I followed the man outside, still trying to decide which shocked me more: how he had treated me or the fact that, despite his god-awful suit—which MUST have been purchased, like, only several hours earlier—he appeared to be loaded. Though the money was a sizable surprise, I finally decided that I’d “met” plenty of men with money, but I’d never met a man who actually treated me like a person; who didn’t just treat me like a whore. I’d been rolling on a pretty big bluff when I told him I would out him to the room, and I’d been certain that, like any other man who didn’t like it when I didn’t act like a “good li’l dog,” I was thoroughly convinced he’d just hit me, steal away whatever bit of power I thought I had, and probably leave me stinging with a threat if I dared to open my mouth again. Instead he’d looked at me like I did have power—power that a simple slap or some mean words could steal away.

Though I’d be damned to admit it to him, he’d actually made me believe that I was a person again.

And then, moreover, he had actually, genuinely apologized to me! Apologized! To me: a whore! If I weren’t still so skeptical about the whole thing, I might’ve actually puffed up my chest and walked out of there with a display of confidence.

I didn’t—for all I knew T-Built might see and make a note to beat that habit right on out of me—but just to feel like I could was… well, it was wonderful.

Not that I’d tell this guy any of that.

Not that he…

Well, maybe I’d at least thank him. He deserved that…

Unless this was all a trick.

Maybe I’d wait to see where all this led first.

We continued on, me hanging off him in that “Where we gonna go to fuck now, baby?”-way that just screamed “HOOKER” to anyone looking. True to the guy’s predictions, people either didn’t look—not caring—or went to great lengths to look away if they caught sight of us passing through.

“Just a sleazy, overdressed whore and a drunk busboy, folks! Heading off to rail me in the backseat of his Chrysler and then cry about how his dad never hugged him.”

And then, just like that, we were out and already a half-block from the awful place. I felt a wave of relief grow inside me the further away we got. I glanced over at the man again, studying his features. Aside from the heinous suit, I couldn’t bring myself to find fault in him. He had his brushed straight back and styled—or something that he probably considered “styled” in the same way he likely thought that his suit worked for him—in a way that practically screamed “I DON’T KNOW HOW TO BE FANCY; PLEASE THINK I’M FANCY” at me. Considering its length and using Candy’s patented “hooker vision,” I could picture how that hair should look: falling naturally past his shoulder. I almost envied him for likely never having to do much with hair like that; he probably didn’t have to do a damn thing to it to walk out of his place each day looking good. His dark, foresty-green eyes took little darting glances around, and I realized that he was still pretty nervous despite putting nearly two blocks away from the Carrion Crew’s fundraiser. I frowned at this, wondering why that could be.

Unless, of course, he was somebody who would be recognizable.

I thought on that a moment, my curiosity swelling that much more.

That would explain a lot…

I looked up again, sensing a shift in his pace as he slowed. The anxiety was gone from him. The jitters were gone from him. I stared, blinking. Everything twitchy about him—and just a second earlier he’d been all-but bathed in twitchiness—was just… just gone!

Sneering down at himself, he moved to pull off the suit jacket, yanked off the tie, and unbuttoned the collared shirt before yanking it with no small sense of victory from his dress pants. He turned away from me—less out of disgust and more out of need—and knelt beside a motorcycle that somebody had parked on the side of the road. I was about to say that it was a strange place for somebody to leave such a nice bike, but, as he began using one of its mirrors to un-“style” his hair I realized that it must have been his.

He’d parked his motorcycle three blocks away from the party he was crashing? I thought to myself, blinking at the gorgeous paintjob; finding it somehow familiar. Christ! He must be somebody recognizable to the Crew if he thought even his ride would be recognized by someone!

“Who the hell are you?” I blurted out, stunned by the picturesque man that rose to his feet after he’d finished (fixing) messing up his hair

Damn, I hated being right about something like this.

“An idiot,” he confessed, shaking his head. He grumbled something about someone named Danny, let out a long, loud sigh that actually seemed to knock his head back until he was basically growling up at the sky, and then, finally, he looked back at me. “Now,” he started, sounding like the sigh had taken about eighty pounds of stress of his shoulders, “I believe I owe you some more money. And a cheeseburger. Christ, a cheeseburger sounds so fucking good right about now.”

I blushed at that—it really did sound good—and then caught myself looking at the motorcycle. Then I glanced down at the dress I was wearing. Then I remembered that I wasn’t wearing any underwear.

There was no way I’d be able to ride with him without flashing the entire town. Assuming that we didn’t wind up getting the cops called on us, I still had enough dignity to not want to go around showing myself off to everyone and anyone out and about tonight.

“I can’t ride on that,” I said.

“What? Why not?” he demanded, suddenly looking me over as though the reason might be written there. “It’s not about the dress, right? I already said that I’m paying for—”

“I’m…” I blurted the word, interrupting him, but trailed off, embarrassed. “I’m not wearing panties,” I finally confessed in a whisper.

I blushed, not liking how embarrassed I was at admitting that. While I wasn’t exactly proud of the lifestyle I’d be thrown into, I’d thought I had developed a harder skin in regards to all of this. I silently cursed T-Built on his stupid underwear rules. If it wasn’t for him, this wouldn’t have been an issue in the first place.

The man looked back at me for a moment, considering what I’d just said. I was certain he’d try to catch a peek, demand that I show him, or, worse yet, decide to go ahead and check on his own. It wasn’t like that hadn’t already happened to me that night. Instead, starting to nod, he gave a sorrowful look back at the motorcycle—his face seeming almost apologetic—and then said, “Can you walk in those shoes?”

Caught off guard by his reaction—realizing that he wasn’t going to take advantage of my situation or change his mind about paying me and just ditch me there—it took me a moment to say, “I walk in worse for hours every night.”

“Fair enough,” he said, rolling his eyes like he’d just asked a stupid question. Then, retrieving his discarded dress coat, he held it out to me. “Here.”

I stared at it. “‘Here,’ what?” I asked, thinking he was expecting me to hold his jacket.

He opened it up, holding it at the wrist of each sleeve, and held it in front of me. “You can tie it around your waist,” he said, shrugging awkwardly as he continued to hold it in front of him. “It’s not going to fix the problem, but it will at least help keep everything hidden while we walk.”

I blushed at that, cursing my instincts for thinking the worst when, as it turned out, he was actually trying to help. Offering a smile for thanks, I nodded, took it, and, at the last minute, decided to slip into it instead. It was too big, and it hung almost low enough to cover my thighs. I was instantly surrounded in the man’s scent, and my body betrayed me and swooned momentarily.

The man watched, considered the overall effect, and shrugged. “Looks better on you than me, I guess,” he resigned. Then, nodding down an adjacent street, he said, “There’s a Denny’s down in that direction. Would a burger from there work?”

I blushed, staring at him. “You’re really going to walk with me to buy me dinner?” I asked, stunned. “Even with your motorcycle right there?”

He glanced back at the motorcycle. Then he looked back at me, looking confused by my question. “Why wouldn’t I?” he said. “You said you can’t ride on it and I promised you a burger.”

