Damien
I let out a sigh of relief and walk towards the lake. So much for cleaning myself up in the shower yesterday—my pits are sweaty again, and although the smell doesn’t make me gag anymore, I’m still nowhere near fresh. I kick my shoes off in the muddy sand and tiptoe towards the water. It’s a bit disgusting looking but feels nice against my feet. The moment of peace is short-lived as I take in my surroundings and my heart stops. To my left, much deeper into the water, I see limbs. An arm flailing around. Water splashing, hair disappearing under the water and up again. I am not a hero. I have never claimed to be. I’m not even a good swimmer. But I’m no complete asshole either.
“Goddammit,” I curse as I get into the water and swim towards the drowning body. All I’ve learned from TV is never to try to grab a drowning person with your own arms, as they’ll push you down to keep themselves out of the water. I glance around the water, looking for some kind of stick for the drowning person to hold onto. When I can’t find anything, I simply take off my trousers and offer them to the arms. It takes some awkward manoeuvring, and the hands don’t immediately take hold. When they do, I pull them towards me, grab their torso, and try to avoid any flailing limbs.
“It’s okay. You’re okay,” I murmur. Said person doesn’t care about my reassurances as they keep thrashing and gasping for air when I try to swim back to shore. It’s proven to be a difficult task, as the body is heavier than I anticipated. Not a child, then. They keep kicking and pushing me, and I have to concentrate hard on the beach in front of me to keep going. After what feels like years, I’m able to drag myself and the body out of the water. I throw myself on the sand with a thump and let them fall as well. I hope I don’t have to do CPR—I’ve only seen it on hospital shows. Now that we’re out of the water, I can take a look at whoever I’ve saved from drowning. I can’t figure out if they’re a man or a woman. Their hair is a white-blonde colour, and they have fair skin and wet clothes that must be made of lace. I only then notice the pockets of the cardigan they’re wearing and how they’re filled with something. Rocks, to be precise.
“Oh Jesus, did you try to drown yourself?” I curse in surprise.
The suicidal being jerks their head towards me, eyes blazing. With them looking at me, I still can’t quite figure out their gender, but there are no breasts in sight.
“Well, it would have worked if you just let me!” they snap. This startles a laugh out of me, which they don’t appreciate if their glare is anything to go by.
“No, it wouldn’t. You can’t kill yourself like that. It’s human nature to do everything it can to survive. If you really wanted to die, you’d have to swim much farther. Also, the stones weren’t heavy enough—you wouldn’t have sunk, either,” I tell them.
“Well, thank you for the generous feedback.”
“I’m just saying, if this was a suicide attempt, it was quite a stupid one.”
“And you’re an expert? If you were, I figure you’d be dead yourself,” they huff, running a hand through their wet hair.
I shrug. “‘Course not. But I just know that dying is, like … harder than it looks. So you shouldn’t do it. Not intentionally, at least.”
“You should pursue a career in suicide prevention,” they tell me with an amused smile.
I smile too and try to wring out my wet trousers. My ass and underwear will probably be covered in sand now. That’s what you get for trying to save someone.
“Where’s my thank you for saving your stupid life, then?” I demand.
“I didn’t want to be saved … so …”
“So next time I should just let you drown?”
“Yep.”
“Noted. Can’t believe I got undressed for you,” I say with a dramatic sigh.
They chuckle at me. “Yeah, damn. That’s something worth thanking for.”
I raise my eyebrow at them. They’re not unattractive. In fact, this suicidal stranger has beautiful eyes and freckles.
“I’m Damien,” I tell them when I have no better comeback.
“I’m—” they start, only to be interrupted by a shrill scream.
“Abel!” a voice shouts. Then it’s echoed by some twenty more
voices.
“Ah fuck,” the stranger says with a deep sigh.
It’s been almost a year of living on the streets of Solons. I can’t say it’s my favourite place to be homeless, but it’s certainly the most common. Solons is one of those cities where dreams die and people go when they have nothing left to lose. It’s located in the north of Endor, next to the sea that brings you to Ireland.
Solons has a port, but it’s only used for cargo coming to and from the rest of Europe. Most passenger boats skip Solons to go to Carvella or Endor instead, as they cater more to tourists and people willing to send their money. In Solons, everybody guards what little money they have, and when they have enough, they use it to move out of the city.
I haven’t found my favourite way of making money yet. The first year I was homeless, I tried stealing some pills from pharmacies to sell. It worked for a while, considering the healthcare system in Solons is shit, just like the people living here. Sadly, the pharmacies’ security systems got stricter each month. I pride myself on being the reason for that.
