Chapter 20
CHAPTER
TWENTY
Zephyr
When I saw the rope of knotted bed linens trailing out of Colt and Callum’s bedroom window, everything made sense.
I also saw the bars, removed from their window in a grid, leaned against the wall like a door they took off anytime it got in their way.
Today was clearly not the first time they’d used this escape route, but it was new to me.
Shimmying down the long cotton rope took every ounce of courage I possessed.
Not because of the height. Of everyone, I should have been the most adept at climbing a strip of fabric.
But Maslow’s withdrawal had left my grip weak, and if Oz hadn’t been on the ground below, promising to catch me, I might have stayed behind.
Thankfully, this side of the Dollhouse faced away from traffic, or the sight might have prompted someone to call the police. It looked like a jailbreak, and the six of us made for the strangest inmates scuttling along in brightly colored beachwear and sandals.
I lagged with my head on a swivel. It was the parking lot, then so much farther. Every step ahead felt like another breakout. Another escape. And it came with equal parts elation and anxiety.
It was always bright outside the Dollhouse. I’d seen it through my bedroom window, the sun setting the sky ablaze and bouncing off the pavement in shimmering waves. But out here?
Out here it was blinding.
I’d told Beck the world felt bigger once I finally stepped into it. It stretched far beyond the static image I’d stared at day after day. It was no longer just a picture behind glass, but something real, vast, and more incredible than the tales told by my nightly customers.
The Dollhouse had always been the center of my universe, but out here, it was just one star in a sprawling galaxy.
Towers of glass and steel rose like they were trying to claw their way free of the earth.
LED screens pulsed with jackpot numbers, celebrity chefs, and a magician balanced on the back of a tiger.
It should’ve been gaudy.
It was gaudy. But it was also spectacular.
People swarmed the sidewalks like ants, pointing this way and that and laughing into their phones. Showgirls shook tall sprays of tail feathers, walking arm in arm past tourists snapping photos. Music bled from everywhere, and the air smelled like hot concrete and sweat.
A Ferris wheel spun lazily in the distance, and for a second I forgot where I was. I felt disconnected, like I was watching a movie starring someone who wasn’t me. Not one of Maslow’s dolls, not a walking, talking sex toy, not a man glimpsing heaven for the first time.
While I marveled, the other guys rushed ahead, laughing and chatting with casual enthusiasm. Only Elliot didn’t hurry, trudging along with his hands in his hoodie pocket and his head ducked. He was also the only one not in swimwear, having donned instead his typical black garb and a beanie hat.
My heart rattled, and I was practically panting despite the steady pace. I tried in vain to settle so I wasn’t oddly gasping when I came into stride with Elliot.
“Do they, uh… Does this happen often?” I asked, tugging at the towel wrapped around my torso.
His red eyes narrowed against the sun’s glare as he looked ahead. “Just when Mazzy’s out. He has a standing engagement at the Basilica. Once every couple of months. Last one was before you got here.”
“What if he gets back?” I asked Elliot. “Before we do?”
“He won’t,” came the clipped reply. “Darb has this down to an art. Bus schedules, walk time, and how to turn like a hot dog on a roller grill to lock in that perfect tan.”
The unexpected bit of humor stunned me along with the fleeting quirk of his lips.
So, he was enjoying this too. It was equally unexpected to see Elliot enjoying anything, but especially a pool.
He fit in at the club, all black, red, and broody, but in the Nevada desert, he stood out like a shadow in broad daylight.
A lone storm cloud in otherwise clear skies.
“What about you?” I asked. “Are you gonna lay out or something?”
He extended one arm, indicating the tattoos that covered him from wrists to shoulders and spanned the entirety of his back. “This skin was not made for sun,” he said, then tipped his chin toward me. “Yours either. Hope you put on sunscreen.”
I grimaced. “Oh… yeah.”
And good luck explaining a burn to my boss when I supposedly hadn’t stepped foot outside in the past two months. I’d ask Darby for some when we got to our destination. He must have some in that bulky beach bag.
For now, though, I focused on the immediate.
“What’d you say about a bus?”
Elliot waved his gloved hand toward the street where a towering, two-story vehicle idled at the curb. Some people filed off while others hurried to board, and our group was angling to be among them judging by the way Darby picked up the pace, holding on to the brim of his hat so it didn’t fly off.