In my mind, those words seemed to make no sense. In my mind, none of this made any sense. I was a prostitute—he knew this—but he was taking steps to keep his word and accommodate my needs.

“Isn’t it… I don’t know, an inconvenience?” I asked, wondering if I could prompt him to suddenly realize how foolish it was to be putting this much work into dealing with just a whore.

He shrugged again. “Considering the fact that you’re the one without underwear I imagine it’s a bigger inconvenience to you.”

I nearly collapsed at that. Now he was considering my feelings in all of this?

Was I being punked?

“So…” he drawled, obviously in no way prompted to bail on me or his promise, “Burger from Denny’s is okay then?”

I blushed and smiled, finally accepting that my luck had changed—even if just for the night—and I nodded. “That sounds wonderful,” I said.

He laughed and nodded, gesturing for me to follow. As we walked down the street, I was surprised at how comfortable I felt while walking next to this man. As we continued to walk in silence, I decided if I was about to have dinner with him, I should at least know his name. Turning to look at him, I was surprised to find that he’d been staring at me.

“What?” I demanded, “You changing your mind about asking for sex?”

The words, a product of my paranoid skepticism, were out of my mouth before I even had a chance to consider an alternative.

Damn, but this life had broken me!

“No, no. Nothing like that. Sorry,” he said, his voice hurried like a teen getting caught staring at porn. He took in a breath and shrugged. “You’re different. That’s all,” he said.

“Different?” I repeated, still feeling bad for snapping at him but also still feeling paranoid.

He nodded. “Yeah. Like… like I don’t know too many hookers who use words like ‘foregoing.’ And that’s not even to say that they aren’t smart—I’ve known a lot of really bright hookers, actually—but the way they talk is usually pretty…” he trailed off.

“Monosyllabic?” I offered.

He looked up at that, startled. “I… I was going to say ‘trashy,’ actually, but that works better, I suppose. Only proves my point that much more, but—hey!—I won’t complain about that.”

I actually laughed at that. “Well, thank you… I guess,” I said, feeling proud of myself for committing to my decision to say the words to him earlier. Then, realizing that he was likely owed some context for those words, I said, “For everything, I mean. Not just, you know, saying I’m different. Getting me out of there, paying for my dress…” I blushed again, “And for walking with me to get a burger. Not a lot of guys would do something like that.”

“Well that’s bullshit,” he said, catching me off guard. “Guys walk with girls all the time for burgers. It’s, like, the most American thing I can think of, actually.”

I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that wasn’t what I’d meant. Instead, I said, “Since we are about to have dinner together, can I at least know your name.”

He considered this for a moment, that nervous look coming back to the surface of his expression. “You work for the Carrion Crew, right?” he asked.

I bit my lip at the mention of my work and I nodded.

Looking a little more worried, he asked, “You loyal to them?”

I frowned, wondering if this was some kind of test that T-Built had set up. “What do you mean?” I dodged, hoping to get a better idea of what it was he was asking before potentially putting my neck beneath the executioner’s axe.

“Like…” he trailed off and looked away, thinking. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his pants and he hummed a stretched note to himself before finally stopping. “Like, what would you do if tomorrow there was no Carrion Crew? Would you mourn for them, worry for yourself, or—”

“I’d hawk the fattest, ugliest loogie I could on top of my boss’ grave,” I spat out, surprising even myself. Then, even more surprised by how good it felt to say it, I added, “And, if I’m not crossing a line in saying so, I’d take a piss on top of it, too.”

He laughed at that, seeming entertained by my reaction, and nodded. “You are a fun one,” he said, “I’ll give you that.” Then, obviously feeling confident in saying it, he said, “Jace. My name is Jace. Short for ‘Jason,’ sure, but most just call me ‘Jace.’ What about you?”

“Mia,” I said, regarding him with more curiosity. “Why all the cloak-and-dagger questions just to know your name?”

“Let’s just say that your employers would be very happy to have me dead,” he answered as we crossed the street and started across the Denny’s parking lot. “And I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t be eagerly rushing off to call them and tell them you were with me.”

Hearing this, I stared at him for a long moment. We reached the entrance, and I quickly moved to open the door and let myself in, holding it open behind me for him as I did. My mind raced, suddenly worried that I might have put myself in danger by leaving with this man. The hostess did a double-take as we came in, caught herself in mid-sneer at our obviously disheveled appearances, and worked to bring herself back into the realm of professionalism.

Jeez! I thought, What’s it say when even a Denny’s thinks you look like a whore?

Having regained herself, the hostess beamed a crooked smile with even more crooked teeth, confirmed that, yes, there were two of us, and then saddled us an unusually long distance across rows and rows of open tables and a bunch of others occupied by gawking faces who paused their conversations and their meals to watch us pass. Jace took no notice of this as we followed, seeming confident enough not to care, and I did my best to follow his example. Finally, reaching a lonely table at the other end of the restaurant, we were seated. I slid into the booth, working to keep my slip of a dress from revealing too much at the same time. Two menus plopped down in front of us, and I vacantly heard a hum of words as what I could only imagine was an assurance that our server would be right with us was uttered moments before she saddled back to the front of the restaurant.

Then, sitting across from this Jace-man, I had no option but to stare.

I blushed, not exactly sure what to make of all of this, but—DAMN!—he just looked so handsome. I wasn’t used to feeling attracted to men, especially as of lately. It wasn’t common to work with attractive men, most the ones who had to pay for sex weren’t doing so because they had a ton of other options. I wondered why this sort of man would’ve had to pay for sex. I could imagine that a lot of women would’ve been eager to get with him for free. Blushing at that, I wondered if I’d just confessed to myself that I wanted to sleep with him…

Jeez, Mia! Get a grip. It’s not like you don’t work with men DAILY.

He stared back, seeming to know that there was something going on in my head.

“Are you going to kill me?” I finally asked.

The gasp the question earned had Jace in a coughing fit. His face reddened as he hacked and keeled, the crooked hostess leaning at a funny angle to look at our table from across the dining room.

“SIR?” she called out, “ARE YOU ALRIGHT? WOULD YOU LIKE SOME WATER?”

Jace, too overwhelmed by his coughing to answer, nodded and held up a thumbs-up.

I stared, blushing, feeling strangely guilty.

Finally, starting to gasp from the whole ordeal, the coughs began to space out and eventually calm. Two glasses of ice water clanked louder and louder as the hostess hurried to bring them to our table, and the moment he had the chance to do so he gulped down almost half of one of the glasses in only a few gulps.

“You gonna be alright, hun?” the hostess asked, looking like she was prepared to call us an ambulance.

Jace nodded, assured her he was fine, and thanked her. Once we were alone, he gave me a hard stare, took another gulp of water, and shook his head. “No,” he said flatly. “We’re not in the business of killing. Tough as your guys have made that.”

“For starters,” I hissed, “the Carrion Crew are not ‘my guys.’ I work for them. That’s it! Got it?”

Jace nodded, seeming happy to hear it.

