair back, wondering what the fuck is wrong with Ariel. She never makes mistakes. That just doesn’t happen.
I walk away, still bothered by it, and then shut the door behind me once I’m in the office.
She needs to stop drinking. That’s what she needs. She’s got no boyfriend here to keep her in check.
My phone buzzes in my pants, so I take it out and look at the screen.
Ariel: Whoops. Time to get sober.
Me: You bet your ass. I do not need these guys asking me about the “illegal” business I may or may not be doing in here. WTF, Ariel?
Ariel: Sorry.
I put the phone away and slump down in the office chair to wait for the guys to make their way in here. And just out of instinct, I open up Ariel’s laptop sitting there.
I expect it to be shut down, or at the very least, locked. But it’s on, and it’s open to Five’s Finder app. Who has Ariel been checking up on? We don’t use Five’s app unless it’s important. It makes him very nervous to have our business tied to him.
I stay absolutely still, listening for sounds of people approaching on the other side of the door. And then I type in Katya’s name.
There she is. Katya Kalashova. 305 North College Avenue, #602. And it lists two numbers. Landline and cell.
It’s almost like… she wants to be found.
Just like the day we first met.
I seduced her that night. I seduced her with the tree, and the food, and the beer, and the music. My tattoos that transfixed her. The muscles she couldn’t stop touching. She was a girl. It was very plain by the way she let me fuck her that night.
Inexperienced.
Eager to please.
Tiny moans that made her embarrassed. Unwilling to do it standing up, or against the wall, or on the kitchen counter. Protest after protest for every kinky fucking idea I came up with.
Not there. Not like that. Not with the lights on. Not in front of the window. Not in the shower.
It makes me laugh now. Because in the end we fucked in all those places, in all those ways, and she came back for more.
I made my move before I even started cooking. Fingertips on her bare thigh brushing up against her skin. Just the slightest touch as I slipped my hand underneath that little tartan skirt and found the wet spot soaking through her panties. I fingered her through the thin cotton. She wanted to take them off but I was not in the mood to give in that night. I was in the mood to have everything my way. Just the way I wanted. For once.
She came with my fingers inside her. Her body folding against mine, her nails digging into the thick muscles of my shoulders. And then she sank to her knees. Her bare skin on that hard concrete floor.
She looked up at me and smiled.
I got my cock sucked good that night. She let me guide her any way I wanted. Opened wider on command. She let me face-fuck her. She licked my balls, fingered my asshole. Put her hands behind her back and looked me in the eyes.
I figured why not? Why not get one good night out of her?
She wants to be a whore? Make money dishing out the fantasy? I can be her customer.
I took her to my bedroom—which was nothing more than a mattress on the second-floor loft where tires were still being stored, and reachable only by a moving set of stairs on wheels.
I undressed her in the fading light. Just enough light to make her fair skin glow and look beautifully surreal. Her gun came off first. Put safely aside on an overturned crate acting as a bedside table. Then the blue blazer. The shirt was untucked next and I started unfastening the little clear buttons denying me a view of her breasts spilling out of that innocent white bra. I kissed her shoulder as I slipped the shirt down her arm and let it drop to the floor.
I left the skirt on and started eating her pussy while she was standing up. Her legs spread open just enough to give me access, my fingers pulling aside her already wet panties.
I didn’t let her come that time. Just played with her until her knees got weak and her thighs began to tremble. Then I took her hand and led her to the bed. Pushed her back against the pillows, opened her legs, and positioned myself between them.
“Take off my skirt. My underwear.”
“No,” I remember saying as I entered her. “I like the school-girl look.”
Her back bucked, arched. She grabbed her breasts, pushing them together still inside her bra.
We fucked slowly that time. It stands out in my mind that way. Slowly. Everything was slow that night. Time disappeared along with all my expectations.
I don’t know why, exactly. I don’t know what made me do it that way. I’m not one of those careful lovers. But there was something about her. Something damaged or maybe even broken.
And I remember wanting to kiss her neck after we came—moaning and breathing hard. I slumped off to the side, pulled her in to my chest, and my lips were already there, searching for that soft skin under the ear, when I realized she still had her scarf on.
When I started taking it off I felt her breath hitch. It almost made me stop. Almost. But then she relaxed and I untied the knot holding the silk to her neck. Pulled it free and tossed it aside.
My mouth was there on her skin. My tongue dancing along her earlobe, then down to that little hidden cleft on the side of her throat.
I pulled back, intending on kissing her lips next—and that’s when I saw the scar.
A raised silver-white line that started just below her ear and traveled down across her throat. When I placed my thumb on her chin to make her turn towards me so I could see where it ended, I understood what I was looking at.
I traced it with my fingers over and over again, searching for the right words to say. I leaned over her to pick up the gun off the bedside crate and looked her in the eyes as my hands automatically popped out the magazine, checked the gun for ammo. “Who did this to you?” I asked, clicking it back in place and pulling on the mechanism that loaded a bullet into the chamber. “Because I need to have a little talk with him.”
