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Calliope swung an arm around me, urging me to follow Gale and Chloe up the steps. “Who knew Gale had it in her?” She laughed in my ear.
I did.
•••
THE DOOR SWUNGopen and we were greeted by a tall man in a hood. We couldn’t see his full face. I wondered if I knew him. If he’d recognize me. I felt like a different person by now, but did I look different? I’d thought I was an adult back then, but I was just a kid.
I kept my eyes down because I didn’t want to find out what that man knew.
I’d let Gale do the talking. I didn’t want to fall into any of her traps.
Inhale. Exhale. Just keep breathing.
“Guests of Hawkes,” Gale said. “There’s four of us.”
Hawkes? That wasn’t familiar, but the concept behind it was. Hawkes must have been somebody new, but code names were always a part of it. Some fun, some mystery, a game, it was all a game to them. Like little boys. But they were all grown men.
The hallway was dark, lit by candles. I remembered this particulartheme. One of his favorites. Masquerade ball. I heard laughter coming from the great room to the right. The laughter was largely coming from the men. I slowed my breath. I had to keep my mind ahead of my body. It was taking more focus than I thought it would, but I never thought I’d be back here again. How could it look exactly the same? How could he still be doing this? Of course I knew the answer. Money. Power. Always money. Always power.
Inside I was crumbling. Remembering the ballroom. Being told to walk around, dressed in a skimpy silky pastel little thing made for a grown woman but I was still a little girl—a teenager is still a girl. Stop walking if one of the men asked me to. Talk to them, laugh with them. It was easy, she said. Didn’t I feel powerful? Like a grown-up? Wasn’t it only fair that I helped take care of her after she’d taken care of me for so long? It was fine until it wasn’t. She wouldn’t understand and I’d had to run away. But I couldn’t run now. The stakes had never been higher. What was my whole life for if I couldn’t handle this moment? Gale Wallace-Leicester could not see me falter. I would not allow it.
But still, all I wanted to do was run. Again.
“This is kinda creepy,” Calliope whispered to Chloe. “Who the fuck isHawkes?” Chloe shrugged. I wished they would say out loud that they wanted to leave. Gale might put up a fuss, but the Case girls always got what they wanted, more or less. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t play into Gale’s hands at all. My only move was to go with the flow.
I was in hell.
The man in the hood said nothing to Gale in response. He simply motioned with his hand over to the great room. “Come on, girls,” Gale squealed, leading the way.
I felt nauseous. A familiar taste in my mouth, I could already taste the whiskey that wasn’t from my own lips. A familiar scent in my nose, the black-dipped tuberose candles mixed with the smell ofcigars. We weren’t even in the ballroom yet, but it was all rushing back. The sounds of deep laughter, big booming guffaws when nothing about it was funny. The faces of those men, some with their masks down when they got too comfortable, flushed from the drink and what was before them, a feast not only for their eyes. We were their prey, but the easy kind. Just girls. Girls who mistakenly thought we were women because of the people around us. Girls who thought we were in control when we were anything but.
I don’t know how I kept moving. My muscle memory wanted me to dissociate entirely but I couldn’t. I had to look alive. I had to get through this. I had to follow Gale. I couldn’t let on a thing. The fear was all-consuming.
Focus. Focus. Focus.
I wished that Syl was still with me. I would have held her hand.
Another man waited for us at the door, sporting a top hat, white tie and tails, with a small, handheld mask of his own and a self-righteous grin on his red face. I didn’t recognize him, but he looked like one of them. In his forties, maybe his fifties. Taking his turn at the door. Leering. Checking. Approving. Just another monster.
“Pretty, pretty,” he growled. “Guest of?”
“Hawkes,” Gale said to him, though not quite as confidently as before. Any woman worth her salt would pick up on the sordid energy in that house, even someone like Gale. Clearly she hadn’t really known the full scope of what she was getting us into, but she was going to see it through. Getting to me was more important to her, that much was obvious. She possessed that personality of pointed cruelty. Even when you think they won’t go so far, they do. Some women are just like that, I guess.
Mother was.
I wondered if this party would be the same as the parties before.Probably so. Different men maybe, different girls for sure. Would some of their mothers be there, too? The second the door swung open, those long-buried memories clamored to the forefront of my mind, overlapping with everything I saw before me. So similar. The masked men. The women in lingerie. No, girls.Girlsin lingerie. I was light-headed. Too much. Breathe in. Breathe out. I’d be okay. I had to be okay. I wouldn’t let her get me. I wouldn’t let anyone get me ever again. I steadied myself. Head over body always. Focus. Focus. Focus. I could sit there, have a drink, observe, be silent, until it was time to leave. I wasn’t one of those girls anymore. I wouldn’t let Gale prove that I ever was.
I felt a hand on my waist. Someone trying to get into the room around us.
A man.
It was him.
I looked right at him.
Not very tall. But bold. With presence. Silver hair now.
He looked right through me.
