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I listened to her walk out of the room and, once again, softly close the door. As a tear tracked down my cheek and stopped its descent to fill in along the line that was scarred into my flesh from the corner of my mouth to nearly my ear, I let out one broken sob.
ChapterTwo
SALLY
Isat up when my alarm went off, jarring me out of yet another nightmare. I ran my hands over my face, then gripped my long, thick braid, giving it a harsh tug. I finally reached over to the old alarm clock, which sat on the nightstand of the motel room, ignoring the pounding and yelled curses coming from the wall against the headboard.
It had been about two weeks since the bond hearing. The first thing I did when I left the courthouse was head to the apartment I had once shared with the other girls. When I had disappeared, they reported it to the police, but they'd had no choice but to rent out my room to someone else when so much time had passed without any sign of my return.
Luckily, they hadn't gotten rid of my things. Not that I'd had much to begin with. Just two small suitcases with everything I had brought with me to California. One of the girls had stuffed them into her cramped closet and was more than happy to return them to me once I'd shown up at the door fresh from the hospital.
Even though someone new had taken over my room, they had let me crash on the couch in the living room. I had learned quickly to protect myself by ignoring their whispers and stares of pity. I knew I would have to get used to it. This was my life now. I didn't really have a choice. I also couldn't go anywhere else. I'd saved up a decent amount of cash from my well paying receptionist job, but in L.A., it would hardly get me by in a hotel for a week. Not like the cheap motel I had found when I arrived in Utah.
Going home to Kentucky was one of the last choices I would ever make. My family had too many mouths to feed, and they had been glad to see me go when I had jumped on the bus to Hollywood. We hadn't parted on bad terms, necessarily, but it was clear that I wasn't to return when I failed. And they had promised I would as they waved me out the door. So, no, I couldn't go back home.
Instead of crawling back to my parents, I had closed my eyes and circled my finger over the map, buying a bus ticket to the town where my finger had landed. I quickly found it was a small town filled with pumpkins, bikers, and hardly anything else.
Pumpkin Patch, Utah. It was kind of ridiculous, honestly. The town was some sort of Halloween mecca, a tourist stop on the way to wherever their real vacation was. It was only summer, but there were shops all up and down Main Street that were dedicated to the celebration of Halloween. And pumpkins.
Pumpkin bread, pumpkin spiced lattes, pumpkin soap, pumpkin figurines. Though I would outwardly scoff if anyone asked, I would never actually admit out loud that the town had charmed me at first sight. I had climbed down from the bus, ignoring the whispers and stares from the passengers who had been pointing and talking to their companions about me, and began walking. I pulled my cumbersome suitcases behind me over the surprisingly well-tended sidewalk until I saw a sign for the Pumpkin Patch Motel.
Within two days, I had found a bar willing to hire me even though I was only nineteen. It then took me another two hours to figure out that it was a biker bar and that they didn't give a shit about laws. It didn't matter. I was away from California, away from the monster that had imprisoned me, and was staying in a motel that let me pay by the week. With my pay, tips, and the money I had saved before my Nightmare began, I was doing just fine.
I swung my legs over the side of the creaking mattress and stood up, past the instinct to grimace at the sensation of the old, stained synthetic carpet under my bare feet. All I cared about was that I was safe. I walked into the bathroom, flipped on the light, and turned on the shower as the bulb flickered a few times before staying steady. The water was never going to get steaming hot, but it was warm enough to soothe my aching muscles. No one had warned me how tiring being a bar waitress could be.
Once I stepped out, tucking the thin towel around my breasts, I opened the drawer that held my waitressing attire. They were just tiny spandex shorts that luckily covered more than they originally appeared, though not much more, and a cropped tank top that stopped just above my belly button. They were both black, and the top had the bar's name across the boobs.
When I had first seen the bar, I had thought it was just a regular bar in a small town, similar to the ones dotted around Kentucky, but it didn't take more than one shift to realize that the aptly named Devil's Bar was owned by the local club, The Devil's Nightmares. It was surprisingly well run, for which I was grateful, but after working there for two weeks, it was apparent there were things wrong with it, too.
I used the ancient hair dryer that came with the motel room, just grateful that the rundown place even supplied one. After my long hair was finally dry enough, I started on my makeup. I didn't wear much; I never really gained a talent for it, usually sticking with lipgloss and mascara. However, since the whole ordeal of being used as some sort of experiment or whatever the doctor had considered it, I'd begun using foundation to cover the pink lines. I couldn't do anything about the raised scars, but at least they didn't stand out as vividly as they did with a fresh face.
