“Maybe,” Darby replied. “His pockets are deep enough.”
“He has a limo,” I added by way of evidence. “And a chauffeur.”
Darby snorted a laugh, breath warm against the back of my neck. “And he’s old as fuck. You don’t live that long and not learn to accumulate.”
“His suite was nice too. He said it was my home.”
For the night.
I couldn’t bring myself to add the qualifier or admit I’d wanted to keep that too. The place. The feelings.
Darby was quiet for a moment, then said thoughtfully, “Well, I can’t say I’ve ever had a sugar daddy take me home. That sounds more like a regular daddy thing to me.”
Maybe that was it. The word I’d been looking for. Something to describe how Beck made me feel when I was with him. Safe. Cared for.
And without him?
Utterly bereft.
I blinked fast, trying to banish the sting behind my eyesbefore it could spill over and make this whole thing worse. Darby didn’t need to see me cry again.
“But he’s nothing if he thinks he can just throw you away,” Darby said, his voice low but firm behind me.
I didn’t reply as he continued. “Listen, Cherry. Don’t ever let some man—any man—decide what you’re worth. And I don’t mean the money. Pretty things and paychecks are well and good, but we’re more than that, all right?”
I should have nodded. Instead, I lay quietly until the silence made me shift away. I untangled from him with a murmur of apology and sat up.
I didn’t know how much I was worth. I didn’t even know who I was outside of the Dollhouse, outside of Beck’s gaze. When I looked at myself, all I saw were fragments: the body that tried to consume me, the name I’d made like a wish that might never come true. I didn’t know what was really me, or if I was real at all.
Thinking of my mother on the car ride over had been an aberration. Not unwelcome, just strange. It left me wanting more—memories perhaps, to soften the sharp edges of what I’d lost.
But how was I supposed to feel better about losing one thing by dwelling on everything else I didn’t have?
Frustration escaped me in a grumble. “Darby, I don’t know anything about myself. And the things I know, I don’t like.”
He shifted again, tucking his feet under himself and draping his tail across his thighs. The end twitched seemingly of its own accord as he pondered.
“Is it anything you can change?” he asked. “The bad parts, I mean.”
“I don’t see how.”
Silence descended again, dense and heavy. I let myhead drop back and stared at the ceiling, needing a blank slate to calm my busy mind.
“I want to perform,” I said. “I love being onstage. I love the music and the spotlight and the way people look at me when I’m up there. But…” I paused to offer Darby a remorseful look. “I hate the VIP rooms. I feel trapped there. Like a bug in a jar people shake because it lights me up somehow.”
“So, you’re a firefly.” Darby smiled. “I loved those when I was a kid.”
I wanted to say I had too, but I didn’t know. Surely, though. There must have been something mundane before this madness. Something as normal as little bugs that shone like stars in the blanket of night.
Darby looked wistful, and maybe I should have asked about his past, his life. It might have triggered something or helped me see the man inside his demon skin. We’d all been mortals once, and we’d all been so ready to return to Earth because it was home. Even if this part of it didn’t feel like it.
Glancing over my shoulder, I glimpsed the steady red light filming every minute of this. Were there microphones too? Could Maslow hear what we were saying? Did he care?
I hoped hedidhear because it might be the only way I’d ever be brave enough to tell him the things that came out next.
“I don’t want to live in a room with a camera on me like I’m some never-ending act. I love to perform when Ichooseit. But this isn’t a choice, and I’m scared that if everything’s always on display, there won’t be anything left that’s really me. That I’ll forget where the show ends and I begin.”
The statement left me wrung out and limp, but Darby stiffened.