I’ve done some under-the-table work, which pays well but always ends badly. My favourite job was guarding the rooms at the Silk Haven. At first, I hated it. I hated seeing gross men going inside to have sex with way-too-young-looking girls. They’d have wedding rings, pictures of their children in their wallets, and prestigious jobs. I wanted to barge in and murder one of the men the first time I stood outside and heard Lila’s screams. One of the other guards told me to back off and do what I was getting paid for. Later, Lila came to comfort me. Telling me that the screaming was an act and that the man was into it.
“Christ, Lila, how’d you end up here?” I had said. Lila was no older than twenty then. Her hair was dyed a platinum blonde and her nose had piercings in both nostrils.
“Probably the same way you ended up here. In need of money
and nowhere else to go,” she had told me.
Sometimes I fantasise about returning to the Silk Haven and getting all the girls out. The men who came there decided that the guards at the door were just a bit too scary for them, that their comfort was worth more than the safety of the girls working there, so the owner let us go.
I used to be able to eat a hot meal for free in the homeless shelters scattered around the cities. It was only once a day, but it was that time of day that I’d go to bed thinking about. If I pictured it clearly enough, I could almost taste the mashed potatoes and stewed meat. Sadly, those days ended about a year ago. Endor was finally getting the tourism money it deserved, and to ensure it stayed that way, the poor cities needed to get rid of their homeless. The government voted against soup kitchens and building more homeless shelters. They argued that helping the homeless would enable them to remain that way.
It doesn’t matter what I do here, because nobody cares. I’m getting too old for this, though—I know that for sure. A time will come when “running away from home” will no longer be a good enough excuse and I will be put in the same category as the homeless drunkards roaming the streets and begging for money and cigarettes. I always tell myself I’ll never in a million years beg for money. But I also told myself I’d never dig through trash, I’d never steal from people who weren’t rich, I’d never steal from people on Christmas day, and I’d never steal from people in holy places—but I’ve done all of those and more. There is no place for my dignity anymore.
I’d do a lot of things for money. I haven’t crossed the begging line yet, but maybe soon I will. And then I’ll find another line and cross that one too.
Abel
The first time Mum told me about dying was after one of the Seers had passed away from what Vena had called pneumonia. Vena had worked in a hospital before becoming a Seer. She never really talked about it and wasn’t generally allowed to be a healer—we had the coven for that. But she always indulged my curiosity, no matter how old I was.
I had seen the Seer in his last moments. He was vomiting and thrashing around on his sleeping mat. It reeked in the room where I watched the healers fuss over him. I was too young to realise what was happening to the man, but I knew that whatever the healers were doing was a lost cause.
Mum had picked me up and carried me to her room. I don’t remember how old I was, but at the time I felt too old to be carried. Still, it was one of the few times Mum actually touched me, so I bit my tongue and let her lay me on the bed next to her.
“Do you know what happens if you die, honey?”
I shook my head. I had never thought about death before. I had seen bugs die and heard the chickens being slaughtered, but I’d never felt anything about it. I never saw death as something real and scary. Mum scratched my scalp and played with the ends of my hair.
“Everyone thinks something different. Some people say you go to the sky. They believe there is a heaven, which is a nice place where everything is okay and feels nice. You can only go there if you’ve been good though. Only good people go to heaven.”
“And what if you’re bad?” I asked.
Mum hummed. “Then those people believe you go to hell. That’s the bad place. But I don’t believe any of that, darling. And you don’t ever have to worry about being bad. You are the best. The best anyone could ask for. My special miracle,” she said. She pressed a kiss to my forehead.
Whenever she said this, it made me feel okay about not being invited to climb trees or play tag with the other
kids. I didn’t need to play with people. I didn’t need to belong with them. I had a reason why I didn’t. Because I was special: a miracle. I was divine.
“Nobody knows for certain what happens if you die. All we know is that the thing in your body that makes everything work, your heart, stops beating. It’s like the music box Neith showed you, remember? You can only wind it up so far before it stops dancing. Your heart does the same. It stops beating. Hopefully, when we’re old and tired. But sometimes, when you’re sick, the heart has a hard time making everything run smoothly. So it can’t do it any more, and it stops.”
“Does that hurt?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think so. I think that it hurts more for the people around you because they get to miss you,” Mum said.
“Will you die too?”
