Chapter 4
KAYLA
“You okay, honey?” Coco asks quietly backstage, not wanting the other girls to hear.
She’s the one person I’ve grown close to, both of us with scars of our own.
I never meant for her to find mine, but the day I came to apply to work here, she walked in on me trying to cover up my scars with makeup.
My heart jumped in my throat, and I thought that was it. I’d never get the job now. She’d tell them as soon as I went into the audition. Or they’d be able to see it because how could I cover these scars all by myself? They’d see how ugly I was, and they’d tell me to leave.
But Coco didn’t do that. Instead, she closed the door, went to the closet in the corner, and pulled out this mesh-looking thing, then helped me attach it to my panties. It had a hole for my neck, which she added a choker to.
“Makeup doesn’t work as well. But this will, honey.”
I cried. I stood there and cried as she held me and told me it was okay. Then she fixed my makeup and cheered me on as I went up on that stage and danced my heart out.
She’s a good fifteen years older than me, and kind of like a big sister now.
The girls do their makeup, glancing at me, knowing how shaken up I was when that asshole grabbed me. I was visibly trembling once I was back here, the adrenaline gone and only the memories of my past remaining.
“I’m better now,” I tell Coco. “Thank you.”
Swiping off my ruby-red lipstick, I gape at my reflection in the mirror. I don’t even recognize myself anymore.
“These men think we’re whores or something,” Coco says, louder now. “Like we’re here to do what they want, but fuck that!” She flips her blonde hair past her square shoulders, her frame thick and muscular. “Next time, you hit him in the balls, sweetie. See how he likes it.”
“She’s not trying to get arrested,” Cat remarks with a roll of her eyes from beside me, staring into a mirror while adding a new coat of red lipstick.
Cat’s been at this club for a while. Not as long as Coco, though. I’m the newbie, only been doing this for a couple of months.
I do it because I want to. But if I’m being honest, it’s because I need to.
One night, I passed by the club and went inside.
Seeing these women bare themselves while the men watched, unable to do anything else to them, I wondered how it’d feel to have that kind of power.
To show the men everything and have the upper hand.
To say no, something I didn’t have the luxury to do before…
So I applied. And this sense of control, that things only happen on my terms, it’s freeing. It’s helping.
But, of course, I can’t tell anyone. If Jade or Elsie found out, forget it! They’d think I’d lost it for real. I’m sweet, innocent Kayla. Sweet, innocent girls don’t go and strip. But this one does.
I tell Coco goodbye before I head out. When I step into the dark parking lot, streetlamps illuminate across several cars there.
Wearing sneakers now, my feet barely make a sound as I tread a few yards, getting closer to my sedan, when a noise carries from the end of the lot. I can’t make it out at first.
But then I hear it: a muffled cry.
My hairs rise on both arms when I register a grunt—a man’s grunt.
The woman, though? She continues to cry.
My stomach churns, because I know what’s happening before I get the chance to see it. I’ve heard that exact sound from my own lips, from those of my friends as men took turns.
Removing my phone, I intend to call for help, and when I step near the tall dumpster, I see him. A man with his back to me, the streetlights providing enough illumination to find a woman I recognize by her ruby-red hair to be Ivy from the club.
“Ivy?” I call, flipping on the flashlight on my cell.
The man instantly turns, and even more disgust coils in my gut.
It’s him.
The man who grabbed my ankle.
No. Not a man. A vulture. A cancerous tumor that needs to be excised.
Anger claws through my insides, like a thorny vine wrapping itself around my limbs until I’m one with it.
Ivy turns to me, her cheek bloody and puffy, tears streaming down her face as he presses her against the dumpster.
“Get the fuck away from her!” I roar, slamming a fist into his back as he laughs.
But that only enrages me further.
“You whores should know when to speak and when to shut up,” he hisses. “Now leave! So I can finish, unless you want me to finish on your face instead.”
His eyes run down my body, his mouth snaking up one side.
Without thinking twice, I reach into my black tote and remove a flip knife I carry everywhere. When he takes in the blade, he cackles like a hyena, his round belly jiggling. He continues to pound into Ivy while she whimpers, sandwiched between him and the wall.
Before he can utter a sound, the knife slashes across his upper arm. He lets out a painful groan, snarling as he glances down at his bleeding arm, the crimson coating his white t-shirt.
“Run.” I inch the knife toward the side of his throat. “I may enjoy this a little too much.”
