36. STORM

I knew it had to be a dream. Nick getting down on one knee to propose, promising to be with me forever, to take care of me and love me and show me all the good things the world had to offer.

It couldn’t be true. Things like that don’t happen to me. This is my real world. Here, in this place. With him.

“Whoo!”

Arkady’s scream pulls me out of my head for a moment. He looks up from the mirror on the table, his nose white. Beside him, the bitch with the green hair – Darya, her name is – rubs some of the white powder on her gums with her index finger.

Below us, the beat thumps and pounds in time with the lights as sweaty people grind together on the dance floor. The smell of the air makes my stomach hitch – it reminds me of my apartment. Sweat and cigarette smoke absorbed right into the fibers of the carpet, the walls, everywhere.

Arkady and Darya plop down on the either side of me on the sofa. If either of them are tired from dragging me kicking and screaming from Nick’s house, they don’t show it. Although Darya is sporting a black eye and a fat lip courtesy of my right fist. Nick would be proud of me.

Nick. The thought of him brings a wave of nausea with it that threatens to drown me. The memory of him on the cliff runs through my head like a horror movie: the blood, the crack, his body dropping off the edge of the cliff.

I want to scream. Instead, two tears escape my eyes and trickle down my cheeks.

“Jesus!” Arkady barks. “Do you ever lighten up? It’s a party, baby!”

I vaguely register the fact that his hand is groping my right breast through the fabric of the dress he forced me to change into. On the other side of me, Darya’s long fingernails stroke the skin of my neck. I try to force myself to go numb, to take myself out of this room and back to the house with Nick.

Nick. Oh God, Nick. I’m so sorry. It’s my fault.

“There’s nothing to worry about, Jess,” Arkady says, swigging from a bottle of vodka. “I’m not mad anymore.”

“Storm,” I hear myself say through numb lips.

“What?”

“My name isn’t Jessica. It’s Storm.”

His brow furrows and he shakes his head. “You’re crazy, bitch. But I like crazy.”

I say nothing.

“So we can still party, right?” he says. “Except, you know, you have to pay for that shit with the old man. I can’t just let that slide.”

On my other side, Darya leans in and breathes heavily in my ear.

“So I’m going to put you back to work at the club in Long Beach.”

A stab of panic creases my belly at the mention of the place. He must see it in my face, because he holds up his hands.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “That shit with my buddies wasn’t cool. I know that now. But you’re wasted just serving drinks. Gorgeous thing like you needs to be on the stage, shaking her moneymaker. That’s what brings in the dollar bills. I should’ve thought of that from the get-go.”

I stare blankly at the wall, trying to block out the sensations from the two of them touching me. For a moment, I honestly thought that nothing he said or did could make me feel worse. Turns out I was wrong.

Then he finally says the words I’ve been expecting all night.

“First I’m gonna have to break you in,” he says, almost as an apology.

I say nothing, but I’m smiling on the inside.

You’re going to try. And who knows, you might succeed. But I’m going to throw everything Nick taught me at you. And when it’s over, whatever the outcome, you’re going to regret it.

The opening riff from Sweet Child of Mine warbles through the room and Arkady yanks his cellphone from the pocket of his vest. He looks at the screen and scowls.

“Fuck you, Pops,” he says absently as he thumbs a button that halts the ringtone. “Not in the mood to talk to you. This is a party.”

The two of them haul me up by my arms and lead me to the door. When it opens, we’re hit with a wave of sound and stench from the club below. They pull me along a hallway that opens to the dance floor until we reach a storage room. Arkady keys it open and flips a switch.

In the light, I see crates of booze and shelves of canned goods. On the floor is a moldering army cot. The light streams down from a bare 60-watt bulb hanging from the ceiling.

“This is your room for now,” Arkady shouts in my ear. “I’ll be back in a while to take you to my place.”

Darya leans in and runs her tongue along the side of my face. I’m almost overwhelmed by the urge to rake my nails across her throat, but I let it pass. This isn’t the time or the place. Nick taught me that.

But when the time and place come, bitch, we’re going to party. All three of us.

The door closes behind them and I hear the lock drive home. Now all I can do is wait.