“Yes, my love. Everyone dies in the end,” she said. “When?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Hopefully not for a long time,” she told me.
“Not for a hundred years,” I added with a smile.
“Not for a hundred years, no. I would miss you too much, wouldn’t I?”
After that, I saw a lot of deaths. I caused deaths. I would say they were countless, but I kept track of everyone I killed. I was too scared to write it on paper, so I carved a tally mark into my bed frame for every life. It was obsessive, but I felt I needed to stay a good person. Mum and Neith always assured me I was a good person. That I was doing the right things. But dying didn’t look painless. It didn’t look like I was doing the right thing by doing it to other people.
Even though I didn’t particularly like it, I grew used to death. Didn’t mind it that much after a while. It didn’t scare me. I read books Vena gave me, where death was a big, fearful thing that resulted in crying, screaming, and scratching the walls. But the Seers saw things differently of course. We saw the end, we saw the beginning. There was nothing else to fear. We didn’t need to fear death, we controlled it.
Willow is the first to run towards me, as if I am still on the verge of drowning. She wraps both arms around me, not caring for my wet clothes or the half-unclothed man next to me on the sand.
“What did you do? I kept having such a bad feeling all day, and then I just had such a strong desire to go to the water—and I couldn’t find you anywhere. What did you do? Did you fall? Did he push you?” she rambles, finally looking over at Damien. Meanwhile, Neith and Berach make a run toward me as well. It’s mortifying.
Damien raises both hands in surrender. “I did no such thing. I just saved them from trying to drown themselves. Which they haven’t even said thank you for,” he says, looking at me pointedly.
I grit my teeth and glare at him. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he says with a grin.
Neith stares at me in disbelief, while Berach stares at Damien in disbelief. Damien sits, bare thighs in the sand, and looks at me. He’s muscular, with broad shoulders and big thighs. His hair is long and dark and drips down his body and his heaving chest; , his eyes are brown and narrow, with faintly-creased lids
“You saved them?” Berach asks Damien.
“Yeah. They were drowning,” Damien says again.
I was barely drowning. Willow is still fussing over me, pushing my hair back
and feeling my forehead. Her hair is tied up in a bun on top of her head but has so many loose strands that it looks like a bird made its nest there.
“You stupid, stupid idiot,” she keeps murmuring to me.
I can tell by Neith’s expression that she shares the sentiment. “Let’s go back home. You’ll catch a cold like this,” Neith tells me.
“And let’s bring your saviour with us. The least we can do is offer him some clean clothes and a hot meal tonight,” Berach says.
“Oh, no—that’s okay,” Damien says quickly.
Neith tuts at him, and Berach waves a hand. “I insist.”
Damien shakes his head and starts waving his wet pants in the air, like that’ll make them dry faster. “No, really, I need to get going,” he says nervously.
I don’t feel particularly grateful towards him, nor do I think I owe him anything. But it’s my first ever contact with anyone outside the family. Anyone besides the Seers. I am perfectly in my right to demand some more time with him. “Come with us and stay for dinner,” I command him.
Willow gives a surprised laugh and pinches my arm. I ignore the pain in my throat and enjoy the way Damien does as I say.
All of us walk through the woods back home. Neith squeezes my shoulder as she passes by me. “You’re in big trouble,” she tells me. It’s what she always tells me when I do something that might hurt me—but this time, she seems to mean it.
I have to admit that I’m quite enjoying Damien’s bewildered look the entire time, from when he gets new clothes until he joins us for dinner.
Willow doesn’t let me out of her sight, even following me when I have to pee. She waits outside until I’m done and then walks back with me. It’s humiliating. This is why he shouldn’t have saved me. Such a stupid, stupid man. Which is what I tell him when I get a hold of him at the end of the night.
He’s dressed in one of our handmade sweaters, stitched together in all different colours. His hair is tied up in a ponytail, and he’s wearing his own ugly shoes.
He laughs when I tell him and shakes his head. “Don’t get mad at me for saving your life. Next time wave a flag around that says ‘don’t save me’ or something.”
“There won’t be a next time,” I grumble as I sit down next to him on the grass.
“Good,” he says easily.
I glare at him. “Because now I’ll never be left alone again and have to be supervised with everything I do.”
“Because you probably should. I really don’t feel sorry for you,” he says.
I fume. I want to hurt him. Slap his face, bite his shoulder, scratch his eyes. But he sits there with this calm look on his face, like he didn’t just ruin everything.
