by Nic Stone
“I think that’s the door on the left,” she says.
As if in confirmation, the door is thrown wide, and one of the young ladies Gray saw exit an SUV—there’s no forgetting her intensely pink ensemble, which is more sheer than he realized—stumbles into the hall with a man surely old enough to be her father hot on her heels. Gray watches the man grab at the girl’s rear as they head toward a set of stairs leading up. She playfully swats his hands away . . . but Gray wasn’t born yesterday.
“Hey, Hazel—”
“We just need a phone, Gray. Come on.”
They head down the stairs.
When they reach the bottom, it’s like they’ve entered another world. Brightly colored lights pulse through the room to the beat, and the air, which smells of sweetness and spice, seems to shimmer. The music thrums down into their bones, and Gray feels his limbs loosen. It’s difficult to resist dancing.
It makes Gray that much more uneasy. Especially when he notices the smattering of shadowy figures standing sentinel around the edges of the room. His eyes latch onto a woman in black leather from neck to toe. The blond hair covering half of her face catches the light as she slowly moves around the perimeter, taking everything in.
Gray’s stomach tumbles into his muddy sneakers.
“Yo, Hazel, I really think—”
Hazel turns around and rises to her toes. “Okay, I lied,” she says, getting as close to Gray as possible, though she still has to raise her voice. Her warm breath on his ear gives Gray quite the shiver. “Step one is to find a bathroom.”
That snaps him right out of it. “Dawg, didn’t you just go?”
“If you would like to relay your dissatisfaction to my bladder, you can do so after it’s empty. Come on.”
They push through the room full of writhing bodies holding gold cups toward the only door that seems to open and close fairly frequently. It does turn out to be a bathroom.
“Wait here,” Hazel says, catching the knob as a girl in a glittering silver catsuit exits.
As soon as Hazel pulls the door shut behind her, a different girl—this one with dark curly hair, a navy lace crop top, hot pants, and high-heeled combat boots—floats over to Gray like a glistening brown fairy with her wings tucked. “Where’s your date?” she says.
Gray gulps. Her tiny top lights up, and he can see right through it. “She’s in the bathroom.”
“Ah,” the girl says with a lift of her chin. She smells like candy, and even in the low light, her curls shine. “Well, where’s your drink?” And then like magic, a sparkling gold cup appears in her hand.
“Uhhh . . . no thanks.”
“Oh come on, it’s a party.” She leans closer and runs her fingertips down Gray’s arm before her hand closes around his wrist. Then she lifts his hand and places the cup within it. “You look like you’ve had a rough night.” The timbre of her voice makes his head go fuzzy. “Might as well have a good time.”
Light spills into the space beside him as the bathroom door opens, and Gray freezes. “Oh my god, is that water?” Hazel says, snatching the cup from his hand. Before he can protest, she’s gulping the contents down.
He turns back to the fairy girl to ask what was in the cup, but she’s gone.
“Definitely not water,” Hazel says. She reaches back into the bathroom and drops the empty cup into the trash can. “But it works. Let’s go dance.”
“Whoa. Say what now?” Though Gray can’t say he wants to resist.
“Dance, Gray. I thought about it while I was in there. We have no idea where we are; our parents are likely worried sick; and we’ll probably both be on lockdown till kingdom come when we finally get home. Hell, once my stepfather finds out I ‘defied’ him to be with you, he might murder us both.”
“Ummm . . .” While Gray has no idea what was in that drink, he is now 10,000 percent sure they need to get away from these people and out of this house. “Hazel—”
“All I’m saying is that we should enjoy this night. It could very well be our last one together.”
“Damn, it’s like that?”
Hazel rolls her eyes. “I’m going to dance,” she says, taking notice of a guy in all black carrying a platter of hors d’oeuvres. “Ooh! Snacks!”
Now that Gray’s eyes have adjusted to the light, he can see the trays of food and drink floating about the room.
And because (1) Hazel is right; (2) Gray is hungry; and (3) Gray most certainly doesn’t trust anyone or anything in this place, when Hazel takes off after the guy with the food, Gray takes a deep breath, and he follows.
