The Pledge (9 page)

Then I remembered the other man speaking again, quietly, almost whisper-soft.
“What she’s done is illegal. Either you turn her in, or I will.”

There was no pause when my father answered.
“I can’t let you do that.”

I’d gripped my doll so tight as I stole backward, taking slow and steady steps without watching where I was going.

I slid as soundlessly as I could beneath the bed again, just like my daddy had instructed, curling myself tightly into a ball
as tears slipped down my cheeks. I covered my ears as I tried to block out first the sounds, and then the crackling silence, that came from just outside my bedroom as I closed my eyes.

I cowered there in the darkness, terrified that the sounds that rattled the closed door would somehow find their way over to my side. But they never did, and the hush that followed stretched endlessly. When I grew weary, I lay my head down on the cold floor and waited.

Finally I heard the door’s creak, and my heart seized within the cavity of my chest. I was fully awake in the space of a breath. My eyes went wide, trying to absorb enough light from the darkness around me to see whose feet were shuffling toward my bed. The scraping sound of heavy boots against stone made my skin shiver.

I leaned up on my elbows, staring out. My throat felt choked by the thick lump that had formed there.

And then the weight of the mattress above me shifted heavily, and I heard a heavy sigh.

“You can come out now.”

At the sound of my father’s voice, I scurried forward, scooting along on my stomach as quickly as I could. Before I was even out from beneath the bed, he was reaching for me, drawing me up. I crawled onto his warm lap, curling my knees and feet underneath me as I wrapped my scrawny arms around his waist. I breathed in the smell of him.

He held me for a long time before speaking again, probably because there were so many things we shouldn’t be saying, so many things that should remain unstated. But finally his voice rumbled up from his chest against my ear.

He spoke in Englaise now, the softer syllables of the language making his words seem less harsh than before, when he’d been speaking to the man in the other room. “You can’t do that anymore. You must be cautious.” Then he switched back to the more guttural tone of our native tongue as he lifted me from his lap and dropped me onto my soft pillows.
“Now get some rest, lamb. I need to clean up before your mother gets home.”

He tucked the blankets around me and leaned down, gently pressing his lips against my forehead. My heavy eyelids closed, and I remember feeling safe and secure, knowing that my father had protected me, just as he would always protect me . . .

. . . as I tried to forget about the blood that covered his shirt.

I sighed as I looked at my father now, knowing that all he’d ever wanted was to keep us safe, me and Angelina. So why was it so difficult for me to admit that I’d made a mistake? “You’re right, Daddy,” I finally said. “I’ll be more careful. I promise.”

He smiled up at me. It was a puny attempt, but I appreciated the effort.
“I know you will, lamb.”
He reached out and took my hand, squeezing my fingers in a fierce grip.

The front door burst open then, and Angelina came bounding inside, small and energetic, her blond hair tangled and wild, making her look like a tiny whirlwind. My mother trailed in behind her.

“Are you ready for bed?” I asked my sister, swinging her into my arms and using her as an excuse to escape the lingering feeling that I’d disappointed my father.

Angelina nodded, looking anything but sleepy.

I shrugged at my parents over my shoulder as I carried the wiggly little girl into the bedroom we shared and settled her down on the only bed. I left her to undress as I went to fetch a wet rag so I could wipe away some of the filth she’d managed to accumulate throughout the course of the day.

“You’re a mess,” I accused as I scrubbed away the grime from her alabaster skin. She flashed me a toothy, four-year-old grin. “Muffin’s a mess too,” I complained, looking at the grubby doll she carried everywhere she went, the worn-out, hand-me-down rabbit I’d given her.

The years hadn’t been good to Muffin. His fur was worn so thin it was transparent in spots, making him look mangy. Stains made his original soft white appear brown and blotchy, sickly even.

Angelina clutched the tattered bunny, refusing to even allow the washrag near him.

By the time I finished cleaning my little sister and changing her into her nightgown, Angelina was leaning heavily against my side, barely able to hold up her own head.

“Come on, sleepy girl,” I whispered, slipping her small body beneath the blankets and nestling the dirty little rabbit beside her on the pillow. Angelina never slept without Muffin.

I climbed into bed beside her, leaving on the bedside lamp and pulling out the fabric Aron had given me. I’d already cut it into pieces, fashioning a pattern of my own creation, and pinned them all together. I plucked a sewing needle from the spool of thread I’d left sitting on my bedside table and set to work, noting, once more, the feel of the silken fabric between
my fingers, and wondering what it would feel like to wear something so scandalously fine.

Angelina’s feet moved over to my side of the bed, across the cool sheets, and found their way beneath my legs as she sought my warmth.

It was Angelina’s way of saying good night.

It was the only way she could.

v

It hadn’t been difficult to talk Brooklynn into going to the club again, and I really hadn’t expected it to be. Brook was predictable if nothing else.

“So? Who is he?” she’d asked in a conspiratorial whisper, leaning close and hooking her arm through mine. She winked at Angelina, who was sitting cross-legged on the bed, watching Brook with rapt admiration. “I didn’t see you with anyone the other night, but you’ve never wanted to go to the clubs twice in one week.”

She wasn’t wrong; I hadn’t stopped thinking about those stormy gray eyes since that night at Prey. And that was two days ago, longer than any boy had ever occupied my thoughts.

I wasn’t sure what it was about Max. He frightened me almost as much as he intrigued me. Still, as much as I worried about the possibility of running into his friends, I was desperate to see him again.

“It isn’t like that,” I’d tried to explain, but Brooklynn refused to listen.

“Really, Charlie? I don’t believe you for a second, especially if you’re planning to wear that.” She narrowed her eyes suspiciously as she appraised me.