“So I hear you’re kind of a big deal,” he begins.
I snort at the huge understatement. I am the biggest deal. He wouldn’t be able to comprehend it.
“Yes,” I say simply.
“They call you ‘Divine Abel.’ And say that you have powers. You used them on me before, right?” he asks.
“Yes. They call me a Siren,” I explain proudly.
Damien’s lip curls slightly. “Is that why you tried to kill yourself in the water? Because
you’re a siren?”
I gasp, halfway between amused and annoyed. “How dare you speak to me like that?” I demand.
Damien shrugs and grins again. “I’m not religious.”
“So? There’s nothing religious about me. I’m right here,” I say.
“Yeah, and I’m not really blown away. Sorry. You’re probably not used to that,” he says.
“Most people would be blessed to even be in the same room with me,” I argue.
“Which is why it’s good for your ego.”
“Willow will have your ass for this, just so you know,” I tell him.
He looks around, eyes squinting. “Who’s that again?”
I point to where Willow is helping Vena clean up after dinner. They’re both wearing long dresses and have their hair up for practicality. Vena’s hair is dark brown and reaches her shoulders, while Willow’s strawberry blonde hair touches her lower back when it’s down.
“That’s her. She’s my wife. Technically,” I tell him. “Technically,” he echoes.
“Yes. She’s our healer but can do some serious damage if provoked, so I’d watch it if I were you,” I warn him.
Damien snorts at me. “Again, I’m not religious. I’m not that scared of those things.”
“Suit yourself. Don’t come crying to me when she puts a hex on you.”
“I thought Sirens lured men to their deaths with their voices,” Damien continues without acknowledging my comment.
“Who says that’s not exactly what I’m doing?”
Damien snorts out an amused laugh but leaves it at that. We sit in comfortable silence for a bit. I see Willow scan the room, looking for me. She only relaxes again when we meet eyes and sees I’m not alone.
“Did they offer you a place to sleep yet?” I ask.
Damien gives me a look. “Why would they?”
“Where else would you go? Find a nice bridge to lay under?”
Damien flushes. He bites his lip and averts my eyes. “Mind your business,” he tells me.
Oh, the irony. Before I can tell him as much, Neith walks towards us and flops down next to me. She groans when she does so, much like Berach does. I’m not sure if it’s because it actually hurts their legs or because every adult above thirty has to do it.
“I have a proposal,” she tells us.
“No thank you, I’m already married,” I say dryly. She ignores me completely and focuses on Damien.
“We can never thank you enough for saving Abel. I don’t want to think about what would have happened if you weren’t here. There isn’t money enough to repay you for that,” she tells him. It’s a bit much, but Damien flushes even more, almost like he’s shy. It’s quite cute.
“I think it would be good for Abel to have someone like you around,” she goes on. Someone who can keep them safe and provide some company. You’d have a place to live and a community to care for you. You’d have food, your own bed, whatever you need.”
“Wait, Neith, what are you talking about?” I snap. She ignores me.
“Oh, really it’s not … I was just doing something everyone else would do. It’s nothing special,” Damien says, his shoulders tense.
“Abel is special to us,” Neith says. For the first time since she came here, she spares me a glance.
“So he’ll babysit me?” I give her an annoyed look. Damien just looks confused.
“Not babysit. We just really can’t afford to lose you. And we’ve seen now that Willow can’t keep you safe either,” she tells me. I clench my jaw.
“That was never Willow’s job. She’s not to blame for this,” I say tightly. “I don’t need anybody else. I won’t try to drown again. I promise. I’ll stay inside.”
Neith shakes her head at me.
“I’m afraid I can’t trust you on your word any more, honey,” she tells me sadly. The shame settles deep in the pit of my stomach, making me nauseous.
“Damien, what do you say? What can we do to make you agree to this?”
Damien opens and closes his mouth. He looks at me like I might have the answer. I hope the look I give him is enough to tell him to fuck off. He looks back at Neith and smiles.
“I’m a simple man. Do you happen to have any soap and shampoo? I’m dying for a shower.”
Damien
I smell like lavender. When I requested soap and shampoo from a hippie cult, I wasn’t sure if I’d be given a bunch of flowers and leaves and told to wash myself with it. Instead, one of the girls in the long dresses handed me a bottle. She showed me the showers, which were inside the big wooden bunker they called a house. There were only two showers, which seemed inadequate for the number of people I had seen so far. But it had lukewarm water, which was better than what I’d had in months.
