Page 10 of Jax

The codes were a jumble of letters and numbers that made no sense. Frustration bubbled within her, but she couldn't bring herself to discard the mysterious notes. Instead, she counted out the money she owed Chad, separating it from the six cryptic bills.

"Hey, Daddy wants his cut," a gruff voice called from outside the dressing room. Mia knew it was Chad, and her heart raced with equal parts fear and resentment.

"Coming, Daddy," she shouted back, stuffing the remaining cash into her bra for safekeeping. Her pulse thrummed in her ears, drowning out the pounding bass of the club beyond the door.

Chad's hulking figure loomed in the doorway, his eyes narrowed as he scrutinized Mia. "What took you so long?" he demanded, his voice thick with impatience.

"Sorry," she muttered, biting back a retort about how he wasn't her real daddy. “You know me, I’m a little slow sometimes.” She handed him the money without meeting his gaze, secretly hoping he wouldn't notice the absence of the six strange notes.

"Good girl," he sneered, his breath hot and foul against her face. Mia fought the urge to recoil as he counted the cash and slipped it into his pocket. "Now go to your room and eat your food. Fifteen minutes until the camera’s on. Don’t be slow this time."

"Right away, Daddy," she mumbled, trying to keep her voice steady. As he turned and stalked away, she let out a shaky breath, her green eyes flicking to the hidden bundle in her bra. Something about those notes felt important, and she was determined to crack their code.

Back in her tiny room, Mia's dinner sat cold and untouched on the small table, a sad-looking plate of pasta swimming in cheap sauce. Her stomach rumbled, but she paid no mind to the so-called food, her eyes fixated instead on the six crumpled notes spread out before her.

"Damn it," she muttered under her breath, frustration seeping into every crevice of her voice. "What the hell is this?"

Her gaze flicked over each note, trying to discern if there was any pattern or hidden meaning behind the scrawled numbers and letters. As her eyes narrowed in concentration, a spark of realization ignited within her.

"Wait a second." Mia leaned closer, scrutinizing the notes with renewed interest. Each one began with a number, followed by a series of seemingly random letters.

"Three, five, one . . .” she whispered, arranging the money by the numbers at the top of each note. The tension in her chest tightened as if she were holding her breath, waiting for a revelation. And then, she saw it.

The first number in the code was the order she had to read each one. They were the numbers one to six. The next part of the code was “p” followed by a number.

"Could it be?" Her heart hammered against her ribcage, a mix of excitement and fear coursing through her veins.

A tiger's snarl stared back at her from the mirror, its fangs bared in defiance. Mia ran her fingers over the tattoo on the back of her neck as she contemplated her next move. What if those numbers weren't just a random jumble? She remembered Jax(aka “Fred”) asking about her book—her treasured copy ofThe Jungle Book—during their last chat.

"Page numbers," she breathed, her green eyes widening at the thought. "They’re page numbers!"

Hurriedly, Mia grabbed her worn copy of The Jungle Book from the nightstand and flipped to page twenty-six. Her heart pounded, echoing in her ears like tribal drums as anticipation coursed through her veins. Please let it mean something, she prayed.

"Here goes nothing," she muttered, scanning the text for any possible clue. The words blurred together until one seemed to jump off the page, demanding her attention. Paragraph three, word five: "friend."

"Friend?" A shiver raced down her spine as the implications of that single word sank in. Was Jax trying to tell her that he was on her side? That he wanted to help her?

"Damn it, Jax. Who are you?" she whispered, torn between disbelief and hope. But there was no time to dwell on it; Mia needed answers, and she was determined to decode the rest of the messages.

"Let's see what else you're trying to tell me," she said with renewed purpose, flipping to the pages indicated by the other numbers scrawled on the money. As she worked, she couldn't help the small, secretive smile that tugged at her lips. After years of feeling trapped, Mia was beginning to taste the sweet possibility of freedom.

"Friend," she repeated, a fierce determination burning within her. The next word that Mia decoded was “of” and she felt a pang of excitement when she saw that. What was it going to say?Friend of yours?

As Mia continued with her hunt, she realized that part of her was finding this fun. It was about as close to Little space as she’d managed to get in a long time. Back when she was in foster care,she and Savannah had enjoyed being childlike together. Even as teenagers, they’d played the kinds of games much younger kids might have played. Probably something to do with having that shitty foster father who did things to them that he shouldn’t have, trying to force them to grow up so fast. So they’d retreated into their younger selves, their safe spaces.

Since then, Mia had done a bit of research into it. She’d had a few clients ask her to pretend to be Little now and then, which she kind of enjoyed, but she never liked how they acted. And she definitely, definitely didn’t like how Chad made her call him Daddy. He was no Daddy. The thought of it was ridiculous.

Anyway, she couldn’t afford to worry about all that stuff now. She only had a few minutes left before her cam shift, and she had a code to crack.

But the next code looked a bit different. “3-p48-11-6ed.”

She didn’t know what to make of it, but she looked in her book and found the word “saved.” Okay. So that word ended in “ed.” If she was to take off the “ed . . .” It left “sav.”

She wrinkled her noes. “Friend of sav?” Had she gotten this all wrong? Maybe she wasn’t reading the code right at all.

Unless . . .

Oh heck.

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