I almost smiled. Even though I’d designed the dress myself, it felt like too much. Or not enough, really. I wasn’t like Brooklynn. I wasn’t accustomed to feeling so exposed; one shoulder was bare, and the other was covered only by a thin strip of the dark silk. The fabric felt sheer as it hugged my body in ways that my loose cotton dresses never would.

“Whatever. If you don’t want to tell me . . .” Her words trailed off in a pout that I imagined worked on every boy she’d ever used it on. “Has she told you anything?” she asked my little sister.

Angelina shook her head, setting her chin on her hands as she leaned forward expectantly, her blue eyes wide.

“Seriously, Brook, it’s nothing. He’s just someone . . .
unusual
. I only want to talk to him again. It’s not what you think.”

But in the end, my motivations hadn’t mattered; Brooklynn would’ve gone regardless of my reasons. So later that night, when I found myself back at the red steel door, I was relieved to find that Prey was still open, that it was still a club. Yet I was even less comfortable than I had been the first time we’d gone.

But some things never changed: different bouncer, same routine.

Brooklynn, as usual, seemed to enjoy the skin inspection, while I felt defiled and revolted by it. More so, because so much of my skin was bared.

As always, the man at the door let us pass in exchange for
dosing us with a hallucinogen-laced hand stamp. Even before we could tuck our Passports away, my skin smoldered where the ink was working its way beneath my flesh. I barely glanced at the mark; I was too busy searching, scanning the club for something—some
one
—else, but I knew there would soon be a welt.

With the same ease that we’d gotten by the bouncer, we made it past the blue-haired bartender, too, and this time she even gave Brook change, although not before claiming a hefty tip for herself.

The club itself was busier tonight, and I glanced up to the stages where, instead of beads, the dancing girls were adorned only in bright feathery plumes. They were stunning to watch, like exotic birds of purple and blue and green.

I was aware of Brook pulling me through the crowds, her attention captured by the lures of the music, the men, and the drug seeping its way in through her hand.

My eyes darted about, searching . . . searching.

Max was nowhere to be seen, not on this night. I looked for the others, too—his friends who’d spoken in a strange, throaty language—although not for the same reason. Them, I would avoid if possible.

I could hear Brooklynn telling me she wanted to dance, and I let her go. I was too busy hoping Max might still appear. I watched as she slipped easily through the mass of bodies, finding her place on the dance floor.

My head felt heavy, but I knew it was only the drug bleeding into my system. I spared a quick glance downward at my hand, at the inflamed mark made by the hand stamp. A six-pointed star.

I closed my eyes, waiting for the discomfort to pass, but it was suddenly too warm in here, too crowded, too loud. I needed air.

I glanced toward the entrance—to where the bouncer was raking his licentious gaze over the skin of yet another underage girl—and my stomach lurched. Surely there had to be another way outside, a back door.

I eased away from the handrail, mindful of my surroundings, searching for an exit. I wasn’t certain exactly where I was going, but in the opposite direction of the bouncer seemed a good place to start. It was as logical as I could be at the moment.

“Excuse me,” I mumbled, pushing my way through the dance floor, finding myself surrounded by the writhing bodies. I looked for Brooklynn, but I couldn’t see her; she seemed to be lost in the sea of faces that surrounded me.

I couldn’t help thinking that I should just find a place to sit and wait it out, this delirium. But the nausea gripping me demanded that I get away from the chaos.

When I reached the other side of the dance floor, I climbed the steps to one of the platforms, trying to find a doorway that might lead outside. But I saw none.

I hesitated for a moment, watching two men and a woman who were wrapped in a passionate embrace, stroking and kissing one another. The girl’s hair was the color of polished ebony, and it seemed to change color whenever the lights overhead fell upon it. One of the men had dyed his spiky hair a brilliant shade of red, while the other’s was golden, curled and soft.

The threesome’s actions felt synchronized as they moved, like those of the dancers on the stages overhead. The giant
mirrored wall behind them reflected their arms and legs as they tangled and twisted together, until each person became merely an extension of the next.

But it was beyond them, just off to the side of the mirrored wall, that I spied a heavy black curtain, fringed at the bottom with thick gold braids. It was just the right size to conceal a doorway. I was spurred forward by a sudden need to find out what was behind that curtain. The music pulsed rhythmically, a heavy beating bass.

I worried that one of the threesome might notice what I was doing, that they might try to stop me, as if they were somehow the sentinels of this spot. But none of them even seemed aware of my presence, and I slipped easily past them without notice.

As I reached the curtain, I fingered the edge of the thick fabric, easing it back and trying to peer beyond.

Behind it was a black hallway, and with only the dim flashes of light coming from the club through the sliver of an opening I’d created, it was impossible to see where it went. Still, I needed to get outside, to take a breath of fresh air.

I eased through, letting the curtain fall closed behind me and holding my breath as I stood there, waiting to see if anyone had noticed me. My heart raced and my skin tightened. I wondered what was back here, and whether or not I should even be here. Surely the curtain was there for a reason.

The flashing lights of the club couldn’t find their way beyond the solid black drapery, and my eyes were slow to adjust, but eventually I could make out the floor and the walls and the faint outline of two closed doors. When I was certain I hadn’t
been discovered, I inched forward, against my better judgment, taking one cautious step at a time.

I stopped at the first door and pressed my palm flat against its wooden surface. Fear rose up, choking me. I reached down, trying the knob, but it was locked.

I exhaled, my shoulders falling heavily.

Sweat prickled across my upper lip as I moved to the other door, the one at the end of the black corridor. This time, I spread my hand over a cool metal surface.