Three, Two, One (321) Page 7

  I turn away, reach behind my head and pull my shirt off. Then I unbutton my jeans and let them drop to the floor, giving my cock a tug since just the thought of her is starting to make me hard.

  Usually I sleep naked, but I’m not ready for bed just yet. So I put on a pair of faded army-green cargo shorts and head into the bathroom to get the camera.

  It’s gone.

  Fucking JD.

  I go out to the living room and look around. Maybe he was using it out here? I am rationalizing now. I know where that camera is.

  A deep breath is necessary as I walk down the short hallway to JD’s room. The door is open and that’s a first. JD is a compulsive door-locker at night. I flip on the hallway light, because I do not want to disturb him, and spy the camera on his nightstand. My eyes track to the girl lying on the other side of JD, his arm wrapped protectively around her and the sheets only covering her lower half. Her breasts rise and fall with the pattern of her breathing.

  I grab the camera and leave before I do something stupid like kick his ass. She’s not mine. So fuck it. He can have the bitch. She’s too skinny anyway. She looks like she’s on drugs, in fact. I hate the druggies. She probably has some kind of disease. Probably sucks in bed too. Just lies there, maybe. Or complains. Or hates it.

  I close the door on my way out and walk back to the living room where the sliding metal barn doors on either side of my office entrance are wide open. I flip the light on and then close the doors behind me before setting the camera down on the desk and walking around to the other side to have a seat.

  I stare at it.

  She’s in there.

  And me with her.

  I can’t plug that thing into the computer fast enough. The software kicks in with a familiar ding and then the images, thousands of images because the thing was on continuous shutter release for the better part of thirty minutes, download onto my hard drive.

  The anticipation is killing me.

  I watch the thumbnails flash by and the progress bar light up and even that gets me excited.

  The program finishes the download and begins erasing the memory card inside my camera, but I stop it. Just one copy is not enough. What if my computer crashed? What if it was stolen? What if I somehow lost all these pictures?

  I can’t do it. Just the thought has me sweating.

  So I leave them on there and unplug the camera. I have a shitload of memory cards in the desk, so I leave the card in, all the pictures intact.

  And then I open up Photoshop and start going through them, one by one.

  Her and JD under that awning on the mall. Jesus, that seems like weeks ago and it was this morning. Not even a whole day has passed by since I took these pictures. He’s kissing her in some, and holy fuck, even though it’s him and not me, everything about these pictures says sexy as all hell.

  Skinny or not, she’s alluring. In one picture her incredible blue eyes are wide and innocent as she looks up at JD. The streaked makeup just makes the whole thing all that much more provocative. Like she’s hurt and she’s looking to him for help.

  And everything about JD, as he gazes down on her, his hands reaching for her stained face, everything says give in to me and I’ll make it better.

  A knock at the door pulls me from my fixation, and then the metal doors slide open.

  “Hey,” JD says, coming into my office eating a bowl of cereal. He takes a seat on the couch alongside the wall to my left. “You just get home?”

  I look over at him. He’s bare-chested, that’s how he always sleeps. And his hair is messy, so it looks like he was in bed for a while before getting up just now. That pisses me off because I can think of a million things he could’ve been doing in that bed with the girl.

  I shut that down so I can appear rational, even though I feel anything but rational. “Yup,” I say, cutting it short.

  He glances over at my monitor and then stands back up, placing his cereal on the desk so he can lean in and get a better look. “She’s perfect, man.”

  “Not for Ray, though.”

  JD does a snort-laugh. “No shit, asshole. I wasn’t thinking about hiring her.”

  “You wanted to hire her this morning.”

  He grabs his cereal and sits on the edge of my desk, spooning it into his mouth and talking as he chews. “That was before.”

  “Before what?” I manage not to growl. But just barely.

  “Before I spent the day with her.”

  I just stare at him. “So you fucked her?”

