Deep (2 page)

I want to go home. I want to go home.

They dragged me out the back door, where a car was waiting. And I knew I wouldn’t be going home for a long time.

*

T
HEY TOOK ME
to an empty tenement still in the meatpacking district and tied me to a pipe in the bathroom. There were a few men guarding me. I could see them through the crack in the door, sitting around a folding table on chairs that could barely hold their weight.

They actually used the bathroom that I was in—and some of them missed.

They missed on purpose, because they liked to mess with me. There were threats too. Some hands that wandered. One man spit in my face. I shivered on that broken tile floor, praying my father would pay them back.

On the fourth day new men arrived—in suits instead of stained wifebeaters.

One hauled me up from the floor and unlocked my handcuffs. With a rough shove he pushed me into the bathtub and turned the shower spray on. Freezing water stung my skin and soaked through my clothes. “Clean yourself up,” he told me. “You smell like piss.”

I washed myself with harsh-smelling soap, reaching under my wet clothes to preserve my modesty. I needn’t have bothered. When I was finished, the man ripped the clothes off me.

They had something else for me to wear: a short black dress that exposed more than it hid.

Dread sank in my stomach. So my father hadn’t paid the debt. Of course not. Where would he have gotten the money, if he hadn’t had it before?
And why would he spend it on you, when you aren’t even his real child?
They weren’t cleaning me up to return me to my family. And I doubted they were dressing me up to kill me.

They had something else in mind.

A way for me to pay off my family’s debts, an older man explained. It looked like he was in charge, like
he
was the man my father owed. “One of my girls, I get a hundred dollars a hole. The way I see it, you’re worth half as much. I’m supplying all the business and you don’t know shit. Fifty bucks is a gift.”

That’s when I got angry. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt divided by fifty dollars was…a lot. A lot of sex. A lot of abuse. And it wasn’t really my family, when you got down to it. It wasn’t my debt to pay.

Unfortunately the man didn’t agree.

Mouthing off only earned me a backhand and a swollen lip.

This is where you come from,
Mrs. Fitzpatrick had said.
This is who you are.

That was how I ended up in a penthouse suite when I should have been going to the high school football game. That penthouse was where I learned secrets and made a few of my own. That penthouse was where I became a woman, though not in the way that they intended.

Chapter Two

I
MAY HAVE
only been worth fifty dollars a hole, but they were spending a lot more than that on this party. I was taken in through the freight elevator, as if I was a piece of furniture instead of a person. The man in the suit escorted me the entire way, his fingers pressing into the soft flesh of my arm. I wasn’t sure I could have walked without his support. I’d never worn four-inch heels before.

They had tossed me a bag full of used makeup after they’d shoved me into the car. My hand had shaken as I’d used the stubby eyeliner in the cracked mirror, making myself pretty so that they could enjoy hurting me more.

By the time we got to the door of the suite, I was sore and hungry—and mad.

The man who opened the door looked about the same age as my father. He wore the same kind of suit, though his was rumpled now, his shirt loosened at the neck. He even had the same gray around the temples.

But he didn’t look at me with benign affection. He didn’t look at me with bemusement, the way my dad sometimes did when he came back from a late-night card game, like he couldn’t figure out who I was and how I’d ended up in his house.

No, this man looked at my body with pure lust.

“Entertainment’s here, boys,” he shouted behind him, not taking his eyes off my cleavage.

A cheer went up from a group of men I couldn’t see. Then I was stumbling forward, pushed there by the man who had brought me. I expected him to follow me inside, to make sure that I complied. Instead he left, shutting the door behind him.

“Please,” I whispered to the man who’d opened the door. “I’m not supposed to be here.”

There was a flash of uncertainty in his eyes. A flare of hope in my chest.

“They made me come,” I said urgently, knowing I only had minutes, seconds. I could already hear the sounds of the group moving, converging on me like pack animals.

And I was prey.

“Bring her to the bedroom,” one of them called.

