A hint of that kindness was in his voice, his eyes, in the way he stopped everything to make sure I saw him. That he saw me.
Ten thousand dollars to save me from the man in the top hat. Who the hell was Zaid?
A sleek black car was waiting for us at the front of the building. A driver with crew-cut hair, dressed in a tight shirt, showing off his muscles, opened the doors. Zaid threw a jerky hand towards the car, audibly huffing. I slid inside. The tinted windows made it hard to see out, but I watched as Zaid took the front passenger seat. The driver took off, and soon, the flashing lights illuminating every corner of the sidewalk dissipated, the city swallowed by shadows. Every once in a while, a casino with a faded, old-fashioned exterior and a full parking lot popped up. Did they have divey casinos in Las Vegas?
Though I had been born in Nevada, I had lived most of my life in California, and had moved here only a few days ago. All of my things were at a weekly-rate motel, but eventhatwas better than those casinos. The farther we got away from Club Hades and the Strip, the eerier it got. Where was Zaid taking me?
A metal grate covered the partition between the back and the front seat. A small doored window was in the middle. It wouldn’t budge. I banged on the metal until the slot opened up. Zaid waited.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“My home,” he said.
Home. The word weighed on his tongue, heavy with allure, his voice deep and full of meaning.Home.I had never had a home. Hazel and I had been young when our parents died. One memory stayed clear: the concrete sidewalks, the cracks in the cement, Hazel next to me, gazing out the window, this dream that we didn’t live far from a faded castle. I didn’t remember much before that. Whenever I could spare a moment, I hiked on the longest trails I could find, never far from wherever Hazel was, trying to lose myself in the forest, in the woods, in the desert. To forget where I came from, what I was searching for.
Home.
“Where’s that?” I asked.
Zaid faced forward, but his words were loud. “We’ll be there soon enough.” He shut the window.
The highway was lit, but the desert surrounding it was vast, stretching beyond our vision. I stared and watched the shadows of cacti passing in the distance, as if I could reach out and find that they weren’t really there. Mountains crept in the distance, and soon, we wound our way through sparsely lit roads, sprawling properties, bigger than I’d ever seen in person. A deer pranced across the road, the car slowed to let it pass. It disappeared into the trees. We were near Mount Charleston, one of the places I had on my to-do list once Hazel moved here.
We turned down an unmarked road. There weren’t any houses; it was completely dark. The headlights lit the road. After a while, the asphalt led up a hill to a large house, the window on the second story glowed in the night. The place looked massive, even next to the mountain, like a palace in the middle of nowhere. Most places would be a palace to me, but this?Thiswas also insane.
How the hell did Zaid have so much money?
Zaid opened my door. The crisp night air made me shiver. I pulled the sleeves of my hoodie over my fingers. The stupid dress wasn’t practical for mountain destinations, or anywhere, really. The front yard was landscaped with lush plants, rosy-petalled cliffbush flowers arranged like a bouquet, the purple leaves of catchfly buds decorating the edges, shrubs and succulents making it look like a desert paradise. It made me want to go hiking. I needed to. Maybe after this one night was over, I would get lost on a trail in Mount Charleston. I couldn’t be this close, and not explore.
“What do you do?” I asked.
“Security,” Zaid said. As if that explained the mansion in the private land beside Mount Charleston.
Inside, a modern interior awaited: off-white walls, dark wood fixtures, tall ceilings. A staircase leading up to the second floor. A large minimalist painting on the far wall, opposite of the entrance. Candles shimmered throughout the space. A pine scent floated through the air, an open window somewhere. Zaid’s home was more like a mansion than a house, but as far as I could tell, we were the only ones inside. The driver had disappeared.
Down a hallway, Zaid opened the door to a room with a long dark table, also lit with candles. The pools of wax rippled as we sat.
“I have an offer,” he said. He rested his hands on the table, his fingers linked. The scar shadowed his face, the dim lighting making him look like a ghost. “Your complete servitude, in exchange for information about your sister.”
Was this information worth doing whatever ‘servitude’ he was talking about?
“What information?” I asked.
“I know where your sister is.”
That was the reason I ended up here. His dark eyes waited, reading me. His dark hair shined in the candlelight. I imagined running my fingers through it. The scar was slightly lighter than his skin tone. I touched my cheek, feeling my skin, as if I could feel his scar there. His thick shoulders tensed, his biceps clenching through the shirt. Though he might not have been traditionally attractive, he was captivating. The scar, the dark eyes, his parted lips. I was drawn to him. I wanted to know more. Being his personal slave, whatever that meant, couldn’t have been that bad, especially if I got what I came here for.
“So I just have to do whatever you say for the night?”
“Twenty-four hours,” he said. “Once the negotiation is finished, the clock will begin.”
Twenty-four hours was a lot different than one night. But I was doing this for Hazel.
“I would be your sex slave?”
“On the contrary,” he said. A half-smile came across his face. “I’m not as cold as some may say. Even I have boundaries that I will not cross.”
Boundaries? Meaning he would do some bad things to me, but he wouldn’t force me to do certain things? What the hell had happened to give him such a cold reputation?
