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***
After opening my door and seeing her sitting on the edge of my bed, eyes and thumbs to her phone, I shut the door, dropped the bags, and snatched the phone out of her hand.
Her mouth dropped open as she shot to her feet.
“Hostages don’t get to keep their phones. What’re you doin’?” I scanned the cracked screen and saw she had a bank app open. Balance: negative forty-six bucks.
“I was just-”
I raised my hand to halt her. “Sit your ass down.”
I scrolled back through her most recent transactions. Gas using up her last thirty-seven bucks before account service charges and a bounced payment fee hit and put her below zero. After I closed the app, I scrolled the recently used apps on the phone to see what else she’s been up to.
I found her text string with Kailey. I sat on the dresser and scrolled it, feeling her eyes on me. I could tell she hadn’t been able to reach Kailey despite calling, texting, and messaging on a couple different social media apps. Seven calls to Kailey. A couple calls to an Aunt Francie. Two calls to a number listed as ‘work’.
“When you last talk to this Kailey cunt?”
She didn’t answer so my eyes rose to meet hers and I knew she wasn’t happy about my choice of words. I gave no fucks.
“Tongue tied?” I asked.
She cleared her throat. “Yesterday. As you can see, I tried her when I got here. No answer.”
“Why are you callin’ her? To tell her you found an in here?”
“To see if she’s okay. I wouldn’t have even told her I’m here. She’s with them so probably has eyes on her most of the time. Since I don’t want any attention from those eyes, I wasn’t plannin’ on saying where I am. I’m worried about her. They could hurt her, especially if they heard her telling me what they were up to.”
“I’ll be hangin’ onto this,” I said, pocketing it. “You need to give me your password.”
My eyes lifted to meet hers again.
“It’s not password protected,” she stated softly. “Though it’s about to shut down anyway as the bill’s overdue.”
I lifted her handbag onto the bed beside her and turned it upside down, eyes locked on hers while the contents spilled out.
Her mouth dropped open as her eyes lowered to look at her stuff. She said nothing as I rifled through the contents.
Make-up. Six new packs of birth control pills, one pack partly used. A strip of condoms. Crumpled receipts. Bubblegum. Wrapped candies. Tylenol. A silver hoop earring. Some hair ties. Two more hairbrushes. I opened the plastic pill bottle to see what was inside. Just Tylenol. There were also three tampons, a broken silver charm bracelet, loose change, a Zip-loc of Band-aids and antiseptic wipes, another Zip-loc of teabags and a roll of Tums, plus two folded up five-dollar bills.
Next up was her giant bag, which I unzipped and tipped over in front of the bed.
“Seriously?” she asked, voice moving from a husky alto to a high soprano.
“You’ve got nothin’ to hide, you shouldn’t mind.”
“You wanna go through my socks and underwear, feel free, I guess.”
My eyes met hers. “I’d search you, but looks like there’s no place to hide anything.”
Her face went red as my eyes traversed her body.
“Except… boots off.” Her clothes were skintight, but those high boots could be a hiding place.
She kicked them off and one hit my boot. My eyes moved slowly from the boot up to her eyes and I notched an eyebrow. She looked alarmed and cowered a little.
I turned them upside down and nothing fell out.
When I looked back in her direction, she was cradling her elbows over her chest, gaze pointed to the floor. She kept watching as I leafed through her clothes. Lingerie. Several pairs of shoes. Two leatherbound notebooks. One black with a leather string to keep it shut, the other brown with an elastic holding it closed. As I started unwinding the string on the black one, she moved fast and snatched them both.
“You don’t get to look in there,” she snapped, first trace of sass from her.
Sass not at me rifling through her underwear, sass at me laying a hand on a journal.
Our gazes locked again and hers was now different. Fierce.
My hackles rose as I held her eyes. “What’re you hidin’?”
“Those are just personal journals,” she said, voice trembling while her eyes continued to blaze. “I draw the line there.”
“There shit in there that’ll make the club realize you’re not on the up n’ up? You want protection, you don’t get to draw any fuckin’ lines.”
She shook her head. “No. It’s just… it’s personal. Just journals. It has nothing to do with any of this. You guys can trust me. I’ve got no friends in the Jackals club. I’d be stupid to come here and try to pull bullshit. The Valentines are too smart for that. And I’d never do it anyway. These guys here are my friends. I came to make sure nobody hurts Jojo or the other girls. Enough people have been hurt already. More than enough. Too many.”