He doesn’t realize the blond woman in black leather has been watching their every move.
It was supposed to be a simple picnic.
It’d been two months since Hazel, on her stepfather’s orders, broke things off with Gray. And she’d been honest with him about the reason: her mother’s wretched fiancé had convinced her mother that Gray had poor intentions. And despite Hazel’s obvious disagreement, she didn’t want to make waves.
Gray said he understood.
Breakup achieved.
The Monster became Hazel’s stepfather a week after her breakup: Hazel was the sole witness at her mother and the Monster’s courthouse wedding. Then he’d moved in. Hazel’s mother had shot up to one of the highest highs Hazel had seen in years. Which would’ve been a nice reprieve if Mother hadn’t started a new job—leaving Hazel constantly alone with the Monster, who seemed to leave the apartment only a couple of times per week.
Hazel often wondered where the guy’s money came from, but she never dared to ask. Her life was hard enough without stirring the Monster’s ire. And Hazel had no doubt that’s what her questions would do.
So she stayed in her room. She saw no point in going out when she had such an early curfew. And there was really no one to go out with; Gray had been the sole person Hazel spent time with, outside of school. Saturdays, she was given errands to run, and Sundays, the Monster and Mama made her accompany them to church and then spend the day together “as a family.”
The main problem was that whenever they were alone, the Monster would eye Hazel in a way that made her feel like her flesh was peeling from her bones. In his slickly complimentary way, he would request her assistance reaching an item on a high shelf, or retrieving something from beneath a counter, and when Hazel would comply—because she couldn’t seem to resist compliance—she would feel his eyes on her in a way that was distinctly not fatherly. Even though he insisted that she call him “Daddy.”
The day that Hazel, naked in the shower, heard the locked doorknob rattling, she willed herself to accept what she hadn’t wanted to: the Monster intended her harm.
It was enough to make her reach out to Gray.
A few hours. That’s how long they were to be gone. Hazel’s mother and the Monster were on some overnight trip and weren’t scheduled to return until late on a Saturday evening. So Hazel and Gray decided to take a chance. They’d enjoy a short picnic at one of his favorite places in the world, and would return long before Hazel’s “parents” did.
Gray said he’d take care of everything, so Hazel pulled out her combat boots and put on dark tights with a cute pleated skirt and fitted top. In the pockets of her cardigan, she carried nothing more than her house key, lip balm, and cell phone.
And off they went, Hazel and her beloved Gray. Who held her hand and carried his backpack on the opposite shoulder. They hopped on a bus and rode forty minutes to the other end of town, then walked through a small complex of old townhomes and straight into some woods.
A short distance in, something fell from his hand. “Gray, wait. You los—”
“I know,” he said. “It was on purpose.”
She let it go.
But then it happened again.
And again.
And again.
“What are you dropping?” she finally asked.
And he turned to her and smiled. “Legos,” he said.
“Legos?”
/> “Legos. You ain’t never heard the story about that brother and sister who got lost in the woods and almost ate up by a witch? I’m leaving us a trail. Just in case.”
In that moment, Hazel’s heart flipped over in her chest. This, she thought, was what it meant to be cared for.
She stopped walking. So Gray stopped too. And the moment he turned to her, and Hazel could see the concern in his muddy-brown eyes, the words “I want to get back together” tumbled off her tongue. Once they’d landed among the leaves around their feet, Gray did something he’d never done before: he hooked an arm around Hazel’s waist, pulled her close, and kissed her.
Thus, their journey into the woods, on borrowed time, became . . . more.
With new fire between their joined palms, Gray told Hazel his history with the place where he was taking her: he’d lived in one of the townhomes they’d passed, and he’d played in these woods and the river nearby, with a twin brother who’d passed away.
They reached the clearing. It was one of the most peaceful places Hazel had ever seen.
And as Gray pulled a blanket from his backpack and laid it out so they could sit, Hazel could feel the sadness he was trying to hide. It filled their surroundings: the birds stopped chirping; the wind ceased; it even seemed as though the river flowed with less verve.
