CHAPTER FIVE
“I want to speak with you before you avoid me for another week,” Niall said. He’d cornered her as soon as the meeting had ended. Arden had tried to slip out, but he’d caught her and pulled her to the back corner of the room.
She’d expected it, yet she didn’t hide her annoyance. Every bit of anger and resentment she’d let fester quickly rose up. She focused it all on him. Arden turned her back to the room and gave him a death glare. “What do you want?”
“I need you to do the club business tonight. I have a personal run,” Niall said. Close up, he looked worse than she’d realized. Stress lined his face, and his hands shook. In another few weeks, he’d probably smoke himself into a coma.
“I’m not a dealer. You promised I didn’t have to do that anymore.” They’d negotiated her stepping away from direct sales. She’d had to do a lot of shady things to get that concession. If Niall couldn’t be trusted to keep his word, Arden wouldn’t play nice.
Niall shrugged. “That was then, this is now. I need you.”
“So that means that I’m at your beck and call?” She folded her arms over her chest. “No way, Niall, try again. This is my night off.”
“No one’s stopping you from partying. Sell and play at the same time. It’s not like I’m asking for something impossible.” Niall looked around the room, the tap-tap-tap of his fingers against his pants distracting her. Then he turned his glazed eyes back on her. “And it’s not like you haven’t done it before.”
Arden spoke through her clenched teeth. “I’m not doing it.”
“If they want to get high, why do you care?” Niall scowled, his face coming close to hers. “You act like you’re better than us. No one wants your judgment.”
His unspoken “especially me” was loudly received. Well, too bad. She had to live with herself. It was one thing if adults wanted to get high. She didn’t mind selling to them, kind of understood the need for the escape it offered. The addicted kids were a whole other matter. Seeing it firsthand tore at her soul a little more every day. But what did he care? He was as addicted as they were.
None of that mattered, though. He’d promised her, and he had to keep his promises. Otherwise how could she trust him? Arden squared herself, ready for a fight. “No.”
“I don’t understand how you can separate the business into compact boxes in your head. It all fits under the same umbrella. Selling to the tweenies makes us cash. It’s how we survive. It’s not our fault if they get hooked. No one forces them to use.” Niall’s expression hardened. “Be a team player.”
He had a way of making her feel guilty. Not on his account—he was mostly a jerk who’d caused his own problems—but for everyone else whose lives hung in the balance of his decisions. She wouldn’t see them burn because he was too macho to admit he didn’t know what the hell he was doing with the gang. Or with their parents for that matter. He’d gotten them addicted to Shine to keep the pain of Violet Death at bay. Destruction followed Niall.
She shook her head, wanting to argue some more, though she knew that it would be pointless. At the end of the day, he was the boss. He’d force her to comply.
He came to the same conclusion. “Enough, Arden. It makes me look weak when my sister gives me as much crap as you do. You know what will happen if I’m challenged for leadership? Do you want that?”
They’d kill him. Of course she didn’t want that. And he’d kill her if it saved him. Neither option was an outcome she wanted. Especially the second one.
“Fine,” she agreed, wanting to get away from him. “I’ll do your dirty work.”
But she didn’t have to feel good about it.
CHAPTER SIX
Dade walked into the space they were using for the photo shoot. Someone had snagged an empty apartment in the Upper Levels, a surprising find since there was rarely a vacant location in the city. Probably it had been rented, the occupants paid handsomely to move their stuff out for the day.
There were people inside, standing around when he walked in. They all stopped what they were doing and stared. While that was unfortunately normal, it made Dade uncomfortable.
The dressers descended on him with grasping hands. They ripped his clothing from his body before he could get behind a changing screen. It made him feel violated, a feeling he often associated with his social responsibilities. He had little say over most aspects of his life, and that often included simple things like dressing himself.
When they finally deemed him acceptable, they showed him to a seat at the hair-and-makeup table that had been set up in one corner of the living room.
Clarissa was already at the table, lounging in a chair and looking as amazing as always. She smoothed her clothes with an absent brush of her hand. She wore a long bright-pink-and-orange silk robe, the front opened to her navel and showing off lots of tanned skin, while the back fell into a long bustled train. A fuchsia synth-silk tie wrapped around her waist. Beneath it all she wore synth-leather pants, displayed by a split in front.
Absent was the phaser she usually kept strapped to her thigh. She probably still had knives tucked into her boots, though. It was an assumption he could safely make because she was as devoted to her weapons as she was to her friends. He was sure that her missing weapons wouldn’t be too far away, just as his had been left with Saben nearby.
He tugged at his neck band. They’d dressed him in a charcoal tunic with a high collar that reminded him of a noose. The outfit was heavily embroidered with silver ivy leaves that made him itch. Thick chains looped his neck, heavily pressing against his sternum while jewels glittered on every finger. The ensemble was ostentatious and ridiculous, and it looked nothing at all like his normal clothes.
Clarissa blinked one spidery eyelid open to inspect him. Her voice sounded like thick gravel in dark syrup when she said, “You should wear that tonight, you look hot.”
He appraised himself and couldn’t imagine endless hours dressed in this horror. “I look like I stepped off a fashion runway. A really gaudy one.”
“Which makes it perfect. I’m sure your mother will have nothing negative to say about it for once.”
Dade silently agreed that would be a plus. The ziptext he’d received from his father had required Dade’s presence at his hosted dinner that evening. Coupled with specifics about formal dress, behavior, and expectations, the message held the promise of a long, regrettable evening.
The hairdresser went to work on his hair, while the makeup woman finished with Clarissa and switched to Dade. He hated wearing cosmetics. It made his face feel as if layers of weird clay were sitting on top. The feeling was different than wearing a synth-mask, which was so thin, he almost forgot it was there.