by Hannah Ford
I crossed the room to the closet in the corner and flung open the doors. But there was nothing in there except for a bunch of fluffy robes hanging on hangers. I flung the drawers underneath it open, but they were empty.
Where the hell could my clothes have gone? I remembered folding them neatly and putting them on the chair in the corner, but now the chair was empty.
“Where are my clothes?” I yelled again. I was acting like a child, but I didn’t care.
“One second,” Colt said to whoever he was talking to. He covered the phone with his hand. “Relax. Your clothes are being washed.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “You came into my room and took my clothes while I was sleeping?” How completely perverted.
“No. My housekeeper, Kendra, did.”
“Your housekeeper’s name is Kendra?” Housekeepers weren’t supposed to be called Kendra. Housekeepers were supposed to be called Martha or Stella or, in the interest of not being sexist, Marcel. Kendras were blonde with big boobs. She was probably one of those naked housekeepers, the kind that came over and stripped for you so you could get your rocks off while you watched them clean your house.
Colt ignored me, instead turning away so he could finish his phone call.
I just stood there, fuming. If he wasn’t off the phone in ten seconds, I was going to do something drastic. Like start tearing this room apart. I looked around for something I could start with.
The wasn’t much, but it was doable. When I was seven, I had a foster brother with an attachment disorder who would throw insane tantrums. My foster parents started removing everything from his room – his books, his toys, his clothes. Anything he could pick up and grab. Eventually he just started taking his bed frame apart using a butter knife he’d smuggled in from the kitchen. Then he took the pieces and hauled them out the window. That’s when then sent him back to social services. I was kind of sad to see him go.
I’d start with the robes in the closet, I decided. I’d pull them off the hangers and throw them onto the floor. Then I’d strip the bed. Everything in the room was done in light colors– white robes, cream sheets, cream bedding. Who had a room where everything was white or cream? People who were rich enough so that they don’t have to worry about laundry, I guessed.
I started a countdown in my head.
Ten… nine… eight…
“Whatever,” Colt said into the phone, sighing. “I’ll be right there.”
He hung up the phone before I could even get to seven, which was disappointing.
“I want to leave,” I said.
“Your clothes aren’t done being washed.”
“You can send them to me,” I said, challenging. “You can wrap them up in a box and have Kendra bring them down to the post office.”
“No one uses the post office anymore,” he said. “You have someone come and pick things up. From UPS.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “God, I hate you.”
He smiled. “No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No.” He shook his head. “You hate yourself because you don’t hate me.”
“Stop telling me how I feel!”
“I know how you feel,” he said, walking back over to me. “You feel good. Soft. Sexy.” He breathed the last word right into my ear, and I swallowed, frozen in place. No one had ever called me sexy before.
He ran his hands up my arms, then reached over and grabbed the zipper on my sweatshirt. “If you want your clothes back,” he said, sliding the zipper down slowly. “I can go and find them. But I’m going to need my sweatshirt back.” His knuckles grazed my breast again, and his touch sent electricity through me.
His eyes were on mine, and I couldn’t explain it, but in that moment, I felt this intense connection to him. I felt like he was supposed to be here, in my life. Or I was supposed to be in his. It was crazy, especially since he had just been pissing me off so bad.
Was this lust? I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt lust before. Yes, I’d noticed hot guys, in real life, and on TV and such, but this was different. It wasn’t just physical, which I’d always thought lust was. This was emotions and physical feelings all rolled up into one, pulling me up and down, high and low. One moment I hated this guy, the next minute I was resisting the urge to lie down on his bed and let him do whatever he wanted to me.
It was confusing and thrilling and made me feel like I was losing my damn mind. Even with Declan it hadn’t been like this.
Declan.
“It’s okay,” I said, shrugging the sweatshirt back onto my shoulders. “I can just wear this back to the shelter. Um, if it’s okay with you.”
Colt shrugged and backed away, and in a flash, I hated him again. How could his presence be having such an affect on me while he seemed so obviously unaffected?
Guys like him didn’t go for girls like me. I wasn’t hot enough, or rich enough, or interesting enough, and even though he’d called me sexy, I had a hard time believing it. He liked messing with me. Anything else didn’t make any sense.
***
When we got to his car, Colt opened the passenger side door for me.
“Thanks,” I said, sliding into the seat.
He walked around and got in next to me, then reached over and grabbed my seatbelt, pulling it across and buckling me in.
“I can put on my own seat belt,” I said. “I’m not a child.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Because I don’t usually wear my seat belt.” It was true. I wasn’t afraid of getting in a car accident. I wasn’t afraid of pain, or of death. I wasn’t afraid of anything except for being at the mercy of another person, or of never finding Declan again.
“That’s foolish.” He kicked the car into reverse and peeled out of his parking spot, then gunned the engine up the ramp and out onto the street.
“You’re not wearing yours,” I pointed out.
“I’m driving.”
“So?”
“So that means I’m in control.”
