His voice projecting clearly tells me his helmet is off. Which makes it even more damaging to keep my back to him while heading into the nook of parallel shelving full of tools.
The garage door clanking lurches my heart, my skin flinging from my bones and my rounded eyes whipping over to Razor manually ripping the door down with a scowl intensifying the skull on his face.
Oh, no… Oh, shit.
Afraid, I scamper close to the wall, using the gas cans and containers of oil to hide behind, and hastily start changing my clothes. I don’t know if he sees my butt or anything. I don’t feel his eyes skinning me down to the bone. I just barely hear his boots thumping off the epoxy floor and light clattering on the other side of the garage.
We’re alone in here… I gave him consent to… No. No, Bunny. No.
Tugging my shirt down, I grab my performance outfit and flats from the floor and swivel around, flipping my hair out from the strap on my shoulder and doing my best to not draw attention to him looking at me.
“I’ve had both eyes on you for a long time. I don’t have another one to look anywhere else. So, don’t ever expect me to.” His voice is quiet but rough. A wolf dressed in wool.
Unable to help myself, my eyes slip up to him leaned back on the sink with a cherry burning at the end of the cigarette he’s taking a drag from. “How long’s a long time?”
Exhaling thin smoke, he stitches his eyes to mine, hunting my steady steps toward him. “I had to stop counting the days, little bunny.”
Intentionally vague or honest?
I’m not sure. Regardless, a flutter bursts up my stomach, hearing the words from what seems like an untouchable mouth.
With only a few feet between us, the loud rattle of the garage door getting ripped up sends my heart up my throat, my sneakers squeaking with a tense leap backward.
“Who let the dogs out?!” Xene singsloudly, ducking underneath the door with baggies in each hand.
Drugs. Great.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
BUNNY
“You climb and climb and climb and then wrap yourself up like this beautiful caterpillar… and then you drop…” Ora skips once, folding her hands to her chest and staring off in awe at the neon lights. “Magic. You’re a magic butterfly.”
Shifting her infatuation to my silent grin, her dilated eyes expand against the strobing orange, and she giggles, skipping once more and swirling around with imaginary ribbons on the bladder I had to accompany her to empty.
Maybe the hack to enduring this place positively is to do LSD.
Drugs and alcohol come and go through the trailer. Suppressants and depressants are passed around like candy. So, I’ve seen just about everything.
It’s interesting what people bring to the park and drop on the ground.
That’s usually how everyone gets their drugs. It’s that or they swipe it.
I digress.
I should be ecstatic right now. I got to perform for the first time without being hit or mentally abused prior. I survived it, did great, and I’ll have an envelope of cash with my name on it. But I am Polly Pessimistic and would rather shower and crawl into bed than wander aroundVorewhile everyone’s riding highs of their choosing.
Keeping Ora’s acrobatics in my periphery, I scan around the laughter and chatter from the faces we pass, I guess looking even deeper for a reason to turn around and go home, waste away in the comfort of my depressive loneliness, rather than shed some giggles and smiles that hurt more than me cutting myself.
This is why you’re not included or trusted.
Wait. That’s it.
My eyes light up, my face sinking with realization. Maybe if I stop caring, participate in the wild things they do and engage in social time—I’ll start getting my answers without having to fight for them. Or worry about a certain individual crowding my mind and suffocating my paranoia.
Something’s liable to slip eventually. Just like it did earlier when Gwen was cut off from saying too much.
I really want to know what she was going to say.
