Chapter Fifty-Four
Cost of Supplies
Before I can speak, his hands are on me. He buries his face in my neck and mumbles that he hated the way we parted the night before. His body pushes against mine until I’m walking backward. Until the backs of my knees hit the mattress and I sit down.
My heart pounds inside my chest, and I struggle to catch my breath.
I was sure I could do this, but now my body won’t cooperate. If I don’t do something to lessen my anxiety, I’ll die of a heart attack. Jack sits next to me and slides his arm around my waist. His other hand squeezes between my knees.
“There’s still so little I know about you,” I manage to say.
Jack nuzzles my neck. “We have all the time in the world to get to know each other.”
“Is that what you want, Jack? Truly?”
He pauses and looks into my eyes. “Yes, it is. I may have come here to forget my troubles, but the moment I saw you was the moment everything changed for me.” He strokes my face, and it feels like blisters form beneath his touch. “Such an innocent face. So vulnerable.”
What did he just say? Wilson snaps. Innocent? Vulnerable? This guy is living in his own head. You’re just a prop for his twisted fantasies.
I don’t push Wilson down like I usually do. I’m relieved he’s back, because I may need him if this gets out of hand. I’m sure I must do this. But I’m also certain I don’t want to.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Jack grips my hand and looks at me as if we are a couple on our fiftieth anniversary, and he knows me all too well.
“My mother is sick.” I don’t know where this lie comes from. Maybe it forms so quickly because it’s not a lie at all. “She needs money to pay for her prescriptions, and she doesn’t have it.”
“Can’t you send her some of your earnings?” he asks. “Surely you have money after how many nights you’ve worked here.”
“It takes too long to apply for a withdrawal, and it makes the madam wary when we do.”
Both truths.
Jack rubs his jawline. “I’d give you money, Domino, but that house manager said if we ever did that we’d be fined and wouldn’t be able to return. I’m not sure he could actually fine me, but he might be able to keep us apart.” Jack grabs my hands like a thought has occurred to him. “Do you want to stay here? I mean, long-term?”
The hopeful glint in his eyes softens my resentment, and I decide that just this once, I’ll tell him the truth. “No, Jack. I don’t want to stay.”
“Then maybe I could pay off your debts.”
My entire body goes cold. “My what?”
“That manager guy—Mr. Hodge?—he said if I had enough cash he might be persuaded to let me take one of his girls. Would you ever want to…? What I mean to say is, how would you like to come and live with me? It would take me a few months to get that kind of cash but—”
“I’m for sale?” I ask, stupidly.
“No. Of course not. Well, not exactly.” Jack’s face pulls together. “You didn’t know? They said you were working off a loan and that most of your earnings went to that debt. But that we could pay it off for you, and that’d release you from your contract.”
I rub my hands over my arms, fighting nausea. Of all the messed-up things I expected to happen tonight, this was not one of them. How dare Madam Karina? How dare Mr. Hodge? To pitch us as products? To tell the customers we are but bodies to be traded for cash? This house is a mass burial site. The further I dig the shovel in, the more skeletons I discover.
I shoot to my feet, knowing if I don’t get fresh air, I’ll lose it. But first, there’s one thing I want to clarify. “You would want that? To pay off my debt and take me as your own?”
Jack stands up, thinking I’m shocked at his thoughtfulness. “More than anything.”
“You don’t even know me,” I whisper.
“Like I said,” Jack coos. “We’ll have time.”
I spin around and face him, every ounce of pity gone from my mind. He doesn’t want me. He just wants a body. Maybe my face pleases him in some way, or maybe I remind him of his ex-wife. Who knows? I only know I’m a placeholder. “I need cash for my mother’s medications, and I need it now. If you can get that for me soon, then I’ll tell the madam myself that I want to leave with you.”
“As soon as I have the money to pay for you,” he clarifies.
I cringe at his choice of words, but refrain from showing my disgust. Instead, I pull him against me and touch my mouth against his chest and say thank you, thank you, more times than I can count.
“How much does she need? Your mom?” he asks, his hands moving down my back.
I swallow, grip him tighter and say, “Two thousand dollars.”
“Two thousand? That’s not much less than what you owe the madam.”
Once again, my stomach revolts. Is that how little I’m worth? I choke on emotion, and Jack misunderstands the sound as fear for my mother.
“Shh. Come here, let me hold you.” He pulls me next to him on the bed though I desperately need that air. “I’m going to help you, but… Well, how old are you, Domino?”
He must want to ensure I’m not underage, which I am. I open my mouth to lie, knowing I need him comfortable in this transaction. In the end though, I say, “I’m seventeen. I turn eighteen in four months.”
At first I’m afraid I’ve blown it. That he’ll hightail it out of here and choose a different girl to spend his bronze coin on. But a slow, shy smile parts his mouth. “So young,” he says. “Do you know how old I am?”
“It doesn’t matter to me.”
Twenty-three.
Twenty-four.
Old enough to know better.
“I’m thirty-one.”
He pauses as the floor falls out from beneath me. Thirty-one. Thirty-one? He’s almost twice my age. What is he doing here? And why is he grinning that way?
“Does that bother you?” he asks, slipping his hand inside the waistband of my jeans.
I shake my head to conceal my rising fear. I can’t name why his age makes me afraid of him. But it does.
Sensing my alarm, he says, “I can bring the money for your mother tomorrow. It won’t be easy to get together, and it’ll mean waiting longer before I can get you out of here. You still want that, right? To go with me?”
“More than anything,” I whisper.
Jack clears his throat. “We should commemorate this somehow. I mean, tomorrow when I bring the money. We should do something special.” He licks his lips. “Do you think you could reserve this room again tomorrow night?”
I know what he’s asking. Will I reward his generosity? I decided this before I walked into the Lilies’ house, so why am I hesitating? I pull in a deep breath. Two. Three.
“Yes,” I say.
He hears my hesitation. I hear my hesitation. The girls in the living room probably hear it. Yet he still replies with a cool, “Perfect. How about tonight we do something a little more low-key? It’ll help build suspense for our special night tomorrow.”
He can barely keep the giddiness from his voice. He sounds like a twelve-year-old boy, knowing he’ll commit a petty crime the next evening and wanting to relish the still moments before the excitement unfolds.
“Can I hold you?”
I smile and tell him I’d like nothing better. Jack lays himself out on the side of the bed, his back pressed against the wall. Just like I suspected, there isn’t really enough room for us both. But we try anyway. Jack wraps his arms around me, and we share the single pillow. Light continues to shine from the kitchen.
We never even closed the door, I think to myself. Nothing to worry about.
But tomorrow night that door will be closed. And after it does, I’ll never be the same again. But I won’t be trapped by another woman promising me love when she has nothing but ugly hate to give. This time, I will escape.
As Jack rubs his anxious hands over my hip and thigh, something catches my eye. A movement in the kitchen. No, not in the kitchen. Outside the kitchen window.
The figure is there.
And then it’s gone.