Page 8 of Crushed
CHAPTER 3
Scarlett
Gasping for air. Needing it. Desperate for it. The pain in my chest bloating my insides into a balloon that would burst into a thousand pieces. Looking up. Eyes burning. Bubbles floating. I was so far down. Reaching. Grasping for anything. Sinking down, and down, and down.
Wake up, damn it.
I shot up in bed. My lungs swelled full as if this truly was my first good breath in ages. It was a dream, a recurring nightmare that had haunted me for years. The kind of dream that popped up whenever something big was coming, like visiting my parents’ graves, but now, it usually surfaced whenever I was meeting a target for the first time. Anxious energy pooled into my REM cycle and made me feel insane, like I would never be able to breathe again.
It didn’t help to wake up in a strange room. The brick walls. A short dresser with a vanity mirror attached to the front. A half closet big enough to store a few outfits, but not much else. The walls were bare. I hadn’t brought any of my posters. Drawers were under the twin bed, and a storage ottoman was in front of the dresser. A security guard was stationed at the end of the hallway all night, where the dressing rooms and the dorm rooms joined together, but I still kept my gun and my other weapons underneath my bed. It was unlikely that I’d need themnow.
But it never hurt to be safe. Being ambushed unexpectedly had taught me that.
Noise filtered into my room, the gentle knocks of curling irons on countertops, women talking and chatting. Clinks of glassware.
A knock sounded on the door frame. I straightened. Iris tucked a piece of short black hair behind her ear.
“Hey, sleeping beauty. Big night tonight,” she said.
“Don’t remind me,” I mumbled.
“You know the club opens in thirty minutes, right?”
Shit.
I raced to the closet and thumbed through what I had in there. After Iris rejected the sports bra and matching booty short set that I picked, I settled on a dark red cotton lingerie set that Iris insisted would work well for my debut performance. I ripped off my pajamas and started hooking the eye closures in the back when I realized Iris was still standing there. We caught eyes again.
“Am I late already?” I asked.
She shook her head. “You’ve got time if you hurry with makeup.” At least my makeup was easy. She smiled. “I just wanted to say break a leg.”
“Thanks,” I said.
The beneficial part of having a debut performance in front of the club members at the height of the weekend, was that I had the option of staying in the dorm and dressing rooms, not entering until the exact moment that I would perform. This area of the Dahlia District was called the Greenhouse. It was connected by a door to the side of the main floor of the actual club.
If I went to the main floor, Iris said there was too much risk in being taken to the private themed rooms, where club members paid for one-on-one entertainment. I was a new, novelty item. Apparently, they liked that.
So I could hide away in the Greenhouse if I wanted to. I could take my time getting ready. The rush to get ready was because of my nerves, rather than the fear of actually being late.
When the club opened, I was the only server in the Greenhouse. After an hour of pacing around the empty dressing rooms, I went to the main floor. A brunette, I think her name was Teagen, played a small harp on the concrete stage. Dahlia had been dreaming about a fire dancer for decades, and a few years ago, had renovated the stage so that the wooden top could be removed, for the concrete platform underneath, perfect for fire performance. No pressure or anything.
The crowd was bigger than I had expected. Teagen wore an elegant dress that was sheer in parts, showing off her body, the slit on the side letting the fabric drape over her thighs in an elegant manner. The way she moved her hands was beautiful, and it made the music that much better.
Iris waved and pulled me to the wings of the stage.
“How are you doing?” she asked in a quiet voice.
I was an assassin, a fucking assassin, and yet I was still anxious. I could pretend to be something I wasn’t when it mattered, when it was life or death. But it was another thing to pretend in a room full of observant eyes, eyes eager for sensual entertainment. This was different. My life wasn’t on the line yet. Adrenaline couldn’t push me through to the other side.
“I’m fine,” I said. Iris raised her eyebrows at me, waiting for me to answer truthfully. “Okay. Fine. I’m—” I paused, “—nervous.”
“It’s okay to be nervous,” she said, “But you’ve been practicing, and you’re going to kick ass out there.”
“You expect me to follow that?” I whispered, pointing at Teagen, still making beautiful music like it was in her nature. Dancing with fire? Not my nature. Fire didn’t scare me, but dancing with it wasn’t an instinctual talent for me. Not like making music was for Teagen.
“You’re following me, actually. I’m going next,” Iris said. I closed my eyes. Because following a gothic contortionist that could put the best cirque performers to shame, was easier than following a gorgeous musician. “Think of it this way. These club membersknowTeagen. Theyknowme. We’re not special. We’ve been here for years. You could do pretty muchanythingwith the fire, and they’d be impressed. Because. You know. It’s fire.”
I glanced over to the other side of the stage and saw the fire extinguisher and wet towels ready to go.