“Secondly, who in the hell is ‘we’?” I demanded. “You said ‘we’re not in the business.’ So who’s the rest of you?”

Jace sucked on his upper lip, still obviously nervous, and stared back at me. I could almost see him replaying all of our conversations as he did, making one last assessment of me.

Despite everything I’d been through—everything I’d done—I realized I’d never felt more exposed. Part of me would have preferred it if he’d just slipped under the table to stare between my legs at my nakedness; at least that would have made sense to me.

Then he sighed and shrugged, committing to whatever outcome the decision he’d just made brought his way. “My name,” he said the words as though he hadn’t already told me his name, “is Jason Presley. And I’m the leader of the Crow Gang.”

He said the words like they were supposed to mean something, but I couldn’t bring myself to know what that something was. I felt like he’d just confessed to being the king of some exotic country—like trumpets should have suddenly blared at the confession—but I felt like the one person in the classroom who’d never heard of the So-and-So Empire. Okay, so he was Jason Presley, that was cool, but what was a Crow Gang, and, more importantly, why should that matter?

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and to remove all doubt,” I quoted to myself.

Then I inwardly groaned as I realized I was quoting a dead president while sitting in a Denny’s, wearing a ruined-yet-about-to-be-sold eighteen-hundred dollar dress with no underwear, across from a guy who’d just turned my world upside-down and thrown a bunch of money at me to save his life. The weird-train to Awkwards-ville was officially derailing and crashing down on the Forest of Fucked-Up, and now I was expected to know—or care—about another goofy-sounding, bird-obsessed group? I held back the sudden urge to just break down into hysteria and followed after the hostess. In my defense, I felt I was holding it together pretty well, all things considered.

He stared back at me.

I gave no sign that I either knew or did not know what he was talking about. Somewhere in that effort, I failed.

“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” he asked.

I held on a moment longer, trying to decide if it would be worth it to bluff, and finally shook my head.

Jace smirked at that, seeming relieved. “Wow!” he said, “I guess you’re not too woven in with the Crew then, huh?”

“Woven in enough,” I grumbled, taking a sip from my own glass of water.

And then Jace went on to explain just what his bold confession to me truly meant.

“Like one criminal organization wasn’t enough, right?” Jace finally finished.

I blushed and shrugged. “From the sounds of it, your gang is actually sort of heroic in its own way. I mean, sure, it’s still crime and whatnot, but you said it yourself: you’re not in the business of killing. I barely knew anything about this town’s gangs—didn’t even know there was more than one, honestly—and I at least know that the Crew are nothing if not murder-happy bastards.”

Jace smiled at my words.

“So, yeah,” Jace said, sipping from his now nearly empty glass of water. Our server had already taken our drink order and, since he’d started telling me about his gang, we’d gotten a round of Cokes between us. Even then, he’d been working on the water as he talked. “I thought I was being clever in going in there tonight—thought I’d snoop around and get an idea of what they were up to—” he looked away as he said this, and I figured he was making sure nobody was eavesdropping, “but when you pegged me as a narc in an instant I figured I was likely testing fate and decided it was in my better interest to get out of there.”

I blushed and nodded, fascinated by this new information. Moreover, knowing this added detail about Jace only made his demeanor and his behavior towards me that much more incredible. Not realizing I was doing it, I shifted in my seat.

Jace raised an eyebrow at my obvious shimmy of discomfort.

“What?” I bit my lip. “It’s… it’s just weird to be sitting at a Denny’s with no underwear on.”

He shrugged and grinned. “I’m sure it’s not the weirdest thing they’ve seen. Besides, I imagine it would be kind of exhilarating, right? Would be for me, at least.”

“Yeah, well, you aren’t the one doing it,” I pointed out.

“What if I am?” he grinned, raising an eyebrow.

I chuckled, rolling at my eyes at that, “Then they wouldn’t know anyway.” I gestured to his pants. “These kind of block anything from being seen.”

“You want me to strip?” he grinned. “I’ll do it. Get down to my boxers if it’ll help you feel better.”

“Boxers? So you are wearing underwear!” I grinned.

He shrugged, “I can take those off too if you want.”

I blushed, suddenly feeling exhilarated just like he had said. Sitting at this booth with him, being able to freely laugh, being able to say whatever I wanted—this was exhilarating! The feeling was incredible. I silently thanked any and all gods that made this meeting possible. I had wanted to leave, and he had crashed into the scene—literally—at the exact moment I needed.

And now, free from that place, I got to take the night off from being Mia the whore.

But then a part of me reminded myself that this man in front of me had technically paid for me. That he was choosing to use the time he’d bought to do this instead of using my body in some way didn’t change the fact that I was being used as a commodity. That part of me went on to remind me that, in any other circumstance, he wouldn’t have been caught dead with me. At that, I looked down, trying to ignore the sudden shame I felt at feeling any differently in this circumstance.

“Thanks again, by the way,” he said, not seeming to notice that I’d basically broken myself in the prior moment. “You really did save my ass.”

“You paid me to do so,” I added, trying to hold the bitterness I was feeling back.

“Technically I paid for the dress I ruined and compensated you for the lost wages for the rest of the night.”

I rolled my eyes, “That why you paid more than double the cost?”

“So far I’ve only paid you two-grand,” he reminded me. “And before you go thinking that I bought you I think it’s worth stating that I would’ve thrown all of the money I’m paying you and more to just about anybody who could’ve gotten me out of there, regardless of their occupation. Please remember that, okay? I just got done telling a friend about how disinterested I am in taking him up on an offer for a prostitute these days, and I feel like it would get back to him if that’s what you’re taking away from this. I paid you—Mia—not you—the prostitute—to put on a little skit to get me out of there. Simple as that.” He shrugged and smirked. “Just think of it as you charging double to be an actress,” he offered with a smirk, then, flipping back in his menu, asked, “You wanna split some nachos as an appetizer? I’m hungrier than I thought.”

At the change of subject, I relaxed. I hadn’t been sure if he could actually tell what was on my mind or not, but I appreciated it all the same. Somehow with those few words, he had made me feel less like the whore I was. I decided that, if I was getting the rest of the night off, I could at least thoroughly enjoy myself for the time being.

“Sure,” I smirked. “Nachos sound nice.”

He grinned, nodding. “So, what kind of burger you thinking of getting?”

“A double,” I smirked. “With an egg, bacon, and whole shit load of that cheese sauce they have.”

“A woman after my own heart,” he said lightly and I tried to tell myself that I didn’t feel a jolt of something from those words. “I think I’ll get the same thing.”

