I kicked his shoe. “Come on, Donny,” I said, purposely messing up his name. It was the least I could do for the black eye. “The party is waiting for us.” What I meant was that someone had to be waiting to use this room. Hell, his friend in the top hat had been pretty eager about wanting us to finish up as quickly as we could, so that he could bang in the same place his friend had. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.
Dean didn’t move.
“Taking a power nap?” I asked. I leaned over, trying to figure out if he was asleep. Maybe he slept with his eyes open. But he was eerily still. Out of the corner of my eye, the bag full of powder was open.Shit.
I slapped his face. “Wake up,” I yelled. “This isn’t funny.”
But there was no movement. I checked his pulse, but my own heart rate was racing so fast that I couldn’t hold still long enough to feel a heartbeat. It raced through my fingertips.
“Help!” I screamed. “Someone help! He’s hurt!”
I kept screaming until someone finally came. A group of people surrounded us. Their kind eyes kept me still.
“What happened?”
“Did he OD?”
“What did he take?” The person lifted the bag full of white powder. “Is this yours?”
“Yes,” I cried. “It was a gift. I didn’t buy it. I thought it was—”
“Do you know what’s in it?”
“Coke?” I said. I wasn’t sure though.
“Coke isn’t this deadly.”
“Who gave this to you?”
“Eric,” I said. “He’s my—” I looked around frantically, but their expressions had changed. There was no warmth in their faces anymore. A harsh breath whistled out of one of their mouths, and their eyes stared coldly at me. What had I mentioned that changed everything? The coke? Eric? “He’s my boss.”
“Someone call Zaid!” a person shouted. Who the hell was Zaid? But by the time I could even think of that question, a man with a scar running down the side of his face came forward, the crowd parting for him.
“Give me your wrists,” he said, holding handcuffs. What the fuck? He wasn’t the damn police.
“I’m not giving you anything, asshole,” I said, ripping away from him. “A man is dead. Focus on him!”
“We can do this the easy way,” the scar-faced man said in a low voice, “or the hard way.” He nodded behind him, to a barrel of a man, solid muscle thick as a tree trunk, waiting there, staring at me. “Grant,” he said, and the man straightened, ready to come forward. There was a kindness to the man’s brown eyes that made me feel hopeful. I forgot that he was supposed to be the threat, thatthatman was the hard way.
“Please,” I yelled to the man, wrenching myself away from the handcuffs. Begging the muscular man. “Please! You’ve got to help me!”
But the brown-eyed man rushed towards me and threw a hood over my head, gripping my hands in a death grip. The metal cuffs clanked over my wrists, cinching me tight.
a few weeks later
Grant
I leaned against the walls of the building. No new guests or members had ventured inside of Club Hades in over an hour. As the lead security adviser, it was my duty to guard the exterior of the building and wait for further instructions from my boss. Across the road, two women huddled outside of a bar, smoking cigarettes, the embers glowing in the night. They locked eyes with me and cowered, shuffling back inside. At six foot, six inches tall, and over two-hundred pounds of pure muscle, my presence did that sometimes.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
“Get Hazel Maben from the cells,” Zaid said. “Put her in the cage. Return immediately.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
I raced through traffic to Mount Charleston. Most of the time, Zaid dealt with the prisoners himself. But he had taken an interest in the new woman who had come to Club Hades that night. The new woman and the prisoner shared the same last name, which meant that they were likely related. Sisters, perhaps.
I parked in the long driveway and grabbed the key from the surveillance room. The hike to the cells was dark. Insects chirped, and a blue-lit moon guided my steps. What had this woman, Hazel Maben, done to deserve the cage? Why not shove the sister in the cells with her? The cells and the cage were identical in some ways; both were in complete darkness, and prisoners were always provided food and medical attention. In the cells, prisoners were bound by their limbs and neck to the wall. But in the cage, the prisoner would not be bound, but would instead be subjected to slippery surfaces, dripping pipes, and cold temperatures.
