“There were so many things wrong with what you just said.” Cabe sighed, though he headed obediently toward the door. Noah followed without a word.
“How often does that happen?” Quillan asked, a scowl pulling at his mouth. “The mouse taking her clothes off for you two?”
“Right here.” I waved my hand. “The mouse is standing right here.”
“Often enough.” Clarin’s tone was thoughtful as he completely ignored my waving hand. “You realise we’re not a threat right? Poison is all about dic—”
“Boys,” I quickly intercepted. “Poison is all about boys.”
“But like, not little boys.” Poison felt the need to correct me, her arms crossed over her chest. “I like boys my own age. Some men, too.”
“Can you go outside please?” Clarin tried again, even moving to open the door for Quillan.
Quillan didn’t seem to want to move. He set his eyes on me, his scowl growing darker. “Every time I turn my back, and even when my back isn’t turned, someone either has their hands on you, or else something is happening that I definitely wouldn’t approve of under normal circumstances.”
I opened my mouth to answer, but there hadn’t really been a question in what he had just said, and I didn’t really have anything to respond with anyway. “Are you upset?” I asked, for clarification.
“I don’t know,” he replied.
“Do you want to watch her take her clothes off?” Clarin prodded. “Because if not, you should probably go wait with the other two.”
Quillan set his jaw, turning his dark expression on Clarin. For a moment, the tension in the room swelled, and the hairs along my arms prickled, because Quillan’s temper being stirred was something that I very much wanted to avoid. The influence of his disproval was enough to melt anyone into a meaningless puddle on the ground. Clarin seemed to be withering under the force of his gaze now, and when Quillan finally turned and stalked out of the room, Clarin let out a deep breath of relief.
“I don’t envy you your future,” he told me, tapping me on the nose as he moved to Poison’s closet.
“Me either,” Poison agreed, shaking her head. “Those guys are going to tear each other apart.”
“No they won’t.” I sat down on the bed, catching each item of clothing that Clarin tossed at me. “I won’t let them.” I whispered the last part, hoping that my words would be swallowed up by the faint rustle of activity in the room.
Poison must have heard me, because she gently patted me on the back before flicking through the pile of clothes on my lap and grabbing a sequined top—which was actually just little more than a triangle of material with strings to tie it up at the back. She stood and pulled off her clothes, donning the top and paring it with the tiny denim skirt that she had saved from Noah. I watched her, giving her a subtle look of inquisition. She wasn’t dressing up for a night out. She was dressing like an actual stripper.
Her grin was wolfish when she caught me staring. “Didn’t think I’d let you have all the fun now, did ya?”
I laughed, surging up from the bed to pull her into my arms. She hugged me back tightly and my own enthusiasm seemed to upset our precarious balance, which was made much worse when Clarin tossed another item of clothing at me and it smacked against my face, obscuring my vision. We tumbled into a pile and Clarin came back out of the closet to investigate our muffled laughter, shaking his head as he pulled us both back to our feet.
“Strip,” he commanded, deliberately raising his voice so that the three volatile males waiting out in the hallway could hear him.
I gave him a warning look and shrugged off my cardigan and scarf.
“Do it slower,” Clarin suggested, his voice still raised as Poison slapped a hand over her mouth to curb her laughter. “Put a little bit of a wiggle into it. C’mon, mouse, strip like you mean it.”
The door suddenly swung open, colliding with the wall in a bang. Quillan, Noah and Cabe spilled into the room, moving straight for Clarin. I quickly jumped in front of them, trying to prevent Clarin’s handsome face from getting punched, but Quillan only picked me up by the arms and handed me to Noah, who veritably tossed me to Cabe. Cabe set me down, and I ran back to Quillan just as he reached Clarin, catching his arm.
“He was kidding, jeez!”
Quillan wasn’t slowing down, so I quickly jumped between them, unfortunately getting flattened in the process. Clarin took a rapid step backward, his laughter shaking my body as he pulled me with him. He grabbed my arms and raised me up before Quillan, giving me a gentle shake.
