Page 16 of Ambition

I hear Karia slide off my bed and a moment later she’s walking past me, her slim hips swaying as she does as he bids.

I roll my eyes and head toward the door too, eager to get in the shower and put distance between me and Von, with running water and heat and something to dissolve my thoughts and the tension in my muscles, and aches throughout my body from last night.

Without thinking, I wince as I rotate my neck, my throat sore and all the tendons tight.

Karia walks past Von tentatively, turning right down the hall to head to the living room. I intend to brush by him too since he doesn’t move and instead just stares me down, but when I turn to angle past him, he turns, too.

I have to tip my head up and his body is grazing mine in the small space of my doorway.

He stares down his nose at me. “You good?” he asks quietly, glancing at my throat.

I bite the inside of my cheek and fold my arms to put a little distance orsomethingbetween us. “Great.”

His hands are at his hips, but he glides his fingers over my thigh, bare from changing into my gym shorts.

I breathe in and try not to let that little touch affect me.

“You sure?” he presses, grazing his fingertips up and down my skin.

Goosebumps form along my body and my nipples tighten, aching and pressed against my forearms from where they’re crossed over my chest. “Are you setting this false concern up to say something nasty?” I lift my chin. “Go ahead. Get it over with.”

His short nails scrape lightly on my thigh and a small smile curves his full lips. “No,” he says softly. “I don’t think I will. I think I’m just getting started.” He keeps brushing against my leg. “But for now I have to go put these,” he clamps his hand along my muscle, “insideher.”Then he walks away, whispers of his fingers along my thigh as he leaves.

I’m not content with him having the last word though. Fuck that. I step into the corridor and face the back of his head, his hair a mess since his hat is off now. “I wonder if she knows you’ll be wishing it was me instead.” He stiffens and stops, like I hit him. But without waiting for a response or for him to turn around, I head for the shower.

* * *

The music makesmy chest tighten and my head hurt. It feels like the epitome of hell in here.Thisis what the poets write about. The thing the Christians disdain. The jarring cymbals and discordant notes, this is where people burn. Red lights glow in something demonic along the faux walls of the space and I huddle my knees to my chest as I bow my head, closing my eyes and trying not tohear.

It’s impossible, of course. But maybe my lifelong love of metal and rock will pay off as my eardrums ache and my throat is tight and it is like nails digging beneath my skin, all the way to bone.

Halloween is tonight.Today,maybe, though I don’t know what time it is.

A hotel party on the thirtieth. That’s what put me here. Hotel No. 7.

A stupid fucking thing that my parents only agreed to let me attend because Von would be there and Von would protect me, and our private school friends have a lot to lose too, and no one expected a man to enter the room with a forged key card. No one expected everyone to be so drunk that none of us heard him come in. Tiptoe to the first bathroom in the suite, where I had fallen asleep on the floor and the boy I blew was dead to the world in the tub.

Von… I don’t know where he was. I told him to leave me alone. To let me fuck London, an older guy, one who didn’t go to our school but got invited through a mutual friend. It was such bad sex. I did all the work, and I didn’t orgasm.

And I sent Von away.

I sent him away.

“You know it’s not you they want,” the guard in my room says, yelling over the music. I don’t know how he can stand it but when I lift my head and meet his dark eyes, I see it then. Beige earplugs in his ears, visible from his cropped hair, his temple pink due to the reflection of the red lights.

He isn’t smiling at me, gun on his hip, arms folded.

I don’t speak as the music assaults us both.

He comes closer then, bends down so his hands are on his thighs. I lift my chin and don’t shrink away, my nostrils flaring and catching the scent of his sweat.

Or maybe it’s mine.

“It’s the redhead. Mads’s son. Mads has deeper secrets than your parents, love.” He glances at my white T-shirt. I’m not wearing a bra beneath.

I hug myself tighter, trying to shield what I can.

“But you probably have something just as deep, don’t ya?”

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