“So? What if someone smashes into you? You can’t control everyone else on the road.”
He shrugged in that nonchalant way of his, making it seem like he did think he could control everyone else.
“Do you, um… do you know how to get to Walnut Street?” I asked.
His Bluetooth rang before he could answer, and a little phone icon popped up on the screen in front of us. I shook my head. Some people had phones that connected to their cars, and other people, like me, had to borrow someone’s cell phone this morning just so I could make a call to try to get a job as a stripper. It was mind-boggling.
The caller ID said “Mick.”
Colt hit the answer button, clearly annoyed. “Yeah,” he barked.
“Where the fuck are you?” A man’s voice echoed through the speaker in the car. He sounded older, and pissed off as hell.
“I told you, I’m on my way.” Colt sat up in the front seat, applying a little more pressure to the gas.
“It’s pretty fucking bad, Colt,” Mick, whoever that was, said. “She’s all fucking bruised up. And the cops are – “
“I said I’d be there,” Colt barked.
“This is your mess. You better get down here and clean it up.”
The line went dead.
Colt reached over and hit the end call button angrily. He tapped his hand against the steering wheel impatiently, then sped up to fly through a yellow light before it could turn red.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“Sorry, Princess,” he said, ignoring my question as he turned the car off the highway back toward downtown, away from Ditch City, which is what everyone called the area where the Walnut Street Shelter was located. “But I gotta make a stop.”
“What?” I shook my head. “No way. Drop me off first.”
He didn’t respond.
“Just let me off here then,” I said. “I’ll take the bus home.”
“I’m not leaving you in the middle of the city
with no money so you can take a buss back to a homeless shelter.”
“How do you know I have no money?”
He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “Please.”
“It’s none of your business,” I said as he pulled the car into the parking lot of Loose Cannons. “It’s none of your business what I’m doing or where I’m going.”
He drove around to the back of the club and turned the car off. “Olivia,” he said, and his voice was low and gravelly and serious. It was the first time he’d said my name, the first time he hadn’t called me Princess. I liked it. It gave me goose bumps on my arms and a shiver down my spine. “You are going to stay in this car. You are not going to talk to anyone. You are not going to move. You are going to sit here until I get back, and you are not going to ask any questions.”
“And then you’ll take me to the shelter?”
He hesitated. It was brief, but I saw it.
Hesitation.
He wasn’t going to take me to the shelter.
I reached out and went for the door handle, but he hit the automatic lock before I could open it. I unlocked it. He locked it. I unlocked it. He hit the child safety lock, which essentially locked me in the car.
“Wait here,” he said. “Do you understand?”
I shook my head. “I want to go home. Now unlock the door. Or I’ll call the police.”
“And tell them what?” he demanded. “That I was trying to give you a ride somewhere and you insisted on taking the bus?”
“No, that you locked me in this car against my will.”
“You are unbelieveable, you know that?” He narrowed his eyes at me.
“So I’ve been told.” It was a lie. I’d never been told I was unbelieveable.
“You’re also really cute when you’re trying to be tough.” His voice softened when he said this last part, almost into a flirty tone, and it threw me just enough that when he reached down near my feet and grabbed my purse, I was too slow to stop him.
“Hey!” I said. “That’s mine.”
“Yeah, well, possession is nine-tenths of the law.”
I undid my seatbelt and went to grab my bag, but he held it out of my reach. My body was pressed up against his, my breasts pushing against his broad chest as I pretty much threw myself onto him.
“Well, hey there,” Colt said, grinning at me lazily. “Nice to see you again, Princess.” He was so close I could smell the fresh scent of his laundry detergent, and I could feel his breath against my cheek. His lips were full and sexy, the stubble on his face reminding me how close we came to kissing.
My skin felt like it was on fire and my stomach did a somersault. It was no use. I wasn’t going to get my purse back, and to try would just make him feel like he was winning. I quickly moved back to my side of the car and, in an effort to keep from being so attracted to him, tried to remind myself how infuriating he was.
“Don’t move.” Colt got out of the car and walked into the club, through a back door marked “Employees Only.”
I sat there for a minute. It would be easy to jump out of the car, to head for the bus stop, hop on a bus, and go back to the shelter.
But my bus pass was in my purse. Along with my ID. Not that I needed my ID for the bus, but it was a pain in the ass to try to get your license replaced. Especially for a former foster kid, who had no birth certificate.
I searched around the car for something I could use to help me. But the glove compartment was locked, and the car was immaculately clean.
I couldn’t do anything but wait.
My heart was thrumming loudly in my chest, and my head felt kind of weird – all light and jittery. I crossed my legs. My knee was shaking and wouldn’t stop.
I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And the whole time, I just kept getting angrier and angrier.
I hated that I had no control over my life, hated that I was made to just sit here and wait for Colt to decide when it was time to take me back to the shelter. It reminded me of all those nights waiting in the social services office on some dirty bench, while a social worker called around to different foster parents, begging them to take me in.
It was awful and demoralizing and I had no say in any of it.
