Chapter Twenty
Indie
“Hey, Indie, you ready to get out of here?”
Kytten stood at the table where I ate my breakfast, her hands on her hips, waiting for me to respond.
“I get to leave?”
“You aren’t a fucking prisoner,” Gunner growled from the other side of Haizley, who sat next to me.
“Really? Could have fooled me,” I grumbled.
His growl intensified, and Haizley sighed. “You two are insufferable.”
I opened my mouth to retort, and she held her hand up. “Nuh-uh, do you want to go with Kytten?”
I narrowed my eyes at her briefly before turning back to Kytten. “Where?”
“I need to get my hair touched up, so a stop at the salon, then coffee,” she said.
I looked back at Gunner, who was looking everywhere but at me. It felt like a trap. Like, if I said yes, he would jump out of his seat and tell me I was grounded.
“I would very much like to get out of here.” I stood up, gathering my dishes to return them to the kitchen.
“Leave them.” Haizley’s hand on my arm halted my progress. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Thank you.”
I followed Kytten outside. “We have to take your car unless you want to ride bitch on my bike.” The sarcastic smile on her face had me laughing.
“I think I’ll drive.”
We pulled out of the compound, and so did Archie. He had been on his bike, lingering by the gate. It hadn’t registered that he might be waiting for us.
“Is Archie following us?”
“You’ll get used to it,” Kytten said without turning around to confirm.
“Why is he following us, Kytten?”
“Prospects always escort old ladies,” she answered as she played on her phone.
“I’m not an old lady.” I looked in the rearview mirror to see he was trailing behind us, separated by one car.
“I am.” She laughed.
I snapped my head to the side, catching her smile. “Oh, right.”
“You could be, you know.”
“Please don’t. Your brother and I are not compatible. We don’t even like each other.”
It was true. We couldn’t be within ten feet of each other without glaring looks and sniped words.
Except when you’re on your knees for him.
We weren’t talking about that. That was a lapse of judgment on my part. And maybe his, since he’d made no attempt to get me back there. Or get me anywhere.
“Cash and I didn’t like each other at first. At least not that we would admit anyway. I was attracted to him the minute I saw him. Until he called me a kid.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I mean, it wasn’t his fault. I am tiny, and I was only twenty.”
“As opposed to being older now.” I snickered, knowing she’d only been in Diamond Creek a few months.
“Yes.” She stuck her tongue out at me, and I laughed. I’d never really had a friend before. And Kytten felt like a friend. Sure, there was Alice and Jenny, and the others. But that was a trauma bond, not real friendship.
Haizley wanted to be my friend, but I just didn’t feel comfortable getting that close to a therapist. Her entire being was set on getting inside people’s heads. And I couldn’t let her get in mine.
We pulled into the salon, and Simon met us at the door.
“My two favorite bitches!” Kytten gave him a ‘you’re full of shit look,’ and he laughed. “You two are the only people in town that let me play.”
“Why do you stay here?” I asked.
“I have lived here my whole life and, believe it or not, I feel safe here,” he said.
“And a certain someone lives here.” Kytten waggled her eyebrows at Simon, and he whacked her with the cape before wrapping it around her neck.
“I see your old man has been talking.”
“Wait, you have someone? Who?” I asked, wanting to hear all the tea.
“No one. He’s not interested. Just a little eye candy to get a guy through those cold Nebraska winters.
” Simon’s sigh was heartbreaking. Sure, I didn’t want someone, but I knew others, those who had grown up in normal households with loving families, wanted what they’d seen modeled to them when they were young and impressionable.
When I was young and impressionable, the things I saw.
.. the things I did, had the opposite effect.
It made me realize that love was a construct created by Hallmark.
A marketing ploy by companies who made money from sex.
I’d realized after we escaped and I got a taste of the real world that everything revolved around sex.
Companies like Hallmark might wrap it up in pretty words and stories about love conquering all, but it still boiled down to men wanting women in their beds.
“Hey, Indie, are you getting anything done today?”
Sadie, Simon’s sister, came out of the back room. I noticed immediately the black eye she tried to hide with makeup.
“No, not today,” I said, my eyes locked on her face.
Kytten reached over and grabbed my hand. When I looked in her direction, she mouthed, Not now.
If not now, then when? Once she was beaten so badly that she ended up in the hospital? Once she was dead? Why hadn’t anyone helped her? I glared at Kytten. She was a fucking Nyght Nymph. It was her job to help women like Sadie.
Kytten ignored me for the rest of her appointment. It was probably for the best, with how angry I now was. When she was done, I stormed outside and waited in the car for her.
As soon as she slammed the door closed, she turned in her seat to face me.
“Don’t fucking look at me like that.”
“You—”
“Shut your fucking mouth. I know what you’re thinking.
You’re thinking that it’s my job to help women like Sadie, and you’re fucking right.
But they have to want the help. Sadie doesn’t.
I can’t force her to leave him, and as much as I and the Silver Shadows want to, we can’t kill him.