Chapter Twelve - KATYA
There was murder in Oliver’s eyes that night. Every word that came after he removed my scarf was deliberate and calculated.
I never told him who did it or how it really happened. The last thing I wanted was attention from that family. No. They took enough from me. They took everything from me and I started over. Made a brand-new life. And no, it was not a perfect life back then. Hell, it’s still very far from perfect right now. I’m not a perfect person. But it’s my life. It’s what I have and it could be worse.
I glance at my laptop, still waiting for some kind of acknowledgment or reply about the last video I uploaded, when my phone buzzes on the desk next to me. I read the text.
Unknown Number: Come back to me.
I stare at the message until my phone screen goes dark and it disappears. The invitation lingering in my thoughts.
Unknown Number: You wanted me to find you. And I have. Don’t play games, Kat. Just meet me. One hour. You know where.
Again I stare at his message until the phone goes dark.
I know where.
After that first night we were inseparable. Not true, we were separated a lot. I didn’t want a boyfriend and he didn’t want a girlfriend. So we never used those terms. And even though we spent the first two nights together, after that it was back to business for me and back to the shell of a life he was leading for him.
I needed that client he chased away. I didn’t get him, but I got another one. This guy was weird. He made me nervous. But he didn’t want to meet me in person. And he didn’t want to fuck me. He just wanted to watch me on cam. That’s how the whole thing started. Voyeurism was my saving grace back then. A way to be part of that moneymaking world and not have to actually interact with the men.
I bought better camera equipment and every morning, after Lily left for school, I turned it on and went about my day. The Hoo
k-Me-Up site offered lots of opportunities if you knew how to log in to the right part of the website.
I knew how. My parents left me a care package before they died. New identities for both Lily and me. Complete with school records, birth certificates, and social security numbers. Just enough cash to get out of town and pay tuition at a new school. Disposable phones. A pre-paid credit card. And directions on how to find help on Hook-Me-Up.
But it all came with a warning.
Do not be obvious. Two teenagers on their own can’t live an easy life and stay under the radar. You must work for it. You must know struggle. You must fight your way back to the top.
So that’s what I did. I fought for it. I opened a live-stream website, I got paying clients, and I worked on my photography. Self-portraits. Who’d have thought my life’s work would begin and end with me?
I never showed my face. Even in the live stream I covered my face with a veil or a scarf or a mask. I covered the thin silver-white scar on my neck with makeup. And later, the larger scars with the tattoos Oliver carved into my body with ink.
I have taken hundreds and hundreds of headless self-portraits. And not all of them are nude. Some are whimsical and artsy. I even had one in a gallery in Brooklyn. A picture of me sitting on a guard rail in front of an abandoned gas station somewhere in New Jersey. I was wearing a Fifties vintage dress and I had a lampshade on my head. I Photoshopped in some butterflies later, but all the rest was real.
And it sold! It was my first sale. It took a while for the next sale to come in because not many galleries were interested in what I was doing. I wasn’t sure it was a thing at first. I worried about that. But then I found another artist online doing something similar. She used fashion and accessories to replace her face and describe herself. And she had a website with a store.
It was the luck I needed to get over that struggle and win for once.
I used sex to make my photos stand out. Nudity. Eroticism. Mystery.
The live stream was the money-maker, for sure. No one was paying any attention to my photographs back when I first met Oliver. And once the cash started coming in I got an apartment for Lily and me.
She was just finishing up eighth grade in public school when I applied to the Parson School for Girls. I really didn’t expect her to get in since it was so late in the year. But the documents my parents left us included her SSAT results and glowing letters of recommendation from teachers at an East Coast boarding school.
So she did get in. I used the rest of the cash from my care package to pay the tuition and I worked hard so I could pay it again the following year.
I never finished high school and I never went to Harvard. But Oliver didn’t know that. I don’t think he looked too hard at my excuses. He liked me. I liked him. But our relationship was nothing but a diversion from the reality we lived with.
He had secrets, which was fine with me, because I had secrets of my own.
He went to church every Sunday, he explained that first weekend. And if I ever wanted to see him again all I had to do was show up for the eleven o’clock mass, wait in my pew for ten minutes after mass was over, then walk outside and get on the back of his bike.
He took me places almost every Sunday that summer. We went to the river, or the mountains, or down to Denver for lunch and a walk through a museum. Afterward we’d end up at his place fucking like we’d never see each other again.
After a few Sundays like that I’d show up on that bench across the street from his garage, dressed up like a makeshift schoolgirl. He’d pull up and I’d get on the bike. Then he’d drive us across the street and we’d… have fun. We had so much fun.
I allowed myself until August to enjoy a normal life and then, under the pretense of Harvard, I escorted my little sister to her dorm at Parson, told her I’d call every Sunday night, and I left town.
It had to be that way. I had to set things straight. I had to get my true freedom back if I ever wanted to stop this constant cycle of struggle.
And I had no choice. So I went. I left.