“Look! She’s still clothed! It was a joke!”
“Stop. Touching,” Noah growled, ripping me away from Clarin and handing me off to Cabe again.
This time, Cabe didn’t let me go. He had obviously caught onto the joke the fastest, because he didn’t look angry anymore. He rolled his eyes at me in what seemed to be commiseration, but tucked me under his arm securely, keeping me prisoner until the others managed to calm themselves down.
Quillan took the longest, and I could tell that he was internally wrestling with something. I felt that I understood it, even if I couldn’t successfully label it. I had been confused over our relationship too, especially before the bonding with Noah and Cabe, especially before Silas had been weakened and the bond had released him from being a conduit. I wasn’t confused about my feelings for Quillan anymore—I was perhaps unsteady in my feelings, but I wasn’t confused.
The problem was, he didn’t have the luxury of knowing my head. He hadn’t been through my epiphany with me, and my bonding to Noah and Cabe hadn’t changed his outlook as it had changed mine.
He was still confused, and it was playing on him more viciously with every passing moment.
“That’s enough guys,” I said gently. “Fun’s over.”
“Fun’s never over,” Poison countered, drawing everyone’s attention to her. She was still dressed like a stripper.
“Er… we’ll wait outside again.” Cabe released me and dragged the other two back into the hallway.
“Sorry.” Quillan sighed the apology to Clarin more than spoke it, but Clarin graciously accepted it all the same, with a good-natured chuckle.
“Now that the chaperones have been whisked away again,” he said, clapping his hands together. “It’s time to turn you into a fancy-ass slu—”
“Clarin!” Noah growled through the door.
Clarin let out a gleeful cackle that clearly indicated his sadistic nature, and then he was silently motioning for me to finish undressing. I puffed out a frustrated breath, because I couldn’t quite decide whether to hit him or laugh at him. He forced me to change into a pair of skin-tight leather booty shorts and a corset-styled top in a dark blue colour, with cute little pink bows lining the bottom of it. The very contradiction it presented had me laughing as I pulled on the knee-length, kitten socks and powder-blue heels that Poison tossed at me. The last item handed to me was a leather garment that covered my arms like a short cardigan; it was secured over the front of my chest with a few buttons, though it ended an inch or two above my corset.
“This is a strange combination,” I remarked, staring down at myself.
I didn’t quite know where to look or what to think. There was a good amount of skin on show, and yet… there wasn’t. A bare inch of cleavage peeked above my corset before disappearing behind the leather cover-up, and only the tops of my thighs were bare between the shorts and my socks. Only a small stretch of my lower back was visible, along with my hipbones and a hint of my stomach. It was a contradictory outfit. A sarcastic outfit. Its innocence made it so much less innocent.
“I know, I know,” Clarin’s eyes sparkled, “I’m just that good.”
I skipped over to him and kissed his cheek. “Thanks for making me look trashy, I appreciate it. You’re a good friend.”
He laughed and Poison tapped me on the shoulder, handing me an overcoat. “What about me? I’m the one who provided the trashy clothes. Without me, you’re nothing
!”
I shrugged on the coat, buttoning it up and shoving a small notepad and pencil into the pocket before I kissed her cheek. “You’re a good friend too. Aren’t you going to wear a coat?”
“I don’t need one. You need one so that those guys will actually let us out of the house.”
“Good point.”
“We can hear you still,” Noah grumbled, his voice muffled.
“On that note.” Clarin yanked open the door, motioning us out. “Let’s go!”
“We wanna see the guy in charge,” Poison drawled, a piece of gum clenched between her teeth. I had no idea where she’d gotten it from.
