Mine

Less - 19

I haven’t heard from Blade in days. I’ve left my room to knock on Blondie’s, but she hasn’t answered the door. My stomach ties in knots, wondering if she’s okay, although I’m sure she wouldn’t care to check on me if it were the other way around. My heart skips a beat when I think for only a moment that she could be dead.

As I finish organizing the rest of the lingerie Blade had purchased for me, I hear a knock at my door. I’m rather surprised to find that it’s him.

“Where have you been?” I question as if it’s any of my business as he sets down paper bags with handles and starts putting food away.

He stiffens his back to me as he works, ignoring my question until he’s done. He folds the bags into one another until he’s left with just one and takes a seat on his usual armchair.

I give him a questioning look as I wait. He stares me down, unblinking. I don’t dare speak before him.

“Why did you compliment me? How can you see that I’m different than the other Bonemen?”

His question shocks me. Definitely not what I expected from him after days of not seeing him. He left me in here no matter how he wants to spin it. He left me to my own devices without knowing any of what’s been going on and that’s what he wants to say to me?

“I don’t know.” I lie.

He furrows his brow, still not blinking, and rubs his top lip with his index finger. He’s watching me. Searching me for something.

“Bullshit.” He whispers.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,”

“How about the truth. Who are you really?” He asks, leaning forward. Surprisingly still calm.

“How about you tell me how you got here?”

The look on his face is one of utter disbelief. He probably thinks I’m some undercover who’s here to tear down The Order from the inside out. I’m not, but there’s nothing that will stop me from getting Tate and if that means burning his world to the ground, then he’s right.

“You’re not a s*x ring worker. I’ve met many, albeit this is the first time Hiram has allowed any to stay here. To join his warehouse and let them be featured. No, but I’ve seen and met many. They are usually frail. Broken. Something missing from inside them… But not you, Less.”

My heart skips a beat. He sees me. That shouldn’t excite me. Anyone who recognizes that I don’t belong here is a threat to my plan. Anyone who’s loyal to Hiram is a huge problem if they figure me out. The problem is, Blade already has.

“Maybe I’m just optimistic.” I challenge.

“No, it’s not that.”

I bite my lip, my mind trailing off to how I can get out of this. If I try and attack him, he’ll no doubt put me down in moments, probably before I can even think of moving from my spot on the chairs where I sit. Even still, I don’t have a weapon. At least, not one that would guarantee my ability to overpower him, and even if I could by some off chance, what would I do with his body?

Hiram would surely notice that I show up without my guard. It wouldn’t be long before they went looking for him and even if I could get his body out of here, I’d be a murderer. Could I live with that? For Tate, I will do anything. Even that, if I have to.

“Less.” His voice is soft like he notices that my mind is elsewhere.

I snap out of it and looking upon his face, my heart wrenches for even thinking like that towards him. I don’t answer though. I just sit. Defeated. If he decides this is it, that he will out me to Hiram, then so be it. I won’t fight him.

“I was just a kid when I came to The Order.” This brings me all the way back to the moment. He’s not looking at me anymore, but rather at the deep red rug beneath our feet.

“I didn’t know what The Order was or that my mother had anything to do with it. She raised me, just her and I…so it was hard for her. I remember her crying when she couldn’t afford food for me one night.”

His voice strains just a little, but I don’t dare release the breath I’m holding.

“She promised me that night that things would change. That she had a plan. A lady gave us some bread, and we went home that night. I laid in my bed staring at the ceiling while my mother cried in the bathroom. She thought she was hiding it, but I heard every sob. Every inhale.”

He shifted ever so slightly. I tried to imagine Blade as small and defenseless, miles away from who he appeared to be now, sitting here in front of me. I tried to imagine him laying in his bed in the dark, the moonlight illuminating the ceiling as he stared.

I tried hearing the soft sobs of a mother whose heart was breaking for her son and the choices she needed to make now for his survival. Laughably, I tried imagining him with hair.

“I fell asleep when she exited the bathroom, but only because I faked it for too long. I wasn’t there for her, I just slept while she cried the rest of the night by herself, like a coward.”

“You were just a kid,” I argue before I can shut my mouth.

He shakes his head.

“It was always her and I. I should have done more. Anyway, things did change. She started making money. She took me to get food every single day. Finally, my stomach no longer hurt. She smiled more.”

I watch his face change even though his voice still sounds strained. The impending sense of doom welling up within me.

“Until one day, she came home with bruises around her legs and arms. Her cheek had a cut that had been slit open. She smiled through it and said she just got hurt at work. I let it go except the marks became more and more frequent until one day, she didn’t come home at all."

I couldn’t help but feel for him. I know what it was like when my own mother died and our relationship had always been strained. Her idea of mother and daughter time was sticking our fingers down our throats and seeing who could steal more from the local boutiques.

It wasn’t a life like Blade’s though. No, we had all the money in the world. Still do. It wasn’t like she had to live that way. She wanted to.

“I knew where she had been going. She was stripping at a local bar, so I went there. I was met by other Bonemen, although I didn’t know that’s what they were at the time. They were kind. They made sure I was looked after and then a man, with slicked-back hair and piercing eyes came into the room. He looked at me and asked why I was crying and when I told him. He laughed.”

“That’s awful."

Blade shook his head again, remembering it as I’m trying to imagine it.

“It wasn’t out loud, the laugh was in his eyes somehow. He stepped aside, introducing a kid who was a bit older than me, but he had the same black hair, slicked-back. The same piercing eyes. The same sly grin.”

“Hiram?” I asked.

He nods, taking in a deep breath.

“He made sure Hiram kept me company while the adults spoke, but Hiram was mischievous, and quickly we became friends. To this day I don’t know if what happened next was a tactic of his to control me or an accident. I’ve believed all my life that it was an accident, but I don’t know for sure anymore."

I wait, watching as he swallows hard. I can pretty much already guarantee that it wasn’t an accident. After Hiram’s little outburst, I can confidently conclude that everything Hiram does is calculated.

“We were running down some hallways, away from the room that his father had told us to stay in. We laughed as we could hear the Bonemen jump from their seats to chase us because we were supposed to stay in there with them. Hiram ran and I ran after him. We stopped only for a second outside of a room of a woman being f****d. Hiram pointed out her boobies and we watched until we could hear the men barreling after us.”

He looks at me, making sure I’m really listening to him. I instinctively put a hand over the bruises on my legs, trying to hide them from him.

“We ran down the hall, as fast as we could until we ran into a room. It was another private showroom but there stood Hiram’s father, covered in blood. The smile faded slowly from my face as I followed the trail of blood down to where it was coming from. My mother, laying at his feet.”

My gut clenches.

“We’re the same, Less. We’re the same because we are both here with an ulterior motive.”