Chapter Thirty-One
It’s Time
Crystal
I silently made my way from the dressing room to the stage. The DJ was a fast talker, giving the room an auction feel as his voice bled into music and I strutted out to the pole. The tippers’ circle was full around the edge of the stage.
I ignored them for a few moments, but once I fixed my gaze on the man seated at the end, my nightly ritual began. I couldn’t stop inspecting faces. I don’t even know what I’d do if I looked up and Anthony was sitting there. It would probably ruin my whole damn act.
What would I even say to him at this point?
He bought me tits and a marriage license, and then he bailed. He didn’t just leave me homeless; he made sure I had no job prospects. I’d been forced back to Flynn.
At first glance, Flynn was all business and manners, but I knew better. I met him the night I arrived in Springfield. I was alone, afraid, and down to just a dollar or two.
He bought me a soda and pretended to be my friend.
Flynn wasn’t anyone’s friend. He was the vilest motherfucker I knew.
I almost didn’t get away. I was younger then, and naive. That was what I told myself when I came back to his club with my tail between my legs and mascara running down both cheeks.
I was young then; I wouldn’t let it happen this time.
Who was I kidding?
In the last year, he’d slapped me, pulled my hair, and almost forced himself on me. If the security detail hadn’t knocked to collect a paycheck, I don’t know what would have happened.
I’d picked myself up, dusted myself off, and looked for a different job each time, but Jay was right. Anthony, and his Steel Disciples had made certain that nowhere else in town would take me.
To hell with them.
They could have Springfield.
Tonight was it. I already went and had my check cashed during my break. I’d done great with the tips this week. Cindy sold me her Taurus last payday. It wasn’t fancy, but it would get me to Joplin and then carry us to Texas.
The money showered me and the stage by the time the song ended, and I was never more grateful for it. I hadn’t told a soul that I was leaving. I was terrified Flynn would do something to jeopardize my great escape.
I loved the other girls, and it sucked not saying goodbye, but at this point, I didn’t trust anyone.
Even Etta had eventually faded from my life, after driving me down to Swanwick during that first week of devastation.
She showed me the empty club that Anthony had boasted about.
It was run down; and the parking lot was empty and full of potholes. There wasn’t even a sign out front.
He never intended to open that place. Who knows if he even truly owned it?
I swallowed the bitterness of his lies as I tipped the doorman and made my way to the car with him. He stopped a few feet away and watched me get in, raising his hand in that silent farewell that he always did.
I returned the gesture and drove off the lot of Flynn’s Oasis for the last time.
Everything I owned was in the trunk of that Taurus, which wasn’t much. I wasn’t sure of rental prices in Texas, so I’d sold what I could. I wanted to have my bases covered. It was one thing to hope and pray I landed on my feet when it was just me, but having Joplin with me would be different.
She was still underage. If things weren’t right, someone would take her from me.
I sighed and tried to focus on the first problem at hand, rather than what ifs.
I had four hundred-dollar bills folded up in my pocket. It wasn’t a large sum, but I was banking on it being enough to convince our mother to let her leave with me.
My lower lip was dry from the gnawing on it and my thoughts. I’d kind of zoned out a little, but the Swanwick city limit sign sent a wave of anxiety through me that left me gripping the wheel and focusing on my breathing pattern.
I tried to concentrate on everything around me. Anything, really, to pull myself back to the moment.
The distance between driveways. The color of the shutters. I took it all in and exhaled purposefully.
The sign ahead was tall, and neon.
I knew it was where Anthony claimed his club was, but my mind just couldn’t grasp the words that stared back at me.
Steel Cages, it read in big, bronze letters.
A horn screeched, ripping my soul half out of my body.
I jerked the wheel away from the sound and barely missed a collision.
“Get it together, Crystal,” I scolded myself and exhaled, starting my pattern again.
So, what if he had a club?
He lied.
They’d sent me back to rock bottom. I’d been forced to scramble and beg Flynn, of all people.
I shivered, hooked onto the street I wanted and slowed as I neared my mother’s driveway. A large figure stood in C.C. Henshaw’s yard, gawking as I navigated the turn.
“Fucking weirdo,” I mumbled, as I glanced at the time on the dashboard.
It was three in the morning. Who the hell stood on the lawn, watching the neighborhood in the middle of the night? I snorted at the hypocrisy. I was going to knock on a door at such an hour, what the hell was wrong with me?
I knew they’d be up. It was the first Friday of the month. They’d live large while they could, and panic when it ran out by Tuesday. It was their way; it always had been.
The seventies southern rock that filtered through the cheap trailer door confirmed my suspicions. I knocked on the narrow piece of fiberglass, hoping it would be louder enough. The talking inside halted, but the music never turned down, and no one came to investigate.
I huffed and pounded on the solid part of the door. The music lowered and whispering broke out. I rolled my eyes and feigned patience.
“If I were the police, I’d have kicked the door in when the radio went off,” I called.
The many locks scraped and clicked on the other side of the door, and Joplin scrambled out, tackling me with a squeal.
“I knew you’d come back! I told them,” she whispered, while squeezing me so tightly I couldn’t say anything.
Not that I would have, with the way Larry was glaring at me from behind her.
“Don’t leave me again,” Joplin whispered, and everything in me froze solid.
Everything, except my face.
“Get in the house!” Larry barked, as he grabbed for Joplin’s shoulder.
“Don’t touch her!” I snapped, still reeling from what she hadn’t actually said.
I jerked her back and she stumbled down the rickety steps with a scream, catching her shoe on the last one. Joplin sprawled in her sleeping shorts on the pavement below with a nauseating thud.
My jaw dropped, and I turned to see if she was okay.
“Now look what you did, you little bitch. Why did you come back here anyway?” Larry flew down the steps, making me whip back around to face him.
I thought he meant to shove me, instead, he pinned me to the rail and snagged my hair. I swung for his face, but I was so off kilter, it was a lopsided swat at best.
I never had a chance to find out how solid it would have landed. Larry’s head snapped back, and he was ripped off the steps so violently he took me with him.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” The sound of Anthony’s rage filled voice, left me stunned and sprawled on the pavement beside Joplin.