I was seeing her in a whole new light, all of a sudden. She wasn’t simply insane; she went beyond insanity because her personality was too large to properly fit inside of her person. She was a Hollywood starlet moonlighting as a college kid. Clarin was several paces behind us with Cabe, and even he was playing a part. He had changed into baggy jeans and a collared shirt, his hair gelled back and his tattoos on glaring display. He and Cabe were talking quietly while Cabe multitasked on his phone. I doubted that the security guards would even check their IDs—they were acting so nonchalant, and both of them looked older than they really were. Not that it would matter; they had proper fake IDs, along with Poison. I was the only one without a history of sneaking into clubs.
Poison propped her hip against the side of the building as the security guard looked her over. He seemed to be completely enamored with her. Or at least, he seemed to be completely enamored with the precarious way her top clung to her chest, threatening to reveal everything at the slightest shift in movement. I knew that it was an illusion because she had tackled me on our way out the door as I attempted to sneakily switch my heels for a pair of flats. Her top had magical properties, because it hadn’t so much as slipped an inch.
“Oh yeah?” Security Guy asked, his eyes still focussed too far south. “What for? You lookin’ for a job, sweetheart?”
“Matter of fact I am,” Poison confirmed with a smirk. “So is she.” She jerked her thumb at me and Security Guy switched his attention from her chest to mine.
“Come with me,” he grunted, and I couldn’t help but smirk at his disappointed expression.
My coat hadn’t presented anything worth staring at, since it was still buttoned to my chin. I didn’t plan on taking it off until it proved necessary, and since Poison was Poison… I figured it wouldn’t be necessary until people got bored of staring at her, which probably wouldn’t happen for a while. We followed Security Guy inside, carefully weaving our way through the lingering crowd in the front section of the club. It was mostly populated by sparse groups of men, with a female laugh to be heard only in the distance, though I didn’t see any actual women.
“These are the people too drunk to be allowed inside,” Clarin whispered to me, leaning over the back of my head.
Cabe immediately yanked him away, hovering protectively behind me. It was an uncharacteristically aggressive move for Cabe, and I suspected that the atmosphere was already putting him on edge. Noah and Quillan had made a wise choice to stay out of our way for the night. We descended a staircase at the back of the bar area, where another two guards stood watching the rest of the room, and then suddenly I was standing in a strip club. I stopped walking immediately, my body locking up in unwanted tension, memories of my past life gripping me with determination, demanding their due recognition.
“I’m looking for a man.” The voice of my thirteen-year-old self echoed inside my head, and the topless waitress right in front of me faded away to make room for a face far more grizzly.
The security guard stared down at me, blinking several times as though I were an illusion. “What the hell are you doing here, kid?”
“Looking for a man,” I repeated. “His name is Gerald.”
“Is Gerald your daddy or your boyfriend?” the guard asked.
The other guard clutched his stomach and laughed loudly. “Ha!” He patted his stomach again and then set his shoulders back. “Well? The man your daddy or not?”
“Yes. Is he here?”
“Lots of daddies in there,” the first guard replied, causing the second one to laugh again.
“He’s tall and he has a belly like this,” I said, indicating the slight curve of a stomach in front of me. “Black hair. Last I saw, he had a black eye, too.”
“Last you saw?”
“Yeah.” I scuffed my sneaker against the ground, rolling the sole against the butt of a cigarette. “I threw a book at him.”
I wasn’t sure why I told them that detail… maybe I wanted them to take me seriously. They only laughed again.
“Damn, kid! What’d he do to deserve that?”
“He wanted me to touch him. I didn’t want to.”
The laughter stopped abruptly and both guards stood a little straighter, sharing a cautious look.
“There are too many people in there,” the first guard told me, “I don’t remember the names of everyone who comes through. I’ll take you in there now and you can point out your daddy to me.”
“His name is Gerald, not daddy.”
“Fair enough. Let’s go find Gerald, kid.”