My clothes were whisked away to be washed by the woman who had insisted on me staying—I’ve learned her name is Neith. I’m sure I was smelling pretty awful if this was their first priority.
My new priority is protecting and taking care of Abel, who doesn’t seem too thrilled about that. Whenever we make eye contact, I get an annoyed look in return. I’m not too bothered about it. If they really want to give me housing and food in exchange for looking after this brat, I’m fine with that.
I still don’t understand this cult, however. They’re not constantly praying, which I expected for some reason. The only god they seem to worship is Abel. There are people in higher positions, from what I’ve observed. When they walk by, people bow their heads and stop their conversations.
Next to the house, there are rows of soil with crops in varying conditions: tomatoes that look sweet and ripe next to a clump of strawberries looking sad and small. Chickens are roaming around. A few tents made with stitched-together fabric are pitched further out; they seem to be for important people, and Berach and Neith seem to be two of those.
The people in the community look at them with adoring eyes and utmost respect. Everyone waited until Abel took the first bite to start eating, and everybody waited until Berach spoke until they did as well. The man is huge and strong, with his dark eyebrows turned down in a permanent pensive frown. But ever since my arrival, he’s been very welcoming.
Neith seems hesitant, although she was the one who asked me to stay. She wears a red headscarf, which covers most of her black hair.
Later, when I’m dressed in another handmade outfit, Willow finds me sitting against a tree.
“Hi,” she says softly. She’s very pretty. She has dark eyes and bushy eyebrows, skin not as light as Abel’s and without freckles. She hunches down, pulls her dress up just a little bit, and sits down next to me.
“Hi,” I reply politely.
“I hear you’re Abel’s wife,” I add.
“You’ve heard right. But it’s only technically, I guess,” she says. I laugh.
“What does that mean? Abel said the same thing.”
“It means that when you look at it from afar, we’re married. But when you look closer, you see that neither Abel nor I have any desire to pursue each other romantically,” she says.
“So basically, you’re married—but platonically?” I translate.
Willow chuckles. “I guess you could say that, yes.” “Enlightening.”
Willow’s gaze turns serious again, and I can tell this is why she came to find me.
“Neith asked you to stay so you can watch Abel,” she says.
“Yeah. To keep an eye on them…or something,” I add.
“Then where are they now?” she asks. I purse my lips and try
to think of a plausible lie. Truth is: I have no idea. Abel made it pretty clear that I should mind my own business, and I’m not one to push. I also don’t exactly care enough to try harder.
“They wanted to be alone,” I say eventually.
Willow lets out an annoyed sound and shakes her head.
“They always want to be alone! They never want to see anyone
these days. And I can’t constantly observe them or spend time with them. I have people to heal and ointments to make …” she trails off with a frustrated sigh.
“Maybe just leave them be?” I suggest.
Willow sighs. “Can’t. There are duties we can’t ignore. Abel is the most important person in our whole community. Everything relies on them. We can’t lose another Siren,” Willow says sadly.
“There was another?”
“Abel’s mum. She was the first … as far as I know. The Seers called her a prophet, and they stayed together and built their own community. Just like now,” she says with a smile.
“Seers?” I just ask sheepishly.
“The people here. We call them Seers,” she says.
“Uh, why?”
“Because they see, they predict, they know. Their eyes see more than those of the people in the city. They see what will happen, the possibilities of it happening, and how we can stop it from happening,” Willow explains.
I try to keep my face neutral, but I’m having trouble not letting the disgusted look show. If I had briefly let myself forget I was in a cult before, now I am firmly reminded again.
“So they can see the future?”
“No, of course not. Nobody can see the future exactly. It’s about the probability of it.”
“Right,” I say after a long silence.
“Look,” she starts with a sigh. I tense at the idea of her trying to explain anything more about these so-called future Seers. “I know you never asked to be here. You probably think we’re all crazy and weird for caring so much about a twenty-year-old. But I love them. And I’m not telling you to stay here or begging you. I’m just saying that if you do stay here, please take care of
them. Abel might be a Siren, but they’re also my best friend,” she says in the same soft voice as before.
I relax and smile at her. “Of course I will. I think everyone is pretty crazy, but so far I’ve been shown a lot of kindness. I’m afraid Abel doesn’t like me much though,” I add.
Willow snorts out a laugh. “Abel doesn’t like anyone, I wouldn’t feel too bad about it,” she assures me.
