Burn (7 page)

Teo gives me another firm shove of “encouragement” and I respond. The girls’ house is a large, two-storey Spanish-style building wrapped in a veranda. It looks pleasant, the sort of place a large family would vacation perhaps. Certainly nothing about it screams den of iniquity, that’s for sure. From the desert flowers and succulents growing in blue pots scattered all over the place, to the beautifully clean and tidy entrance porch, it’s clear this place is maintained by a woman’s hand.

The ground floor is lit up, blaring soft light out into the darkness. Inside the chatter and laughter of female voices can be heard. I hesitate. What the hell am I doing? My legs seize, locking straight in their joints. I can’t…I
can’t
go in there. What if she’s sick or something? What if they’ve beaten her? What if they’ve given them all drugs to keep them compliant and my sister’s now a rail-thin junkie with track marks up her arms? I’ve seen it all before at the hospital, so the imagining of it comes way too easy. God, I can’t go in there. I—

“I got food waiting for me back indoors, bitch. You done staring at the front door or what?” Teo spits on the ground, jerking his head toward the building.

Indecision tears at me. But I know it’s not really indecision. It’s cowardice—I’m afraid of the condition I’m going to find Alexis in. And I’m afraid I won’t be able to fix whatever they’ve done to her. She’s alive, though. I need to hold onto that. Whatever else happens, she’s still drawing breath and she
needs
me. I can’t let her down any more than I already have.

“Alright, alright. I’m going.”

And I walk inside.

******

“Who wants tequila, bitches?”

Since Alaska invited me to this thing, I’ve been imagining sorrowful young girls being primped and preened like sad geishas, reluctantly being made beautiful so that a hoard of disgusting men can take their fill of them. The scene that greets me inside the girls’ building is about as far from that as you can get. It looks like a fucking frat party.

“Shots! Shots! Shots!” A group of girls are gathered around a marble island in a very expensive-looking kitchen, clapping like idiots as a brunette girl with her hair in rollers free pours patron into shot glasses like her other job is bartender at Coyote fucking Ugly.

“Who’s got the lime?” she calls, casting heavily mascaraed eyes around the group. She looks like she could take off under the lift her false eyelashes would give her. She sees me—I know she does—but her gaze passes straight over me as though I don’t even exist. “C’mon, girls. Line ’em up! Line ’em up!”

The girls—there are seven of them—lick salt from their wrists, down the shots, pinch wedges of lime into the mouths and then start giggling again.

“I see you decided to grace us with your presence after all, then?” The cool voice comes from behind me: Alaska. She stalks into the room with a glass of red wine in her hand, held with an artful arrangement of fingers and angled wrist that looks graceful and precarious to say the least. She’s wearing more clothes than the other girls—a tight black dress that barely covers her ass and shows off an awful lot of cleavage. The other women are all in booty shorts and tanks, like they’re having a freaking sleep over. So far, none of them have turned out to be my sister.

“Yeah, well, you said to come, right?” I feel so out of place right now, I consider turning on my heel and bolting. The girl who poured the shots may have ignored me just now, but it seems Alaska’s presence has electrified the group and they’re all decidedly interested in the interloper who’s invaded their living space.

Alaska sniffs, looking down her nose at my jeans and T-shirt, and takes a delicate sip of her wine. “I did. But then again, I also thought you’d be too busy with Zee to gift us with your presence.”

Seven pairs of ears perk up at this comment. One girl, a short blonde with innocent blue eyes—and not so innocent fake tits—opens her mouth wide. She practically runs to Alaska, clasping her hands together and jiggling on the balls of her feet. “Did you just say Zee? Like, as in
Zeth
?”

She looks star struck. Like the grumpy bastard who stormed out on me earlier is some kind of rock legend who she will do anything,
anything
to meet. Alaska raises narrow eyebrows in a tired, slightly bored fashion. Another sip of her red. “Yes. Like, as in Zeth.” She mimics the girls broad Cali accent, but the blonde’s squealing too loud to notice.