  He just stares back. “You got something you wanna say about this girl, Ark? Because I’m all ears, man. I get it, you saw her first. So she’s yours. But I spent the day with her. And I like her too. And no, asshole, I didn’t fuck her. I wouldn’t do that to you and if you think I would—” He shakes his head. “Well, fuck you.”

  I look away and take a deep breath. Because he’s right. We’ve liked the same girl before. That’s why we have the I-saw-her-first rule. But this one feels… different. “Sorry,” I mumble. “It’s been a long day.”

  “You take care of Ray?” He’s back to eating his cereal, so I guess our standoff is over.

  “Yeah.”

  “You talk him down? Or did you get the movies?”

  “I got them.”

  JD says nothing to that. He knows what it means, because I’ve had to do this before when we fell short.

  “So…” I say.

  “So,” he picks up. “I think you need to see something.” He stands up, sets his cereal down, and walks over to the doors. “Let me show you.”

  I get up and follow him out and we walk down the hallway to his door, which is now closed.

  “Shhh,” he says to me as we stop in front of it. “I don’t want to wake her up but I have to show you what I found.”

  I give him a nod and then he opens the door and reaches into his pocket to pull out a tiny flashlight. We walk over to the bed where the girl is lying face down with her cheek pressed against his pillow.

  A wave of jealousy flows through me, and by the time I get it under control, JD is moving her hair off the back of her neck.

  She screams and flails out, knocking JD’s flashlight to the floor where it rolls under the bed.

  “Fuck.” They are struggling, her still screaming and JD yelling back, telling her to calm down, when I reach for the light on the bedside table. It flashes on and JD is on top of the girl, pressing her arms above her head so she can’t struggle.

  “Get off me,” she growls.

  “Just calm down, Blue.”

  “Fuck you. Get off.”

  JD looks up at me. “Look at the back of her neck.”

  “No,” she yells. “Get off me.”

  JD and I both ignore her now. He’s looking up at me as he continues to straddle her waist and hold her arms still. “You need to see this, Ark. Just look.”

  “Let me go,” she whines. But the fight is gone that quick. She starts to cry.

  I lean down and swipe the hair off the back of her neck to find a raised scar in the shape of a circle.

  I pull back and turn away, my hand covering my chin as I think about this.

  JD gets off her, climbs off the bed, and walks up next to me. “That’s it, right?” he asks. “Tell me I’m not just seeing things. That I’m not just making it up.”

  I nod. That most certainly is it. “I need to see her back again.”

  “Fuck you,” she says in a small voice from the bed. “Just fuck you.” I look over my shoulder to see what she’s doing, but she’s still lying face down. Crying into the pillow. “You have no right.”

  JD looks at me one more time and then walks back over to her and sits down on the edge of the bed so he can stroke her hair. He’s such a player. He knows exactly what to do for a crying girl.

  Me? I have no clue. I’m a one-night-stand kind of guy. I don’t stick around long enough to care.

  But this girl, man. Even before the mark. This girl is different.

&nb
sp; So I walk around to the other side of the bed. The side she’s facing. I climb in next to her and lie back. Her eyes search mine for intentions.

  JD lies down on the other side of her, his fingertips still gliding through the long strands of blonde. “Just relax, Blue. We’re not gonna hurt you.”

  “No,” she huffs. “You just want to make me suck your dicks on camera so you can sell me in a different way.”

  JD’s eyebrows go up, but neither of us says anything. There’s a time and a place, and this is not it.

  “Blue,” I say calmly. She’s still looking at me, but the sound of my voice makes her take in a breath of air. Like I startled her. “We’re not putting those images online.” I have to stop for a second. Because that’s a lie and I know it. But it’s not the same, so I continue. “We can’t use you, even if we wanted to.”

  “And we don’t,” JD interjects. “We don’t want to.” He looks at me over the top of her body and I nod.