“My parents—those men. They’ve been holding me. They brought me here.”

One of the other men appeared, this one younger, closer to my age. Like the sons of my father’s work friends. “What’s the holdup?”

The older man frowned. “I don’t know. She said there’s been a mistake.”

A mistake. Yes, that was what we were calling kidnapping these days. A sob caught in my throat. “Please.”

The younger man smiled at me, cold and cruel. “You’re pretty enough. I say there’s no mistake.” Other men crowded behind him, all in rumpled suits, all reeking of alcohol, lust like a fire in their eyes. “Let’s show her how we do things, boys.”

“No, wait—” My words were swept away by their shouts of appreciation, by their dark promises of what they’d do to me. Firm hands propelled me toward a bedroom. As I was pushed along, I glimpsed another girl surrounded by at least five men. We were outnumbered.

The bedroom was almost impossibly large, the bed like an island.

A hard shove and I landed face-first on the soft satin bedspread, ankle twisting out of the high-heeled shoe. A cry of pain and shock and humiliation tore from my throat.

The younger man pressed his hands on my shoulder, keeping me from getting up, and leaned down by my ear. “That’s the idea. You’re getting it now.”

Rage was the first feeling that formed inside me, pure and hard as a diamond. Toward the men who held me down. Toward my father who had put me in this position. And even toward my nameless, faceless birth parents who had given up on me before they’d even known me.

Anger and helplessness collided inside me, turning me into a weapon.

I slammed my elbow back and connected with flesh. It was hard with muscle, but my bone and my desperation were even harder. He grunted and loosened his grip. I sucked in sweet air and whipped around.

Then I realized my mistake.

The pack had been circling before. Now that I’d struck them first, they smelled blood.

And they pounced.

This was when I learned what it was like to be prey, an antelope torn apart limb from limb. This was when I learned how it felt to bleed. To die.

Let them, let them…

I knew the best thing was for me to let them touch me, that it would go easiest for me that way. I also knew why the antelope fought anyway, kicking and biting in a desperate bid for life.

I knew that I should let my mind float away so I couldn’t feel anything.

But I was grounded in this moment, feeling every bruise and cut, every tear.

The door opened.

My frantic, wide-eyed gaze caught sight of a beautiful blonde woman standing in the doorway. For a split second I felt hope. Maybe she would help me.
Maybe she would save me.
Then the moment passed, and I realized I was alone. The man who’d opened the door hadn’t helped me. The men who’d held me captive in that bathroom hadn’t helped me.

“Hello, gentlemen,” said a smooth, sultry voice. “I see you’ve started the party without me.”

Immediately, a few of the hands holding me down eased up. The men were distracted by her.

Some of them.

Some were still focused on me, the downed prey. I fought harder, blurring my vision.

“There’s always room for one more girl,” a man said.

“Always, honey,” she replied, crossing the room to us, “but not before the big show.”

The man holding my wrists looked up. “The show?”

“Didn’t you know about that? I wouldn’t want you to be late.” Then I felt something—more hands on my body where I didn’t want them. These weren’t the cruel hands of the men, though. This was the soft stroke of a woman, the bite of a manicured nail. She ran her finger up the middle of my body.

I froze, barely breathing. The whole room seemed to stop moving, the men enraptured with her.
Not before the big show.
What show?

Then she kissed me, her lips soft against mine.

And suddenly, my hands weren’t held down anymore. The weight on my legs eased up. They let me go.

She pulled back, a pout on her beautiful face. “We had it all planned out. Practiced it just to show you.”

I could have believed that the men who’d brought me here hadn’t told me about some show. They hadn’t told me anything. But for her to say we’d practiced—it was a lie. She was lying to them. She was distracting them.
She’s helping me.

She gave a little shrug. “But I guess if you’ve already started, we don’t have to do it. We can just get it over with, if you want.”

My heart dropped.
No.

But the men were getting up already. They were leaving the room, heading for the living room.