So the moment Gray sat down beside her, Hazel asked him what had happened.
And Gray unspooled the story. Not quite two years prior. A shady stepfather who Gray knows killed his brother. The man and Gray’s mother had been married for seven years, and she was too afraid of him to even request an investigation into her own son’s death, so she did the “next best thing”: changed her name, and Gray’s, and relocated them.
Hazel stared at this boy who was so much more than he seemed, and her heart expanded until it almost shattered. He’d worked at making himself invisible. “The better you fit in, the less you stand out,” Gray said. And Hazel understood: she did the same thing during her mother’s drops. Gray cared because he hadn’t been cared for. He was attentive because he’d wanted someone to pay attention. “I just wish somebody had been lookin’ out for us. You know?”
Hazel did know. So when Gray started to cry, Hazel wrapped an arm around him, and he turned in to her.
Neither of them would be able to say how Gray’s crying against Hazel’s shoulder morphed into his kissing her neck.
The kissing turned more urgent. Turned to some trick of his tongue along her collarbone that made her head spin. Turned to “Hazel, I need you,” whispered in her ear. And Hazel didn’t resist.
The opposite, in fact.
When Gray’s fingers crept up the back of Hazel’s shirt to unhook her bra, she arched to make it easier. When Gray lifted both bra and shirt up in the front to get at Hazel’s breasts, she grabbed the back of his head and pushed into him. When Gray’s hand slipped up Hazel’s skirt and tugged at her tights, she lifted her hips so he could pull them off. And when Gray’s fingers brushed over a place only Hazel herself had ever touched, she rocked back on her tailbone to give him better access.
Gray removed his shirt and dumped the remaining contents from the backpack, then rolled the two together to tuck beneath Hazel’s head. And she lay down. Then Gray pushed Hazel’s underwear to the side and—bare from shoulders to where he’d pushed his own pants and boxer briefs down to his thighs—positioned his body above hers.
And then he stopped.
“Is this okay?”
Instead of answering, Hazel grabbed ahold of Gray’s waist, lifted her hips, and pulled him in. And as he moved against her, ever so gently, Hazel knew she wouldn’t go back to not seeing him.
When they returned home, things would have to be different.
Hazel wakes to the smell of vanilla and clove. Her entire face is tingling.
She tries to lift her arms but can’t. Her legs won’t move either. At the discovery that she can’t move her head—nor open her mouth to scream—panic sets in.
She’s in a room with flowers painted on the ceiling, and if the circle of warm light coming from somewhere behind her is any indication, it’s daytime. She’s lying faceup on a soft(ish) surface that seems to have molded to the contours of her body, and there’s silky fabric against her skin from the tops of her breasts to her midthighs.
“Ah, you’re awake!” comes a throaty voice, from somewhere beyond her feet. “Welcome to the Treasure Chest . . . Hazel, yes? I am the Grande Dame.” The face of a woman appears above Hazel, and Hazel’s eyes open wider.
Long, silken blond hair frames a vibrant blue right eye. Whether the left one is the same color, Hazel can’t say because . . . it’s missing. The entire left side of the woman’s face is a tangle of scars, and where an eye should be, there’s a sealed, puckered pink slit.
“I know, I know. My appearance can be a bit jarring,” she says, vanishing from view. “You’ll get used to it. They all do.” Hazel hears the scrape of the Grande Dame’s stool against the floor before her marred face appears again. This time even closer to her own. “Shut your eyes,” the woman says. Her smile is the most horrifying thing Hazel’s ever seen.
So Hazel complies (because of course she does). The tingling sensation is replaced with soft warmth as the Grande Dame wipes a damp cloth over her skin.
“You’ve been bathed and steamed, and after this facial, you’ll be returned to your quarters,” the woman says. “The paralysis will wear off shortly thereafter, and then a meal will be delivered to you. You are to eat every last bite. You’ve got a bit of meat on these bones, but could definitely use more. Our customers prefer something to hold on to.”
Alarm bells clang in Hazel’s head.