The server came back then to take our orders. Jace talked on, building a burger that seemed more complex than any sandwich had any right to be. As he prattled on—“… triple patties, extra cheese, extra bacon, avocado…”—he seemed totally oblivious to the fact that the waitress was practically drooling over him. She hung on every word, emoting with exaggerated grins and even adding “ooh! That sounds good!” when he paused to reference the other possible add-ons even though she looked like the sort of girl who considered herself naughty for eating a crouton from her side salad. And when Jace jokingly asked if they could cook it rare if he “batted his eyelashes real pretty,” she went so far to force a series of squawking laughs that conveniently forced her to put her hand on his shoulder. I watched with what I convinced myself was passive indifference—and any annoyance I was feeling was purely directed towards how awkward she was making the ordering process and nothing else!—and considered how all of this just proved me right. Jace was the sort of guy who could get any girl he wanted—or didn’t want, judging from how he shrugged the waitresses’ hand off his shoulder—and yet he’d confessed to me that he’d paid for the service of prostitutes in the past. It just helped to add to my confusion as to why Jace would’ve had to pay for sex. The man was perfectly fit. After the waitress left, pausing to admire Jace once more, I looked back to him, being able to see better now that we were under the bright fluorescent lights. His hair was pitch black and any sort of styling he had been trying for had completely been forgotten as his hair fell over his face, hanging past his cheeks. His face was traditionally handsome and I admired the square cut jaw he possessed and sculpted cheekbones. He really was way too handsome.

It wasn’t fair.

But it wasn’t just his features that caught me. It was his eyes. They were a deep green that reminded me of home. It reminded me of every Christmas I’d spent as a child, before things had gone bad. We had lived near a forest of pine trees and every year, we’d go out and choose a tree together as a family. His eyes were the color of the pine and I could almost smell the trees as I got lost in the memory, in the sight of his eyes. I’d hardly noticed that those eyes were focused on me, focusing on admiring me as well. Blinking, I looked over, seeing that he was also staring at me.

“Like what you see?” I asked, hoping it didn’t sound too much like I was soliciting him.

He raised an eyebrow and chuckled, shaking his head. “S-sorry, didn’t mean to stare. Though, to be fair, yes—I do like what I see. Not my fault you’re hot.”

I blinked at that and let out a sudden bout of laughter. I had tried to hold it back for so long. Something about this man calling me “hot” just ended up being the last straw. I lost it. I doubled over the booth, laughing heartily, not even noticing the attention I was getting from doing so. I didn’t care at that point. It wasn’t like not doing anything was doing us any good. The restaurant had went quiet when we were seated and while some people were less noticeable in their gazes, others were blatant in watching us, specifically watching me. The mixed looks of interest, surprise, and hatred (mostly from a few woman who had obviously caught their man staring) were something I was used to. Now I saw the stares of horror and decided that I could just add that look into my growing list of reactions to seeing me.

“Aaand she’s lost it,” Jace said to himself, followed, to me, with, “You okay?”

At that moment, I wanted to hug him.

“I’m…” I took a deep breath. “I’m fine. Just… this entire situation is pretty funny, don’t you think?”

He smiled and nodded, finally tackling his Coke. “Definitely ranks in my top-fives for interesting situations.”

“Top three for me,” I boasted, “and that’s coming from a whore.”

He smirked. “Well, that is pretty impressive then,” he admitted.

As our nachos came, we both fell into another silence and I was surprised to find that it didn’t feel awkward or strained. I wasn’t used to this feeling and I couldn’t help but look appreciatively towards Jace, who’d already snatched up a heavily decorated chip and was in the process of feeding it to himself while, with his opposite hand, pushing the heaped-up plate in my direction to dig in, as well. While, yes, he needed an excuse to leave the party, he had definitely helped me in the long run, too, whether he chose to admit that or not. If I’d have known that this was where the night was headed I wouldn’t have…

I sighed and pulled up my bag, reaching in and handing him his credit card.

He stared back, mouth still crammed with nacho. “What?” was all he could manage to say.

I smiled and shrugged. “You already paid for the dress and the necklace,” I told him. “There was almost two-and-a-half grand in the wad you gave me.” I shook my head and smiled, “I don’t need you to give me anything else.”

“You sure?” he asked.

“You still paying for dinner?” I countered.

He swallowed his mouthful of nacho, smiled, and nodded. “Of course.”

“Then I’m sure,” I told him.

He shrugged and moved to retrieve the card. “Okay. Sort of reminds me of that old joke about the hooker giving the money back, but I feel like I didn’t even pay for something worth getting a return on.”

“Trust me,” I said, blushing and moving to take a nacho for myself, “That you’re saying that is reason enough.”

He stared, obviously not understanding. Finally, giving up trying to figure it out, he said, “Well, if you insist.” Then, as he snatched up another chip, he said, “Now, while we wait for our burgers: what… is your favorite color?”

I giggled at the drama leading up to such an otherwise simple, basic question. I looked at him, wondering if there was some trick behind it, but then I remembered how he’d been all night and how I’d been all night; my suspicions only served to prove that he was totally sincere every step of the way.

I silently uttered another curse to my brother for turning me into this.

“Purple,” I answered. “Yours?”

“Yellow,” he grinned.

“Yellow?” I sneered. “Really? I didn’t think anyone’s favorite color could be yellow.”

He laughed and shrugged. “Just is,” he said. “Reminds me of summer. Used to be my favorite season until this year. This year’s making me hate summer; this heat wave’s been a real ball-buster.”

“I weep for your balls,” I joked and then shrugged, sighing. “But you’re right, it has been unseasonably warm,” I agreed. “The lack of rain is partially to blame.”

“The dry spell will run up soon,” he said. “Least I hope it will.”

I nodded in agreement and decided that if we were asking random questions, that I could at least contribute to the conversation. Thinking of what to ask, more specifically, something that I also wouldn’t mind answering, I went through the list of basic greeting questions that people went through.

“Favorite animal?”

“Cat,” he grinned. “Yours?”

“Dog,” I grinned back.

He raised an eyebrow. “Seems we are running opposite with most our answers.”

I smiled and shrugged. “I don’t mind cats,” I admitted. “I just have always been more of a dog person, I guess.”

Jace nodded and smiled. “Dogs are cute. I’ve always just loved cats, I guess because of the work that needs to go into having a cat. They aren’t quick to trust and they certainly take a lot of maintenance to please. But once you get a cat’s love, they are loyal to only you.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” I bit my lip, realizing just how much I sounded like a cat in his description.

I supposed that a lot of people did compare women to cats, but I had always thought it was just a joke about pussy. At Jace’s description, I smiled and realized that I suddenly didn’t mind the comparison to cats. I also decided that Jace’s answer had told me more about him that he likely guessed. Most men hated putting any work into anything. The fact that Jace’s favorite animal was a cat and that what he valued from them was something that required effort made him better than most the men I had met in my life.

“You’re not so bad. You know, for being a narc,” I said, deciding that, overlooking the little girl crush I was feeling, I genuinely liked him.

He smirked at that and shrugged, “And you’re quite charming. You know, for a hooker.”

I bit my lip at that and looked down. “You don’t think that makes me a bad person, do you?”

His grinning face sobered at that and he shook his head. “What? No. Not at all. It’s just a job, after all—I could just as easily say that you’re quite charming for a waitress or a gas station attendant or the queen of France.”

“Would be difficult,” I interjected, “since France has a president.”