They were listening to her.

Somehow she had them under her spell. It might have been her amazing body or her beautiful face. More likely it was the sensual confidence she exuded. I could never match that.

And I needed to get the hell out of here while their attention was off me.

The last man left the room, and we were alone, just me and this woman. I grabbed my torn dress and shoved it on with trembling hands. “Who the hell are you?”

Her eyebrows went up. “Your fairy godmother. Who do you think?”

Her sarcasm was like a knife, and my skin was already ripped to shreds. The whole world was too sharp, and I made myself sharp in return—it was the only way to survive. “I think you’re just a dirty prostitute. Like the other girl out there.”

And that was all I was now. I could see from her sad expression that she understood. “Look, hon. It won’t be that bad. I’ll take the rough ones for myself and—”

“Fuck you.” My heart threatened to break my ribs. “I’m not doing that.”

It shouldn’t have been possible for me to feel betrayed by her. She was a stranger, even if we had just kissed. Somehow I had expected her to try and save me, to protect me, and she was doing that—just not enough. She would take the rough ones, and I should have been grateful for that. It was more help than I would have gotten without her. Except I couldn’t. I couldn’t lie still and spread my legs. I couldn’t
let them, let them.

She sighed. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

Like she cared. I made my voice hard. “Go to hell.”

“You’ve at least had sex before, right?”

No.
A few make-out sessions in the corners of the club hadn’t prepared me for this. “Of course I have.”

And then I couldn’t pretend anymore. I couldn’t pretend it didn’t bother me that my father’s debts got me into this, that I was paying for a family that never really wanted me. I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t hurting everywhere, my body aching and broken. I couldn’t pretend it didn’t matter that this stranger could have helped me get away—and instead was trying to convince me to give up the last piece of myself. Tears tracked down my cheeks.

It was almost worse. If she had been cold and cruel, I could have kept my facade. But her fake kindness was more painful, gently encouraging me to give up, to give in, sweetly leading me to my ruin.

She patted my shoulder, and something inside me snapped. A week’s worth of terror and abuse fueled my punch, and I hit her flush in the face. I stared as she stumbled back, her perfectly manicured hand covering the red mark on her cheek.

Oh God, who have I become? What have I become?

Then I was off like a shot, running through the hallway. I didn’t know where I was going, and I didn’t really care. I’d run until I fell over dead—anything to get out of this place.

I half expected the men in the living room to form a barricade, to keep me in, but they seemed too surprised, too sluggish with drink and smoke, to get in the way. Or maybe they thought this was part of the show.

Somehow I made it out of the room and into the elevators—the regular ones this time, with their mirrored walls and marble floors, cold on my bare feet.

Chapter Three

D
URING THE LATTER
part of my rebellious phase, I’d learned how to steal things—lip gloss, wallets. Kristy could even swipe cell phones. By the time I made it through the busy lobby and into the staff-only kitchens, I had myself a fancy new wallet and a security pass so I could get out of locked exits without setting off alarms. All in all, I thought I was doing pretty well—until a beefy security guard saw me. I tried to run, but without shoes I just ended up sliding on a spill of some kind of food sauce. He caught me by the arm, his grip bruising.

I kicked his shin, but that only made him angrier. He snarled at me and shouted into his walkie-talkie for backup. Backup would inevitably call the cops, who I would be kind of relieved to see. Except that the men who brought me here would find out what I’d done—and they would know exactly where to find me.

Look, hon. It won’t be that bad. I’ll take the rough ones for myself, and—

Even if these people couldn’t get to me in a police precinct or a hospital, they could definitely get to me when I got home. And now they’d know I’d messed up their party. They’d think I owed them even more than my father already did.

Shit.
I couldn’t see a way out of this.

Then I turned and saw someone running up to me—the woman who’d called herself my fairy godmother. Relief filled me because I doubted she was coming after me just to insult me again. I needed help, and for whatever twisted reason, she had decided to give it to me.