The Arrangement 14 (5 page)

Our gazes lock as I speak, and those last few words cut him, but it’s true and he needs to hear it. I say it as gently as I know how, but kid gloves won’t help right now. He needs to hear the truth. “Sean, I know you don’t think of yourself as a weak
person, but with this, you are. Cowering, and disguising who you are and what you think, isn’t living—it’s hiding.”
 

Sean stands abruptly. His hands tense at his sides and his lungs fill with air quickly, like he wants to scream. But Sean swallows it back down and strides across the room, away from me. Before I can say another word, Sean disappears through the door without looking back.
 

I remain in the stripper’s dressing room until Mel finds me. I’m lying on a bench with my arm over my face. Mel starts chattering the instant she sees me. “That man has some seriously oversized ovaries. Can you say PMS? He barked at anyone and everyone before shoving his way outside.”
 

Moving my arm, I glance at her. “Tell me you’re talking about Trystan.”
 

“Hey! Don’t you go dissin’ my man. Me and Crème Brule are going to be the perfect couple, get married, and have lots of perfect babies. You wait and see.” Mel’s voice has that teasing tone. She has a serious crush on Trystan, which means she won’t go after him. She’s like Sean with things like that. Anyone she actually cares
about, she keeps at arm’s length—except me.
 

I sit up and swing my legs to the floor. “Does he know you call him that?”
 

“What? Like he’d be offended. It’s the perfect dessert, all rich and white.” She giggles and then slaps her hand over her mouth. “Uh, you didn’t see that.”
 

I roll my eyes. “You are so mental. If you like him, ask him out.”
 

“He’s a rock star, Avery. You don’t just walk up to the guy and say, ‘hey, you wanna go out with me?’ Plus, Miss Black will kill me.”
 

“Miss Black wants to kill you anyway. And you should do what you want. Life’s too short.” I feel a dazed look settle on my face—the one I have when my mind starts to wade through dark thoughts. My mind is a goddamn swamp. No matter which direction I turn, there’s more dark sludge. It’s everywhere.
 

“So, why’d Mr. Pampered-Ass run?”
 

I look over at her with a sheepish grin. “I told him he was a coward.”
 

Mel’s jaw drops. “Holy shit on toast! You did not!”
 

“I did. He asked what I wanted and I told him—I want him to stop running from himself.”
 

“Psh, if that’s not the blind leading the blind, I don’t know what is.”
 

“It is not.”
 

“It is so. You’re gonna lead that boy right off a cliff. Avery, you don’t even have your own shit together. How can you ask him to do that when you can’t?”
 

I puff up, offended. “I can so!”
 

“Avery girl, I love you, but you can’t see past your tits on this. You cower and hide from life the same way he does. How you choose to manifest that fear is different and more socially acceptable, but you’re
both in the flame out stage. You’re no better than him.”
 

It feels like she punched me in the stomach. I raise my voice and wag a finger in her face. “You don’t know shit about this, okay. You don’t know Sean or what he’s done. We’re not the same.”
 

“Yeah, that’s where you’re wrong. You’re both candy-coated crazy people. You seem all sweet on the outside, but once you get past that outer shell, you’re both a fucking mess. If you can’t admit that, I don’t know if we can be friends. It’s one of the only things we have in common.” She smiles at me. “Avery, you have to know that about yourself. Are you seriously sitting there, telling me that you had no fucking clue?”
 

Am I really that messed up? I thought I was healing. My hackles lower a little bit and I admit, “It’s not intentional.”
 

“Of course not, and that’s the point. It’s a defense mechanism—you can’t turn
it off. If you tried, you’d have nothing to shield yourself with. You just told Wonderbread that he’s a coward for leaving his defenses up. The man’s been through some serious shit.”
 

“And you’re defending him…”
 

“If that’s your main issue with the guy, yeah.”
 

“He put some call girl in South Oaks.”
 

