Chapter 5 #2
She gave me a nod and picked up where she left off. When she was finished redressing my wound, she rolled up her used supplies into her gloves and threw them into a red medical waste container strapped to the end of one of her duffle bags.
Digging through her bags, she pulled out t boxes of medications.
“That cut on your ribs is looking pretty red. I’m going to prescribe you an antibiotic.
” She handed me the white box, and she continued, “I want you to take them twice a day with food until you run out. There are instructions inside the box. Follow them exactly.”
Handing me the other box, she went into more detail.
“This is a thirty-day supply of oral contraceptives. This is one of the most popular brands on the market today. Here’s the most important part to remember.
You can take these at the same time as the antibiotic, but they might not be effective. So if you do have sex, use a condom.”
“Got it.” I was a big girl. I already knew how important it is to follow the doctor’s orders. I also wasn’t planning on having sex any time soon.
Her voice took on a steely edge. “If anyone touches you without your consent, you tell someone immediately. Storm will remove them from the club. Again, that’s never happened here before that I’m aware of.”
Her words reminded me of the way Fuse had handled that club girl earlier.
He hadn’t lost his cool, screamed at her or hurt her.
He’d simply put her out. Truth be told, I didn’t trust Fuse, not because of any particular behavior that had concerned me, but because he’d bought me and I didn’t know why.
This seemed to confuse Dr. Harper as well.
We said our goodbyes and she gave me a business card for her clinic with her cell number on the back with an invitation to call her anytime I needed to talk. No doctor had ever offered me their cell number before.
When I opened the door Fuse was leaning against the wall waiting for me. He straightened when he saw me. “Did everything go okay?”
“Yeah, she dressed my arm and gave me some medication. She said I’ll be fine in no time.”
That wasn’t exactly her words, but I didn’t want him hovering and worrying. I needed that job after all.
He took me at my word. The next thing I knew, he was holding out a small black smartphone.
“I should’ve thought of this sooner,” he said. “It’s a burner phone and a basic model. But it’ll do until we get you something permanent.”
I stared at it for a second before reaching for it.
This was something nice and something real.
The phone coupled with the room, the job, and the medical care, loosened something in my chest. Maybe it was like Dr. Harper said and the Slayers really were different.
I wanted to believe that so badly. My fingers closed around the smooth plastic.
It was warm from his hand and apparently all mine. Real.
“Cassandra said you didn’t have a phone,” he said by way of an explanation. “Now you do.”
“Thank you,” I choked out, feeling hope bloom in my mind for the first time since my father sold me to Viper.
For a moment, I stayed where I was, holding the phone and trying to make sense of everything. I had expected more of the same from Fuse and the Dark Slayers and was getting generosity and caring instead. It was a lot to wrap my head around all at once.
Fuse nodded once, like that settled it, and stepped aside to give me room to move past him.
“I need the restroom,” I said, needing space to think.
Fuse gestured down the hallway. “It’s the second door on the left.”
I walked away before he could say anything else. My head was spinning. I found myself walking faster and faster, to the point that I was rushing in what felt like a mini panic attack of some sort.
The restroom was empty when I stepped inside.
I locked myself in a stall and sat there for a moment longer than necessary after I finished peeing.
Staring at the burner phone in my hand, I couldn’t get my head around how everything seemed so impossible until Fuse stepped up and now everything was falling right into my lap.
There had to be a catch. I just wasn’t smart enough or experienced enough to find it.
I shoved the phone into my pocket, wiped, and forced myself to stand. I stood in front of the sink looking at my reflection in the mirror. I wasn’t beautiful by any stretch of the imagination. I’d never had a date, much less a relationship. Why were they treating me so well?
Turning on the water, I soaped up my hands, deciding that I probably shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
Maybe life wasn’t meant to make sense. It could be that me being here was the luck of the draw.
If that was the case, I was going to make the most of this golden opportunity.
I wondered if that girl from Kentucky still existed or if she’d been left behind somewhere along the way.
