Page 25 of Through The Woods

I could do this.

I’d made it through AP Calculus my sophomore year of high school. This was going to be a cake walk compared to that.

I pulled the rubber gloves back up to my elbows and forced the bathroom door open again.

Nope.

I couldn’t do it. I was going to have to break my promise to Charm.

These men were disgusting. So far, Rooster’s room was the only one that hadn’t left me dry heaving in the hallway and I still had two more rooms to finish after this one. Mine and Charm’s. At least I knew that one of those would be simple.

I took in the piles of used Kleenex covering the bathroom counter and floor. Looked like I’d made it to Sneezy’s room, and the man apparently wasn’t familiar with the concept of wastebaskets. I swept the tissues off the counter and into the large black trash bag at my feet.

Once that was completed, I cleaned the mirror and bleached the countertop. I took my time sanitizing everything; avoiding the toilet for as long as possible. It was no wonder they lived alone—I was willing to bet that even club whores had some standards.

With the rest of the bathroom gleaming, I reluctantly turned my attention back to the toilet and wielded the toilet brush as if it was a weapon before taking a tentative step forward. The thing probably hadn’t been cleaned since it was installed.

There was something black on the seat and once I got closer, I realized it was a hair.

I tried telling myself it probably fell from someone’s head and not their—

Nope.

I was going to vomit. My eyes watered and I began gagging. It took several deep breathing exercises and a prayer to any god that would hear me before I felt like I was in control again.

I poured a generous helping of bleach over the entire tank, praying that it would kill all the bacteria that was undoubtedly living on it. It took me three tries, with breaks to step outside the room and gag, but I finally managed to get the damn thing clean.

I mopped and vacuumed before moving down to the end of the hall. Checking my watch, I saw that I had time to clean one more room before I needed to get dinner going. I’d mistakenly thought that I’d just reheat the chicken pot pie from last night, but the bikers devoured every bit of it at lunch, leaving me with no choice but to cook something else.

No big deal.

I’d only made my first meal yesterday.

How hard could another one be?

I decided to leave my room for the next day and just get Charm’s done. I expected it to be locked, but the silver handle turned easily in my hand and I pushed the cleaning cart inside with only the smallest sense that I was intruding. It smelled faintly of leather and smoke, I noted, as I flipped on the light switch. The bed was already made up and everything appeared to be in its place.

I took my dust cloth and wiped down the dressers and nightstand anyway. It took me less than five minutes. Whereas the other bikers had multiple picture frames of what I could only assume were there families, Charm had one. One picture in the entire room; a picture of him and a woman, resting on his nightstand.

They had their arms around each other and he was smiling—making him almost unrecognizable. The girl was beautiful with dark blue eyes and jet-black hair.

I risked a quick glance at the door before easing the top drawer of the nightstand open. I was just going to see if he had any other pictures hidden away. It was crazy, but suddenly, a small part of me needed to know more about this woman.

For instance, where was she?

The drawer was unassuming enough. There were several hastily scrawled notes left on worn pieces of paper, but nothing that caught my eye. I was just about to slide it closed when I noticed the edge of a leather book peeking out from under the papers.

I debated briefly on whether to leave it and walk away, but curiosity won in the end. It was old; the spine had vertical cracks in it and the brown leather was worn and faded. I flipped to the first page and began reading.

“What’d I tell you about bringing strays back here? Was I not clear on that?” His voice sent a tremor of fear through me, but I refused to cower in front of him.

I’d known that it was stupid to think that I could keep a puppy hidden from him. The grounds around here were never ending, but there always seemed to be someone watching. Someone just waiting to bust me doing something wrong.

The poor mutt had wandered into the grocery store with its eyes matted shut and green gunk caked all over its face. The club whore that brought me was distracted with shooting up on the side of a nearby building, so I grabbed the puppy and hid him under my jacket. It was freezing and I figured he wouldn’t last another night.

When I got back to the clubhouse, I found her sitting on an old tire, staring off into space. She’d claimed to be daydreaming, but my dreams never left me looking scared. I dragged her out to the old barn and showed her what I’d gotten for us. With a little bit of digging, I found an old heating lamp and some blankets so the little guy was snuggled in nice and tight.

“He’s real small now, but I swiped a couple cans of dog food so we can fatten him up.”

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