  “You don’t have any ID. And regardless of how it looks, what we do is one hundred percent by the book. Everyone signs consent forms. Contracts. Everyone gets tested for STD’s. Everyone gets paid and everyone pays taxes on those payments. We’re not about to fuck up our business just so we can use one sad girl who doesn’t even have a name. So forget about the pictures. I need to know where you got that brand on your neck. And I need to know when.”

  She looks me straight in the eye and says, “Fuck you.”

  JD collapses back onto the pillow he’s sharing with her. “Why don’t we just pick it back up in the morning?”

  “No,” I say quickly. “Fuck that.” I look straight at her. “You’re not the only one caught in their web, you know.” She narrows her eyes at me. “You know that’s true. You know there were other girls involved with you. And I’m pretty sure the reason we found you this morning was because you escaped.” Her eyes dart back and forth, like she’s trying to decide to trust me. “We knew a girl who had that same mark, Blue.”

  “Another one of your whores?” she asks. But it comes out scared instead of defiant. I think the level of vulnerability in her voice surprises her, because she hiccups back a sob.

  I shake my head. “A friend. She was a good friend.”

  JD gets up out of the bed and walks into his closet.

  Blue and I just wait it out. After a minute of JD rummaging around in there, he emerges fully dressed and walks out the door, slamming it closed behind him. The noise makes the girl jump and this time she can’t hold the sob in. It’s too much. She starts to cry.

  I reach over and place my hand on her arm. I’d take her hand and give it a squeeze, but she’s got it tucked underneath her cheek. “The friend was JD’s girlfriend. And she got mixed up in something bad and then she disappeared. She had a mark like that, Blue. They had a fight the night she disappeared, and ever since he’s been beating himself up over losing track of her, and imagining all kinds of terrible things that might’ve happened to her. So if you can help—”

  “I can’t,” she says, cutting me off. “I don’t know any girls. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know anything.” And then she gets up out of the bed and walks into the bathroom. There’s the distinct sound of the door being locked and then the shower comes on.

  A moment later the front door slams and I know JD is gone.

  I look at the girl in the mirror. She’s naked. I tilt my head a little to see the scars on her back. Not the long stripes from the cane, but the little tick marks from the knife.

  Stars, they called them. That’s how I got that name, I guess. Or maybe it was something else. I can barely remember now.

  I stare at the girl until the steam from the running shower fogs her over and makes her fade away.

  The shower is calling me even though this is the cleanest I’ve been all month. Hot water with no time limit is a luxury I will never get enough of. So I step in and let it pour down my body. I open my mouth and let the water run in, swallow some, spit some out, and then close my mouth so I can inhale deeply.

  It’s not enough.

  I cover my face to hide my tears even though there’s no one here to punish me. I want to feel relief. I want to thank someone. I want to call my parents and listen to them tell me they love me and everything will be OK.

  But I can’t do any of those things.

  I’m not safe, so there’s no time for relief. And no one saved me. These guys are bottom-of-the-barrel scum, just like the ones I ran from.

  I can’t even think about my family yet. No. I push them away immediately.

  My hands come down from my face and when I look up, there’s another mirror where JD must do his shaving. I push the little button on the side and it lights up and the fog begins to recede from the edges until I have a clear view of my face.

  Which actually looks better in here. Maybe it’s the dim light, or the hot water has decreased the puffiness that was so apparent in the vanity mirror.

  It doesn’t matter.

  I look… better.

  Blue, they call me.

  Blue. My new name. I stare at my eyes and wonder what they say to these strangers. Do they see the pain? Or the fear? Or the longing? Or all of it mixed up like some poisonous cocktail?

  Can they see through me?

  I grab the shampoo bottle and squirt some into my palm and start massaging it into my long hair. My fingertips go to the branding scar that the guys were asking about. I trace the circle all the way around. I know every imperfection. Every spot where it scabbed over or got infected and needed to be scrubbed to create a new scar.

  It sends a shiver down my spine.

  The brand was the first thing they did and they did it the very first night. Before I was knocked out. Before I was tied up. Before any of that happened, I was claimed.