“Tomorrow morning,” the woman continues, “you will be waxed from head to toe, and after mandatory stretching, you will be bathed again, dressed and made up, and then presented to the head of patronage for examination.”
Hazel’s pinky twitches.
“If he likes you, fantastic. You will begin training with the other girls and can start servicing customers as early as next week.”
And if he doesn’t? Hazel thinks.
“If he doesn’t . . .” The woman leans closer and locks Hazel in the gaze of her one eye. There’s a wicked glint there now. “For your sake, and mine, let’s just hope he does.”
There’s a knock past Hazel’s feet, and the woman looks up. “Ah! Perfect timing!” She quickly applies a cooling cream to Hazel’s face and thick balm to her unmoving lips. Then she pats Hazel’s cheek. “Your escort is here.”
The Grande Dame stands and walks away for a word with whoever just entered the room. “She is close to perfect,” the woman says. “Not as pure as you led me to believe, but she’ll do. We’ll give you ten thousand as soon as she’s approved.”
Hazel tries to move again, to sit up, to squirm, to scream, to get the hell out of this place. But it’s no use.
“Careful taking her back, hmm?” the Grande Dame goes on. “No squeezing, and watch your fingernails. If she has any scratches or bruising, any suggestion of trauma, the head of patronage . . . well, let’s just say he’s not a merciful man. He’ll mark her damaged and have her discarded. Which means you won’t get paid.”
“Understood,” a male voice replies. It’s familiar enough to turn Hazel’s stomach . . .
And when a pair of arms slides beneath her knees and shoulder blades, and scoops her from the table, and she sees Gray’s face, Hazel almost works up the strength to scream.
Gray doesn’t look at Hazel. He just carries her, his face like stone, out into what looks like the hallway of an almost-perfect family home. Instead of family photos, there are framed paintings of nude women hanging every few feet on the blue-and-white striped walls. Hazel fixes her eyes on the underside of Gray’s chin. After ten or so steps, he peeks back over his shoulder, then faces forward.
“I know you prolly wonderin’ what’s going on,” he says, just barely above a whisper. “Blink if you can hear me.”
“Imma tell you what’s what, girl.” Gray’s voice rises and takes on a totally different tone. It scares Hazel. But then she hears another set of footsteps coming from the opposite direction, and Gray nods at someone in passing.
Soon, Hazel and Gray are entering a different room, this one with the ceiling painted cotton-candy pink. Gray sets Hazel down on an immensely fluffy bed. Her fingertips begin to tingle.
“Hey, Sapphire,” Gray says to someone Hazel can’t see. “Um . . . Sorry to bother you, but the Grande Dame told me to get this new recruit some gleam. She’s a little tense and could use something to help her relax.”
“No problem, cutie,” a female voice replies. A gorgeous girl with medium-brown skin and glossy black curls leans over Hazel. She’s wearing a navy sports bra now, but Hazel remembers the navy lace crop top she had on at the party. “I’m Sapphire, by the way,” she says, lowering her face to Hazel’s so they’re practically nose to nose. Hazel feels cool fingertips graze her cheek. “My first few days were scary too.”
The tingle creeps up Hazel’s arms, and she is suddenly gripped with the urge to run her hands over Sapphire’s bare skin. To kiss her shoulder. To see if she tastes as sweet as she smells. The feeling scares Hazel. And then this girl in blue kisses Hazel right on the mouth. “You’ll adjust,” she says with a wink.
And then she’s gone.
Gray kneels beside Hazel in an instant, his eyes wide. “Man, we gotta watch out for that one,” he says. “I swear she’s like a sorceress or something.”
“Uh . . . ,” Hazel manages to choke out.
“Don’t try to talk,” Gray says. “She’ll be back in a minute, so we don’t got a lotta time. And when she comes, you gotta drink that gleam shit so nobody gets suspicious.”
Hazel wiggles her toes.
“Good. The paralysis is wearing off,” he continues. “Hazel, this place is b-a-d bad, and we need to get the hell outta here. I’m working on a plan, but like . . .”
Hazel groans and moves her arm.
