Page 10 of Roulette Rodeo
"It's evening," Briar corrected, her voice oddly gentle.
I froze mid-stretch, my brain struggling to process.
"What?"
"Evening. As in, shift starts in two hours."
"WHAT?!" I shrieked, scrambling to stand.
The Manager would kill me.Literally.
I'd seen what happened to girls who missed shifts without permission?—
My legs buckled like overcooked spaghetti. I would have face-planted into our cracked linoleum floor if Briar hadn't caught me, her arms surprisingly strong as they wrapped around my waist.
We both stared at my traitorous legs, which were trembling like a newborn fawn's.
"You haven't been taking your other pills, huh?" Briar's voice was resigned rather than surprised.
I frowned, trying to focus through the lingering fever.
"They're expensive. How am I supposed to save enough to get out of here if I'm spending half my tips on medication that just makes me functional enough to earn more tips?"
The irony wasn't lost on either of us.
The circulation medication costs two hundred dollars a month—money that could go toward my escape fund. But without it, the double doses of suppressants caused nerve damage that made my legs go numb after lying still too long.
Briar didn't respond to my economics lesson. She just sighed and adjusted her grip, helping me stay upright.
"Come on, let's get you to the bathroom."
"I have a shift?—"
"No, you don't." She started moving us toward our tiny ensuite, the one luxury of even the smallest rooms. "After our performance last night, the Reeves pack left a massive tip. Apparently, we did such a good job 'entertaining' both packs that Marnay's feeling generous. Three days off, paid."
I gaped at her, trying to process this unprecedented generosity.
Three days off? Paid?
In three years, I'd had exactly five days off, and those were because I'd been unconscious from suppressant overdose.
The memory of last night crashed over me—Briar in that obscene outfit, offering herself to those animals to save me from?—
I tried to look at her body, searching for bruises, bite marks, evidence of what she'd endured. But she maneuvered us into the bathroom too quickly, depositing me on the closed toilet seat before I could catalog the damage.
The tingling in my legs was spreading, pins and needles that made me twitch involuntarily.
"Ugh, I hate this shit," I groaned, rubbing my thighs to encourage circulation.
Briar leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest.
She'd changed out of the performance outfit into simple jeans and a black t-shirt, but I could smell them on her—seven different alpha scents layered over her skin like a horrible perfume. Bourbon and leather from Marcus Reeves, synthetic musk from Tommy Castellano, and others I couldn't identify.They clung to her despite what must have been multiple showers.
"Does it only happen in the morning?" she asked, watching me massage feeling back into my legs.
"When I've been still too long," I admitted. "And yeah, technically mornings, since I usually pass out after shifts and don't move for hours. The medication would fix it, but?—"
"Too expensive, I know." She pushed off from the doorframe. "Look, get ready. We're going to get breakfast."
