“You know, in that movie. There was a whole scene of them making out. My man must have watched that scene a hundred times.”
Clara managed to blush, even though it felt like all the blood had drained out of her head and into her feet. She’d never been thrilled with the television movie they’d made of Laura’s exploits. It was called Teeth: The Pennsylvania Vampire Killings and the actress they’d gotten to play Clara had been Japanese and underage. She’d been beautiful, frankly, where Clara always thought of herself as cute. “They took a lot of liberties in the movie,” she said. “It wasn’t really like that at—”
“But you are Laura Caxton’s significant other?” Guilty Jen asked. “Think carefully before you answer. If you lie to me I’ll break a bone in your foot. Not so you can’t walk, mind. Just enough to make it hurt like fuck.”
Clara swallowed convulsively. “I’m her partner,” she admitted.
“Caxton and I have bad history,” Guilty Jen said. “She messed up my set pretty bad. Before I could fuck her back the hogs came in and ruined everybody’s fun. Fucking hogs.”
“Hogs?” Clara asked.
“The guards here, man, you know.” Queenie supplied.
Guilty Jen nodded. “So now I have a respect deficit with her, which is no good when I’m trying to organize things and do business in this place. If she was here right now I would just break her face and we’d be even, maybe. But she isn’t. You are. Now, I can get my respect back by putting my mark on you. I have my girls train you—you know what that is, a train?”
“No,” Clara said.
“That’s when they take turns fucking you. The nastiest way they can think of.”
“Oh.”
Guilty Jen’s face clouded with thought for a moment. “You might like that, though. ’Cause you’re a lesbo. So maybe I just kill you, that’s a pretty clear sign that Caxton can’t protect her own. That she’s my bitch. This is a very tempting proposition.”
Clara squeezed her eyes shut and tried to think logically. “But—but—but you wouldn’t even be telling me this,” she said, “if you didn’t have something else in mind.”
“Yeah, good point,” Jen said, as if she hadn’t considered it before. “See, things have gotten weird in here lately. Did you notice? All these vampires and shit?”
Women on three sides of Clara laughed at that.
“Bleeding everybody dry, killing some. Making lots of new rules.” Guilty Jen raised her hands as if to say, what can you do? Vampires will be vampires. “Now, I considered offering my services to that vampire, but I’m guessing she’s not looking for lieutenants. What she is going to be looking for, real soon now, is hostages. She’s going to have SWAT teams on top of her, and maybe worse, maybe National Guard if that boss of yours thinks you’re in trouble. Worse still, she’s going to have Caxton hanging on her tail, and maybe Caxton isn’t as tough as me, but I understand she’s hell on bloodsuckers. So our friend the vampire is going to need somebody to serve as a human shield. That’s where you come in. I hand you over to her, she gives me what I want.”
“Which is?” Clara asked.
“Not much. I just want her to hold the door open while me and my set walk away. We’re going to appreciate this shitstorm from a distance.”
Clara licked her lips. “Maybe we can arrange the same result a different way. Maybe I can talk to my boss. Get your sentences commuted, get you out of here before anything happens. I can get you some money too, and a car. That’ll get you a lot farther than anything Malvern can offer.”