Page 42 of H E R

“Mom and Dad’s shooters were killed.”

She gasps loudly and faces me. “When?”

“About a week ago. I don’t want Jule to know. He needs to focus on getting back on track with school.”

She nods slowly. “Of course.”

Something tells me there was more that Dylan refused to say. I don’t know, something about the way he saidongoinginvestigation.An inkling beyond my brain’s ability to understand or perhaps accept. Also, I’m wary about the manner of death, eerily exact to the way they took my parents. If I didn’t know any better, it gave offrevenge killvibes.

“Did he really move there to keep us safe?”

I sigh. “I don’t know. I didn’t get to ask him anything about that.” Nor did I get to ask him what he meant about knowing where I was.Thatwould be catastrophic.

Our ride slows down and we both pin our eyes to the exterior ofNym-Pho’smassive structure. I don’t have the strength to put on my fake smile. Fuck, what ifel cerroshows up tonight? I havegotto get it together.

As if sensing my thoughts, Jasmin reaches for my hand and squeezes. “I’ll put you in a cage for your shift.”

I nod and lean into her.Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.

“No one will bother you. Just sway about and we’ll make sure to collect your tips.”

The music vibrates off the metal bars of the birdcage structure that holds my body elevated twenty feet off the ground. It’s an elegant gilded mini fortress, immovable and secure. There are two others with semi-nude dancers inside. I could get used to this.

But I keep replaying the deaths of my parents in my head.

I’m sitting in a makeshift closet, a crawlspace in the wall. A sliver of light gleams in and I press my face to it. The broken wood of the doorframe splinters my face, my eyes burn, but I refuse to close them. My parents died that day, but they took my soul with them. A part of me died right alongside them that night, but I forced myself to continue for my baby brother. He didn’t have anyone. I needed to step up and grow the fuck up.

Whatever problems I thought I had in my hormonal teenage rebellious stage were stripped from me, like acid filling my veins and cleansing away the purity of being a child. I forced myself to suffer right along with them so that I would never forget.

And now the bringer of their deaths was gone, too. Did they suffer? I fucking hope so. Did they cry and beg for their lives? I don’t know, but I pretend to hear their voices screaming for someone to pity them. I only wish I would’ve been there to replace my parents' screams with theirs, so that their shrieks would fill the remnants of the tattered memory that’s stuck on replay. I don’t want my mom and dad to suffer anymore.

The music is upbeat tonight, the aesthetic stays the same, but the beat coming from the speakers alters from night to night. Today’s theme is sexy pop. I think it’s one of Ariana Grande’s songs, but I can’t be sure.

My hearing is fucked tonight. I gyrate my hips and flip my hair to the thrumming of my parents’ heartbeats. I’m covered in sweat and my hair clings to my back and neck. The full face mask is surprisingly comfortable, but still hot as hell. I know I’ll be red as a tomato when it comes off. It’s a black fox mask with gold piping along the pointy ears, eyes and nose.

I have a sheer lace bra on with a faux gold chain attached to a black choker around my neck. The gold chain drips down my front and connects to the garter wrapped around my belly. The chain dangles near my thighs, and it looks like frozen dew drops over the flesh. My pussy is covered by a lace thong. I get to be barefoot in the cage, thank the she-devilthat commands the existence of this kingdom of sex and booze, because I wouldn’t be able to make it if I had to dance the night away in six-inch heels.

Suddenly, I feel someone’s gaze on me.

I’m dancing basically naked in a dungeon of sex, so of course, people watch me, but this feeling is different. It’s a palpable grip on me, a tug toward the one person whose gaze alone peppers my skin with goosebumps. I can literally feel someone’s touch, their thoughts mingle with my own. It forces my attention to a man sitting alone, feasting on me. His penetrating gaze influences a reaction in me. Without ever even touching me, his eyes alone have provoked a physical interaction as my body leans into the bars, a gravitational pull that forces me toward him.

He’s in an all-black suit, black tie, black shirt, and a black mask over the top half of his face. The man licks his lips then lifts a short glass with a dark brew up, as if to salute me, then drinks it slowly, his eyes caressing my moving curves. I blow him a kiss, then flip my hair and turn around.

I don’t have the headspace for meaningless flirting to gain some more cash. The table below me holds a five-gallon glass jar and there are only hundreds inside, all mine. And although something about the man stands out, I shove it away. The pain in me is too great to care to investigate.

I bend down, and Billy, the bartender whose name I learned right before I entered the cage, hands me a double shot of tequila. I knock it back, relishing in the burn it leaves in its wake down my throat. I prefer this feeling over the continual stab that repeatedly pierces the hole where my heart is supposed to be.

I hand him back the glass and signal him to give me another. After shooting it back, I lean on my haunches and tilt my head back until it touches the floor of the cage. I lift my arms and caress the air, then slowly lift back up, my hips moving in circles, then up and down. I stand up slowly, my hips dip low, and I expand my arms to hold both ends of my prison.

I close my eyes and give in, the roar in my ears building, and I finally allow myself to let go. I’m in the sky, but not quite in heaven. I’m floating on a black rain cloud. It’s the darkest part of eternal paradise. It isn’t hell, where we’d be subjected to the perpetual flames of torture. I’m in a place of bliss, of quiet content and peace.

Here, in this cage, I let go, baring it all except for what lives deep inside me, tormenting me. No one ever sees that. I can’t expose that side no matter how much I try, so I feed off of the energy of everyone’s hunger, their thirst for excitement and their approval of me.

I don’t know what I thought would happen once my parents’ killers were found, imprisoned or executed. But somehow, I thought it would make me feelbetter. Yet I still feel empty.

12

Redemption

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