“Moth says you refuse to try and communicate with any of us,” Marcum says. He strides through the door like a king on a throne—which I guess here, that’s what he is. I turn to look at him, and I doubt I keep the anger out of my face. I resent being here. I probably got fired from my job. This makes the third day I’ve been here at the Saints club and that’s three days I’ve not reported to work. Marcum probably doesn’t understand how hard it is to find a job in this small town. I doubt he has any idea how hard it is for someone who doesn’t speak, and I doubt he’s ever worried about money in his life. Still, he’s cost me a lot by holding me here. I didn’t like him or his club before, now I really don’t like him. He tosses me a pad of paper and a pen.

“You can write, can’t you? You’re not too stupid to do that?” he grumbles, sitting across from the bed. I shouldn’t be on the bed. It feels weird with Marcum in the room, even if I am fully dressed and the bed is made. My fingers move nervously over the blanket and I grab the pen I had failed to catch. In reply, I grunt at him. This fails to impress him. I know that because he completely ignores me and fires his first question. “What’s your name?”

I sigh heavily. He crosses his arms at his chest and waits, his face full of warnings that I probably should take note of. We stare at each other like that for a few minutes. His face is set in concrete. I’m stubborn, but somehow it seems to ooze out of his pores. I curse him, though only in my head—sometimes not talking has its advantages.

Toi. I write.

“Toi? How the fuck do you pronounce that?”

His response pisses me off. I roughly pull the notebook back and write, knowing he can’t miss my irritation.

Gee. Let me just sound it out for you!!!!

I can’t verbalize my anger so I make sure to put extra explanation points at the end of the sentence. Marcum reads it, and I expected it to anger him, which admittedly is stupid—but, for some reason I wanted to piss him off. Instead, he laughs.

“You’ve got some fire in you, Dragonfly. I like that,” he says. He called me Dragonfly at the house, and it makes me feel funny when he says it. I don’t know why. I almost think… I like it.

My name is Toi like T. O. Y.

My response makes him smirk. I have the strangest urge to stick my tongue out at him. I resist, although just barely.

“Can you talk at all?”

He asks the question I really don’t want to answer. I could lie to him, but there’s really not a point.

It hurts.

“Do it,” he orders, and for some reason I just knew he would say that.

It hurts!!!! I write again, adding explanation points and stabbing my pen at the paper to make noise, trying to get my point across.

“Life hurts, Dragonfly. Do it.”

Fuck you.

“I never would have thought you were afraid of a little pain.” He sighs like he’s disappointed.

“Fu…ck you!” I squeak out, then cough. It feels like broken glass being rubbed against my vocal chords, and it hurts like hell to get the words out. You also can barely hear them, but I manage it. Marcum looks at me strangely, saying nothing.

“How did you lose your voice?” he asks, studying me and I get the feeling he might see something I don’t really want him to.

Accident.

“Like a car wreck?” he asks, and I shrug my shoulders, not about to answer that.

When do I get to leave?

“Probably never,” he says with a shrug, like what he said isn’t supposed to bother me at all.

My mouth drops open, unable to believe what he just said.

But I have a job! A life!

“Do you have a boyfriend?” he asks, watching me closely.

If I said yes?

“It wouldn’t matter. Just mildly curious,” he shrugs.

I have responsibilities!

“So do I, and you just became one of them. Clean yourself up and when you get ready, knock on the door. Ghost will bring you to me. I have some people I want you to meet.”

I’m not becoming a club whore! I write as panic tears through me. Everyone in Crescent knows about the club and the stable of women the men keep. My heart is slamming against my chest. The Saints even run a club where men can go and pay for a woman. Prostitution is supposed to be illegal, but Marcum and his boys own the law around here. Hell… they are the law.

“Good to know. Now go clean up. Right now you look like hell,” Marcum says and then gets up and leaves, dismissing me. I stare at the closed door and try to swallow down my fear of what comes next.

I don’t succeed.