Page 636 of Flirting with Darkness

“Why don’t you take some time to wash up,” I offer her, my words oozing with kindness, crackling with warmth like a cozy log fire. “You’ll find some clothing in the closets, put on whatever you’re feeling.” Her size, colors and materials that flatter her, everything she needs to feel beautiful, confident, comfortable… like all good things will flow to her from me, if only she’d be receptive to them. To me.

It’s the mindset I need her nestled snugly into if my plan is going to unravel properly and in a timely fashion. The emotional manipulation may be crude, but it’s a shortcut to trust, and it’s one I need to take.

This is a game I’ve played, a trap I’ve set, a web I’ve woven a thousand times before. And at the end of the day, this spicy little thing’s no different from any of the other marks I’ve ever had my eyes on. She’ll fall just as hard and fast as them, and give me everything I desire at only my ask. It just… takes… time.

And right now, I don’t have that kind of time. This con is not a long one. It can’t be. Not when there are so many others closing in on my prize…

“I… don’t know what to say.”

I chuckle smoothly. Time to seal the deal. “I need a right hand. You need a hand up. Sometimes the world just works itself out right, right?” I smile, and when I do, it practically wills her to agree. A faint frown line tightens between her eyes, but she eventually cracks and nods, glancing away from me.

“Yeah,” she says, softly. Almost vulnerably. Almost, but not quite. “Thank you.”

I close the door on her, and wait. Listening, for the right sounds. For a few moments, stretching out like a pulled wire, the silence teases me with the thought that maybe, maybe this one is different, and she won’t just eat it all up.

Then quiet footsteps across the dark scraped wood floors, toward the bathroom and closet, tell me that no — as expected, she’s just like all the rest.

They all fall.

Alone in the hall, I do nothing to suppress the grin of triumph that spreads eagerly and wickedly across my face.

The clock is always ticking — but this time, it’s counting down in my favor.

4

KATYDID

Imight still be in a daze, but I’m pretty sure the last hour of my life has completely changed everything.

The water, clear and odorless, showers my skin like hot rainfall, and with every breath I find myself exhaling every single ounce of fear and worry and stress. That first of sip of water — that’s what sold me. I need to speak to my sister and my dad — to examine every loose end I can remember, and wrangle the rest out of Hadrion one way or another so I can make a plan on what to do next. But right now, I’m here, in uptown, for the first time in my life ever. Ever! Even in the shower, the water feels different, softer, somehow, and doesn’t have that faint smell of egg that our mildewy shower back home always does. And do you know how long it’s been since I’ve bathed in water any warmer than “tepid”?

I barely have time or thought to register the rest of the bathroom, like something out of a decorating magazine that Emily had left in our living room years ago, all glistening marble and pewter fixtures that glint with cleanliness and, above all, needless expense. This place is a palace, and I’m happily basking in it. I scrub what feels like a year’s worth of grime off of my skin, layer after layer peeled gently away by floral soap nicer than anything I’ve ever smelled in my life. What should have been a personal hygiene chore quickly ramps up into sensory overload, and I’m left gasping lungfuls of steam against the cool glass, sweaty and spent as I drown in the luxury I never envisioned I’d ever get to experience.

It’s like everything surrounding Hadrion, from what he does to what he owns, is magical. His world exists on a level of almost superhuman quality and richness, the value of which is brought down simply by proximity to the likes of me.

But, in his words, he needs me. He needs my ‘grit’, my ‘mettle’… whatever that means.

My fingers slick my hair back and wring out the droplets before groping blindly out of the walk-in shower for a towel. The ventilation’s so good in here the glass of the mirror isn’t even steamed up, and I stare hard at the girl reflected in it. She looks out of place, cleaner than usual with a fluffy black towel swathing her like a shroud. I’ve heard rumors about uptown women. What they look like. What they dress like. Most of them have to be just that — rumors. There’s no way some of them could be true.

Even still, I can’t see myself turning into a scented, gilded, fur-trimmed, pampered princess, who never lifts a finger lest she break a nail and spends more on a pair of heels than it costs us to keep the lights on for a month. I’ll be okay with whatever the world throws at me without it changing who I am at my core. I’ve lived through gunfire, and explosions, and even a kinda-sorta kidnapping today. How much worse than that could anything up here really get?

There’s clothing in the closet. That’s what he told me, but the reality of said closet is so far removed from such a simple, throwaway statement. It’s packed to groaning with clothes both hanging and folded, all in deep rich gemstone colors, the fabric soft and lavish. I drag my fingers along a row of shirts and tank tops; the tips are rough from work, and catch on the silky, flimsy, delicate items. Biting my lip, I find a sweatshirt in black that might fit, and —

Gah, I need underwear. I open the top drawer of four within the closet, smoother than my own back home, and my throat corkscrews itself shut. Row after row of neatly folded panties lay there in black, white, and various shades of red. They couldn’t… possibly just… happen to be my size… could they? I pull out a pair and examine them.

… they are.

My heart skips a beat or two of its rapid rhythm, and I quickly fumble for the tag on the sweatshirt.

Also my size.

I swallow, thick and dry. It’s got to be a coincidence. How could he —

“Finding everything you need?”

Hadrion’s whiskey-rough voice has me whipping around on the spot as if caught doing something I shouldn’t be, a pang of guilt balling up in the pit of my stomach. I catch my towel before it drops and hurriedly scamper back into it.

“I, I —!” I stammer, completely shocked to see him standing there. He’s shrugged himself free of his road-worn leather jacket, now clad in a black button-down shirt and new, clean, crisp jeans. He looks like he’s showered too, and shaved. He walks a few steps toward me.

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