Simon won’t let us. He knows his sister better than anyone, and he has given us strict instructions to wait until she asks for our help. ”
“I’m sorry. I just...”
Kytten took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I felt like shit, like I’d ruined the first girl date I’d ever had in my life.
“I get it, okay. I know you have secrets. We all do. But you can’t let what happened to you rule your every thought and emotion.”
I sat quietly, not sure what to do next, when Kytten reached over and grabbed my hand.
“I meant it when I said we could help you. Whatever it is, whatever you went through, there are people here that will help. Haizley is an amazing therapist. She’s not mine, but Cash loves her, and she has helped him with his grief so much.”
“So, I should see a therapist, but not you?” I snarked.
“I said she wasn’t my therapist, not that I didn’t have one. Mine lives in New York. He came here to work with me, and if he hadn’t...”
Her words trailed off, and I wondered what she had gone through. I’d seen the scars on her legs.
“If it hadn’t been for Dr. Dunaway, I don’t know if I’d still be here.”
I looked through the window to my right.
Could I talk to Haizley? Could I talk to Kytten?
Could I talk to anyone about what happened to me and the others?
They knew about the Trick Pony. I was sure they knew it was more than just a sex club where consenting adults went to get their freak on.
But did they know the true horrors of what went on there?
“Look, Indie, I want us to be friends. The other old ladies are great, but they’re all older than I am. The closest one to my age is Ellie, and she’s married with three kids.”
I didn’t correct her assumption that I was closer to her age. What was the point? Mimic knew I was younger. Even Gunner suspected I’d lied. It felt as though the carefully crafted reality Apollo created for me was unraveling.
“Besides, I’m convinced you’ll be my sister.”
I swung my head around and gaped at her, my mouth hanging open like a fish out of water.
Kytten laughed. “I might have been separated from my brother for ten years, but we’re twins. No one knows him like I do. And I see the way he looks at you.”
“I don’t even know what to say to you right now.”
It was true. I was at a loss for words. Not just about what she’d said about Mimic, but the way she just flipped a switch and went from angry at me to concerned, and now to happiness.
“You could say you’ll buy me a coffee to make up for thinking I was a bitch who was leaving Sadie out to dry.”
I slumped back in my seat as Kytten laughed again.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get used to me too.”
I shook my head, chuckling at her, and started my car. I heard Archie’s bike rumble behind us as he started it up and followed us out of the parking lot.
The scent of freshly ground coffee swirled around me the moment I walked into The Coffee Shop. I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes.
“Oh my God, you’re like me. I knew we were kindred spirits!”
“What?” I laughed, and Kytten bounced on her toes.
“Kindred spirits.” When I stared at her blankly, she continued, “Someone you share an instant connection with. Someone who feels like family the moment you meet them.”
“You think we’re kindred spirits?” My voice was rough as it tried to claw its way over the lump in my throat.
“I told you. Sisters.” Kytten wrapped her arms around my waist, right there in the store. Not a single fuck given to who might be watching us, judging us.
I didn’t have any siblings, at least none that I knew of. I’d always wanted a sister.
We ordered our coffees and sat at a table by the window. We talked about superficial things. Kytten told me about growing up with Val, and how the Nyght Nymphs had been a huge part of who she was today.
I talked about Alice and Jenny as though we were friends who grew up together, making up stories as if we actually did the things we talked about doing in those quiet mornings and dark evenings.
I had become a master at telling a tale. Making it just silly enough, or just scary enough, or even just boring enough, that people would believe it without asking too many questions.
Kytten received a text and gulped the rest of her drink, telling me it was time to get back. Only I didn’t want to go back. I wanted to go to my own apartment, watch my own television, and live my own life.
“Okay,” I relented. “Let me use the restroom, and I’ll meet you outside.” I didn’t wait for her to respond. I needed a few moments to build up my resolve.
My hand slapped onto the door to push it open when an arm grabbed me and swung me around.
I didn’t think; I just reacted. Instinct kicked in, or maybe it was a sense of self-preservation. Either way, my fist shot out and hit the man’s face. I recognized him right away as the guy who clocked me at the studio.
His hand let go of my arm and went to his nose. Before he could get his bearings, I swung around and lifted my foot, making contact with the side of his head.
He hit the floor, his eyes closed. He didn’t move as I waited for him to stand. I guess Tiffany was right. I was a natural.
Kytten rushed down the hall, followed by Archie.
“What the fuck?”
“It’s the guy who hit me at the shop.” My hands were shaking from the adrenaline rush. Audrey, the shop owner, came around the corner and froze.
“Oh shit. Let me grab some zip ties.” She disappeared, and I looked at Kytten.
“That wouldn’t have been my first instinct,” I confessed.
“No, your first instinct was better,” Archie said, nodding at the unconscious man on the floor. He took the zip ties from Audrey and secured his hands behind his back.
“I have to call this in.”
“Damn, there goes our freedom,” Kytten said.
I slumped against the wall and slid down onto my ass. I held my head in my hands. There was no question now about why he was here.
My father knew where I was.