He boarded the bus ahead of the rest of us and met the driver’s request for tickets with a blinding smile.
“What do you say I sit in your lap, and we call it even?”
The driver gaped as Darby passed his bag to Oz, then slid into the narrow gap between the driver’s thighs and the steering wheel.
He wiggled his ass the way I’d seen him do with the VIPs, men who grinned and groaned while their cocks stiffened.
The bus driver was less prepared for the advance, but he gave no further protest as the rest of us piled on and shuffled toward the open space at the back of the bus.
What I meant to be a hurry felt slow, and the realization that I had boarded a legitimate, moving vehicle dawned. A bus that would take me to parts unknown. Possibly strand me in an unfamiliar place in this sprawling city.
I could get lost. Left behind.
The bus lurched into motion, and I staggered. There were no open seats, so I took a cue from the other guys and grabbed one of the straps hanging from the low ceiling. Too late to turn back now, but my empty stomach gurgled with nausea.
Callum bumped into me as we hit a dip in the road. He peered at me through his fringe of brown hair.
“You wanna hold my hand?”
He sounded like his brother, his voice honeyed with a Southern drawl I used to find grating. That was because I heard it most often from Colt, and I’d learned it was more his personality that was grating than his accent.
Callum’s hand hung in the air, and it took only that second for his twin to grumble, “It’s just a damn bus.”
Callum leaned around me to scowl at Colt. “Yeah, and he ain’t ever been on one before.”
Caught between them, my head whipped from one side to the other.
I rarely saw Colt without his Stetson—Elliot called it his redneck security blanket—but the missing hat exposed the nubs of Colt’s horns almost hidden in his mess of hair.
Less than nubs, they were stumps, almost flush to his scalp and flat.
Filed off. I compared them to Callum’s long, twisted ones, wondering and probably staring too blatantly when Callum snagged my free hand and raised it with an air of defiance.
Colt rolled his eyes.
“Don’t be jealous.” Callum’s sour look turned sweet as he added in a lower voice, “I’ll hold your hand later.”
Colt scoffed, then turned his attention to other things, which freed me to do the same.
If I thought I’d smelled sweat before, it was ten times worse in here.
Soaking into the seats and wafting off the passengers who were crammed into the massive vehicle.
People sat silently, most engrossed in their phones while a few stared out the filmy windows.
At the wheel, Darby honked the horn then tittered a laugh that the driver joined in on.
But the bus was only a distraction from the big picture outside.
I stared, slack-jawed as buildings blurred by.
A few I’d seen from a distance and others that were entirely new.
Buildings stood shoulder to shoulder, fronted by grassy lawns or stands of palm trees.
Ahead on the left, a massive pond spouted jets of water.
Pedestrians lined the sidewalk in front of it holding signs and shouting at passersby.
I couldn’t hear what they said, but the posters I glimpsed bore messages like DON’T GAMBLE WITH ETERNITY and YOU CAN’T BLUFF YOUR WAY INTO HEAVEN.
Callum held my hand the whole ride, and I should have thanked him for it. But I didn’t think to before the bus rolled to a stop beside a casino entrance topped with a fan of feathers in shades of purple and green with lights spelling out the word “Peacock.”
Darby whistled shrilly, spurring our crew to spill toward the exit and off the bus. Outside, and farther from the Dollhouse than I’d ever been, I looked around.
I was already so discombobulated I could have been dropped into another world entirely, though I knew we’d only gone a mile.
The others didn’t pause for me, and neither did the stream of foot traffic weaving around us like fish following an unseen current.
Callum broke free and kept his promise to grab Colt’s hand.
The pair trotted side by side toward the neighboring building, done up in hot pink and black and labeled The Crowndell.
I stayed at the back of the pack, torn between playing this stressful game of follow the leader and processing the assault of sights and sounds that only intensified when we entered the casino.
Noise was constant at the Dollhouse. Songs we rehearsed day after day, then performed night after night. It was music and light and every bit the bustle I walked into now, but the darkness there was like a cushion, softening all the things that were suddenly sharp.
Everything shimmered—mirrors, glass, sequins. My flip-flops caught on the edge of the carpet, and I stumbled. No one looked back. The five of them were already moving, weaving through the clatter and clang like they belonged here. Like they’d been doing this forever.