I was sick of feeling out of control, sick of feeling like someone else was making decisions for me.
I got out of Colt’s car and walked toward Loose Cannons. Well, it was more like stomping, actually. By the time I got to the back entrance, I was pissed as hell. I hesitated for a second at the door that said employees only, wondering what I would do if there was a security guard or someone standing inside who was going to ask me what I was doing.
But then I realized I didn’t care if there was. In fact, I almost welcomed it. I hoped someone did try to stop me. I’d tell them I’d been the victim of a purse snatching, and it was none other than their owner, Colt Cannon, who’d done it.
I flung open the door. But there was no one waiting on the other side.
I was in some kind of back hallway, where everything was dark and quiet. The walls and floor were made of cinderblocks, and the faint smell of smoke wafted through the air. It was slightly chilly, like maybe there were no heating vents back here.
To my right was a dead end, and to the left the hallway stretched about a hundred feet before turning to the right and merging with another corridor. I could see brighter light shining from the other hallway, which probably led to the main part of the club. It must have been some kind of utility or delivery entrance I’d just come through.
I turned to my left and starting making my way to the end of the hallway. I only passed one door, a heavy black one with a laminated sign that read “KITCHEN.”When I got to the end of the hall, I followed the light and turned into the other corridor. This one was bright and carpeted and warm, and I could hear the low murmur of voices coming from somewhere nearby, but I still couldn’t see anyone.
Part of me wanted to turn around and head back to the car, but the bigger part of me was saying, screw it. What did I expect, that I would open the door and Colt would just be sitting there, waiting with my purse? And it wasn’t like I was doing anything wrong by being here. He took my purse. I had a right to follow him if I wanted to.
I took a deep breath and started walking down the hall. All the doors leading off it were made of heavy oak, with glass windows, like you would see in an office building.
One of the doors was open, and I made my way toward it carefully, hoping that if Colt wasn’t in the room, whoever it was would be friendly. Or at least know where he was.
I crept closer and that’s when I heard it – the sound of someone crying. A girl. She was sobbing, the kind of sobs I knew all too well. The kind of sobs you made when you were tortured by something, when you’d sunk to a depth of despair you weren’t even sure was possible.
I had a partial view into the room now, and it looked like a lounge or break room. There was a leather couch pushed up against the wall with a cream-colored marble coffee table sitting in front of it.
A girl with long blonde hair was sitting on the couch, hunched over, her hair falling into her face. She was wearing tight gold spandex shorts and an oversized navy sweatshirt. It was an odd outfit to be wearing, but maybe someone had given her the sweatshirt because she was cold.
There was a guy sitting next to her, young, maybe a couple years older than me. He had his arm around the blond girl and he pulled her close to him while she cried. She shifted on the couch and pushed her hair back from her face. She was startlingly pretty, with a gorgeous, perfect complexion that was dewy and glowing. Her lashes were long, and even though she was crying, there was no mascara dripping down her face.
But there was a huge red welt on one of her cheeks, the kind of welt you got from someone hitting you. I’d had a lot of experience with welts like those. They were red as soon as you got them, and then they turned into nasty bruises. I would bet anything the girl’s cheek was going t
o be all kinds of shades of blue and purple in a few hours.
“It’s okay,” the guy said, trying to soothe her. “You’re safe now, it’s okay.” His voice was cracking, though, almost like he knew it wasn’t going to be okay at all.
The girl moved again, turning her face and burying it in the guy’s chest. I almost gasped when she did. There was a long jagged scratch down the side of her neck, and her hair on one side was shorter than the rest, ending right above her ear. It looked like maybe someone had taken a pair of scissors to the girl’s beautiful hair and just started whacking away.
Something about the whole scene was extremely eerie and creepy and put me on edge. I quickly moved pass the doorway, hoping they were too caught up in their own situation to realize I was there.
The rest of the doors were dark, and I kept going, not looking inside any of them for fear of what I might see. All I wanted was to get my purse and get out of there. There was a certain feeling I would get sometimes, an instinct or a sixth sense that told me when I needed to get out of a certain place, or avoid a certain person. It was a feeling, deep in my gut, that made the blood rush through my ears and my stomach burn. I was getting that feeling now.
I thought about going back out the service entrance, then doubling around to the front of the building and asking for Colt, but I didn’t want to walk by the couple in that room again. Even though I hadn’t seen anything that horrible, I had a feeling that the less I knew about whatever was going on, the better. And I didn’t want to get caught by them, whoever they were.
Plus, I was pretty sure that if I kept walking I would find Colt, because where else could he be? Unless he cut through the kitchen and out into the front of the club, he had to be in one of these rooms.
I was almost to the end of the corridor and starting to think that Colt wasn’t back here after all, that I was going to have to double back down the hall anyway, when I heard his voice.
It was low and serious, coming from the very last room at the end of the hall. I made my way down there, and as I got closer, I was able to start picking up the conversation.
“…go to the police,” Colt was saying.