“Did he light her on fire or fuck her?” I glance at her like she’s crazy. “Uh, Avery, call girls are there to be screwed. If she didn’t want him to do her, she shouldn’t have taken the job. If he lit her on fire or buried her alive to listen to her scream, then I’d be more concerned.”
 

“He doesn’t do that, but he likes fear. He thrives on it.”
 

“Dark fucker, isn’t he?” I nod. “Kind of like me. Well, since you two are no longer an item, I want Sean. I bet I can make him cry.”
 

“He’ll make you cry and beg for mercy.” I know she’s teasing, trying to get a rise out of me, but I don’t take her bait.
 

Mel slaps her hands on her jean-clad knees, “Well, if that’s all, then I—”
 

Mel is ready to walk away, but the offer from Black is still bobbing up and down in my thoughts. Every time I consider it, I think it’s ridiculous and shove it back down, but it pops up again. I blurt it out before she can finish her sentence. “Black offered to make me madam.”
 

Mel is half standing, with her butt sticking out and her hands still on her knees, when she pauses. Her jaw drops and she sits back down. “White girl say what?”
 

“Hey, that’s my catch phrase.”
 

“Yeah, it didn’t sound right coming out of this luscious mouth. But enough of that. Black seriously offered?” I nod and go into the details. When I finish Mel is
uncharacteristically silent. “What’d you say?”
 

“She told me to think about it.”
 

“Are you going to do it?”
 

“I don’t know.” I’m picking at my nails as I speak. “I’m kind of thinking that it depends on what happens with Sean, but then I’m depending on Sean for everything. Black tapped into one of my biggest fears and twisted.”
 

“I’d let you stay with me, but I’m screwed everyway ‘til Tuesday until they catch whoever shot my twin.”
 

I blink at her. “She looked like you.”
 

Mel puts her hands on her hips and tips her head to the side. “Yeah, we’ve been through this already. You saw her, thought she was me…”
 

My brain is grabbing at strings and my neck prickles. I don’t know what it is, but something is off. I can’t place my finger on
it. “Wait a second.” I pull out my phone and call Black.
 

“What?” she snaps.
 

“The girl you sent to check on us at the hotel—what’d she look like?”
 

Black sighs dramatically into the phone. “Avery, I don’t have time for your—”
 

I’m insane and cut her off, saying each word staccato. “What. Did. She. Look. Like?”
 

Black huffs and spits out a description. “It was Tawny—dark hair with ghastly gold streaks, caucasian with olive skin, green eyes, about five foot seven, and a buck ten.”
 

“And she died?”
 

“Yes! Avery, we’ve been over this already.” Miss Black is yelling at me, but she’s wrong. Her information is totally wrong and she doesn’t know. “Unless you
have something helpful to add, or you’re accepting your new position, I suggest you hang up.”
 

Done. I disconnect and stare at Mel. “There’s another dead body.”
 

“What? Who?” Mel’s golden eyes go wide.
 

“The girl that was in the room—the one who looked freakishly like you—wasn’t the girl Black sent over. It was someone else. Black assumed the dead call girl was hers. She never saw the body and the police still haven’t released her name, but I saw her.” I shake my head and shiver. Continuing, I think out loud, “That means the original hooker that Black sent to our room was either in on it or she’s dead.” I tell Mel what Black told me.
 

“I know Tawny and that wasn’t her. I’m calling her.” Mel pulls out her phone and dials. After a second she hangs up. “It went straight to voicemail.”
 

“Her battery is dead.”
 

“Or she’s at the bottom of the bay.” Mel tenses and presses the edge of the phone to her lips.
 

“Mel, I don’t like this. What if it’s just some random person killing off Black’s girls? I mean, they tried to take a shot at me, they tried for you, and Tawny’s missing.” My throat’s grown so tight that I can’t swallow. “What if this has nothing to do with Sean and everything to do with Black?”
 

Mel’s golden gaze cuts over to me. “I don’t trust Black, period. But offering her own staff up to be slaughtered isn’t like her. Especially you and me. We’re her bread and butter. No one out earned me until you came along.”
 