  And if it’s true what Ark said—that JD had a girlfriend with a brand like mine—then what are the chances that these guys are safe?

  It can’t be a coincidence.

  As much as it scares me to go outside and face the world again—face reality—I have to. I need to leave and I need to leave tonight.

  The hot water runs down my head when I step back under the stream, and I quickly finish up with the conditioner and then shut the water off.

  I have no clothes, but I can find some sweats of JD’s to wear. And a t-shirt. And I’m sure he has some old hoodie I can take.

  Shoes are the major problem. I can’t wear his shoes. My feet are small and his are not. But I’m sure I can make them work until I find a store and buy my own. I still have the money they gave me. JD stuck it in the drawer in the bedside table and the last time I looked, it was still there.

  But… if he’s a bad guy, why pay me?

  I don’t know. I really don’t. So I just wrap a towel around myself and walk to the door. My hand rests on the handle, but I don’t turn it. I lean my ear against the door instead. Listening. Is Ark still out there? He scares me a lot more than JD. JD is nice. He’s charming. Ark is intimidating and demanding.

  I don’t hear anything, so I open the door and peek out.

  Ark is still there, sitting on the bed with his head in his hands. “You done lying now?” he asks, slowly lifting his head and looking me in the eyes. He grabs the camera he was using this morning. “Because I need some answers.”

  “I don’t have your answers.”

  “You don’t even know what I’m asking yet, so how can you know you don’t have what I need?” He stands and I back up, crossing the threshold into the bathroom.

  He moves like lightning. His strike has me pushed face first against the wall, both hands behind my back, in less time than it takes me to realize I’ve misjudged him.

  “Look,” he growls in my ear. “I’m not used to asking twice, Blue. And people don’t generally lie to me. Because I don’t tolerate it. So tell me about that scar on your neck and I’ll forget the fact that I had to ask you twice. And point me to these people, and I’ll forget the fact that you
lied.”

  “Or what?” I snarl over my shoulder. “You can’t hurt me.”

  “No?”

  “No,” I say back with confidence. “You can’t hurt me because I can take it.”

  He recoils a little at my words. “You can take what?”

  I yank my wrists from his grip and even though a second ago he was holding me so tight it was cutting off the blood flow to my hands, they come away easily. I turn, still pressed against the wall, his body so close his hips are pressed against my own. Our chests rise and fall rapidly from the adrenaline. “Whatever you want to dish out.” I tilt my head up so I can meet his gaze. He is way over six foot tall.

  He backs up one step and then turns around and walks out.

  I stand there for several minutes, waiting to see if he comes back with a belt, or a cane, or a whip, or a knife.

  But he doesn’t.

  I walk over to the bed and sit down in the same place where he was while I was taking a shower. His camera rolls over and hits me in the thigh.

  I pick it up and turn it on, then push a few buttons until the screen begins to show the photos of this morning.

  “That’s mine,” Ark says from the doorway.

  “Well,” I say, pointing to the images, “that’s me.”

  He covers the distance between us in a few paces and snatches the camera out of my hand. “Mine.”

  And then he’s gone again.

  I take a deep breath and look out the window as I consider my options. It’s dark and raining again. I check the drawer and the money is gone.

  “You asshole!” I yell at the empty doorway. “You took my money.”

  I grab my clothes from the bathroom and put them back on and then walk out to the living room to confront him.

  But he’s not there. I creep down the hallway to his bedroom and check there too. But nothing.

  When I walk back to the living room I see a crack of light from under some metal doors against the far wall.

  That’s his office, JD said. Where they edit the films he makes.

  I walk quietly over to the door and press my ear against it to listen. I can hear the clicking of a computer keyboard, then the rolling wheels of a chair. Finally soft footsteps as he pads towards the doors. I back away, afraid of being caught. But he doesn’t slide them open. Instead, the lights flick off and then his footsteps retreat. I hear the crack of a beer bottle being opened, and then a sigh.