“Spoken very much not like a hooker. Besides, you’re not working right now, right? Only a few people continue being what they do for a living when they’re off the clock—writers, painters, and killers, to name a few—so I’m not going to think of you as that right now. Besides, me and my crew don’t—”

“‘—my crew and I,’” I corrected.

“Huh?” he looked up and then nodded, blushing. “Oh, right. Right. Anyway, I was raised to show manners to everyone, even the janitors and garbage men, because you never know who’s going to choose to stab you in the back and who might be there to take the knife for you. My dad did a lot of work with prostitutes when he was first starting the Crows, and it wasn’t uncommon for him to have a few over for dinner—used to sit right next to my mom and my brother and across the table from me—while they discussed business.”

I stared at him, shocked. “And your mother never minded?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Why should she? Nobody at the table was paying them for their services. She’d just say, ‘out there you’re working girls; in here you’re friends.’” He smiled at his own memory and nodded, “I mean, if my old man was trying to get with them then Mom would’ve beaten him silly—the hookers, too; they liked my mom too much to let my dad do that to her—but even then she wouldn’t have blamed the girls. You don’t blame the guy who sells a man the pack of cigarettes when he swears he’s gonna quit.”

I smirked at that reasoning and nodded, deciding that there was sound logic. I also appreciated the prior comment. I’d always had a hard time even with myself of not feeling like a whore off the clock just as much as I had on the clock. Differentiating was a difficult task that I’d still been working to perfect.

Jace was about to reach for another nacho when the server came around with our burgers. She set them down, looking like she wanted to say something to Jace, her face all tight and braced for what I was certain was a rehearsed speech. Jace, either not noticing, not caring, or both, ignored her and, after guiding a steaming fry into his mouth and cooling it with a hit from his Coke, snatched up his burger and took a huge, dripping bite.

The sight of the juices and various add-ons plopping down from the burger, which was almost too big for him to hold, was enough to deter the waitress.

Not wanting to have her linger around us any longer I offered my best shark smile and said, “Thanks so much.” The finality in my words seemed enough to make her hovering too awkward for her to maintain, and she hurried off.

“Thank you,” Jace said once she was gone. “She’s been annoying me since we got here.”

I blushed at that, realizing that he had been noticing. “No problem,” I offered.

With a strange—if not totally deserved—sense of satisfaction, I dug into my own burger.

Though I knew it couldn’t be true, I was thoroughly convinced at that moment that it was the best thing I’d ever tasted.

“What? You’re not too full for that?” I teased as Jace reached for the dessert menu after he’d finished off the lonely fry on his otherwise cleaned plate.

“Not even close,” he chuckled, beginning to scan the colorful pictures of treats. “So,” he said absently, seeming to be preparing another of his “just getting to know you”-questions, “what led you down this path?”

I blushed at the question. It was a great deal more complex than my favorite color, but I supposed it was still, in its own way, a “just getting to know you”-question. Reminding myself that he’d already proven that he didn’t see prostitution as a shameful job—telling myself that it wasn’t any different than him asking what might’ve gotten me into selling keychains off a table on the side of the street—I decided to get as close to the truth as I was willing to go without hurting my own feelings.

“My brother,” I finally said.

Jace frowned at that. “Your brother got you into this work?” he asked.

I bit my lip and shrugged. “I mean, not directly. It’s not like he meant for it to come to this. In fact, I’m not sure if he even knows. But he got into some trouble with the Carrion Crew, racked up a bunch of debt or something, and I guess I…” I stopped myself there, realizing that Jace had enough on his plate with his own gang going up against the Carrion Crew without worrying about their methods—kidnapping me, beating me, practically holding me hostage with threats to my family—and decided to offer him a slightly happier version of things: “And I guess I took the easiest means of paying them back,” I finished with a shrug.

Jace scowled at that and shook his head. “Sounds like a bunch of bullshit. It shouldn’t be your responsibility.”

I shrugged, trying to hide just how much I appreciated him showing outrage to the situation. No one seemed to understand just how awful the situation had been for me. Sure, Candy had been sympathetic, but she’d been working for them a lot longer than I’d started. I took a deep breath and looked down, not wanting to sound as pitiful as I felt at that moment.

“I know, but… well, my brother got arrested—he’s in jail now—and it’s not like he can do anything to pay it off. I was between jobs—just out of college and not really sure what to do next, actually—and this gave me a chance to help out my brother while getting a roof over my head and such. Yeah, it’s a shit deal, but it is what it is,” I finally coughed out.

He bit his lip at my comment and I could see that he didn’t quite agree. However, seeming to believe that I was content with the way things were, he didn’t push to know more or try to convince me that I’d made the wrong choice. Once again, I found myself appreciating his character, even if I could feel a part of me thrashing around inside my chest, demanding to be free of this life. Not wanting to disgust him or, worse yet, have him pity me, I refused to let that part of me be heard by him. He was being too good to me for me to go dumping on the evening with my crazy sob-story.

Jace sighed, though it seemed to be more inward, directed at himself rather than at me, and he said, “You don’t have to answer if this upsets you. I didn’t mean to pry. I guess I was just curious and it sort of spiraled into this…”

“No, it’s okay,” I said and then actually smiled. “Yeah, it’s not the happiest of subjects, but maybe it’ll be good for me to talk about this. It’s not like I’ve really had a chance to talk about it much.” I took in a deep breath and nodded again, “Yes, my brother’s fuckup led to me being a whore. No, I’m not particularly thrilled about it, but, like I said, it keeps me housed and fed and its helping my brother for when he’s out of jail. I’m not sure why I’m helping him, it’s not like we were necessarily close—no more close than any other siblings, I suppose—but I guess I always believed that when family was in trouble you stepped in to help them, especially when the sort of trouble they’re in is…”

“Carrion Crew trouble?” Jace contributed.

I nodded, forcing a thankful smile. “It’s just weird, you know? Because when I was about fourteen, I’d decided to never trust my brother again. There was this old house near where we lived, an old couple had lived there for some time before it was abandoned. Anyway, there was a cellar that the old man had always kept locked and it’d gotten a bit of a reputation with the local kids about what could be locked down there. And, somewhere along the line, I got it into my head that I’d be something of a legend around town if I was the one to finally solve the mystery. My brother agreed, seeming just as curious as I was—though I think he just wanted an excuse to sneak off with his girlfriend—and he brought a pair of bolt cutters with us this one night that we decided to sneak out. I’m not sure if it was his plan all along or not, but when we finally got the lock off the cellar door and I started to head down, he decided it’d be funny to lock me down there in the dark and go upstairs to make-out with his girlfriend. While it scared the shit out of me, I knew there was a hatch in the basement that locked from the inside.” I shrugged at the memory, “I figured I’d just have to suffer a few seconds—maybe a minute or two—in that dark place. Then I’d find the hatch, unlock it, and go home. Maybe even tattle on my brother to my parents that he was in the abandoned house with beer and girls. Simple as that… well, I thought so, at least.”

“Uh-oh,” Jace hummed, catching on to my grim foreshadowing. “So what happened?”