Oliver was part of someone’s plan, but it wasn’t my plan. He was never a plan to me. He was just… Oliver. The guy who wanted to save me, but decided to fuck me instead.
I’m glad he stopped trying to fix my life. Stopped offering money. It made it easier to keep him at a distance that summer.
I could not afford to drag an innocent person into my plans. I could not afford to fuck things up for Lily. She was the good that came out of all of my pain.
There is this thing artists have about pain and misery. One cannot create anything worthwhile unless it comes from hardship, or fear, or stress.
It’s stupid. I knew it was stupid. But I believed it as well. My struggle started with a sick man carving a threat across my throat. But that led to so many good things. A way out, a way forward, and the determination to make it all happen.
So I took that pain. I captured it on film and turned it beautiful. I showed it to the world so they’d all look at my work and think about the pain in their own lives and we’d commiserate until they opened their wallet because they needed my art to remind them of their own misery.
It’s stupid.
But I believed in it. Artists are delusional like that.
Unknown Number: Answer me.
I look at the phone until it goes dark and then pick it up and reply.
I can’t.
I won’t.
This is a mistake.
I erase it all and type… I’ll see you in fifty-seven minutes.
Chapter Thirteen - OLIVER
“Oliver?”
I look up from the message on my phone and try to concentrate on what we’re talking about in the here and now.
“Did you hear me?” Mac says.
I nod. Then shake my head. I haven’t heard a word since they all followed me into Ariel’s office.
“He’s dead,” Mac says. Pax reaches for the remote on Ariel’s desk and flicks on the TV mounted on the wall.
“Who?” I ask, still preoccupied with Katya.
“Brutus,” West and Mac say at the same time.
“Who the fuck is Brutus?” I’m still behind. Can’t possibly catch up right now.
“Allen,” Mac yells. “The rock star. You know, the guy you took the fall for back in school? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Jesus Christ, Mac. No need to scream like a bitch. And I didn’t take the fall for anybody, let alone that asshole.”
Mac just shakes his head at me. “You’re a liar. You call West a liar?” He huffs out some air. “You’re still lying. At least the rest of us have come clean.”
As if Mr. Perfect ever had anything to come clean about. I’ve never seen him pissed off before. Mac is cool, calm, and collected every moment of every day.
Except this moment right now.
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“Oliver,” Pax says, pointing at the TV. “Look.”
I glance up at the newscast. Brutus’ face—Allen, whatever he’s called these days—is on the screen. Video of people outside his Santa Fe compound—mourners and fans all gathered there to be sad together.
The headline says, Rock Star Dead After Execution-style Shooting.
And then another face we all know well is flashed beside his.
“What the fuck is she doing on the TV?” I look at Pax. He shakes his head and exhales a long, tired breath.
“She was his girlfriend,” Mac says. “Do you get what’s going on right now? The media has just tied Claudette Delaney to Brutus. And now everyone is looking at you and Pax, because you two were there. Pax shot her, Oliver. Do you fucking understand where this is all going? They have connected us. Us,” he yells again. “To the murder—”
“It wasn’t murder,” Pax interrupts.
“—of Claudette Delaney. And Allen connects us to the Mr. Brown case.”
I scrub both hands up and down my face for a few seconds, realize I badly need t
o shave and try to focus.
But I don’t care. I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care.
Katya is the only thing I think about right now.
“Nolan is pissed off,” West says.
“At who?” I ask. “Me? Pax? Because his piece-of-shit sister was some kind of secret society killer? Well, let me just fill you assholes in on something you don’t know, OK? My sister was invited into the Silver Society—”
“What?” Mac says.
“And you never bothered to mention this?” West says, slamming his fist down on the desk next to me.
“Just calm down,” Pax says, pushing West back with a flat hand to his chest.
“You knew?” Mac asks Pax. “He’s part of this Silver bullshit and you knew?”
“My mother told me—”
“Your mother told you?” West is about to lose his mind.
“Look,” I say, standing up, ready to make my getaway. “My sister was invited in. Five—”
“And just where the fuck is Five?” Mac asks.
“They killed her, OK?” I don’t want to think about this right now. Ever, actually. Everything about my family changed after Rory went missing. Everything. My parents were so sad. My sisters. And Five. God, it kills me to think about Five and Rory. Everything he did when he was younger, he did for her. “They killed her.” I say it as bluntly as I can just to get it over with and out in the open. “My sister was killed by these people. I’m not part of them. She wasn’t part of them.”
“You don’t know if she’s dead, Oliver.”
“She’s dead, Pax. I get that Cindy has high hopes, but Five told me she was dead, OK? Why would he tell me that if he wasn’t sure?”
“We need to get Nolan here,” Mac says. “You need to call him up and assure him that everything is fine and Ivy will be safe. And they need to get their asses here right the fuck now.”
“Why the hell would he listen to me? He doesn’t even like me. Hell, I don’t even like him. Goddamned pervert is what he is.”
Mac actually steps towards me, grabs my shirt by the collar, and tries to take a swing.