I followed the guard inside and tried to avert my eyes from the sight of so many naked women, all dancing with each other or spinning around poles. There was a thick smog in the air, a humid and sticky cloud that might have been the result of smoked cigars, or perhaps it was something less definable. The guard led me around the outside of all the booths of people. The patrons were sitting in groups of one to four, with either one or two women dancing in the shadowy center. I looked for Gerald, but I couldn’t see his face anywhere, and whenever the guard glanced back at me I shook my head.
Eventually, he led me into the middle of the club where people were perched on stools around small circular stages, waving money around and throwing it at girls dancing on the stages. I finally spotted Gerald on one of the stools, and I quickly tugged on the jacket of the guard in front of me, pointing him out.
“That one?” the guard asked, his eyes narrowing on Gerald.
I nodded.
“Why don’t you go wait outside now, kid. I’ll bring him to you. I just want to have a little talk with him first.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
I took myself outside, where the second guard didn’t seem the least bit surprised to find out that the first guard had wanted to talk with Gerald.
“You got any brothers or sisters?” he asked me, folding his meaty arms over his chest and regarding me with an odd look on his face.
“Sure.” I shrugged. “A brother.” I wasn’t accustomed to making casual conversation with strangers, so I didn’t ask him if he had any siblings.
“Older or younger?” The guard’s brow furrowed.
“Younger.”
“You look after him good, kid, and one day he’ll look after you.”
“I’ll look after him forever. He doesn’t have to look after me.”
The guard smiled—it seemed to be a genuine smile, different to the smiles he had flashed while laughing at me earlier.
“You won’t be able to stop him. One day, you’ll see… he’ll be protecting you and you won’t even realise it. Just like you’re protecting him now.”
“It’s my job.” I scuffed my shoe again, a frown pulling at my mouth.
“We’re people, kid, not robots. You can’t control what people are driven to do, only what influence and motivation you can provide them yourself. Or at least that’s what the wife always says… I guess it’s a bit too heavy for a kid to understand.”
I only nodded at him, though I had understood him perfectly. It reminded me of something my mother had told me once.
“People are not instruments to manipulate,” she had said. “They are musicians to inspire.”
My father would be inspired straight into the depths of hell, and my brother would be inspired to protect just as I was—because I was his influence.
>
“We had a nice talk,” a booming voice announced, as the first guard appeared on the sidewalk beside us, dragging Gerald along behind him. “Gerald is ready to go home now, kid.”
Gerald had been brutally beaten. He was cradling his ribs, his whole body bent forward in a crunch of pain, his bloodied mouth caught on a moan. Maybe they thought they were doing me a favour. Maybe they were… but it wasn’t very likely. Whatever they had threatened Gerald with, he wouldn’t remember it by morning. He’d be hurting, but he’d have no idea why.
Maybe they hadn’t done it for me at all.
Maybe they just wanted to warn him away from their club. It wouldn’t be the first club that Gerald had been banned from.
“Seph?” Cabe whispered in my ear. “Are you okay? You completely zoned out.”
“Fine,” I replied quickly, shaking my head.
Cabe caught my shoulders, turning me to face him, ducking down so that he could meet my eyes. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Sorry, I was just… thinking about something. I used to have to drag Gerald out of so many strip cubs when I was younger. I guess I never thought I’d be back inside one of my own volition.” I released a small, strained laugh.
Cabe’s frown deepened, but I noticed that the others had disappeared already, and I began searching around for them. Guessing what had distracted me, Cabe started to walk again, leading me toward a door in the back of the dimly-lit room. Clarin was leaned up against the wall beside it, and he motioning me inside with a silent tilt of his head. Cabe squeezed my hand before releasing me, and I walked through alone.
“There she is!” Poison declared, giving me a searching look.
I tried to shrug apologetically at her, but the guy leaning back against one of the desks lining the side of the room quickly caught my attention. He was much older than I had expected; he had white hair caught into small, coiled curls close to his skull, and his bulky body was wrapped into a suit with purple highlights lining the pockets and the lapels.
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