Alaska spat the confirmation as though the words were poison. Conversely, a series of positively excited glances are exchanged between the other girls. One of them even grabs hold of another’s arm, apparently too excited to contain herself.

What. The. Hell?

I suddenly feel very sick. A cold realization washes through me, leaving me chilled to the bone. He’s been here before. He and Julio know each other well. I showed up midway through one of Zeth’s very own ‘events.’ How did I not consider this? How did I not consider that he might have slept with some of the girls here? Hell, he could have slept with all of them.

As reactions go, my body’s response to this thought is pretty over the top. Once the dizziness and the mouth sweats calm down and I know I’m not going to throw up, I manage a weak smile at the blonde girl who’s just asked me a question.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I asked if he’s coming here tonight? I want to get a look at him. Georgia says he’s fucking
massive
!”

“Uh…”

“I heard,” another girl, with blonde ringlets steps into the conversation, “that he’s got tattoos all over his face like a Red Indian. Is it true?”

I inch backward, trying to put a little space between me and the other women, who seem to be approaching as a pack now. A hungry one. “No, why the hell would he have—”

“And what about his dick? You came here with him, right? You’re his girl; you must have seen it. How big is he? I heard he fucked a girl so hard that he put her in the hospital, split her right open or something.”

“No, dude. That was
Rebel
.” The brunette with the rollers joins in the debate, correcting the other girl’s wild statements. “Zeth’s the one who let that homeless girl move in with him, remember? Benji told us.”

The bouncy blonde widens her eyes at me. “Ooooh, you were
homeless
? What was that like?”

“Uh, I wasn’t ho—”

“But you
do
live with him, right?”

Alaska casually puts her wine glass down and clears her throat. All talking in the room ceases. With a dismissive clap of her hands, Alaska takes control of matters. “Naomi wasn’t homeless. She does not live with Zeth. Zeth
is
massive. His dick is pretty fucking big, but not the biggest dick in the world. And now it’s time for you all to shut the hell up.” She looks sideways at me through partially narrowed eyes, and I can plainly see the displeasure within the cool blue recesses. “Regardless of what you have heard about Zee, he’s brought Naomi here as his partner, not as his blind.”

A chorus of unhappy gasps go around the room. They all seem horrified by this information, and I’m standing here gaping like an idiot because I don’t even know what it means. “His…his blind?”

Alaska rolls her eyes. “Like in poker. To be able to play, you have to bring something to the table. You have to buy your way into the game with a bet. A blind. We’re all blinds here, sweetheart. We get passed around like delicious little canapés in order for our masters to screw around with whoever else is brought in by the other men.”

That is…that’s awful! “But I’m Zeth’s partner so I won’t be passed around?” The girls hear the anxious note in my voice, and they don’t take it well.

“Trust me, honey. You’re the one who’s losing out,” Rollers says. “We make ten grand a pop for a night like tomorrow. What do you get? I bet Zeth Mayfair’s not bankrolling that kind of money for just one skinny bitch.”

“What? He’s not…he’s not
paying
me anything!”

That stuns them all into silence. They look at each other as though some wordless conversation is taking place and I’m the only one who can’t hear it. Alaska shoots me a smug smile, collecting her glass again and tipping it in my direction.

“And didn’t I tell you not to be an asshole to them?” She laughs at this, and then turns and leaves, singing under her breath.

******

It takes forever for the girls to get over the idea that I’m not a hooker. It takes even longer for them to forgive me for the disgusted tone in my voice when I’d exclaimed that Zeth didn’t pay me for my services. It’s only after the tequila starts flowing again that I manage to get any of them to talk to me, and that’s only by participating in three generously poured shots and whooping like a moron in the appropriate places. I skipped this part of college for a reason; I’m no good at being a girlie girl, and it really shows. It makes other girls nervous. Especially ones who paint each other’s toe nails and squeeze each other’s boobs to check out their ‘work’ without it being completely awkward. Rollers, who turns out to be called Dani, has a good handful of mine before I even realize what the hell is going on.