I nodded that, yes, he should be braced for a bad ending. “Well, I began to go down the rest of the steps into the cellar, and that’s when the smell hit me.”

“Smell?” Jace sneered. “Oh fuck…”

“Exactly. Oh fuck!” I nodded again, “Anyway, long story short: the old couple didn’t just up-and-abandon the place. Turns out the old man actually killed his wife. He must have figured that stashing the body away in a locked basement and vanishing overnight would let him get away with it. And, for all I know, he did. Everyone just thought they’d gone away for an extended vacation for a while. By the time the neighborhood kids realized it was abandoned he’d already been long-gone, and by that point everyone was using it as a hang-out; didn’t even know what was behind the locked door. Not until my brother and I… well, not until I went down there and found the wife’s body.”

“Holy fuck!” Jace gasped, slapping the table. “Oh god, what’d you do?”

I laughed morbidly and shrugged. “What any kid would do: I screamed my ass off and high-tailed it out of there. Found the hatch that led outside after only a few seconds, then went screaming down the road. A couple from one of the neighboring houses was out walking their dog. They saw me screaming and managed to calm me down. Cops were called. It was a big deal for a while, and then it just stopped being a thing. Just a source for urban legends and scary stories shared between school kids now.” I wiped my face, which had started to grow damp with droplets of sweat from the memory. “So that was when I’d decided never to trust my brother ever again. Especially since he didn’t seem to care what had happened to me; he was just upset that my screaming and getting the cops called had ruined his make-out session.”

Jace frowned, “Sounds like he was quite the charmer. And you’re still doing all this for him?”

I shrugged and looked away. “Like I said: he’s family.”

I could feel his eyes studying me for a long moment. He said, “Well, I think, for being such a great sister despite him being such a fuck-nugget, you should be rewarded with the biggest, baddest sundae Denny’s can make.”

Laughing, I looked over at him, shaking my head. “You’re unbelievable, you know that? You show me all this kindness and sympathy and understanding, and even after I tell you a story like that you’re still willing to buy a whore an ice cream?”

He sighed, nodded, and then said, “I feel like there’s a lesson I’m trying to teach that you’re just not learning.”

“No,” I admitted, still smiling, “I suppose I’m not learning it at all. But I will take that ice cream.”

I stared at him a long moment, finding myself growing more and more curious as the subject of my family was discussed. I had any number of questions, but what wound up coming up—word vomit—was, “So is there a wife or girlfriend who will be upset to know you were out spending all this money on feeding a whore?”

He gave me that “still not learning the lesson”-look, but only shook his head. “No,” he said simply.

The simplicity felt almost too simple. Like there was a lot more than what it implied.

“Jace?” I pressed.

He tensed at his name, looked away, and sighed. “I don’t really have anyone now, actually. The gang-life took my immediate family. And, I mean—yeah—I was married once and… and I guess we were considering doing the whole family-thing, but…”

I bit my lip, feeling like there was an “oh fuck”-moment of his own coming up, but I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.

He shook his head, grabbed his Coke—draining it with a long pull from the straw—and finally said, “But it didn’t work out. You know how families these days work: one day they’re there and the next—” he mimed footsteps with his fingers as they “walked” across the table.

I could feel how abrupt the shift in him was. Whatever had happened to him was fresh enough that he didn’t want to discuss it. Remembering the moments he had offered same, I chose not to push the topic, deciding that somethings were better not discussed. Thinking back on the old house and the body of the old woman, I bit my lip. I thought talking about it would make it better, but a part of me wondered if maybe I’d done the opposite in bringing back old memories. The waitress made her way back to the table, taking another eyeful of Jace as she asked if we needed anything else.

“Yeah, I’ll take a hot fudge sundae,” Jace smiled and then looked over at me. “And I want you to hook the lady up with the craziest ice cream monster-beast-thing you can create.”

I blushed at that, but when the waitress shot me a “you don’t deserve him”-glare I decided to punch back. “Aww,” I cooed over at him, “Thanks so much, baby! You’re so good to me!”

With the “he’s with me and not with you”-blade twisted in her side, the waitress huffed loud enough for both of us to hear and stormed off to punch in our orders.

Jace was holding back a bout of laughter as she did. “That was mean,” he whispered once she was out of earshot, then held up a hand for me to high-five him. “Good for you!”

I gave him the high-five and grinned, shrugging. “I do what I can.”

“Then you can do great!” he said with a wink.

“Thank you again for this,” I finally said after another long-yet-relaxing silence. “I really needed this.”

He looked to me then and nodded. “Same here.”

I could hear both honesty and surprise in his voice, and I had to admit that I wasn’t expecting this night to go this way either. I hadn’t expected to find someone like him and certainly didn’t see myself growing to like someone so quickly. I wondered for a moment if he had ordered dessert just not to have to night end and I admittedly appreciated it either way. The waitress returned faster this time with the desserts and I was both excited (I DID love my sweets) and sad that it meant the night would be coming to a close that much sooner.

“This really has been an unusual night, hasn’t it?” Jace said softly.

“It really has,” I admitted, glancing over at him and offered a smile. “Not necessarily bad in the end, though.”

He smiled and nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.” Then, clearing his throat, he said, “Would you maybe like to get together again tomorrow? I can get you earlier in the afternoon so that you’ve still got the night free.”

I looked up at that and smiled, not bothering to hold back the giddiness I felt as his question. “I’d love to!” I exclaimed, pausing to take a look at the time and realizing I had enough time to catch the next bus home. Grabbing a piece of paper and a pen from my purse, I jotted down the address to Candy’s and my apartment. “Look, you’ve already done so much for me and I don’t want to take up anymore of your night, so I’m gonna catch the bus back home. Here’s my address aaaand…” I drawled as I added my cell phone number below that, “my number. Meet me outside there—my roommate’s edgy about having guests over, so don’t worry about coming up, okay? What time should I expect you tomorrow?”

Jace glanced down at the paper, seeming pleased to see a real-looking address and phone number there. It occurred to me that he seemed just as surprised by how well things were going as I was. “Would three be okay?” he asked.

“Sounds perfect,” I smiled. “Thanks again for the meal.”

“Thanks again for saving my ass,” he grinned, then asked, “You sure you don’t want me to give you a lift back to your place? It’d be no problem.”

I smiled and shook my head. “No, thanks. The offer’s honestly enough,” I explained. “Besides, I’m still not wearing… you know, and I’d rather flash just the people riding the bus than the entire town.”

“That’s fair, I guess,” Jace said with a chuckle.

Smiling at the sound of his gentle laughter, I paused, remembering his coat, and moved to take it off.

“Keep it,” he said, holding up a hand. “The thing looked awful on me, anyway.” Then added, “Until tomorrow, Mia.”

“Until then,” I agreed

“You get laid or something?” Candy asked when she got back from the mansion.

I had waited for her, relaxing in the living room and the reading my vampire novel. I looked over when she stepped in, trying to hide the giddiness I felt for tomorrow and from the night I’d just had.

“That’s a stupid question to ask,” I chuckled. “When do I not get laid?”

