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“Again.” Cass sighed as if this was boring her. “You don’t get it. Never have. Never will. You just…I love you, Harper. I do. But you’re out of your league with this. You can’t play pretend like you’re one of us. The difference is obvious. You just don’t get it.”
It took several moments for me to process all that verbal shit she just flung across the room at me. “Well, pretend or not, I’m there. In that house. So…if your game was to get Tituss. Game the fuck on because we both know he still wants me.”
She looked at me like she was sad for me, and I tried to maintain my composure. She nodded and said, “Sure. If that helps you sleep at night. Believe that.”
Then she rolled over and pulled her blanket up like she didn’t need to worry about me walking over there and smothering her in her fucking sleep. Cunt.
The next day, after classes, I was at my new job site in regular clothes, but I brought a backpack this time and a change. Apparently, the first week, we were all on this schedule, and it would mix up after that into shifts until the house bunnies were officially selected. I planned to be living in that guest house where there was a pool nearby. I only had one minor problem, and I had to address it with the boss, Tituss. “Hey, uh—”
“Why are you talking to me? You’re supposed to be on the third floor today.” He crossed his arms and waited.
“I have to work tomorrow.” I crossed my arms and glared at him. “The work-study program. I have two days there—”
“Quit. You work here. You can’t work there.” He rolled his shoulders and turned to smile at someone. I wanted to smack him and Cass because that is who he was smiling at. “Cass, you look good today.”
“Thanks.” She did a whole flirt, wink, twist kind of thing.
“I think you’ll be the last to go up to the third floor today.” Then he turned and looked at me and said, “But you’re the first. Decide, Harper. Either get up those stairs and into an interrogation or out the fucking door. I’m not doing this with you every day.”
I could feel the jolt of shock from the base of my spine to the snap of my shoulders. He was serious. He was…different. Maybe I didn’t really know him anymore. Still, if I had to choose, and apparently, I did, I would just call in sick there for the next two weeks. I wasn’t sure how I would get fired from this job since they obviously didn’t want me here, but he couldn’t fire me. Still, I was sure from his expression he was trying to find a way.
I walked past him and wondered where Dane was this afternoon. I stomped up the flights of stairs, ignoring the young men making various sounds and comments. They were not looking at me or acting nearly as interested in me as they were the others. On the third floor, I was greeted by a young man in a collared shirt holding a clipboard. He said, “Harper Harrington?”
“That’s me.” I didn’t see any cleaning supplies.
“End of the hall on the left.” He pointed.
“I don’t have any supplies.” I held up empty hands.
“This is your interrogation. It’s part of the initiation. You only need you.” He shrugged. Then he said, “LaToya Johnson.”
I stepped forward and then looked back. One of the other applicants was behind me. Several more heading up the stairs. I started walking to the room for my initiation and kept hearing him clarify names.
Each step made my heart rate increase. Each step felt more and more like I should be running in the other direction, not reaching for the knob to this door. I pulled my hand back before touching it. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to just turn and open this door. It was an initiation, after all. I stood there, unsure and confused. Finally, I let out a breath and gently knocked. “Um…hello?”
Clipboard guy was now in motion, and he opened a door for another applicant as he called down to me as if I was the problem, “Just go inside. Look what you’ve done. Now everyone is—just open the damn doors, ladies.”
I was not apologizing for their lack of direction and total—oh shit. It was dark in here. Pitch fucking black, and I could not see a thing. I put my hand on the wall and flipped a light switch. That made it worse. The lights didn’t come on, but there were many things illuminated in this room.
It was trippy and creepy and…erotically explicit by design. The glow in the dark lines on one wall was of lips parted, the head of a dick between them. So much, so many different illustrations, and…did that just move? “Hello?”
I had not moved further into this odd room. I was sweating. My heart thundered because I had a feeling this was going to be a strange initiation. I didn’t know why the concern, a valid one, that I would be required to fuck someone in this oddly decorated room was both freaking me out and turning me on. Why the hell did shit like this turn me on?
A stranger. Someone I didn’t know. Couldn’t even see unless he…fuck. “I saw that.”
And then it was a voice that creeped me out to no end. I was going to kill Tituss. Fucking murder him. It was the voice box the character Bane used in one of those old Batman movies. Whoever was wearing it asked, “What did you see?”
I had barely moved into the room, but that voice always gave me the creeps, so I reached back for the doorknob and jolted forward with a yelp because there was a person behind me. BEHIND me! He asked again, “What did you see?”
“Nothing. I don’t know. Can you not—”
“Use the device? I must.” I could hear it from another point in the room.
“Okay, this is freaking me out. I hate that voice. I hate it. I need you to take that off or change it. Can you change it?” I took another tentative step in this darkness. Damn, I could have sworn one of those things just moved again. “And…why is the art…moving?”
“The art’s not moving. We are.” The voice did not change.
“We.” I could barely breathe. “We uh…wh..who…is we?”
