Page 17 of Shattered
“Seemed like?”
She sighed, shaking her head to herself. “It’s not really painting if they only want to see you naked. And it’s not really working if you’re forced labor and you’re lucky to see fifteen percent of what you charge.”
I had known that the Dahlia District was a sexual entertainment club for the wealthy, but less than fifteen percent actually paid to the workers? Prices that were no doubt exorbitant.
“Dahlia owns this place?” I asked carefully.
“She doesn’t hurt us,” Melissa said quickly.
Hurting, in my own rules, meantphysicalabuse. Stealing, which was what Melissa had stated, was an irritation of mine, but it didn’t warrant death. Dahlia was off the hook, in that case.
“Show me your other paintings,” I said.
She furrowed her brow. “These are my paintings.”
“No, they’re not.” I shook my head. “The ones you painted for yourself. No one else.”
She studied me for a moment, then walked downstairs. I expected her to return with a knife, finally coming to her senses and ordering me out, but she clutched another large canvas to her chest. She tilted it backward, looking down at it.
“You’re not going to judge me?” she asked. Then a flash of emotion crossed her face. She shook her head. I smiled, though she couldn’t see it.
“You just asked a murderer if he would judge you.”
“Yeah, I know.” She turned it around and handed it to me.
A dark-gray canvas. In the bottom left corner, a light appeared to flicker, four hands turning a head, twisting it into itself, the man’s face as if it were screaming and dripping into oblivion, dissolving into the gray brush strokes.
It was passionate and savage. Violence lurking at the edges. The urge to rip off my mask and see it without anything hindering my eyes swelled within me.
“Authenticity is at the center of all of us,” I said. “But there are very few people who are willing to show that kind of genuine response to the world.” I handed the canvas back to her. “Have you shown this to anyone else?”
“No.”
“Not even a friend? A boyfriend or a girlfriend?” She shook her head. “Does fear make you less afraid of showing me?”
“I’m not scared,” she said, her chin held high. “If you were going to kill me, you would have done so already.”
“I could kill you right now.” Her lip quivered, but she steadied it, and her gaze never dropped from mine. “Authenticity, Melissa,” I said, sensuality gripping my voice. “There’s no escaping who we really are. Deep inside, we’re all just humans trying to survive. Sex. Fear of death. Rage fills us, threatens to overflow. But how many people are willing to go there? To let it show? To look in the mirror and see what’s really there?”
“You wear a mask,” she said.
I stepped closer for the first time that night, our knees touching where she was sitting at the edge of the bed. She didn’t move away. “This isn’t my flesh,” I grabbed her hand and pulled her up, bringing her palm to the side of my mask, daring her to rip it away, “But it is my soul. This is who I am. Underneath the bullshit hypocrisy of the world. When you pull back the layers and layers of societal norms. I’m a power-hungry killer, bent on making others pay. What are you hiding? What does your soul contain?”
Violence flashed in her eyes, and I pinched her chin. After a few moments, she said, “I don’t know.”
“You took the job at the Dahlia District thinking it would be a stepping stone, launching your career into some high paying clients. You could open up your own gallery or studio, and use your notoriety to gain worldwide attention. Only you quickly learned that the high paying clients of the Dahlia District liked theideaof a painter, but wanted nothing more than to see you naked.” Her eyes watered, blinking up at me. They were blue now, sky-colored even in the shadows of her bedroom. There was something off about every part of her. Her hair dye. Her profession. Her eye color. “The world disappoints you, doesn’t it? The resentment tempers through you, building inside of you like a storm.” I forced her to look into my masked face. “You even hide your eyes. Are we really so different?”
She licked her lips, drawing my attention to that supple mouth. I let go, turning away from her.
“Do you have male friends at the Dahlia District?” I asked.
“My friend works security,” she said. “Well, he’s more like a brother to me.”
“Does he hurt you?”
“He’s never physically hurt me, no.”
I faced her then. Her word choice was hiding something. “Has he ever touched you when you didn’t want to be touched?”