“Hmmm. Real, huh? They’re nice. Good size. Not too small, although your silhouette would look much better if you went up a couple sizes.”

“Yeah, I didn’t look right in my clothes before I got these,” Sara, the blonde who asked about Zeth first says, cupping her giant double Fs. They’re the biggest boobs I’ve ever seen. I’m half temped to tell her that the problem likely wasn’t her breast size and probably had more to do with the fact that she was wearing stripper clothes, but I manage to refrain. Won’t go down well, I can tell. Besides, I’m not here to talk about plastic surgery. I’m here to talk about Alexis. To find out where the hell she is.

The grooming part of the night begins soon after the fourth shot of tequila. Giant cosmetic kits come out, as big as workmen’s tool kits and just as heavy, and the girls begin to fuss over each other, giving advice on skin care and practicing the makeup they’re planning on wearing tomorrow night. The whole event thing has been a secondary consideration, always at the back of my mind, but now it’s come roaring to the forefront. An event, like the one Zeth held. But this time I know there won’t be any dark rooms to hide in. No corner in which to retreat and pretend to be outside of it all. I’m going to have to participate, and I’m going to have to make it look convincing for both mine and Zeth’s sakes.

That’s something to worry about tomorrow, though. I have to focus on the task at hand while I’m here. I start in with general questions, waiting for an in to discuss other matters.

“So is it just you girls that live here? The place seems really big for just seven of you.”

“Oh no, there’s usually nine of us altogether,” Sara says. “Kady’s gone into the city to get a nose job. Julio paid for that, can you believe it? He said it was putting people off and no one was gonna fuck her if she had a hooked old-man nose. He shelled out for the whole thing—the surgeon, the hotel, expenses, everything.” She sounds jealous; I’m getting the feeling Sara had to fund her fun bags personally. “Anyway, one of the other girls Chloe went with her to keep her company. And Sophia’s the other girl. She’s gone to meet with one of the groups of guys who are coming here tomorrow. She’ll be back tomorrow afternoon, I guess. Chloe and Kady, too, although Kady won’t be working. She’s gonna have two black eyes, I bet. Can you imagine how bad she’s—”

Sara keeps talking, talking, talking, not even pausing for breath, and I run through this new information in my mind. Chloe, Kady and Sophia. No Alexis. But then again, I know she’s here; Zeth told me he’s seen pictures taken by Michael before he got caught, so they must have changed her name or something. She’s not Kady, that’s for sure. Alexis is even more fine-boned than I am; no one would ever accuse her of having a hooked old-man nose. That leaves Chloe and Sophia. My heart sinks in my chest when I realize I’m not going to be able to speak to Alexis until tomorrow night now.

And what if I can’t even speak to her properly then? What if we’re surrounded by people all night long and the opportunity doesn’t present itself? I’ll just have to make it happen, I guess. Come hell or high water, I’m getting my sister out of there.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were Rebel’s cousin?”

Michael’s out of his dirty, blood-stained clothing and back in a well turned-out suit, the way I’m used to seeing him. I’ve thought about laying the motherfucker out for keeping something so huge from me, but it’s wasted energy. He has a right to keep shit like that under lock and key. And making him bleed would only mean he’d have to go get changed again.

“Not my call, Zee. I’d have told you way back when, but Rebel doesn’t want people knowing about family, y’know? Thinks it’s a weakness to have people out there worth kidnapping and torturing. Bad for business. Especially if you’re in the kind of business he’s in. He’s got enemies, man. Big ones.”

I grunt, knocking back my beer. “Makes sense. Still…”

“Yeah, I know, man. I know. I could have trusted you with it. I should have.”

Michael knows Rebel was the one who bid on Sloane’s V-card. He also knows how I feel about sick motherfuckers who kidnap girls and rape them against their will. I’m quiet about most things, but this is perhaps the one thing I’ve been vocal about. He undoubtedly knew I wouldn’t react to well if I’d found out before all of this that Rebel was Michael’s blood.