“You know I didn’t mean that kind of laid,” Candy scoffed. “You look like you just got laid-laid. Like, Prince-fucking-Charming just turned your pussy to pure gold atop his well-hung and noble stallion. As in, the sort of toe-curling goodness that you would pay him for.”

“Well then, no, I didn’t,” I said, feeling myself go hot with a full-body blush. “But I did… uh…”

“Oh sweet titty-fucking Christ on a cracker, girl,” Candy gasped and dropped her bags by the door, hurrying in to sit beside me. “‘But’ what? Don’t you go word-shy on me now, bitch; not you! No! Start talking! Spill the beans, girl!”

And I did. I told her everything. I watched Candy’s expressions go from pure excitement to worry then back to excitement. The look on Candy’s face seemed to perfectly represent everything that I was feeling. As I finished the story, I could just see that Candy had been waiting to interject.

“First off: he sounds awesome. Does he have a brother?” Candy grinned teasingly. “Secondly, did you agree to go with him tomorrow? You better have!”

I nodded slowly and then bit my lip. “He’s picking me up at three…but do you really think this is a good idea though?”

“Honey, he’s a hot, honest guy who obviously likes you and can look past the whole prostitute-thing,” she said, grinning ear-to-ear. “As your whore-ttorny in this case I have to insist that you marry him right away!”

“Whore-ttorny?” I asked.

Candy nodded. “Mm-hmm, like one part ‘whore,’ one part ‘attorney.’ Whore-ttorny. C’mon, I thought you was good with this speaking shit and such.”

Enough to hate everything about that sentence, I thought, then said, “Look, there’s definitely something between us, but…”

“No ‘but’s ‘cept the one you’re letting your Prince Charming fuck, got it? Now get to bed! You need your beauty rest for tomorrow! Git! GIT!”

“Alright, Mom,” I said and grinned, pulling myself to my feet.

She grinned back and waved me away. “Get outta here before I decide to smack you for that.”

I smiled at that, heading into my room and crawled onto the mattress.

Lying on my back, I thought of the night with Jace and smiled. I was so excited for tomorrow that I wondered if I’d even get any rest. As I closed my eyes, the memory of my confession about my brother and the house played through my mind.

Malcolm could always talk me into anything. My brother was dumb—“born dumb, grown dumb, no doubt gonna die dumb, too,” my father always said—but, for whatever reason, he was an absolute genius when it came to getting me to go along with whatever dumb idea he had. It wasn’t just the simple, “I was too young to know better”-moments, either, like when I was four and he marched me off to the woods for a game of “Show Me Yours; I’ll Show You Mine.” No, even as I got older and the antics got dumber I still managed to let myself get pulled into the messes.

Blowing up Missus Fernhager’s mailbox? I got my bottom paddled for being the one to “borrow” Daddy’s lighter to start the fuse on the cherry bomb.

Sending a stray cat on a “river rapids ride” down a stream? I got pneumonia for my trouble after feeling guilty and jumping into the October-chilled waters to save it.

Kissing the small, wrinkled scrotum of Malcom’s friend, Adam, on a dare? Everyone called me “sack breath” until Tina O’Reily went off and got herself pregnant and made herself a new target for all the slut-shamers in our school.

But all of those things felt sort of casual in a way. Though I was too young or too woven in the immediate moments to truly have a scope of them in the grand view of everything, I never really felt that my life was good-and-truly ruined by any of them. I never felt that Malcolm—still a few years from graduating to the “Mack” I’d go on to loathe with every fiber of my being—had talked me into absolute ruination.

Then I found myself in the Creely House’s cellar.

Everyone knew it was abandoned. One day it had been occupied, car in the driveway, lights on in the windows, and radiating with a general air of “somebody lives here,” then, the next day, all of that was just gone. Nobody thought anything of it at first. Nobody said a thing. At first, everyone just figured the old Creely couple had decided to take a drive down South like they were known to talk about to anybody who was willing to listen. Sometimes people went places, and what business was it of their neighbors.

Then the grass kept on growing; the weeds went on claiming what Missus Creely had worked so hard before that to keep unclaimed. Then the second step to the front porch, old and rundown as it was, succumbed to a particularly cruel summer storm, and Mister Creely wasn’t out there the next day to mend it. Then, seeming to test the hushed rumors that had begun to float around, somebody dared to throw a rock through one of the Creely’s front windows. And when not a single holler was uttered from within, hushed rumors turned to whispered certainties. And when, on the days that followed, nobody was called into questioning by the Sherriff, whom everyone was certain an outraged Mister Creely would have phoned to report the act, those whispers grew louder.

It was the kids of the town that came to know that the house was abandoned long before the grown-ups, who still had no reason to suspect anything but an extended vacation. If nothing else, they’d look at the Creely’s increasingly rundown home and think, “They’re gonna have a hell of a time dealing with that when they get back.” And so things went on as they normally would with the grown-up run town, but the kids—the only people who mattered, as far as they were concerned—upgraded the property to the “Creely House.” With this upgrade came a set of dual functions in the eyes of those who mattered: as a hangout for the older kids to smoke dope and diddle one another and as a test of courage for the younger kids.

At fourteen, I was balanced on a fencepost that divided the former from the latter. Most of the kids didn’t even remember the days of “sack breath,” and the whole ordeal with Adam and his raisin-like scrotum had put me off from wanting much to do with boys and the bizarre bundles of flesh that clung to their midsections. It’d be a year-or-so still before I’d have any interest in diddling anybody but myself, and by that time the secret of the Creely House would be discovered by all—grown-ups and kids alike—and the dual functions it once served would mean nothing to anybody. Even still, though I wasn’t up to pairing up with the older kids for their “upstairs” antics, I was certain that I was too old to be lumped with the younger kids. I wasn’t a baby, after all, and I wasn’t about to go getting scared by an abandoned house that was only deemed “creepy” because the last people living there decided to up-and-go.

“An overgrown lawn and a dusty, dark interior did not a haunted house make,” I’d boasted, proud of myself for constructing such an adult-sounding sentence.

Malcolm, who was nearly seventeen and most certainly fell into the group of kids who saw the Creely House as a site for adult rites, saw this as a chance to talk his little sister into something stupid. Whether it was his own curiosity that had motivated it or if he was just a typical A-hole older brother looking to get a cheap scare on his younger sibling would forever remain a mystery, a dumb idea—the dumb idea—had come to Malcolm Chobavich. Then, like all of Malcolm Chobavich’s dumb ideas, I found myself talked into it. That night, armed with an overloaded sense of confidence and an underserved sense of pride, I stole away into the night beside my brother, who’d gone armed with a set of bolt cutters, a couple of pilfered beers from their father’s private refrigerator in the garage, and a brunette with a comical overbite and a lazy eye who Malcolm generously referred to as his “girlfriend.”