“You little—”
“She said GO.” A deep, guttural voice causes me to gasp, my hairs prickling across the back of my neck.
From deep in the shadows, a man stands, watching us. A black hood covers every inch of his face, the rest of him concealed in darkness, matching the eerie, deadly aura floating around him.
My body crawls with fear.
Even the piece of filth grows scared as he pushes off Ivy and lifts his pants, fumbling with his pockets.
Something slips out of one and falls, but he’s too busy running to realize he dropped his wallet. Without even thinking twice, I grab it and stuff it in my tote.
I gawk at the man in the hood. Like an angel from hell sent to carry me into the darkness with him.
“Who are you?” I call, my pulse racing both from terror and adrenaline.
But instead, he turns and stalks away, leaving me with a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
One I can’t seem to shake.
Not even long after he’s gone.
Ivy refused to press charges. Of course she did. She was too shaken up. Too scared nothing would happen because of what she does.
Men like him always get away with it, while the real victims are cast aside. Unimportant.
After I took her back inside the club, I left with every intention of going home, but instead, I’m going somewhere else entirely.
The man? His name is Barry Mancini.
I don’t even know why I’m driving to his home. But I started to wonder if he was married. If he had kids. Does his family know what a sick piece of shit they’re living with? If not, I plan to tell them.
I want to ruin him. I can’t stop the rage this kind of thing triggers. It feeds my darkness, feeds these thoughts I can’t stop. I want to ruin them all. All the monsters. All the men who hide in plain sight, waiting to hurt us.
And that serial killer, the one the cops can’t find? It could be any of them. It could be Barry or the next man who hurts a woman.
My mind starts to wonder about the man in the hood. What was he doing there? Was he at the club? Did he hear me and offer help?
Why would he want to help, anyway? Men don’t help girls like me. They say we’re asking for it. We don’t matter. Why would I matter to him?
What if he’s just like Barry, only pretending to be a good Samaritan?
Glancing at my rearview mirror, I look at the cars behind me, wondering if he’s there. Doubt it though. I’m sure he left long before I got into my vehicle.
Barry only lives thirty minutes out of the city, and when I pull up to a small ranch with a wraparound fence, I find one car parked in front of it.
His car. The one I saw him drive off in.
The house isn’t in the best condition: a broken shutter, slightly overgrown grass, a piece of the fence missing.
He clearly doesn’t worry about taking care of his things. Doesn’t surprise me.
Parking a couple of homes away, I slowly get out, looking all around, not seeing anyone in the vicinity.
When I start for his house, my body quivering with nerves, a light suddenly turns on through his window.
I freeze in place. Pressing my body flat against the shrub in his front yard, I see him moving sluggishly, like he’s still in pain.
Which, of course, thrills me. There’s something about hurting him that excites me. When he shuts the light off, I release a breath of relief and start closer toward the side door.
Not sure what the plan is. But before I know it, I’m opening the door. Of course the idiot left it unlocked. He isn’t afraid of monsters. Because he is one.
I stride gradually through the dark kitchen, a counter to my right and a small foyer straight ahead. A groan comes through, and I follow the sound, tiptoeing forward.
That’s when I see him lying on the sofa, his wound now wrapped, a beer resting on his belly. Another empty one on a pizza box on the floor.
The TV is on low, but I’m not paying attention to anything but him and the knife in my hand, which is somehow already clutched in my grasp.
I move slowly. Like a gazelle. But my predator doesn’t see me. And if I have it my way, he won’t until it’s too late. I’m right behind him now. But he has no idea what’s about to happen.
He shifts and it startles me, but I stay fastened in place while he begins flipping through the channels. As he does…
“What the fuck?” he snaps.
His mind can’t catch up with what just happened, and neither can mine. My blade’s jammed into the side of his throat, not an inch of it visible.
He jerks up his eyes to find me looming over him.
“You?” he groans, terror there as he tries to yank the knife out.
I grin and help him.
Blood shoots out of the cut.
He lets out a scream, trying to stop the bleeding, but it does him no good.
Pity.
It leaks out like a slow-moving faucet while I step back and watch. I expect to feel something—disgust at this much blood, some kind of sympathy—but I feel nothing but joy.
“You—you won’t g-get away with this…” The last few words sound like a strangled whisper as he starts to collapse to the floor.
“Of course I will…”
Eyes opened, he’s staring at the ceiling, crimson pooling around the pizza box, his body now on it.