I nod. I guess I don’t need to be friends with them. I can just see this as another job, just like Silk Haven. I’ll play bodyguard for someone important and just enjoy the free housing and food. Easy money.
I go find Abel as it’s getting dark and my eyes start drooping. I’m not completely sure if I’m meant to guard the door or hold up a glass under their nose to see if they’re still breathing, but making sure they’re still there before I go to sleep is the least I can do. I knock twice before letting myself in.
Abel glares at me from the bed. They’re reading a book and put it down with an exaggerated sigh. “What is it?” they ask.
I chuckle. “Damn, I just came to see how you were doing. Tell you goodnight or something. No need to get mad,” I tell them.
Abel sits up, folding the corner of the page and closes the book. “Sorry. Did you need something?”
“Not particularly. Just, like … doing my job. Checking up on you. Making sure you don’t drown yourself in your tea,” I add with a grin.
“There goes my plan for this evening,” Abel says dryly.
For a moment I hover awkwardly in the room, back against
the door and looking towards where Abel is sitting on the bed. “I’m not completely sure what I’m supposed to be doing here,” I confess after a silence.
“I can tell,” Abel says easily. “I’m not all that sure either, if I’m honest. I don’t need a bodyguard or babysitter,” they say with a scowl.
“Good thing I’m neither,” I tell them. Abel considers me and lays back on the bed. They pick up their book and unfold the corner.
“Well, if that was all, I want to finish this chapter,” they say. Without sparing me another look, they’re reading again.
I stand there waiting for Abel to tell me to do something. When nothing comes, I let myself out with a sigh. I walk towards the small room inside the house Neith had directed me to. On my way there, I hear laughter and hushed conversations. I see people kissing and children playing games. I’ve been alone for years now on the streets, and yet only now does the loneliness really settle in. All these people have someone. They have each other, a community, a family. I have none of those things. I settle into bed, roll on my side, and force myself into a restless sleep.
The first time I saw someone get killed and the killer be protected was at the Silk Haven. It had been a rough few months. If not for me, for the girls. I can’t exactly pinpoint why, but the men who came in those months were aggressive, angry, and domineering. I had seen multiple girls come back bruised. Lila
came back with a split lip once. When I asked her about it, she just shrugged and told me that ‘I should see the other guy’.
It wasn’t funny or normal—but nobody had any sense of normalcy any more. The first time a man asks to spit in your face and slap you during sex, you might laugh and think it’s weird. A bit much, maybe. It might even scare you. But then after a while, you get used to it. You get so used to it that it becomes the new normal. Then someone asks you to play dead during sex, and you will repeat the same process until there’s no normal left anymore.
This was true for the girls, but also for me. At first, I was so angry and appalled by the obvious violence that I wasn’t sure if I could keep doing the work. But after a while, I didn’t lose sleep over it anymore. It helped me to feel in control. To feel as if I could actually help protect these girls, even for a bit. Still, sometimes things went south.
It started with screaming, banging, and a pool of blood seeping under the gap of the door. I was the first to throw it open, and I was met with Lila, nude, covered in blood, and hovering over a man’s body. She looked up at me with a look that I still dream about to this day. It wasn’t regret or fear, like one might expect in that situation. No, she looked relieved.
In an instant, I was near her. My brain had lost all rational thinking abilities, so the first thing I did was pull the duvet from the bed and wrap it around Lila’s naked body. She was shivering, her teeth clattering as she pushed her head in the space between my neck and shoulder.
“Christ, what have you done? What did he do to you?” “Don’t wanna … don’t …” Lila whispered into my neck.
It took a lot of shouting from me for the rest of the guards to come and then a lot more for the owner to come. He just crouched down before us and looked at the man.
“Any way we can make it look like a suicide?”
“Fucking hell, she stabbed the guy through his chest. Of course not,” one of the guards had yelled.
What followed was the first ever cover-up for a murder I had ever seen. It was much less glamorous and smart than in the films. I didn’t feel very sneaky or good about it. We didn’t throw bleach on the floor to clean it. We didn’t bury the man in the backyard. We didn’t change our names or move towns. Instead, a guy showed up to take care of the body, and the rest of us were paid for our silence.
I’d have paid them myself to keep Lila out of trouble. She never told me anything about what happened that night. We never spoke of the man again, and the world kept turning. Business went as usual. I kept guarding doors, but I kept my hand on the door handle. The girls kept servicing men while the policies got a bit stricter. And the gross, wealthy men kept paying enormous amounts of money to fuck girls young enough to be their daughters.
