Page 34 of House Rules
Storm
Phoenix has been sittingagainst the wall beside the elevator for more than an hour, unmoving, exactly where she slid down after the doors opened and spit her out. At first, I thought she’d force herself to stand, to cross the expanse of floor and pick one of us to approach—Maverick, maybe.
Whoever she decided looked least likely to eat her alive.
She doesn’t understand yet. But she will. Soon.
None of us will hurt her—not truly, not in the way people mean when they talk about men hurting women. Not fists for sport. Not cruelty for its own sake. That isn’tour game.
Our games are… more.
And yet she’s right to be wary. Every one of us is a threat, and some deeply buried instinct knows that. None of us are here to be kind. None of us are here to make her smile.
We’ll probably make her cry.
But she’ll probably ask for more of whatever got her to that point.
That thought is still pinging through my skull when Phoenix’s gaze collides with mine. She hesitates, then stirs. One leg unfolds beneath her, her heel planting, her muscles gathering for the rise.
I click my tongue—a thin, sibilant warning. My hand is already on the blade. The motion is a habit so old it feels like breath: draw back, shoulder loose, wrist easy. The knife leaves my fingers in a clean arc, spins once, and lands with a quietthudin the paneled wall an inch from her temple.
She freezes.
I let my mouth split in something that isn’t quite a smile and bare my teeth. Slowly, as if lowering herself into cold water, she slides back down untilher spine meets the wall again. Her eyes stay wide and unblinking on mine.
Defiance lives in the tilt of her chin, though. Stubbornness resides in the line of her mouth. Her right hand tightens and releases against her thigh, a small, futile fist she probably doesn’t even know she’s making.
I catch my bottom lip in my teeth—wariness pricking under my curiosity, because I know better than most that the ones you should be the most cautious of are the quiet ones. They don’t make scenes. They make choices.
What sort of sound would she make if I drew blood? Not many, I don’t think. I think she’d hold her sounds in as long as she could, out of sheer petty willfulness.
Across the room, I study her skin the way I like to study the edge of a blade I’m interested in—impassive, precise. The lighting throws a soft sheen over the paleness, and freckles scatter like copper dust on the bridge of her nose and the sweep of her shoulders.
She doesn’t get much sun.
If I pressed steel there, just so—her stomach would be the best spot to start, the softest give beneath the point—crimson would well in a thin line, a thoughtful bloom that fattens as air meets blood.
Would she whimper?
Would she scream?
Would she moan?
The question hits like a punch to the gut, and I’m suddenly, uncomfortably hard. The second knife leaves my fingers before I’ve finished exhaling. It bites the wall closer to her shoulder. She flinches, the smallest betrayal of fear, but she doesn’t look away.
Something low and old rumbles up from my chest.
What game is she playing? So many girls come here for the adrenaline, for the nearness of danger that makes their blood ring in their ears. Maybe she’s the same. Why else sign a contract like the one between us? It can’t beonlythe money. There are easier ways to earn without staining your soul the way this place can.
Without signing it over to people like us.
Movement ghosts into my periphery. A girl—one of the guests—edges closer, hungry for attention the way some people crave their next hit. She’s wearing a tiny schoolgirl skirt that looks like it’s forgotten its job, silver piercings winking where she wants eyes to settle, and eyeliner laid on thick.
She’s trying too hard. But then, most of the girls that come up here are trying too hard. They don’t understand that’s the one thing guaranteed to get them a ticket to the lobby when we’re finished with them.
I slant Phoenix another glance, then angle my body toward her. Let her think she’s got me, for as long as I can stand her, anyway.
Let Phoenix see me turn away.