I left my hair down as a shield against stares. Even though I knew it did little to hide my body, it was still comforting. With nothing left to do to prepare for my shift, I slipped on my jeans and a hoodie to hide the skimpy outfit. There was no way I was going to walk through town wearing next to nothing.
The bar was fairly quiet when I arrived, with only a few regulars sitting at the bar and a couple of the servers being friendly with the few men who were sitting at the tables. It was a cozy atmosphere most of the time. The bar was all wood inside. There were wooden beams across the ceiling, and the floor was made of planks that had been worn smooth from years of hundreds of feet walking across it every single night.
The bar itself was about eight feet long, with the register in the middle. There was room for two bartenders, but in the two weeks I had been there, only one guy was ever behind the bar. I didn't know for sure, but I figured he was the owner. At the very least, he was the manager. He had been the one to hire me on the spot, letting his eyes drift down my body first. He had stared for a long time at my face, and I had become so self-conscious that I was getting ready to mumble, never mind about the job, when he had grunted. He'd offered me the job and warned me that the guys would be handsy, but if anyone gave me any kind of shit, to let him know immediately.
I was surprised to realize that they didn't have any bouncers that worked for the bar. When I had mentioned it, he just grinned, pulled a shotgun out from under the bar, and thunked it down on the wooden surface.
"This is my bouncer," he'd said with a tap of his forefinger to the barrel. "Besides, this place is the Nightmare's. If someone wants to get out of hand, they have more problems than getting bounced." The look on his face was kind of terrifying, and even though I hadn't seen anything yet to indicate that the Devil's Nightmares were even remotely scary, I just nodded and scampered away to take more drink orders.
But that night, when I arrived for my seven to midnight shift, everyone seemed on edge. It was as if there was a current of electricity humming through the bar, almost like a storm was brewing and everyone was waiting for the show to start.
I passed the long wooden bar, nodding at Mac, the older, tall, skinny bartender with shaggy brown hair, and headed down the long hallway. There were several rooms down the hallway with restrooms, storage, and a changing room in the far back where the girls kept their belongings while on shift. I didn't carry a purse or even an I.D. on me. I hated leaving anything in the hotel with the flimsy lock, but I hated even more to leave anything valuable in the open cubbies. I pulled the jeans down my legs, folded them up, and lay them in the cubby I had started to think of as mine. After unzipping and taking the hoodie off, I put it with my pants, ready to get the night over with.
I decided to ignore the weird atmosphere and just do my job. I hoped more people would arrive since a busy night meant not only were the tips better, but the whole night would go by faster. On my days off from work, I didn't know what to do with myself. I wasn't used to being sedentary. Growing up, I had been responsible for a lot around the tiny house I shared with my parents and four siblings. Most of my responsibilities included taking care of the kids, but I also had plenty of other chores that kept me busy. It was the one thing my parents had been so upset about when I told them I was moving away. They were losing their free babysitter and house cleaner.
I walked up to the bar and reached for a round serving tray. "Hey, Mac." I ducked my head, allowing the darkness of the dim bar and my hair to conceal most of my features. "Is there any place in particular you want me tonight?"
The open space was large, with several round tables with enough seating for four spaced out over the floor, along with a back area filled with four pool tables. Instead of there being tables around the billiard section, there were several bar stools lining the wall. It usually stayed pretty busy back there, and I had been assigned the section several times already.
Working the main floor was usually divided amongst two girls. I had noticed that no one sat at the table in the front corner. It was a cozy spot, which sat shrouded in darkness with little of the ambient lighting reaching that far into the corner. To me, it seemed like it would be a great spot to sit in and have a drink. Not that I could legally drink yet. But I couldn't help but wonder why that table always remained empty despite the crowd of people.
There was also a kitchen that served easy, mostly fried foods like french fries and onion rings. They also had nachos, which seemed to be the most popular food item on the meager menu. When it was a busy night, sometimes Mac would assign one of the girls to do nothing but run food out to tables. I had done that once, and it had sucked. Not because it was hard but because there were no tips involved. The servers were supposed to share tips, but they were stingy with them. Or maybe it was just me they didn't want to pay.
Mac gave me an uneasy look I hadn't seen on his face before. "Uh, why don't you stay around the bar tonight? I could use some help pulling beer. You can also take the tables closest while you're back here if the other girls get too busy."
I looked at the nearly empty bar and back at Mac. I wouldn't get many tips that night if I only had a couple of tables, but he was the boss and I wasn't going to argue. As it stood, there weren't even any people sitting near the bar other than a couple of guys on stools at the other end who were flirting with the other servers.