I didn’t bother to ask what had happened to the “girlfriend” with the one crooked knee that always bowed sideways when she walked. Near as I could tell and as far as I was concerned, my brother was no different than the weird guy who looted the city dump: snatching up broken things and calling them “mine.” It hadn’t occurred to me then that there was a big difference between collecting broken things and collecting broken people and that there was an even bigger difference when it came to the nature of calling them “mine.” Both of these lessons, however, would come to me in time.

At that moment, I was blissfully unaware of such notions. Malcolm was off to the Creely House to drink their father’s beer and, by his own words, “make smelly fingers,” and I was tagging along to make, by my own words, “history.”

Nobody had ever dared to go into the Creely House’s cellar. This, to be fair, was partly because it was locked with a very large, very sturdy, and very official-looking silver padlock. It was one of the expensive ones, not one of the ones that kids at school used for their lockers or even the sort that our father used on the lockbox he kept on top of his private refrigerator in the garage. No, this was the sort of thing that I could see Mister Creely buying with a credit card rather than just cash. And, with that sort of thing securing the door to the basement, there was a very good, very solid, and very inarguable reason not to go down there.

Until that moment.

Because Malcolm, with his bolt cutters glimmering under each street light that we crossed beneath, had a dumb idea. And because I, with all the spankings and pneumonias and chants of “sack breath,” hadn’t learned a single lesson from past dumb ideas.

A funny thought occurred to me as I crossed the threshold, stepping from one place of darkness to another one. So often with houses, I realized, there was a sort of bizarre metamorphosis that underwent those that served as homes and those that did not. Before the Creely couple had left, I was certain that anybody would have called the subterranean space I was daring to go down into a “basement.” So many houses had basements. It wasn’t uncommon to hear one member of a household announcing to another that they had to run down to the basement, or perhaps they’d ask another to fetch something from the basement. And there may have been some apprehension in those instances—a basement, no matter how often frequented, always seemed to hold at least a sliver of the unknown. But the Creely’s old house, abandoned and since upgraded to the “Creely House,” no longer had a basement. Because places like the Creely House abandoned their “basements” when they became places like the Creely House; places like the Creely House had cellars.

And while a basement might hold a sliver of the unknown, cellars were the places where dead things waited.**HERE

I watched in morbid fascination as my brother brought the gleaming blades of the bolt cutters down on the padlock. Within a few seconds, the expensive-looking padlock fell to the ground, its use destroyed in less than thirty seconds by my brother. I took a deep breath, watching as Malcolm pulled the doors to the cellar open and looked at me, telling me how I’d be the “bravest girl in school” if I went first. I knew I shouldn’t have listened, should’ve bolted right out of there then and there. But I didn’t. As dumb as Malcolm was, I was no smarter and I hated myself for just falling right into his clutches.

Finding the nerve to move, I stepped forward towards the dark entrance. The darkness seemed to crawl out the cellar and I felt the flutter in my stomach as every part of me screamed to turn and run. At Malcolm’s challenging stare, I was able to hold it together and move down the first step.

Then another.

Then another.

When I was halfway down the stairs, I dared to look back and frowned at the sight I was greeted with. Malcolm’s grinning face as waved to me, telling me to have fun, as the doors to the cellar came crashing down, leaving me in almost complete darkness on the stairs. I could already feel the wave of tears beginning to fall down my face. I didn’t want to feel this weak from my brother.

I hated him!

Moving up, I screamed out for him to open the doors. Instead of saying anything, I could hear him moved the padlock back on the door and knew even trying to leave through those doors would do no good. Gulping, I turned back and once again began my descent. I silently thanked the small windows that allowed a fraction of light through them.

I wouldn’t thank those windows for long.

As I finally made my way off the stairs, I remembered the hatch I’d seen when following Malcolm around the house. I recognized it like the one we had at our place and remembered that while you couldn’t access it from outside, it did have a latch on this inside. If I could find the hatch, I’d be home-free. I grinned, thinking about the face Malcolm would give when he saw that I had gotten out all on my own.

That thought alone gave me enough courage to begin to walk through the room. That’s when the smell hit me. It was awful, reminding me of the time my mother had left a package of meat on the counter overnight. It had been an awful summer and the meat didn’t stand a chance against the heat. The smell we woke up to that morning was a fraction of the intense smell I was encountering now. I clenched my eyes shut for a moment as my mind raced on just what kind of thing could make that smell.

Nothing pleasant.

As I continued through the dark room, I tried to keep my gaze focused in front of me. Tried to ignore the waft that was growing evermore stronger as I made my way through the room. I imagined that if I looked to right, I’d be able to see exactly what was producing this stink.

I didn’t want to.

I tried to stop myself.

But, they did say that curiosity killed the cat.

And there certainly was a death.

I looked over and spotted Missus Creely’s body lying on the ground. I gasped, part of me wondering if maybe she had just fallen asleep downstairs. The other part of me knew. The part of me that was too logical for its own good. I could see that there was a dark stain that had formed under body and I could all but imagine the pool of blood it had once been. Missus Creely’s head was tilted upward and I realized I was looking into her eyes. Her dead, cold lifeless eyes. Something small moved past her parted lips and I swallowed back the scream that threatened to spill past my own lips.

I keeled over, my stomach rolling as I let loose a hard dry heave. Luckily I hadn’t eaten much that day and my body hadn’t found enough substance to throw up. I looked back, realizing that those were maggots. My mind went back to the meat, remembering the mass of maggots that had begun to claim the rotted meat as their own.

This was too much.

I had to get out!

I scrambled away from where I’d been standing, turning my back and fighting with the image of Missus Creely rising and shambling after me. Too many zombie movies for my own good. I silently cursed Romero’s name for the new fear I was feeling. A beacon of light shone ahead of me and I saw the window that was right about the hatch. Moving forward, I unlocked the hatch and pushed out, falling forward and landing face-first in the grass in the process.

I was out.

I was free.

I needed to get out of there.

So I ran. I ran until I couldn’t run anymore. My tears continued to fall and I hadn’t even realized I’d been screaming. Everything had been so hazy.

Everything had been so wrong.

And it was all Malcolm’s fault.

It was all Malcolm’s fault!

ALL MALCOM’S—

I woke up, crying out in rage and sadness and realized I was sitting up. I blinked a bit, calming myself and fighting the part of me that accepted to see Missus Creely’s body if I looked beside me. A bang on the wall made me realize that I had been screaming and I wondered how long I’d been doing it for.

Candy called from the other room, “You okay, Mia?”

“I’m fine, Candy,” I bit my lip in embarrassment. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry, we’ve all had our moments,” Candy’s voice was muffled and I realized she was probably already falling back asleep.

Screaming was normal here and a part of me hated that that was the case. The other part of me, still stuck in the dream, it seemed, screamed to run. It screamed for me to run and never look back. When I was able to calm both sides, I moved to lie down once more.

It was such bullshit when people said talking about the past helped to heal. It only seemed to reopen old wounds for me.

I closed my eyes, thinking back on my night with Jace, not thinking about telling him my history with my brother. I smiled, thinking about tomorrow and the calm excitement that filled me was enough to get me back to sleep.

I couldn’t wait for tomorrow.