I add, “Black has a pretty big fear of being poor.”
 

“I can’t blame her.” Mel rubs her hands over her face and shakes her head.
“It makes no fucking sense. Someone is playing us and I’m inclined to think it’s one of the fucked up Ferros since all this started when Sean came around.”
 

“It’s not him.” I say it with complete conviction.
 

“But how do you know?”
 

“I just do.”
 

“That’s a shitty answer when people are getting whacked, Avery, and you know it.”
 

“It’s not Sean.” I repeat myself with utter confidence. Standing, I start to pace while rubbing my chin. “Sean has his own stuff going on, and he only fights back when prompted.”
 

“What about that shit with Trystan on the way in?”
 

“There’s bad blood between them.”
 

“But Rockstar didn’t start that fight. Your boy did.”
 

“And no one ended up dead in a dumpster either, Mel. Come on, think! What are we missing?”
 

We’re both quiet for a long time. I keep trying to pin this on Naked Guy or Henry Thomas, but something feels off. It’s too easy to pin it on one of them and there’s no real motive. Well, not one worth killing for. Henry is embarrassed and irate that Sean stole someone he wanted, again. Henry’s also pissed that Amanda died, but it doesn’t make sense for him to kill me to get back at Sean, not if Henry actually liked me. That’s the part that doesn’t fit in his puzzle.
 

Maybe he didn’t like you. Maybe he was using you.
My inner-voice is a pain in the ass.
 

Mel huffs and shakes her head, still on the bench. “It makes no sense. We’ve got someone shooting at you and me. Maybe it’s a vendetta against Black?”
 

“By who?” I turn and look at her. “Who would want to wipe out her staff, because that’s what it looks like they’re doing. That’s why Black wants to protect me and she sure as hell doesn’t want anything to happen to you.”
 

Mel makes a sound of disbelief. “She doesn’t give a flying fart what happens to me.”
 

Shaking my head, I correct her. “I asked to take you with me, if I accepted the position as a madam. Black said no.”
 

Mel glances up at me with her eyebrows pinched together. “That’s weird.”
 

“Not if you’re her main girl. I mean she’d want to keep you around.”
 

“Yeah, but she’s sending you off. Someone doesn’t want us talking to each other. They think we’ll figure things out.” Mel bites her lip as she thinks.
 

I lean against the wall and tap my nails on the thick dark paint. “Mel, I don’t know
how to handle this. If we call the cops, there’s nothing to tell them.”
 

“And they’ll throw my ass in jail. No cops.” Her eyes are wide and frightened.
 

“So, what can we do?”
 

“It’s simple. This is the way things were on the streets where I grew up. No one saves you, except you. There’s no white knight, no police officer that will rescue you. It’s time to fight or die, Avery.”
 

I repeat Mel’s old words, softly, “Surviving justifies anything.”
 

“Fuck, yeah.”
 

I’m nervous, but I try to shove back the emotions. If I’m a psychotic troll, then I won’t notice what’s going on. Emotions cloud my judgment and make me second-guess myself. That won’t help me now. I have to trust my gut and that’s all there is to it. Daddy used to say that the best decisions are the ones you can feel. They have no explanation—you just know.
 

That’s why I find Sean. He’s sitting at a table with a half empty bottle of whiskey. I’m exhausted and ready to fall asleep on my feet. When I sit down, I know that I’m going to have trouble getting up again. Sean doesn’t acknowledge me, so I speak first. I offer the thing I want, because there’s no way to communicate how I feel.
I’m mad at him and disappointed, but l don’t want to fight anymore.
 

I reach across the table and touch the back of his hand. “Come to bed with me.”
 

Sean doesn’t move. Instead, he stares at my fingers on his. After a moment I withdraw my touch and repeat myself. That’s when he finally speaks. “Avery, I can’t.”
 

“I need to sleep and so do you.”