The door opened behind me, and another club girl stepped in. She was dressed in a black bustier and black leather skirt. Unlike the others, she looked like she’d seen better days. Her long black hair was streaked with bleached highlights and her nails were chipped.
I gave her a halfhearted smile when she moved to the sink beside mine. First, she checked her makeup in the mirror and then spoke to me.
“It wasn’t fair what happened to Charity,” she said quietly.
I froze with my hands still beneath the running water. “What do you mean? Didn’t she break the rules?”
Her face took on an expression that looked almost like regret. “She’s messed up from all the things the brothers have done to her over the years. She shouldn’t have said those things to you, but she was trying to warn you.”
My stomach tightened. “What was she trying to warn me about?”
She handed me a paper towel. I realized the sink was backing up from all the water I was running, so I shut it off and dried my hands.
“What they’re doing to you,” she said gently. “It always starts like this.”
I frowned, “What are you talking about? They gave me a job,” I told her. “They’ve been nice to me.”
Her expression didn’t change. “Yeah, I know it feels that way at first. That’s how all of us got here,” she said.
“A brother finds you when you’re in trouble.
They always act like heroes. They treat you really good in the beginning.
They find out what you want and make sure you get it.
They know how to make a woman feel safe but once you start to really trust them, it all changes. ”
A sick feeling swirled in the pit of my stomach. “Changes how?” I asked, dreading the response.
“They just do that to reel you in, then the favors stop being free. You start earning them on your back.”
Her words ripped through my mind so hard that I had to grip the edge of the sink to steady myself.
“I’d leave if I could,” she said quietly. “But I don’t have anywhere to go. None of us do.”
“That’s not what Cassandra said,” I whispered, scrambling for the only piece of hope I had left.
She gave me a sad, dispirited smile. “Cassandra’s a doctor. She provides medical care to the club for free. The patched brothers only choose old ladies that can contribute something valuable. She may not even realize that’s why she was chosen.”
Her gaze drifted away briefly before returning to me. “The rest of us don’t have degrees. We don’t have skills they need outside of being club girls.”
I’d be lying to myself if I said I didn’t believe her. The cold, hard fact was, her words made a certain kind of sense. Her version answered all my questions about why they’re being so nice to me. Fuse was just spreading breadcrumbs. It was my fault for being stupid enough to eat them up.
Her voice pulled me out of my internal thoughts. And she delivered one final word of warning, “You should leave while you still can,” she said softly. “I’d hate for you to get stuck like the rest of us.”
When she walked out, I immediately threw up in the sink for what seemed like forever. I checked my jean pockets, and the meds were still in my back pockets. And the phone was still in my front pocket. I just needed to pull my mess together before going to meet the man I now knew to be my enemy.
The handsome bastard was using his fake version of kindness and caring to manipulate me when I was at my most vulnerable.
Grooming. That’s what they called it. No wonder he’d been willing to pay money or do favors that embarrassed his club to get me.
Nobody spent that kind of time and effort without expecting something in return.
It didn’t matter that he hadn’t actually had the money and had worked out some kind of trade instead.
Maybe that had been their plan all along.
And come to think of it, Fuse had never once said he would let me go. I thought that I’d hated him before but now I hated him with the fire of a thousand suns.
I walked out of the restroom, determined not to fall into their carefully set trap, the one baited with all the specific things I needed in this moment. Fuse was using all my vulnerabilities to create a trap that would turn me into a club girl for however many years they found me useful.
I wasn’t going to sit quietly and wait to find out what he planned to do with me. I was going to make him tell me. I walked back into the bar with my shoulders squared and my stomach in knots, the anger sitting so tight in my chest it made it hard to breathe.
Fuse was already at the table where we’d eaten earlier.
He’d gotten fresh drinks while I was gone.
A fresh cherry drink for me and a beer for him.
Before, I would have thought the fresh drink was considerate, thoughtful even.
Now, I saw it for what it was, an investment.
Why pay for sex workers when you can have club girls for practically free?