Page 12 of Hiding for the Holidays
“You know that includes you now, too?”
“What?” she asks, her eyes going wide.
“You work here now, so you’re under our protection. If you run into trouble or ever need any help, you just let us know, okay?”
She stares at me as if trying to read between the lines, then she slowly nods her head. “Okay.”
“Great, now why don’t you go see Grant, and he’ll pay you for the day.”
Her eyes widen again at the mention of money. “I get paid today?”
“Yes, we’ll pay you at the end of each day you work, if that’s okay?”
“That’s perfect!” she says excitedly.
“Oh, do you have that employment form filled out?”
“Yeah, I have it here,” she says, pulling it off ofher clipboard.
“I’ll take that; you go find Grant in the back.”
“Thanks, Leo.”
I nod my head as she scurries off, giving me a chance to read it. Under address and phone number, she’s left them both blank, making me frown. She needs to give us her phone number; how else will we contact her?
I think about whether I’ve seen her pull her cell out at all today and realize she hasn’t. She’s been holding that clipboard all day. Does she not have a phone?
I scan the paper and flip it over, and my eyes widen, realizing I forgot to delete the question asking which one of us she finds the most attractive. “Shit.”
“What’s wrong?” Asher asks, stepping up to look over my shoulder. “You idiot, you left that in?”
“I didn’t mean to! I thought I deleted it. I blame Grant for distracting me.”
“Look, she answered it.” He points to her handwriting underneath, and I lift the page to read what she wrote.
“Grant ten out of ten. Leo ten out of ten. Asher ten out of ten.” I lower the page as Asher frowns.
“What does that mean?”
I smirk at him as I look back in the direction she went. “She gave us all perfect scores. She likes us.”
Chapter 6
Rosalie
Aloud bang has me jolting upright from my sleep. I stare around my tiny room with wide eyes, looking for a threat, but everything appears untouched. My chair is still wedged under the door handle and the window is closed and locked.
I let out a deep sigh and lay back down, staring at the ceiling. A door slams down the hall, and a man starts yelling, then another man shouts back. This goes on for over twenty minutes.
Checking the time, I see it’s two o’clock in the morning. It took me ages to fall asleep, and I was probably only out for about an hour. I roll over and cover my ear with my hand, but it doesn’t do much to muffle the noises.
Why is everyone awake at such an ungodly hour? Is everyone who lives here high on drugs? Couldn’t they at least do that during the day and not at night so I could sleep?
Someone hits my door and I gasp, sitting up and pushing my back against the wall. I reach under my pillow for my pocketknife and try to open it.
My hands shake with fear as another loud bang thumps against my door. It’s not someone knocking, it’s like someone’s entire body is smacking into it, trying to force it open.
The knife finally opens, and in the process, slices across my palm. I hiss in pain, looking around for something to stop the bleeding but I have no extra clothes. The t-shirt I’m sleeping in the only piece of clothing I don’t wear during the day. I grab the hem of it and pull up the bottom to wrap around my palm, whimpering in pain as I pull it tight.
